Take it off! See. Love. Grow.

Part 1: The Art of Discipline: The Unassuming Path to Success

Joshua Fields & Jeremy Rubin Episode 38

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Ever wondered why so many talented folks never reach the top? The answer lies in the embrace of discipline. Join us as we discuss how discipline trumps talent, skills or credentials when it comes to achieving success. We'll share personal struggles and triumphs, as well as thought-provoking stories, such as the two-hour call with the IRS, which underscore the often-unnoticed value of discipline and delegation. 

Following that, we delve deeply into the 4R framework and how you can apply discipline in your daily routines. We stress the importance of taking action and committing to seeing your plans through. Also, we'll guide you through the process of crafting a personal mission statement. We'll share our own experiences and show how this process can significantly boost your motivation and provide you with clear direction. 

Finally, we wrap up the conversation by discussing the importance of recognizing the value of tasks that may initially seem uninteresting or mundane. We emphasize how discipline, combined with talent, is the key to success. We end this episode by revisiting the importance of discipline and delegation. We hope that this conversation will encourage you, whether you're struggling with discipline or looking to maximize your talents. This episode promises actionable insights and fresh perspectives that will help propel you towards your goals.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the take it off podcast, where we see love grow. I am your co-host, jeremy Rubin, and I am here with my guy. Nowhere else I'd rather be than with Joshua feels. Joshua, say what's up to the people.

Speaker 2:

So many things I've got to tell you.

Speaker 1:

You know you've done this song before. Right, I know, that's how I know. We, that's how I know, wait a second.

Speaker 2:

Don't interrupt me right now because I'm I just felt that I wasn't even planning on singing that song, but so many things I've got to tell you.

Speaker 1:

Can you at least get in the right note?

Speaker 2:

For better or worse, I still will choose you first.

Speaker 1:

Oh, oh. This goes out to all the people who choose love over violence. That part, all right, yeah, that part. So today we are on episode 38.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited to say hey, but by the way, my name is Joshua feels, executive coach.

Speaker 2:

I know now what's the show up through that, yeah, and really I enjoy spending this time with my brother to help people get better. As we're helping people get better, we're getting better. I am sharp as iron, and that better comes from taking time out to carve out. I'm for reflection, ignoring haters. Ignoring haters, being able to see ourselves clearly, yep, others without judgment. There we go, without assumptions, seeing others without limiting beliefs, and being able to do that together in tandem with my guys. So we're mirrors, that's all we are, just mere. Let me just hold up a plane here so you can see yourself clearly, and then whether we convex or concave, that's depending on who's around in your circle. But today, how?

Speaker 1:

will you hold up the mirror sometime though? Oh.

Speaker 2:

I've had, yeah as a coach. As a coach, I know that intimately well. They were like don't be showing me myself, don't be really good.

Speaker 1:

Let me ready to throw a brick at that mirror.

Speaker 2:

Oh my.

Speaker 1:

God, I'm a buke it.

Speaker 2:

Seven years of bad luck to follow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So today we are in a very interesting episode and it is episode 38. It is entitled talent is not enough Get disciplined, get disciplined. And today's episode is. It is we're going to take away from an article written by outoftheretcom and it's entitled why discipline is more important than talent, skills or credentials. You know, this was just hitting me in the eye because this is so me.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, when you show up with a certain level of talent, you know you can let people, you can let yourself, let your receipts, let people get you to think that just showing up in a moment and doing that really well is enough for life. But as you get older, you realize that wait, these moments are fewer and far in between and what you do in between actually makes more of a difference. At least, that's been my experience. Absolutely, you know, like, like, like this idea that you're just going to show up to the party and make an impression and that impression is going to move you towards everything you want all the time. It's like no, there's some times where you just got to do some stuff on your own. There's some times where you just got to grind, and I've had to really, really wrestle with this. I mean I look at my own life, my brother, we both play football and naturally he would tell anybody that naturally I just showed up as a better football player Right Now. I stopped pretty pretty much. I mean, I went to UW, looked at walking on the team, got injured, was trying to manage my weight, manage my speed, do all these things in any way. Ultimately, I just left football alone. My brother, on the other hand, bought back from two injuries, ended up going to Portland State and was an all American running back and I really attributed it to him. Just staying in the gym, him getting up every morning, running at 3.30 am, people like what are you doing? He just had a certain discipline that he still carries with him to this day and is actually so transferable into other walks of his life that you know when he's just walking, he's just walking and I think that you know when he puts himself first every morning getting up taking care of his body. You know there's this goal that he has to be the best, you know to have that edge.

