The Art of Easy Discipline
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Summary
Most people assume that if a goal is hard to achieve, getting there has to feel hard too. We tend to believe that extraordinary results require extraordinary suffering. But my guest says the secret of success isn t gritting your teeth, it s making the path enjoyable. His name is Zhao Zhang, and in his new book, Easy Discipline, he argues that consistency comes from designing your work and your life so that doing the right thing becomes something you actually want to do.
Transcript
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If you've got a business idea kicking around in your head, one thing I've learned about business
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So one project Kate and I are working on this summer is turn a corner of our backyard into a
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little conversation area with a fire pit. The kids are teenagers now. We want a place where
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they can hang out with their friends and where we can sit outside at the end of the day and unwind.
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And we've been looking at Wayfair for the fire pit and the benches we're going to put in this
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in other people's backyards before you order. And if you order and if putting everything together
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sounds like a pain, they can even handle delivery and assembly. If a friend told me they wanted to
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make their backyard a place people actually wanted to spend time but didn't know where to start,
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things home and get your space ready for less. That's Wayfair.com. That's spelled W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the AOM Podcast, which since 2008 has featured
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conversations with the world's best authors, thinkers, and leaders that glean their edifying,
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life-improving insights without the fluff and filler. The AOM Podcast is just one part of the
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a key mission to help individuals practice timeless virtues through thought, word, and
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deed. Also, be sure to explore our articles in artofmanliness.com, read the deeper dives
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we do in our Substack newsletter at dyingbreed.net, and turn our content into real-world action
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by joining the Strenuous Life program at strenuouslife.com. Now on to the show.
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Most people assume that if a goal is hard to achieve, getting there has to feel hard
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too. We tend to believe that extraordinary results require extraordinary suffering.
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But my guest says the secret of success isn't gritting your teeth, it's making the path
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enjoyable. His name is Zhao Zhang, and in his new book, Easy Discipline, he argues that
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consistency comes from designing your work and your life so that doing the right thing
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becomes something you actually want to do. Today on the show, Zhao explains the difference
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between hard and easy discipline, why eating bitterness isn't the best way to go after
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your ambitions, and how to make your work feel more like play without lowering your
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standards. Along the way, we discuss Soviet hockey, Japanese tea ceremonies, rejection
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therapy, one action goals, and the power of pursuing aims that are an expression of who
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you are. After the show's over, check out our show notes at awimp.is slash easy.
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So you got a new book out called Easy Discipline.
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We're going to talk about what easy discipline means.
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But I want to start off with how you started your book off,
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because you started with the myth of Sisyphus, which is one of my favorite myths.
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So for those who aren't familiar with it, what is the myth of Sisyphus?
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So Sisyphus in Greek mythology is this king, and he's really smart.
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And he's so smart that he tricked Zeus, the Greek god.
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So he cursed Sisyphus to push a rock up a hill forever.
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And just right before the rock would hit the mountain, the rock would roll back down to the bottom.
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And Sisyphus would have to go back down to the bottom and push it again.
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And he does this over and over again for eternity.
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So I'm sure you've seen this picture of this guy pushing up a rock forever.
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So sometimes our work, our daily life feels like we're Sisyphus, which just keeps going, but can never reach the top.
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And we often think, man, Sisyphus, he just must be really depressed about this.
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But you flip this interpretation on its head and you think, well, let's think about this another way.
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You know, this is just a horror show, not necessarily some sort of tragedy.
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But if this were to teach us something, that also means if Sisyphus has agency, if he's
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If he could, that must mean that he actually going back to the bottom with the rock on
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He was the one who chooses to push the rock up forever, even though he never hits the top.
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So if he had agency, then what's the reason for him to do this?
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You know, after the first try, the second try, maybe the one millionth try, because this is forever, right?
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He must have given up, just do something else, you know, have some hot pot or something.
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So instead of being forced to push rocks, if he loved to push rocks, then this is not a curse. This is a huge blessing. Zeus just built Sisyphus, an exercise machine that's better than Peloton or CrossFit combined.
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If Sisyphus loves to push rocks, of course he wouldn't stop.
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If it happened in modern times, people would make statues for Sisyphus and people would invite him for TED Talks and talking about how disciplined he is and what kind of work ethic he has.
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And the thing is, in modern times, though, if you see the people who are real mountaintops, right, the people who are at the best of industry, the people who are, you know, breaking through, the people who are redefining industries, those are the people who are like Sisyphus, the better version of Sisyphus.
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And this ties into your idea of easy discipline because, yeah, I think oftentimes when we
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think about being disciplined, we look at people who do great things, who exercise every
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day, who build big companies, who write books, and we think, oh my gosh, they're just using
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But you're thinking, your approach is, no, most people who do things consistently, hard
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things consistently, they probably actually really enjoy what they're doing, and that's
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And I guess you contrast easy discipline with hard discipline.
