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🚀 SUCCESS TIP

The Importance Of Self-Discipline For Skill Acquisition & Success In Life (As Show By Kobe Bryant, Elon Musk, The Beatles & Other High Achievers!)

Have you ever wondered what separates those who achieved extraordinary levels of ability, mastery & success from others who unfortunately do not? (The ‘secret to success,’ if you will…)

Well, while there is no 1 single ingredient that separates those who succeed from those who fail, there are a few core pillars — the most significant factors — that are central to the achievement process…

One of these factors (pre-requisites for achievement) is, of course, discipline & hard work, which is what we’re going to explore in this week’s newsletter…

Simply put: in order to achieve a world-class level of skill or results at something, you have to be self-disciplined & work hard at it (there is simply is no way around it & ‘overnight success’ is a myth)...

A good example of the type of hard work & discipline required to succeed at the absolute highest of levels (& you can scale back this extreme depending on your own goals & the level of ‘balance’ you want in your life)… is the story of the late Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest basketball players to ever grace the Earth…

But it wasn’t his so-called ‘talent’ or' ‘natural-born gifts’ that made him this extraordinary & successful (as we covered in a previous newsletter)… but more so, his immense discipline, astounding work ethic & true commitment to mastering his craft every day…

In the summer of 2012 for example, a professional trainer, Rob, was hired to train the USA Basketball Team that would be playing in the Olympics in London…

Upon his first interaction with Kobe, Rob gave Kobe his number & told him to call him any time he wanted to do some extra conditioning work (which is crucial to increasing performance & recovery for athletes during critical games)...

2 days later at 4:15 am, Kobe gave him a call…

“Rob, I hope I'm not disturbing anything right?”

“No, what's up Kobe?” Rob replied.

“Just wondering if you could just help me out with some conditioning work,” Kobe asked.

“Sure, I'll see you in the facility in a bit.”

This phone conversation happened at 4.15 am!

Approximately 20 minutes later, Rob walked into the training facility expecting to meet Kobe there to start the conditioning...

However, Kobe was already there…

He saw Kobe there, alone, completely dripping in sweat, already deep into his conditioning… (it wasn’t even 5 am yet!)

After about 2 hours of conditioning work together, Rob went back to get some quick rest before the day’s practice began… but Kobe went to the court to practice his shooting…

After about 2 hours of conditioning work together (7 am) Rob went back to his hotel to get some quick rest before the actual day’s practice began.

During that time, Kobe went to the court to practice his shooting…

11am - Rob arrived back at the facility to meet the rest of the USA basketball team.

They were talking & chatting waiting for training to begin, except 1 player; Kobe.

On the far side of the facility, he was there shooting hoops…

“Good work this morning” Rob said to Kobe.

“Yeah, thanks Rob. I really appreciate it” Kobe replied.

“So when did you finish?”

“Finish what?” Kobe asked.

“Getting your shots up. What time did you leave the facility?” Rob asked Kobe…

“Oh, just now. I wanted 800... so yeah, just now.”

Rob was shocked!

Kobe was drenched with sweat before 5 am, worked with Rob on conditioning for 2 hours, then made 800 shots over 4 hours until 11 am...

Most impressive of all, this was all PRE-training (meaning that the actual training was only about to begin & Kobe was going to be there)

He did all that… 6, almost 7 hours of hard work & training... before the official training with the team had even begun!

That’s work ethic.

That’s commitment.

That is world-class discipline.

Another highly-successful person who stands out for his discipline & hard work is Elon Musk; the man behind Tesla, SpaceX & other billion-dollar companies including most recently, Twitter (or ‘X’)...

While most people attempt to become extraordinary at what they do & achieve their goals by working 9-5 (& taking weekends off)... Elon Musk has regularly worked 100 hours per week (that’s an average of 14.28 hours per day 7 days per week)...

This means he works 2X & sometimes 3X times harder than everybody else…

One final great example we’ll include in this section are The Beatles who during the early stages of their career, went to Hamburg, Germany where they regularly performed on stage for 5 to 8 hours per day, 7 days a week (& they did this multiple times a year)...

That’s right, while most bands or musicians might do a 3-hour-long concert every few weeks (or months)...