Speaker 1:

You know I used to pray for hey, let me have another great idea, great story. What I pray for now is man, give me the discipline to see it out. I got enough ideas. I got enough stories. I got enough. What I need is more discipline to get from point A to point B. Yeah Now, joshua, I know you're a whole Pharaoh, I know that you're a whole executive coach, but you know he's somebody who is, you know, lost 80 pounds and kept it off for 10 years. So there's some areas where you have some receipts, where you have been very disciplined. But have you ever struggled with something in this area where you're like man, talent's not enough and I just can't find the will or just haven't put in the work to create a regimen around discipline that gets me the result that I want?

Speaker 2:

Um, yes, in short, yes. I think that what comes up for me is there are so many aspects of life, whether it's financial, a part of the business, your social relationships. Anything that you decide to do is going to be met with. Well, what are your priorities?

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And this is going to show up with where you spend your time and the things that serve us quickly or make it easy to be like, oh, I can serve somebody else, so I don't really have to be disciplined for this article I need to read, or this new behavior I'm trying to build. I mean, the lowest hanging fruit that's coming up for me right now is I want to be more skilled at being able to understand the stock market. I've got a buddy of mine that I've asked to help hold me accountable and that's the last thing I want to do when I wake up is look at the market and like, yeah, what's the earnings call for Comcast? Right now I don't know. Nasdaq, nasdaq and I'm struggling.

Speaker 2:

Right now I really am and I'm like, well, this is important because if I make time for this, I'll learn a skill, be able to generate some more income, blah, blah, blah. Then I can help do this and I can do that and whatever story I'm telling myself, but it's, it just doesn't stop. And I have a talent to recruit, hire, bring on, motivate people, inspire people and sometimes that can get in the way of your own disciplined journey when you have a knack to help encourage or inspire others to do the actual, but you know the on the ground work. We don't want to do that part. It's easier to oversee it sometimes and check back in and, all right, what kind of progress we're making. All right, I'll come back and give you a slice of pizza later and thank you for your efforts. Right, right.

Speaker 1:

We're going to put you in your place if you haven't met your goal.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And what's really is interesting, this last throughout share. This happened actually just yesterday. I was on the phone for two hours with the IRS trying to have my business tax from an LLC and have it taxed as an escort. Now my wife has been running this. She's been like holding it down, putting you know, submitting things on time, making sure that we don't get any financial trouble. Whenever she's been, she's been a savant. She's been great at just being diligent around this, because you know I don't want to do it, you know I don't.

Speaker 2:

Nothing to do with it Nothing Let me tell you guys something.

Speaker 1:

Joshua A wants to show up when the lights are on bright, make an impact and get up out of there.

Speaker 2:

Now, if I know I'm going to be doing that, then I will. Okay, wait a minute. The license, who's going to? Okay, cool, I'll make it happen. But that, that, that the tedious you know on the daily stuff, not my cup of tea often.

Speaker 1:

Until you're motivated around something.

Speaker 2:

Until you're motivated around something. Right, that's when we come into the priorities. But let me tell you about this really quick. My wife says hey, and this is her getting more empowered to say, hey, I'm going to delegate something to you, let me know when it's done. And we're trying to help each other. I need you to call the IRS because we have a meeting with our CPA today and we need to know what the status is of you being an escort, being taxed as an escort. So, oh, no problem, what information do I need for the call? Okay, here's your EIN number, here's the. You know some information about when we filed and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2:

I get on the call. It was a two hour wait, by the way. Then I finally get to somebody. It's another hour wait because I was with the wrong somebody, so now it's been three hours. So I finally get somebody on the phone and I'm with this person and she says all right, hey, so tell me about this paperwork and all this other stuff. I'm like is this stuff not being filed, or what? I'm confused. I text my wife, I say hey, I need you to join this call, and she's kind of like not responding quickly. I'm like now. I need you to join Right Stop, because Joshua needs some assistance.