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Can you describe how you describe hard discipline in your book?
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Yeah, the hard discipline is really our society worships this idea that you have to tolerate pain to succeed.
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Who can tolerate more pain to have the great success?
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but the thing is that's the wrong way to think about it because if you only love the result
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which is success money whatever you know recognition but you don't like the process
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you just think okay if i can hold this long enough somehow i can get to the other side of this
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that you know the rainbow and hit the gold pot and most people think this way what end up happening
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is they never make it and even if they make you know they give up because this is against human
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nature. Just like in physics, if something, like pushing a rock up, in physics, if the gravity is
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against you, you're going to forever feel like you're in pain. You're going to forever feel like
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you're looking for the next out. You're looking for the next reason to quit. And then when you
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quit, you're like, okay, let me take a break. Let me have some fun. I'll come back to this.
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The problem is often we never come back to this. So that's why, you know, if you see New Year's
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resolutions right about 50 percent of people make a new year's resolution every year you know we're
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gonna lose weight make more money find love whatever that is you know get a promotion start
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a company but the thing is only nine percent of people who make the resolution keep it that's
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because they only set the resolution for results and they think the results is what they want and
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they don't like the action you know to get there you need a consistent exercise in the dieting
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you need to network, you need to do all kinds of things you don't enjoy. But people rely on
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hard discipline and they fail. Yeah. So you're Chinese and there's this saying in China that
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you talk about this idea where you're focused on the results, but you don't actually want to do
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the thing to get you those results. I mean, it's high eyes, low hands disease. What is that? Flesh
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that out for us. Yeah. This is the disease people described me when I was little. So it literally
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means your eyes are set on high goals you want to achieve all kind of things whether you have this
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ambition in life or you just kind of uh you know want to have a new resolution or maybe just
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motivated for today but the low hands meaning you can't do it you can't execute on your ambition
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you know i i had this roommate when i was in college and every day like almost every day he
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would talk to me about his dreams i'm like cool so he wants to go to las vegas and start a gym
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in las vegas and he's so passionate about it he's talking about this every day but his everyday
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action has nothing to do with that he just he just goes home and watch tv every day and i'm like
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that's that's a classic high eyes low hands disease you say you have high dreams you tell
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everyone about it but you don't do anything about it that's hard discipline yeah because they don't
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actually like to do the thing that will get them to that goal. That's true. They just want the end
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result, but they don't do it. When you talk about in the book, how in Western culture, we really
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moralize and valorize people who use willpower and grit their teeth. And they do things even when
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it's uncomfortable and unpleasant. But this idea isn't unique to Western culture. You talk about
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in China, where you're from, there's this idea of eating bitterness, which is interesting. I love
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that phrase, eating bitterness. What does eating bitterness mean? Yeah, if just anywhere you are,
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you grab a person who speaks Chinese, you know, who's familiar with Chinese culture. If you ask
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them, they will say, yeah, that's really the fundamental culture in China when you're a
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student. The teachers will constantly tell you to eat bitterness, meaning you have these ambitious
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goals and sometimes very honorable goals, right? The idea is to get there. You need to have a real
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discipline, you need to do the hard work without complaining, right? Eating bitterness. And then
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if you eat enough bitterness, you get to your goal, whether that's an individual goal or a
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collective goal. Now, the thing is, I hate eating bitterness. I suck at eating bitterness. I didn't
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want bitterness. I'm always like, yeah, I'm going to eat enough, you know, let me work hard. And
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it's just not sustainable. I don't want to eat the bitterness for the rest of my life,
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Or even for the rest of the project, you know, even I can finish one project, the next one, I'm like, give me something sweet.
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And that's really why I wrote this book about how do you find the sweetness in your work rather than bitterness.
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And I love in the chapter, you just kind of described the difference between easy and hard discipline.
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You have this great story from the Soviet hockey team.
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And for a while, they were the dominant team in hockey.
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And I think a lot of people thought the Soviets were so good because they were not human.
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But if you look at the story more, there was actually a period where they took the easy
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Tell us about these different philosophies in the same Soviet team.
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So the background of the Soviet team was the Cold War, right?
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So after World War II, the Soviet Union was like, you know, we're going to be good at
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hockey because hockey started in Canada. And Russia was just like Canada in a completely
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different political system. They were vast. They were like, we're so cold and we need to be good
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at hockey like the Canadians. So they asked this guy, his name is Tarasov, Anatoly Tarasov.
