Winning Through Relentlessness

Self-Discipline

By Robert Ringer

"Time is money" has become something of an axiom. And though I believe virtually everyone agrees that it's a truism, I'm also convinced that most people only pay lip service to it. If you're really serious about the proposition that time is money, you need to come to grips with the reality that the key ingredient for converting time into money is self-discipline.

As an author, I've evolved into such a self-discipline addict that for years I've actually worked on trying to ease up a bit and move more toward the center. I took self-discipline to such an extreme that I actually reached a point of diminishing returns.

If you feel you have problems with your self-discipline, I'll share something with you that will give you hope. Throughout my teen years and most of my twenties, I was instant-gratification oriented to an extreme. I was self-disciplined in some areas — in sports, for example. Also in my profession as a real estate broker, where I relentlessly followed through on deals until they were closed. But in most other areas of my life, I displayed a shameful lack of self-discipline. Cliched as it may be, if I can become self-disciplined, anyone can.

I believe the greatest catalyst for an undisciplined person is pain, which comes in a wide variety of packages. The most obvious example is physical pain, which can be the catalyst for becoming self-disciplined when it comes to exercise and healthy eating.

Financial pain can be the catalyst for having the self-discipline to work when you're tired or sick, or when you'd rather be out having fun with everyone else. And then there's the pain that comes from a lost love, which can be the catalyst that gives you the self-discipline to put forth the effort to be a better partner when love comes your way again.

If pain does not motivate a person to become more self-disciplined, the outlook for his future is grim, at best. In the most extreme cases, a lack of self-discipline can lead to homelessness and/or premature death.

Years ago, when I was still single, I became good friends with a professional football player ("Bill") who had gained a great deal of national prominence for his stellar play in the National Football League. He not only was a phenomenal athlete, he was handsome, had great verbal skills, and possessed extraordinary talents in many other areas outside of sports. Above all, he was extremely intelligent.

Our relationship began when Bill approached me at the health club we both belonged to and introduced himself. He told me that my first book, Winning through Intimidation, had become his "bible," and expressed how much he admired me. Obviously, I was flattered.

Early on in our friendship, I found that Bill had been working on a novel for a couple of years, but was having trouble completing it. And as I got to know him over the next three years, the reason for this became very transparent. Notwithstanding everything he had going for him, he was totally lacking in one important area of success: self-discipline.

While I admit that this was a stage in my life when I was attracted to the proposition of having a good time, I never allowed that attraction to get in the way of my work. I normally went to bed between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., got up around 4:30 a.m., jogged a few miles (sometimes starting out in the dark), and was at my desk by 8:00 a.m. or so. As a result, over the three-year period that I was friends with Bill, I managed to write two more books, both of them bestsellers..

Under tremendous time pressure, I did about twenty-five drafts of each book, and always succeeded in meeting my deadlines. In addition, I undertook a number of speaking engagements and traveled nationwide as a frequent guest on radio and television shows.

Through it all, Bill was constantly urging me to go to one party or another or go out on the town and "live it up" with him. And I was constantly telling him that I had to work. As a result, he often chided me with such statements as, "C'mon, don't be a party pooper. Lighten up. You've got to let it all hang out sometimes."

The result was that during this three-year period, while I was finishing two more books that laid the foundation for my career, Bill spent his non-partying time moaning and groaning about changing the plot of his novel, endlessly reorganizing his material, and tinkering with — of all things — the title. To me, these appeared to be nothing more than self-delusive stalling tactics to avoid the gut-wrenching work of following through and actually bringing his book to completion.

Which means he missed his window of opportunity, because, as everyone knows, fame is fleeting. While he was playing in the NFL, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to find a major publisher for his book. When you get your shot in life, you have to take it. The door closes very quickly once you're out of the limelight.

When I look back on my relationship with Bill, there were two defining moments for me. The first occurred during my stretch drive on one of my books, when I was putting in fourteen-to-sixteen-hour workdays, seven days a week.

I vividly recall Bill looking very frustrated after one of my refusals to party with him, and saying to me, in a discouraged tone, "How could I ever compete with someone as self-disciplined as you? You would just wear me down through attrition, because you're so damn relentless." It was almost as though he were saying, "It's not fair."

It struck me how bizarre it was that this famous, good-looking, smart, multitalented person was telling me that he couldn't compete with me. Ridiculous, of course. The truth of the matter is that he could have written two or three best-selling novels in the time that I knew him. In fact, with 100 percent effort, he could have beaten me at just about anything.

In addition, with the slightest bit of initiative and persistence, he would have had a good shot at an acting career, or perhaps broadcasting. Doors were open to him that certainly were not open to me.

But the fact is that he made a choice. Specifically, he chose instant, daily, and (worse) nightly gratification over huge benefits down the road. (Interestingly, before, during, and after this three-year period, I found the time to vacation in Hawaii for periods ranging from ten days to several weeks — but I never went until the major project I was working on was 100 percent completed.)

Maybe Bill was just lazy, right? Well, the truth is that most of us are lazy at heart. In fact, there is evidence that most successful people are lazy, so they become self-disciplined out of necessity (as in pain avoidance).

The second defining moment for me in my relationship with Bill was when he told me that he had developed a great ability for bluffing his way though practice after a hard night out on the town. He said he had mastered the art of going through the motions in such a way that it appeared to the coaches that he was practicing at full throttle.

Unfortunately, Bill carried that same attitude into his aborted writing career and life beyond football. In my view, it's the primary reason he's not ensconced in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where others with less talent but far more self-discipline will be forever on display.

Self-discipline is about restraining, or regulating, one's actions — repressing the instinct to act impulsively in favor of taking rational actions that are long-term oriented. My short-lived friendship with Bill was immensely beneficial to me, because it made me realize that self-discipline — a single trait that every human being has the capacity to develop — gave me the power to outperform people who are far more intelligent and talented than I am.

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