Speaker 1:

Who knows what she was doing? Who knows what she's doing. She's out here saving baby.

Speaker 2:

But I need you to stop and get whatever you're doing, put it down, jump on this call, because I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting teed up with some questions that I'm thinking on, and so she joins. I was like, hey, actually just brought my wife on. She's been handling this. You know we're all in talk Now that happened, but my wife, not my wife. The agent goes, the IRS agent goes. Now, joshua, this is your business. You're responsible. That's great. Your wife knows the dates and the times that it was filed and it looks like we were missing this form and so I need you to go back and fix it and all this other things, but she is not responsible for your business. Wow, just the agent told me this agent.

Speaker 2:

Look at God, I see this all the time. One spouse is involved, the other spouse isn't right, right. And so I was disciplined in this area and it's very easy for me to ride on the talent of building a not even I don't even have a talent in building a business, creating revenue just from my energy and showing up. You know, showing up and creating an experience and being compensated for that. But like managing the whole operations and all that, hey who? Somebody come do this for me, right, and the IRS agent saw this and this again, I'm not even judging myself for how I am. It's a blind spot. Let's shine a light. The advantage is here is you all both need to know what she told us, be in the know. I told my wife hold the line, she goes all right. I said, sweetie, you've done an outstanding job. I need to be engaged because the agent saw her. Yep, I was dismissing her and sometimes that happens those closest to you you can overlook. Absolutely Right and anyway. That's.

Speaker 1:

That's my story on discipline and talent and especially if they're bringing it out, especially if they're bringing about something that's valuable, that you don't want to do Absolutely, or that you see as small fries. A UC is, yep, and you don't even think that you're seeing it like that, but you are because there's so many moving parts, right, yep, absolutely. It's like we talk about like, oh it's, don't sweat the small sweat, let your white blood cells stop working. They're super small. Yeah, you know how is that going to impact the body? And so you know, and there's a lot to cover here as we get through this area around moving from talent to discipline. And I think that this is going to touch a lot of our audience, because we naturally attract and we're connected to a lot of talented people, and we've got a lot of people that are disciplined to, but maybe not disciplined in the areas that they would like to be disciplined or don't want to be disciplined in, but need to be to get to the next level. So this episode is actually going to be a two-part episode and I'm excited to dive into this.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for your vulnerability around that, because I think a lot of people think that they're on an island when they don't want to do something, even though they know they like I got to do this but I don't want to do it. And from all of the videos that you see, well, you must not be motivated, you must not want it. Well, I don't know if it's all that. I don't know if you can just say I got to get up at 4 am and work for 16 hours straight every day or I don't want it. I don't know if that that's the case, but that can be the message. Like, I can look at your activity and just because you're not showing up means that you're trash or it's not. You know, obviously it's not that important to you. Well, there's other layers in being a human being.

Speaker 1:

It's complex, it is it's complex, and so we're going to talk a little bit about that. Some things that I think are honorable. Mentioned that the article brought up is that talent without discipline is actually wasted, and I've seen this in my role in leadership, where I've seen some people who are crazy, crazy talented but they have no plan. So they have these moments where they're just it's like, wow, you're so gifted, and it's like, man, if I could surround you with a team or I could surround you and again, I can't surround you with the team, but if I could give you a plan that you would execute, look at how you would move. So it says talent without discipline is wasted. Skills without discipline go to waste too. Like I know a lot of people who have all of the skills in the world, but then you're like, well, why aren't they applying them? Yeah Right, just no discipline to apply even what they already have. Like you're a master in this area, but you won't apply it consistently. And that's why you know the results that you're getting are so up and down and up and down. You know, I myself we talk about this all the time. We don't continue to talk about this to leave. This podcast is over, or until I make it happen. I have the skills to be able to lose weight, played football at a high level, ran track was around health and fitness have more than enough information. The skill is there, but the without the discipline of applying the skill consistently, you're just not going to get the result. It's just not going to happen.