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He's like, can you build a Russian team, like a national team for us? And he was not a hockey
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coach to start he was like a watchmaker but this guy was really smart but also he's very artistic
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so he was like okay i can build this team so he didn't have a game tape right he just knew the
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rules and so he was like how do i design a team that is fun so he he used tactics from you know
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chess from ballet from watchmaking he built this team of this intricate passing and the the players
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instead of like the Canadians just racing up and down,
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during the Cold War and we have this stereotype
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They're just biologically engineered people
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So he built this team and the players love the game.
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And, you know, in fact, he had a requirement that,
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you know, if you don't love the game, don't play.
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And they all worked really hard, but no one complained.
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And that's the classic example of easy discipline.
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He made the game so much fun and so much camaraderie and so much love for each other that people naturally worked hard to achieve the result.
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And then he got fired because, of course, right, he didn't get along with the Soviet top brass.
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And the guy who succeeded him was the protege of the chief KGB boss in Soviet Russia.
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And he used Tarasov's scheme because that was proven to be successful.
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But his motivation tactics was completely the opposite.
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He borrowed like KGB tactics or military training tactics or even animal training tactics.
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He locked these players up and trained them as hard.
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And if you think, you know, in the U.S., we think Bobby Knight, right, was the guy who was like this big bully, but he got the results.
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So they also work hard and they also succeeded.
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It's different if I write a story of like a romance that only love can win, right?
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But the problem is people hated him and people quit, you know, they quit their hockey early.
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And the players all looking back in those days, they were like, those are my, I mean,
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They got a bunch of gold medals, but they were saying, my youth was wasted.
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No one really liked him and sometimes didn't even respect him as a person because he was so ruthless.
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He won, but he didn't define the sports the way Tarasov did.
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So I use the contrast of Tarasov and Tikhanov to see this easy discipline versus hard discipline.
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Yeah, I think it's a great story, a great encapsulation.
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And I think the takeaway, I think I loved how you said like hard discipline does work.
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It can work, but it's not sustainable in the long run.
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And if you just cycle in all kinds of people and just run them to the ground and you get
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But the thing is, would you want to live in that world?
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And also, would you want to be that kind of a boss to be a big bully for the long term?
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Well, so what you do in this book is you lay out some principles on how to embrace easy
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It's an acronym. I love it. It's easy. E-A-S-Y. The first principle is enjoyment. And this is
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all about enjoying what you do, what we've been talking about. If you're going to push rocks up
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a mountain for eternity, well, you might as well enjoy it if that's your thing. And with each of
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these principles, you've developed tools people can use to put them into practice. For the enjoyment
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one, the tool to kind of, you know, flip on the switch of enjoyment is something you call
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the game changer. What is that? And what does that look like in practice?
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Maybe you're at work and you don't enjoy your work.
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We would love to say everyone loves their work.
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But most people actually just do it for the paycheck or they do it, try to get to the next level.
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And that's why sometimes it's hard for them to succeed.
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You just do your thing and then you move on to the next task.
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So I call this game changer, meaning if you don't enjoy your work, try to play a different role.
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Don't play a game that everyone else is playing.
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So I used to hate making sales calls because deep down, I don't feel like I'm a pushy salesperson.
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You know, and sometimes I have a hard time to make that ask, you know, to make that push.
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So I was never good at sales until one day I started switching roles.
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I'm like, okay, instead of trying to play the game of see how much I can sell,
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So when I try to talk to people now, even the prospect or whatever,
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I try to understand what his or her issues are, you know, what their biggest challenges are, and just keep asking questions.
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And I would be like, okay, if after this call, if I can understand their issue more than they do, and if I can even articulate the problem they're facing, I can help them.
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You know, that's a game, different game I play.
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And then the result was amazing, you know, because now I've become a way better salesperson if I ask the right questions.
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So a lot of people, they want to exercise regularly.
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And so maybe they start something that they see on Instagram or YouTube and they hate it.
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And I'm like, well, you need to just find something you like doing and you just haven't found it yet.
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And once you find that exercise is just going to be something you enjoy doing, you're never going to miss a workout because you just love doing this thing.
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So I changed my game in this particular realm as well.
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You know, I, ever since I was a teenager, my uncle told me, you got to become stronger.
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You know, you're a man, you know, this is the art of manliness, right?
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So he had this very, you know, kind of a little bit old fashioned way of seeing manliness.
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It's like, you got to be able to be very strong.
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So, you know, if someday a woman is with you, she needs to feel she's protected.
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So you need to go exercise, run, lift weight, you know.
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But the thing is, I hate this idea of going to a gym and lifting weight.
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he invented this kind of home gym stuff where you don't have to think.
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And then you just pop, you know, back then it was a DVD.
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You just do what he does and you just follow him.
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And that's a complete game changer for me because now I don't have to think.
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Now, every day, I still like almost two decades now, I still do it.
