Win Today

#180 | How To Build Unshakeable Discipline: [2025 Goals Series]

• Season 4

Share episode

Send us a text

Discipline is not just a trait but a series of habits and mindsets that can shape your life. This episode discusses the value of discipline and how to cultivate unshakable habits amid life's challenges, all while preparing listeners for a transformative 2025. 
• Understanding the complexities and challenges of discipline 
• Shifting mindset toward opportunities for growth 
• Defining unshakable discipline and its impact on goals 
• Personal experiences that illustrate the journey to discipline 
• Steps to build systems that support habits and discipline 
• Importance of setting clear goals for personal success 
• Embracing challenges as a part of growth

Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!

Speaker 1:

How do I get the desire to have discipline? How do I get the desire to have discipline? I keep getting asked this type of question how do I get discipline? Or how do I want discipline, or how do I maintain discipline? And the answer's it's a simple answer.

Speaker 1:

It's not easy and there's all kinds of little tricks and methods that people talk about and you know they have some merit. You know, maybe they do work. These, these things, you know, do the little things people say and wake up early I say that and write things down and take cold showers and tell everyone what you're going to do, so broadcast it and make promises or make bets with your friends of something that you don't want to lose. And those things, those ideas. They're cool. I'm sure they're going to have some impact and if they work for you, that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

But the fact of the matter is that the reason discipline is hard to maintain is because it is hard to maintain. That's what makes discipline hard. It's hard. And if you hear me claim that discipline is easy for me, then straight up and straight up, that's just my ego talking. That's what that is, because I'm unfortunately just as human as everyone else and it is work to maintain the discipline. That's what it is. Work, holding the line, maintaining the standard, giving no slack, none. That's the discipline. That's the discipline and it is here. And if there's one thing I would say that doesn't make it easier, it's to do what it feels like when you're done.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Win Today podcast, a weekly resource thoughtfully crafted to equip people with tools to build and refine discipline, accomplish your goals, fortify your mindset and be of service to somebody in this world. My name is Ryan Cass and I am your host, and every week, you will learn from either myself or a renowned expert in their field, where we will educate and inspire you and give away pieces of our winning playbooks for you to incorporate into your life. If you love the show, please hit the subscribe button, share with somebody who you believe will benefit from it, and leave a rating and review so we can continue to grow and inspire more people in this world. We believe that everybody in this world is meant to do something great with their lives and we're here to play a role in that. Thank you for tuning in and let's win today.

Speaker 3:

Man, it's probably tough not to get super jacked up when you hear from the great Jocko Willink and that's an excerpt from his podcast. So I took that Occasionally find clips from people that I find to be very inspiring, motivating and renowned thought leaders and pull them. Hopefully YouTube doesn't take it down for copyright reasons. I also think about that, too is one day when this podcast gets really big and those things come into play more often. Then hopefully they don't get taken down, but I am citing the source, so hopefully that that means something, and Jocko said it really well there that discipline. So the reason why we're talking about discipline in this episode, a couple of reasons. One I said that this is what it's going to be about a few weeks ago as we continue this 2025 goal series and if you're listening on the release date, we have eight days left in 2024, which is mind-boggling for everyone, I'm sure. What a year. And we have one more Monday to take advantage of besides this one. So one more Monday look forward to.

Speaker 3:

We love Mondays and it's my wish that, if you're listening and you're one of the Monday blues, people like oh, it's Monday that this starts the shift of that mentality. Of that mentality, because every day and every week, we get the opportunity to do so many things and live this life and be free, and if you're living or listening to this right now, that means that, a you're getting to live this life. B you have access to technology that many people would love to have. So, therefore, be grateful and look for opportunities to shift your mindset. What are things that you find yourself saying that don't align to someone that is disciplined or someone that is living the life that you likely crave? I find that people that we often admire are not those that are waking up saying, oh, it's Monday. They're probably the people waking up hell yeah, it's Monday, let's go. So I love that.