Speaker 1:

The last thing I thought that that was pretty interesting was that credentials without discipline, you know, also is not really that impressive Like you could, and I've seen people do this. They get lifetime students Like I got my doctorate, now I'm gonna go. Or I got this master here, I'm gonna work on this master, get this masters over here. Like I'm racking up all of this debt, I've got all these degrees, I've got all of these receipts, but I'm not applying it to anything. It's just to say that yeah, so, yeah, so, you have your MBA, but you haven't done anything in business, right, or you got your doctorate over here, but you're literally doing nothing in that area. So then what are we doing? And so pretty much the article is saying without discipline, you can have all of these things and it just doesn't. It doesn't matter, because you're never gonna apply what you need to apply to make the change you need to make.

Speaker 2:

Yep absolutely, absolutely. The next point here, to move the article along, is what is discipline? Sorry, so defining discipline and how can it be applied to your daily routine? This reminds me of my 4R framework, which is relationship, rhythm, results and recognition. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

The discipline part of the 4R structure, or the recipe for resilience, is rhythm. It's just another word for discipline and the definition that I'll share here from there, because I think I love it, because your discipline is your dance, it's your daily dance routine, like it does not change. If it does, it's intentional, but you hold yourself accountable on a daily routine that you're trying to yield a particular result, and so the definition that I use when I'm describing this to people is rhythm. It's a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement, behavior, self-expression, the systematic arrangement and cadence of your collective practices, mm-hmm. So your discipline shows up in how effective are you at adhering consistently to a set of intentional routines, behaviors that you need that help amplify who you are or drive consistency in an area that you need a skill feel on, or you're trying to address something in your life that you wanna make some impact in.

Speaker 2:

And the very thing when it's all said and done and we're done ideating in my coaching sessions and we've been talking about oh, I got this plan, I'm gonna do this. Just met with a group this morning. We can generate a lot of ideas, but when it comes down to it, how are you gonna take those concepts and put them into practice so that practice becomes a lifestyle for the team or for you? And that's the barrier, even somewhat, bro. I've had people pay me in full for three months of coaching.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, no where this is going.

Speaker 2:

True story. This person has booked two sessions and it's been almost six months, so that tells me something. Without judging it, it's just right now this particular behavior hasn't found the air to breathe in your life for you to make some changes around prioritizing self-reflection, prioritize time to be strategically and think practically about how you're going to shift some things in your life. And if we don't do that, it's never, it never. You never allow yourself to be transformed by the pattern of behaviors that create the new you, and you said this all the time. You said this all the time. You actually had an exercise that I thought was brilliant. You had everybody write down, all right, what's important to you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I was actually getting to that.

Speaker 2:

That's so funny that you're getting there before me Come on with it, because I think we can shift there what's up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, better than I can. No, no, no, no for sure I mean. So again, one of the things that I say is our routine is a direct reflection of what's important in our lives. Okay, so your routine is a direct reflection. So I hear what you're telling me and I know that ideally it's important, but if you don't say a word and I just watch you for a week, I can tell you what's important and hold up that plain mirror and the issue we don't want to hear that.

Speaker 2:

We don't want to see it. I want you to fall in love with. What I'm saying to you is important.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, because even that becomes a dopamine hit. If I'm sitting here telling you yeah, you know my family's so important to me.

Speaker 1:

You know, really just going to work and just giving my all there, I give back to my community. You ain't? What have you done to give back to your kids? We have these elevator speeches, right, that sounds so great. And then people are on everywhere like man. This is a great human being. Not that you're not anyway, right.

Speaker 1:

But then if I look at your routine and when you go to work, you know you on social media all day. When you go home, you occupy with your phone. You know you're not a human being. It's like we're never where we are. We're where we want, to be right, but where we are, just that don't even work, right, if I, if you tell me that health and fitness is important to you but you don't get to the gym or meal prep all week or don't care about your diet, like you're saying some things. But I'm going to look at your activity, I'm going to look at literally your activity during the week. So, this activity, what we do is we ask people what is it that's important to you? And you list maybe one through five.