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I just follow her and also I bought a peloton now every day I work out I cannot not work out
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I don't feel good if I don't work out because the things I'm doing is so much more fun than the ways
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I was doing before all right so the first principle is enjoyment and one tool for that is to figure
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out how you can reach the same goal but do it with an approach you actually like doing you're
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changing the game another tool you have for this enjoyment principle is the momentum loop what's
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the momentum loop momentum loop is if everything that you do is repetitive if every day your work
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is similar right what you want is you want to build momentum into your work i mean i learned
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this uh you know play uh settler of katan you know now it's just called katan right so in katan
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everyone has a similar action so you take turn in buying stuff and the stuff will bring you more
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resource you can buy more stuff and in the end see who has the most stuff wins you know basically
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But the thing is, the people who win are always the people who are very aggressive to build momentum at the beginning.
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So if in every turn you do your hardest to trade and build the most up, and then those actions will have better results.
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And the more results will get in, will actually catch momentum on its own.
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You just keep going and the momentum will carry you forward.
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So every day, if you do the same task, I tell people, build momentum into your work.
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The thing that you do, try to learn from what you did yesterday
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and then apply that exact thing to what you're doing today.
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And then you learn the stuff you do today and apply that tomorrow.
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So in a way, when you're doing things, you start catching momentum, mental momentum.
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And the thing that you do 20 days down the road
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will actually be way better than what you're doing right now.
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And you talk about how you used momentum loops on this crazy experiment you did. And it's kind of what puts you on the map. It made you famous because it went viral. It was this idea of 100 days of rejection therapy, where you reduced your fear of rejection by deliberately seeking it out.
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So instead of avoiding situations where someone might say no, you intentionally went around making these unusual and uncomfortable requests.
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So, you know, for example, you asked a stranger to borrow $100.
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You asked a homeowner if you could play soccer in their backyard.
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You asked a Southwest Airlines employee if you could make an announcement over the intercom.
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Tell us more about your rejection therapy experiment and how you used momentum loops in it.
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And the number one thought that came to my mind was, I want to quit.
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So I did this thing called 100 Days of Rejection Therapy.
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The idea was, instead of running away from rejection, you look for rejection.
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and I make a, you know, YouTube vlog at the time
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Because if I do this by myself, I'll quit easily.
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you see a lot of people doing rejection therapy.
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that it just keeps going and someone else is doing it.
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Looking for rejection was fun if I saw it that way.
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But more importantly, I tried to apply what I learned today
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to tomorrow. So I started coming up with a whole list of ideas. You know, I would try to observe
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how my interaction went. And then I wrote down, not just wrote down, I actually wrote to other
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people. I shared my learnings. I started tabulating an amazing list of negotiation tactics, you know,
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how my posture should be when I talk to people, what my energy should be. Should I smile? And
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how do I put the other person at ease? If that person says no, how do I turn the no into a yes?
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And how do I position my request, my question in a way that I get more yeses?
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So I started tabulating these learnings and I became so good, so good.
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And I rejected, like at the end, I feel I can ask anyone, anything, anywhere.
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And then there's a better chance I get a yes and a no.
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And so much so that I developed a career out of this.
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You know, companies start saying, man, this guy knows what he's talking about.
00:27:38.880
Our people are afraid of rejection, you know, our salespeople or our employees.
00:27:56.100
and I started applying to real world experiences.
00:28:14.000
people are afraid of but if you flip it if you add knowledge and add enjoyment and add momentum to it
00:28:20.860
you can totally have fun you can totally make this a piece of art my favorite one and i always laugh
00:28:25.720
when i read it you were at a fast food restaurant and you went up to the front and you asked them
00:28:30.800
for a burger refill like like you'd ask for a drink refill that which are free and you're like
00:28:35.720
hey can i get a burger refill yeah again the thing is the reason i was able to do this is
00:28:42.240
because I'm going to have, you know, I was like, I got to have fun, right?
00:28:44.860
If I don't crack myself up, I'm not doing this right.
00:28:55.160
But the thing is, after he said no, I stayed engaged.
00:29:04.420
Like the first day, I felt bad after making that request because I was so scared.
00:29:09.140
But second day, I was way calmer because I started building momentum.
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I started learning that I can stay engaged after the initial rejection.
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Okay, so the first principle and the easy acronym is enjoyment.
00:33:51.280
And then the second principle is A for artistry.
00:33:54.280
And you say there are two mindsets we can take to whatever it is we're doing.
00:33:58.860
It's the mechanic mindset and the artist mindset.
00:34:04.360
So the mechanic, I see this in the entrepreneurial lens.
00:34:07.600
So the mechanic in entrepreneurship is the one who's like, I just want success.
00:34:16.040
So in the startup world, there is this thing called a lean startup.
