Discipline not Desire

Hey team, here we are for another Wednesday Workshop. I saw this quote, it’s kind of a cool quote: “Discipline, not desire, determines your destiny.” Let me say that again: discipline, not desire, determines your destiny. I like that. It reminds me of a book I read a couple of years ago, back when I was going through all those cancer treatments. I read a book by David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me. It’s a good book. It’s a great book. He uses some pretty colorful language, so if you’re faint of heart, be careful about that. He’s pretty hard on you. He tells it to you straight. But it’s about discipline. It’s not about the desire.

I’ve had all kinds of desires in my life. I desire this, I desire that, I want things. I might say to myself. “Man, I sure wish I could get back into my dress blues from when I was in the United States Marine Corps.” Well, I’m going to have to lose about 100 pounds to do that. It’s hard for me to even think about the fact that I weigh 100 pounds more now, give or take, than when I was a United States Marine. Of course, that was like 200 years ago, so you have to understand that fact.

It is really true. Your desires don’t get you anywhere. You might have heard that saying out there that says, if you have a dream, all it is, is a wish. If you don’t write down your dreams and follow them up by writing goals, then nothing happens. “I hope to own a house, I hope to this, I dream of this. I want these things, I desire these kinds of things in my life.” It requires you to do something. You have to actually put the effort forward to get out of life what you are going to put into it.

If you’re going to sit back hoping that somebody’s going to row a boat by and hand you a check for a billion dollars so that you can have all your dreams met, you’ll be sitting by that bank on that water for quite a while because it just doesn’t happen that way. Life moves at a fast pace, and we have to go out and chase our dreams. We have to build our own boat for crossing that river. If we’re going to take people with us, we better build a bigger raft, a bigger boat. Now that our company has over 100 people in it, think about that. We need a big boat in order to get where we’re going.

We have great men and women like yourselves doing a great job, but it is about the discipline in the little things and the things that we do every day. It’s hitting your numbers, hitting your KRAs, writing the number of reports, making the number of checks, making sure that you’re locking every door, checking every door, documenting well in your activity logs, and doing your radio checks. It is the discipline that gets you to the desires.

In your personal life, it’s the same thing. If you’re looking to buy a house, you want to buy some things, you need to get into SmartDollar. Join our SmartDollar and sign up. Start going through those baby steps. I went to the bank just the other day, and I still use the envelope system. Those of you that have not an understanding of Dave Ramsey, I still use the envelope system. I still go get money and put it in envelopes. And I still spend my money that way because I don’t want to be poor. I use cash for a lot of things, for everything for the most part. I still pay my bills and write checks and things like that for house payments. We do some online billing now too, but it goes into my bank account and then goes to those places.

I have money set aside for savings. And I have money set aside for emergency funds. As a matter of fact, I have a different bank set up just for those things. I have a bank that is hard to get to and I don’t have a credit card for. The money comes out of my check, goes to that bank, and is set up for emergencies and vacations. I have two or three little accounts set up, and a little bit of money goes into them every payday.

Also, think about this: how many of you currently are living on two paychecks a month? You get paid twice a month for 12 months. Those of you that have been working here a while know that twice a year, you get paid three paychecks in a month. So about every six months, you get a third paycheck. If you’re living on two, that means that extra paycheck is extra. What do you do with that?

Your desires aren’t going to get you anywhere. It is the discipline you have. If you discipline yourself to take that third paycheck, divide it up, and put it into certain locations and don’t touch it, then all of a sudden, you can take a nice vacation. Even if you’re making $1,500 a paycheck, $33,000 a year can take you on a pretty nice vacation. Put that money away. Maybe you put some of it away into a 401K, some into a rainy day fund, some into an emergency fund, or a college fund. Pay off college bills so you get out of debt faster. Whatever it is that you want to do in your personal life.

Maybe you want to get smarter, be wise. Read a book. Read 12 books. Put your time and effort in. That’s what it’s going to take. It is your discipline in all those little things that is going to get you to the desires you want.

Alright, guys, I was talking for a long time, but I was talking about some stuff that’s really important. I hope you listened. If not, you can always relisten to this because it’ll be playing again. All you have to do is hit play. Isn’t that cool? You can listen to me all day long, seven days a week, 24 hours a day if you want. I don’t know why anybody would want to do that. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful week, and I will see you next Wednesday. Alright, bye. See you. And remember, be valuable, nothing less will do. See you.