Speaker 1:

Most people have family, their career, their dream whatever the case may be, right their partner. And then what I do is we do an assessment around how are you spending your time every day? What is your average workday look like? What is your average day off look like? And then, based on where you're spending your time in these different areas, we a lot points, so like if it's socializing, if it's on your phone, if it's whatever it is watching TV, binging Netflix, whatever it is and then from there we actually calculate how much time are you spending where, and that's actually what's important, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So I know you said it was family, you know your, your lovely partner and and the job that you, that you make it happen at. But when I look at what, where you, what you're doing where you are, it is, it is social media. It is, you know, being distracted by the, you know random friend that you talk to every day Because you'd rather be doing that it's serving without boundaries. There's all these different things that have nothing to do with what you said was important. So the only way to flip that around is by actually allotting time for the things that you say is important.

Speaker 1:

Again, we just talked about this. I've done whole workshops on this skills, but then are we applying the discipline to make it happen, right. But what you'll notice is that if you say that a couple of areas are important and you actually put time towards that every day, you're going to build confidence Absolutely, because what who you say you are and what you say is important, is actually reflected in what you do on a daily basis. You're not walking around judging yourself and or thinking am I a hypocrite? Am I like constantly an imposter?

Speaker 2:

You're not constantly fighting yourself.

Speaker 1:

You know, am I a fraud, right? So, again, I think that it's so important and this will actually lead us into. The first point is that you need to create a mission statement, like before we get to actually behavior. Let's outline what it is that you actually want to do or be, or how you want to impact your life or the world as a whole. So the first thing that you need to do is create a mission statement. This is literally a written statement where you lay out where you want to go in life and how you plan to get there. It's that important. So let's use you for an example. When you knew that you wanted to lose your 80 pounds, right, what was it that you told yourself? Or what was it? What was the like, the mission? What was the mission for you? Because it may not have started off with I need to lose 80 pounds, but what was the mission like to get started? What was the inspiration?

Speaker 2:

I was insecure about showing up in spaces and living. I didn't like the way I looked. I noticed that when I looked a certain way, at certain times I felt more confident. I wanted to be a part of life. When I didn't have that and the way it came and it would fluctuate and go back and forth, I would go on to hiding.

Speaker 2:

Then I have this thing about death. Then it's like well, what are you doing with the experiences that you do have? Now you're going to this experience, you're at that event and you're not able to be all of you or more of you, because you're too afraid to show. All right, I'm fat, I got this Again. I wanted to hide and bigger clothes and be away from people and not be seen. My personality is all about being out in front and being loud and excitable and all these other things, the gap between me being that Joshua while living, I couldn't access that Joshua. I didn't feel comfortable accessing that Joshua with the weight. Then, as I got older and I'm married and I'm a kid again, life is still happening, but you're not participating in life as it's happening for you because of these men. I could have gotten there without the weight loss, but that wasn't my journey.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I wanted to take pictures.

Speaker 2:

Not want to take pictures, not wanting to yeah, all of that, not wanting to talk in front of people All connected to who I saw in the mirror that became the easiest low hanging fruit to grab. We need discipline around what we're putting in our mouth and how active we're being, because we'll never get to the spaces that we want to be in and have the dopamine hit that you want to have or whatever it is in this particular body. It's just not doing it for you. You got to make some decisions that are going to help get you closer to you, feeling more empowered and more of who you authentically are in a body that's reflected in how you see yourself being amplified.

Speaker 1:

You wanted to live a full life with the help of health and fitness. 100% Right. In order for me to live a full life, I need to transform this vessel. Got to, I want to live a full life? Yeah Right, however that's defined for you, yeah.

Speaker 2:

However, that's defined for you because those real. We don't get this time back. We don't have forever when you're gone. In terms of how many people are out here, there's very small percentage of people who actually know who you are going to miss you. So what are you doing with the time that you do have and is it being occupied with the things that you want to be doing? That is the conversation for everybody to grapple with. The discipline for who you want to be more of the time in more places in front of the people and in community. Whatever it is is going to come from you making that a priority in your daily behaviors.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that this is. I think we're going to sit here for a minute with this, because I think I don't think I know that this part is important that what do you really actually want? Yeah, what are you connected? As you start to build this statement? Sometimes what will get in the way of this statement is the opinions or the weight of other people that are connected to you, that want to keep you rolling in a certain way, that want to keep you safe at your job, that want to keep you staying living in the state or right next to them.