00:34:19.440
So basically, you learn. You're an evolutionist. You have this idea. You just iterate. You just learn new things and see how it works. And so you build the most basic thing called MVP, the most ugliest, cheapest thing. Then you try to get user feedback. You put this in people's hands and see how they use it. And then you improve it. You learn. Eventually, you build an amazing product. So after a thousand iterations, this thing is amazing.
00:34:45.680
So I call this the mechanic mindset because the thing is, it usually doesn't work.
00:34:51.100
There's actually, you know, 15 years since the startup came out, there's actually a pretty strong study to say this actually doesn't work.
00:34:57.680
Because sometimes if you just want to succeed and you started with the worst thing, like the MVP, a lot of times people wouldn't give you the chance to improve it.
00:35:07.720
Sometimes people are not drawn to it because it's so ugly, right?
00:35:15.660
The other mindset is the artist mindset, which was, okay, what product can I make that I love?
00:35:26.620
Instead of trying to say, what can I do to actually succeed?
00:35:32.380
Like if I can make a product that's an expression of who I am, then I can have a better way to succeed.
00:35:39.120
I mean, the classic example, I mean, I actually hate to use Steve Jobs as an example because so many people are, you know, I mean, so overused, right?
00:35:47.880
But the funny thing is, if you study Steve Jobs, he is famous for making, you know, iPhones or computers.
00:35:56.880
He wants to make the inside of those products beautiful.
00:36:01.020
And he would stare at the screws inside the iPhone.
00:36:04.760
He would stare at the circuit boards inside the Mac.
00:36:08.100
And he was like, we got to make this beautiful.
00:36:10.120
We got to make this so, you know, so symmetrical.
0.68
00:36:16.900
People are going to see the outside of the product, not inside.
00:36:22.760
that, you know, you want to make sure the inside is as beautiful as the outside.
00:36:28.460
they spend a lot more time to actually make the inside even more beautiful.
00:36:32.400
And he would ask the people to sign the product.
00:36:36.380
And it's like, you know, artists always sign their work.
00:36:39.660
And if you look at Steve Jobs, right, he sees himself as an entrepreneur.
00:36:43.360
You know, people think he's a technologist, he's a great designer.
00:36:47.100
But the word he describes himself the most is artist.
00:36:52.420
The artist's mindset is you want to make things beautiful.
00:37:00.820
If you see actually the products that we love, whether it's computers or cars, the people who, the most successful ones, they make products that people love.
00:37:16.600
They actually make stuff that resonates with people.
00:37:22.600
You lean deep into your emotions and build something that's beautiful, that make you proud, and then you succeed.
00:37:28.960
And one of the tools you have for this principle is the idea of this Japanese tea ceremony.
00:37:39.600
How can this Japanese tea ceremony help us approach things more like an artist?
00:37:44.240
So one day I went to Japan and they have this traditional tea ceremony.
00:37:49.140
If you've ever been to Japan, that's something I highly recommend.
00:37:52.240
Not because it's so fancy, but because it's so central.
00:38:04.100
And the thing is, you are so present in those moments.
00:38:21.940
So Ichigo Ichie literally means one life, one meeting.
00:38:25.240
In that moment, I'm meeting that host for the only time in our lives.
00:38:30.440
Even if I meet her later, and in fact, even if I meet her every day, that moment is something that cannot be replicated.
00:38:44.020
By having that mindset, I start taking that mindset into everything I do, into every meeting I have, into every conversation I have.
00:38:55.240
How can I make this conversation most impactful and meaningful?
00:39:01.180
So when I have that mindset, I start talking differently.
00:39:08.100
Before, when I have sales meetings or conversations,
00:39:13.960
The goal was whether to make a sale or maybe make the other person like me.
00:39:17.920
What ended up happening was I'm so goal-oriented that I'm not very present.
00:39:22.120
In fact, I'm very fearful because what if I'm not getting to my goal?
00:39:27.800
I started contorting myself in a way, trying to make the other person like me,
00:39:31.160
and the other person doesn't like me that much as a result.
00:39:33.740
But by having this artist mindset, I lean into these conversations,
00:39:43.000
I have no fear because I'm making art in those conversations.
00:39:49.280
I end up having like way better sales calls and consultation calls and coaching calls
00:39:59.880
So you treat every moment as a Japanese tea ceremony.
00:40:09.080
And this one's interesting because on the surface,
00:40:11.500
it looks like you're taking a hard discipline approach to life.
00:40:23.320
You see the enjoyment is the happy-go-lucky guy, right?
00:40:33.480
And system is a completely different character.
00:40:36.360
It's like this accountant, this factory worker,
00:40:42.120
first of all, you should already love your work.
00:40:48.720
How can you actually get even more effort based on something you love?
00:40:55.980
Like the thing I learned the most was from one of the most creative guys you will see.