The Beatles performed for up to 8 hours every night…

The diversity of these examples also shows that this applies to virtually everything… (& not just business, money, or entrepreneurship)

If you want to be a world-class artist, paint more (work harder)

If you want to be a famous musician, be more disciplined (work harder)

If you want better health, go to the gym & work hard at that goal you set for your body (be disciplined here.)

Whether you want to dominate an industry (or many of them, like Elon Musk) or you simply want to get a pay raise in your career, the path to get there is similar… that path is the sequential & strategic acquisition of skills, which in turn are acquired through disciplined time, effort & consistent.

So, yes, whatever dreams you have… self-discipline & hard work is a irreplaceable key for getting there.

And yes, the highest levels of achievement (extreme success) do usually require a disproportionate allocation of your time & attention…

Finally, the very things we value most in life, never come without self-discipline...

Great health & fitness does not come overnight.

Six-pack abs don’t just appear…

The ability to run marathons doesn’t come overnight…

It all takes hundreds & thousands of hours of disciplined training, sweat & work…

Great relationships, friendships & partnerships are never formed overnight either…

It may not appear to be ‘hard work’, but it is a form of commitment & discipline… it’s about doing the right thing, being a good person, showing up as the best possible friend, coworker, husband/wife, mother/father you can… consistently… every single day…

And it’s this consistent quality time, connection, shared experience & understanding that builds great friendships, intimate relationships, family bonds, an amazing relationship with your kids or solid business partnership.

So, ask yourself…

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💭 QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Contrary to popular belief, there is actually a bit of ‘science’ to luck & there are ways that you can create more ‘luck’ in your life…

…including yes, working hard at your craft (‘discipline’) which in turn allows you to fully seize opportunities when they come about as you have the knowledge, skills & abilities to do so.

‎‍🧠 MIND HACK

The Power Of Regret

Imagine carrying a backpack filled with rocks, each one representing a moment of regret in your life…

It's heavy, it's burdensome & worst of all, it's tethered to the past — a time beyond our reach & control (we can’t change it!)

Regret, a complex emotion rooted in hindsight & the painful recognition of our previous mistakes, often emerges as the most excruciating form of psychological discomfort…

But what if we told you that this very pain could also be re-channeled into something positive & a way to improve ourselves & our lives…

And no, the ethos of regret as a catalyst for change isn't new or novel, but deeply rooted in human psychology…

Consider the world's high performers (such as the ones we started this newsletter with, amongst countless others)… they’ve mastered the art of turning fails & regret into a stepping stone for unparalleled success in the future.

They don't merely set goals; they harness the stark reality of past pains — those moments of failure, disappointment, and lost opportunities — to fuel their journey forward.

You can do this too if you’d like…

How? Well, the next time you fail & feel the negative emotion that usually comes wit that, instead of numbing or looking to avoid that pain, consider feeling it (& feeling it fully!)… & use that as motivation to move forward (remembering exactly what that pain feels like so it motivates you to never want to feel that pain again).

(after all, that’s what the evolutionary purpose of negative emotions like regret is… to move us away from the things that invoke them.)

And so, precisely this (past failures, regrets & moments of strong pain) are a big part of the ‘motivation mechanism’ of high achievers!

What you can also do is use regret as a way to improve your decision-making…

Daniel Pink shares about this in his enlightening book "The Power of Regret," which dives deep how this emotion & explore all of the ways it can guide us, including improving our future decision-making…

In the book, he categorizes regrets into domains that reflect our basic human needs: opportunities not taken, connections not nurtured, standards not upheld & self-perceptions unfulfilled.

By understanding & categorizing our regrets in this manner, we can use them as a diagnostic tool — a compass pointing toward what truly matters to us.

Jeff Bezos also famously used a method for decision making (it’s actually the strategy that helped him to make the decision of starting what is now e-commerce giant Amazon & the company would probably not exist without it) called the ‘Regret Minimization Framework’… where he projects himself into the future & asks…

^ that’s the one you usually should make.

And if you’d like to learn more frameworks, methods & mental models proven to improve your decision-making & results, check out our other, companion newsletter, titled:

‘Frameworks For Life’

We do the heavy lifting & grunt work of meticulously researching, studying & curating the best insights, concepts & frameworks to help you make more intelligent decisions & get ahead in life... & delivering those to you (in simple terms, easy to implement) every single week..

…ultimately, helping you to achieve more of the results, the success, happiness & wellbeing you truly deserve in this life!

👉 Click here to claim your V.I.P. access for free »

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