Speaker 1:

Right, everybody has their reasons for why you should be living the life that they choose for you and unbeknownst to a lot of us. We are participating in someone else's dream. Literally, we're participating in somebody else's dream. So the question becomes when we talk about this, like you said, you could be gone tomorrow. If you were to leave tomorrow, they're going to be sad, but how are you going to feel about? Let's just say you can feel? How are you going to feel about the fact that someone who is going to move on with their life literally has had so much power over yours?

Speaker 1:

So what is it that you want? And finding the courage to decide what you want and what that plan looks like. And I think, before we can even get to the steps of discipline, it is okay. Do I have the audacity to just speak what it is that I want, for whatever reason it is. There's so many people in prison right there Like you can't have the discipline because you haven't even confronted that. This isn't like I'm on autopilot right now and I don't like actually how my life is going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're hitting on something right now that is so powerful, and what's coming up for me is I have so many clients that are sad or judge themselves. I'm 30 this, I'm 40 that, and I don't even know what I want. I don't even know who I am, because so much of your life has been running on autopilot that now you're out of space where you're ready for some conscious based decision making and you're like but wait, I've already lived 30 this and 40 that years. I should have had this figured out by now.

Speaker 1:

That part. How much time have I?

Speaker 2:

wasted. And these people are VP's, these people are exec this and CEO that and manager of this and project manager that, all in compliance to somebody else's dream. I had to go through and still go through the same thing. I've been at this job. I reached the director, boom. Now what do I want to do? Well, just go up the corporate ladder. Well, if you got a chance to redesign it, what would it look like? Well, for me, it wasn't doing the corporate chase at that moment anymore. I'm not getting any younger. What else is out here before I chalk up the deuces? But everybody has to confront what they want or it will be decided for you. And that way of living unconsciously just adhering to somebody else's plan because no one is coming to save you Yep.

Speaker 1:

Yep, yep, your life is going to happen by design and default.

Speaker 1:

And where the other by design and default, and so as we move through this and we get it, like I said, this is part one. I think the most important part of this, to recap, is that one your talent, your skills, your credentials are nothing without discipline. Yeah, but you can't even hone the discipline, or even talk about starting to change your routine to make a way for this discipline, if you're working uphill because you're not even working towards what you want. So, as we bring this part to a close, what we really want you guys to do is take some time and think about what you actually want to do and where you actually want to apply your discipline, because your discipline is connected to your time, and your time should be spent on things that you actually want to do in the manifest, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So this is part one. Hey, part one, man. Hey, I'm looking forward to part two because we got a lot of titillating discussion today.

Speaker 1:

Hey, if this hit for you guys this first discussion, this first part please let us know, like, hit us up, like if there's a direction that you want to go or something that you're struggling with around discipline that you would like us to talk about as we start to apply the different strategies for applying discipline. We would love to hear that from you. Also, you can follow us on social media. You can listen and share and like. This is going to be really good, this is going to be really good, but we're going to start with what is it that you want for yourself really, so that if we're going to be disciplined and we're going to change up our time and how we maneuver our life, it's around the design that we want?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's got to be a why that isn't connected to, or it just becomes a bunch of behaviors that are well-intentioned, but we'll lose its consistency, we'll lose its flavor as we move on.

Speaker 1:

So behavior that sound right in the moment.

Speaker 2:

If 100%. Oh, look at me. Oh man, you about to do that. Yeah, man, I'm about to do it. Man, I've been thinking about it for a while now. You know it's really starting. I'm really about to do this. Hey, how's that thing going five months later? Oh, yeah, you know, some stuff came up, but, man, I ain't forgot about it. Uh-oh, now we're talking about accountability. But anyway man tune in next week for the next iteration of part two of your. What's the name of the song? The Down is Not Enough.

Speaker 1:

Get this All right. Let's go All right. Let's go All right. Let's go All right. Let's go All right. Let's go All right. Let's go All right, let's go All right.

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