00:41:00.740
So Jim Collins, he wrote this amazing book, Good to Great and Built to Last,
00:41:06.780
two of the most transformative books in business history.
00:41:12.120
And you would think like, maybe he had a AI 20 years before we all did.
00:41:19.420
And then of course he was, or maybe he is like doing psychedelics, being so creative.
00:41:25.220
He's like, my secret is he had a spreadsheet and he had a clock.
00:41:29.260
So he would, every day he wants to, he has this like a 1000 hour rule, meaning in 365
00:41:36.180
days in a year, he won't have over a thousand hours of creative work.
00:41:48.380
And he's like, you know, he's having so much fun
00:41:50.060
when he does that clock in and clock out and write it down.
00:41:53.480
People think that's crazy, but he's got systems.
00:41:59.680
to do his creative work and to be highly disciplined.
00:42:05.780
So every time he looked back through for 365 days,
00:42:09.360
his creative time has never dropped below 1000. And that's what enabled him to be so prolific
00:42:15.180
in writing books and being so creative. And if you look at the people who succeed in the long
00:42:21.740
term, they all had a system of some sort. So Stephen King, you know, right, he writes 1000
00:42:27.100
words a day, he just does it. And there are people who do the most creative work in the morning,
00:42:31.300
you know, and they will be like, this is the time I do it. So they do time blocking.
00:42:35.120
So whatever system, you want to have a system that helps you to make sure that you do this work.
00:42:41.520
And you don't have to think, when should that work?
00:42:45.520
So that's why I think being system smart is really important.
00:42:49.120
You know, people think about book smart and street smart.
00:42:53.820
Can you have the right system for you to do the work so you don't have to think about it?
00:42:58.700
How have you used this principle in your own life?
00:43:04.080
So I built this thing called one action goal, meaning to achieve an outcome I want, I just focus on an action.
00:43:13.760
I focus on the leading indicators, namely the actions that would take me to the goal.
00:43:20.920
I have a lot of business examples, but I'll give you a personal example.
00:43:26.500
The kids were two, you know, three to four, five.
00:43:29.900
And just to be honest, I didn't like kids that much.
00:43:32.140
And I mean, I love them. I love all of them. I would die for them for sure. But I didn't enjoy spending time with kids. And as a result, I wasn't good. You know, every time I'd be like, this is my duty. You know, I want to be a good father. So let me play with them. That was classic heart discipline. My goal was to be a better father, but I didn't enjoy the action. So I was eating bitterness. And how could I be a good father if I'm eating bitterness, you know, being there with my kids?
00:43:58.060
So I said, okay, what can I do to actually make this easy?
00:44:05.380
Instead of focusing on the result of being a better father,
00:44:09.380
I built a system to make me spending better time.
00:44:21.760
to do some house chores or to go to bed on time.
00:44:43.100
and we'd take a nap at the dog food pile in a shelf.
00:44:49.260
and we'd build like a fortress using toilet papers.
00:44:57.940
So one, they started being much more responsible.
00:45:01.060
They started trying to fulfill their goals, I said, for them because they bought that poker chip.
00:45:04.800
And the result of all their effort is spending time with me.
00:45:16.800
So that's the one example of this one action goal, going on father-son days with kids that enabled me to achieve my ultimate goal, which is be a better father.
00:45:26.720
All right. So find a one action goal. So how would a one action goal differ from
00:45:31.300
the way people typically set goals? Yeah. Most people set goals to our outcome goals.
00:45:36.640
If you've seen your resolution, you're seeing people, I want to lose 20 pounds. I want to find
00:45:41.680
love this year. I want to start my own company. I want to get promoted. I want to make, I don't
00:45:47.060
know, $500,000. Like I want to make a million dollars this year. People write these words down
00:45:52.400
And those are meaningless because they're just there.
00:45:56.140
In fact, by the time February rolls in, you're already giving up.
00:45:59.380
I mean, these goals that started out as inspiration became laughingstock.
00:46:03.660
I mean, it became some sort of distraction because you lose confidence every time you
00:46:12.100
I mean, I believe them, but I don't focus on them.
00:46:14.800
I said New Year's resolution says, this year, my goal is to have 50 Father's Son days.
00:46:21.180
I want to exercise 500 hours and I want to write for 1,000 hours.
00:46:27.140
You know, so these are the one action goals that I set.
00:46:33.020
And if I achieve those goals, and by the way, I track them every day on the spreadsheet,
00:46:41.460
I build my range to see if I'm on track or if I'm off track.
00:46:45.600
So I build all these tools to actually encourage myself, keep going.
00:46:51.180
But by focusing on this one action goals, I get way better results.
00:46:56.220
I became way more disciplined and I achieved those outcomes.
00:47:00.540
So I've done that with my own stuff, especially with fitness.