Speaker 3:

Jocko mentioned that discipline isn't the easiest thing in the world, and the intent of this is to share how to build unshakable discipline in 2025. And what does that mean? How to do it, and then how to do it when life presents itself to you, meaning that, I believe a lot of frameworks are presented, and, whether it's on the podcast or in books, a lot of frameworks are presented. Here's how to build discipline. Here's how to build your financial plan so you can be free. Here's how to build rock star habits that will blow up your following and all these things. Here's how to do this and how to do that, and all of that stuff is noble, and the people talking about them are clearly those most of them are clearly those that actually utilize those frameworks. They've developed them, they've found them to be useful.

Speaker 3:

What I find is that a lot of folks will share frameworks as if life presents itself with no obstacles, meaning all right if you just wake up early. Like Jocko says, wake up early and you will be free. Yes, there is a lot of validity to that. Now, what about wake up early after the dog was throwing up all night, or the kid was crying up? The kid was crying all night, or you were at work super late? Then what? How do we be disciplined then? What's the reality? And the reality is that life will always show itself to you, sometimes by your doing and sometimes by things that are outside of your control the puking dog, the crying baby, the late night at work, all those things. So we're going to talk about what is unshakable discipline in my definition, how to build it for 2025, and then how to actually maintain it when life presents itself to you.

Speaker 3:

So, unshakable discipline, now, this is special in many reasons. One is that the Unshakable Discipline Mastermind Group, an online course, is something I created this year. That has been in work for a long time, and it's my desire to help people build discipline and systems that enable them to accomplish their goals, break systemic trends of adversity and chart a desirable course for life. Discipline is the glue really the fuel, if you will to fund all these things. Theoretically, discipline is currency, but the way I define unshakable discipline because discipline, I hate discipline, this sucks, this is stupid. I'm getting smacked and getting grounded all the damn time. I don't like discipline and growing up later in life, my first exposure to it was through the sport of wrestling and then ultimately, going to a military college.

Speaker 3:

The way I define discipline is living life by design, and unshakable discipline means. Unshakable simply means always, so always, living life by your design and pursuing life by your design. Now, I highly doubt that anyone's ideal life design especially if you're listening to this, that anyone's ideal life design, especially if you're listening to this is waking up late, eating Cheetos off your chest, scrolling on your phone all day, getting mad at yourself for not investing in personal development, or leaving a bunch of books on the table, buying more books than you read or buying more resources than you actually use. I highly doubt that life by design means that you're constantly in a financial struggle because you can't shut down your spending habits, all these things.

Speaker 3:

Living life by design while that's going to differ from person to person it likely means that you are healthy, that you're fit, that you're involved in the community, in making others better and making yourself better. You are interested in creating freedom, time freedom, financial freedom all of these things. So, no matter what, unshakable discipline is that you are always in pursuit of those things, regardless of how cold it is outside, if it's raining, if it's 100 degrees out, if your dog threw up in the middle of the night, if you're going through layoffs at work, if you're going through tough stuff in your family, you are going to keep showing up, no matter what, because you have unshakable habits and an unshakable mindset that is constantly propelling you to push forward to your goals and creating that desired life. That, to me, is unshakable discipline Always creating and living life in design and pursuing lifestyle design, which I believe is a fascinating topic, and I wish that, by defining it that way, that that may help at least one person build a better relationship with the word discipline and the thought of discipline. That it's not. This definition of discipline equals waking up at 4 am, eating nails and barbed wire for breakfast and running 25 miles a day. That's not the definition of discipline. Now, a disciplined person minus eating barbed wire and nails which Jocko or David Goggins, they might actually do, that I wouldn't be surprised To them. That's their lifestyle design that it is the 4 am alarm clock and constantly doing extremely rigorous and extremely mundane things. But they're choosing that over the Doritos and the feeling sorry and all of those things. So they're living life by design and it doesn't matter what gets in the way.

Speaker 3:

What's the value of discipline and why should we choose it? What is the value of discipline when someone is highly disciplined or unshakably disciplined? I believe that that is what, that that is what creates abundance in so many different facets of life. The value of discipline, the value of unshakable discipline, is infinite because it creates and introduces so many different types of freedom. There are multiple different types of freedom and even multiple types of wealth, and that's fueled by your discipline and your commitment to the craft. I'm looking forward to having Sahil Bloom on the podcast next month. Many of you may be familiar with him and he's about to release a book, the Five Types of Wealth, and the five types of wealth being financial wealth, social wealth, health wealth like literally health wealth and meaning that wealth isn't just this thing that is related to money. Therefore, it's important that discipline is applied in multiple facets of life.