00:47:03.080
I always go back to fitness goals because I think it's a very visceral example of putting these ideas into practice.
00:47:10.980
I need to be able to lift this amount of weight or hit this PR by this date.
00:47:17.140
But after a while, I kind of shifted to just, I just need to make sure I train on the days I'm supposed to train.
00:47:24.200
And as a result, I don't get too distracted by the goal, like that big goal of hitting certain numbers.
00:47:30.640
But because I'm consistently doing the thing, those results just naturally happen.
00:47:40.240
Focus on what you do, not what you're trying to get.
00:47:43.660
Yeah. Another part of this system's principle is you have this tool called repetition with
00:47:47.800
variation. What does that look like? So if you have a repetitive work, if everything you do is
00:47:54.820
like, you know, your work is similar to what you did yesterday. So sometimes when you do that,
00:48:00.860
you feel like, again, you feel like Sisyphus, like the worst version of Sisyphus, right? You
00:48:04.620
push the block every day, you're repeating yourself. But what's happening is your progress
00:48:10.640
would stall and sometimes your progress both in term of result but also you're learning because
00:48:17.440
your mind is so used to it you you go into autopilot and it's no longer fun and then you
00:48:23.380
no longer be able to handle variations what if things change right what if your environment
00:48:28.780
change what if your uh your company change what if things change and sometimes people are you know
00:48:35.000
when they are so into this one thing this system that they keep doing they cannot handle change
00:48:40.040
What I tell people is you actually should build change
00:48:51.500
So the thing is, what if every day you do the same work,
00:48:54.640
but you actually manufacture a different environment?
00:48:57.840
What if you play a different role every day when you do this?
00:49:06.700
But also you train your mind to be more adaptable to different environments.
00:49:13.900
And, you know, an example I used was the team who won the, you know, NBA championship two years ago was the Boston Celtics.
00:49:21.060
And the Boston Celtics is an interesting story because they have been knocking on the door for years trying to win the championships.
00:49:29.200
They're always in the final four of every NBA season, but they could never get to the top until this new coach came in.
00:49:36.180
his name is joe mazula and what he does is he's this master of repetitions with variation he will
00:49:42.760
try to change his training his practices in a different environment every day so one day he
00:49:48.940
would ask people to to play without dribbling so everyone would just pass the ball you can only play
00:49:55.320
you know without dribbling so you run and you get open you try to pass the ball to each other
00:49:59.660
And the next day, he would try to play Mozart in the background.
00:50:05.920
Everyone just stays silent and they just silently packing each other.
00:50:09.900
And the next day, he was like, let's play football style.
00:50:12.520
So people tackle each other on the basketball floor.
00:50:15.140
So when you have this variation, what ends up happening is you are able to build this mental resilience and being very adaptable to what happens every day.
00:50:25.480
and the result of this practice is actually much more favorable you know to the players because
00:50:30.820
they learn they adapt and they have more fun so that's what i call repetition was variation i like
00:50:36.600
that one all right so the final principle is why and it's for yourself it's like what's this
00:50:43.280
principle all about what are you trying to get at with this principle to make discipline easy
00:50:47.500
discipline yeah so yourself is is to me is actually the most important thing you know
00:50:52.580
are your goals or what you're doing an expression or a reflection of who you actually are you know
00:50:59.580
we're all different right we'll have different affinities we'll have different you know characters
00:51:04.460
we'll have different you know personalities so sometimes when we have goals and you know that
00:51:12.220
whether those goals are given to us by our parents or by our boss or by you know by whoever
00:51:16.220
or those maybe those goals we learn ourselves we give to ourselves you know and we think
00:51:22.340
that's what we should do. Sometimes we started performing an act that's not who we are. So I was
00:51:28.400
the same. I was that person, you know, when I was in China. So I came to the United States as a
00:51:32.780
teenager. But when I was 14, I met Bill Gates in China. You know, he actually went to China to
00:51:38.880
promote Windows. I was mesmerized by his story and his entrepreneurial journey. I thought, okay,
00:51:45.040
I know what I want to do with my life. I want to be the Chinese version of Bill Gates. I want to
00:52:15.880
good at those actions, built like three different companies,
00:52:18.120
none of them were Microsoft. Some of them were successful. But the thing is, during the pandemic,
00:52:24.020
and a lot of people started having some mental health issues, and so did I. So to make myself
00:52:29.340
feel better, I started writing again. And when I wrote, I just felt better. I felt good. I felt
00:52:35.060
I didn't want to stop. When I stopped writing and going back to my work, I felt like saying
00:52:39.680
goodbye to a lover. And then I found out, man, deep down, I'm a writer. Why should I chase after
00:52:46.380
this dream based on these activities that that's not me you know i could do them i could build
00:52:51.980
product i could hire and fire i could raise fun but i feel much better when i was writing and
00:52:57.860
expressing ideas that's who i am so i changed my goal i changed my career i'm like i'm stop trying
00:53:04.560
to be bill gates i may just be the best writer i can be let me build a career out of who i am
00:53:10.020
So now, you know, I'm equally, if not more ambitious than I was before.
00:53:14.880
I work more hard, but I feel every day I do as this author, as this speaker, I am having
00:53:23.180
I have achieved true happiness, not just success, but happiness, you know, knowing my relationship
00:53:30.860
So going back to yourself, the best way to success, to succeed in whatever you do, you
00:53:55.620
but also I think that's probably the most important thing.
00:54:04.020
And I guess that requires just paying attention
00:54:07.920
Like, what is the thing that just makes me feel most alive, makes me feel the best, like
00:54:14.000
Like, what are the things that I do that make me just feel awful and then not do that?
00:54:18.840
And then figure out a way to, you know, apply these other principles, like maybe the game
00:54:24.800
It might mean you have to just change careers completely.
00:54:26.900
I know for me, when I started my career, I thought I was going to be an attorney.
00:54:30.040
And the reason I wanted to be an attorney is I thought, well, that sounds like a good
00:54:33.240
It pays well, and it's respectable, it's prestigious.
00:54:36.760
And I enjoyed law school, but then I got my first internship at a big law firm.
00:54:41.960
And that's when I got my first case of heartburn.
00:54:48.320
I'm already having heartburn and I don't even have a full caseload yet.
00:54:54.780
I'm doing this instead because this is the thing that I enjoy doing.
00:54:57.420
Yeah, Brett, you're the quintessential example of easy discipline.
00:55:00.620
You found this thing that you didn't know before, this writing, this podcasting.
00:55:05.300
And then you build a whole career out of the thing you make.
00:55:09.200
This is actually, you know, like, like way better expression of who you are than being a lawyer.
00:55:14.420
And I'm sure you'll be a good lawyer, but you're an amazing podcaster because you love this thing.
00:55:21.160
You can make art with these conversations and then you build systems and this is who you are.
00:55:26.720
Are there any tools for this yourself principle that you like that can help people become the best version of that self?
00:55:34.640
Totally. So one of the best way to be who you are is to move, you know? So I call this the
00:55:40.600
movers versus shakers. Shakers are the people who try to be like, you know, hard discipline their
1.00
00:55:47.980
way to success. They shake themselves, right? It's like, man, why can you be more successful?
1.00
00:55:53.280
What can you do better? So you start just shaking your own shoulders, right? It's like shaking some
00:55:57.200
other people's shoulder, try to wake them up. You do it to yourself, be better, you know,
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work harder and what ended up happening is you start doing hard discipline you started losing
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confidence you start hating yourself and a mover which was how do i move to a better environment
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so i can be better like i can let myself out more how can i find an environment where i can have a
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better chance of being myself so um i use this class example there's a story ancient china so
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there's this woman she's widowed she has her little boy and so she moved to a village and
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And, you know, she want her son to be a scholar in ancient China, being a scholar is held in high esteem.
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So in that village, there is like a funeral happening every day and people are crying and there's funerals.
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And then the little boy, he will start mimicking those crying.
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And his mother is like, I can't raise him in this environment.
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And in the big city, the little kids started mimicking markets, like merchants and shouting and negotiating.
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She moved him next to like a famous academy, like a school.
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And he started, you know, doing the writing and speaking and bowing.
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And then he became one of the most famous philosophers in Chinese history.
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And that story of moves, three moves of Meng's mother.
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So this guy, his name is a Manxious, famous scholar and famous philosopher.
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But his mother is literally more famous than him because this move, instead of her shaking her son to become successful, to overcome the environment, what she did was to move to an environment where he would naturally succeed.
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Move to, I mean, there's a reason people in technology tend to go to Silicon Valley, people in finance tend to go to New York, all right?
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So there's this natural centers where if you move to there, you're more naturally to achieve your goals.
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But you can actually shape your everyday environment so you can be a better self.
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So I do every day, you know, to be a better rider.
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So what I do is I drive 45 minutes every day to this place, to this beautiful beach here in Northern California called Half Moon Bay.
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I would drive there and park my car on the beach and just over a cliff.
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I don't bring my phone because I'm not there to fight,
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you know, the temptation of getting online doom scrolling.
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So I go there, face the beach, face this great environment.
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And without internet, I ride every day on my computer for hours.
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This is an example where I move to an environment
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Well, Zhao Zhang, this has been a great conversation.
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who you feel like they have high-ass, low-hands disease,
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they have big goals, but they're not that disciplined,
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As always, thank you for the continued support.