Speaker 3:

My first introduction to discipline and the power of it real discipline, not the discipline that my parents gave me is growing up, I was far from a disciplined person. In the household that I was in, I was often very angry and avoided doing a lot of things that were positive meaning for myself. Rather, on the outside, I was involved in a lot of things sports related and whatnot, but on the inside, when it came to personal development and the really taking a charge on the past, it wasn't all there. And then I found the sport of wrestling in ninth grade freshman year. I'll never forget Adam Murillo, high school 101 teacher, who I'm going to see this coming week at practice because I still go back to wrestling practice whenever I'm home pulled me aside. He said hey, cass, how much do you weigh? And I was a 5'2", 108 pound freshman at the time, not even 5'2". I think I might've been 5'1", 5 foot, but I was 108 pounds and I was a 108 coach. He said we thought about wrestling. Not really. I thought I wanted to be a baseball player because I'd been playing baseball for years and competitively, and wanted to make the high school baseball team. I did not make the high school baseball team, rather no, I didn't make my travel team again and that turned me off of baseball and I remember.

Speaker 3:

Coming back to Coach Murillo, okay, I'll give this wrestling thing a shot. And workouts started in September preseason workouts and I was excited to get on the mats and I was surprised that for the first two months we didn't touch a wrestling mat. All we did was conditioning and ran hills for hours and lifted weights and I was wondering why the heck are we not on the wrestling mats? I thought I signed up to wrestle. Why aren't we touching the equipment?

Speaker 3:

And wrestling is so much of an endurance sport that if you don't have an extremely strong cardio engine, you will not survive. And a wrestling match in high school is six minutes and collegiate it's seven minutes. So three two-minute periods in high school. In college it's one three-minute period and two two-minute periods and you'd think six or seven minutes, that's nothing. A six-minute match or if it really goes the distance into overtime, into the additional overtime periods and sudden death, can be up to 10 to 20 minutes long, depending on how far into overtime it goes, time it goes. One match can feel like an absolute eternity if you're not in shape, and those six minutes can feel like six hours in hell. And so all we did was run and run and run and sprints and hills and buddy carries up hills you name it up hills. We did it and I'm thinking, man, this is, I don't know about this. And then, finally, when we got to the mats, I definitely felt a good cardio advantage.

Speaker 3:

But now I didn't know anything about wrestling and I was getting my ass kicked every day, literally every day, getting my face shoved in the mat, just getting absolutely tortured in the best way possible. And I found that that sport. I started to fall in love with it because one it gave me an outlet where, even though I wasn't very good at it yet at the time, I could go for two hours a day after school and just brawl and not get in trouble for it. I was also very angry with things going on at home between my parents and ultimately those years were the years that were leading up to their divorce. I would go and brawl on the wrestling mat day in and day out and started dedicating really my life to that sport, every day, waking up at 4 am before school to go work out, go to school, go to practice, go back, work out again. All I wanted to do was get better at wrestling, but my academic discipline and discipline for everything else was non-existent. But the physical part was starting to come together.

Speaker 3:

And then I went to the Citadel, which is a military college, which surprised my parents. But why did I go there? Big reason why I went there is because by going there you become as long as you allow the system to shape you, you become extremely disciplined. The school is a hallmark of discipline and I noticed that the grads that I'd met in the Charlotte area where I grew up, the grads I met in high school. Something was right about these people and I was very curious what is it about these guys that are so successful and they're great leaders, they're great fathers, they're great husbands, they're great community leaders at least the ones that I had come across, which I believe were put in my life for a reason I want to go there and I want to make sure that there's no chance that I can carry on this trend of alcoholism in my family.

Speaker 3:

It was an absolute shell shock. Good news is that I had the physical discipline component down before getting there, but academic discipline and those other we'll call it those types of wealth again non-existent. But I learned how to study. I learned how to plan things in advance, how to build systems, how to align my behaviors and habits, how to build habits that were positive and how to eliminate distractions. That place changed my life by allowing the system to shape me, and between wrestling and the Citadel I found that those really were the two environments that promoted the most discipline and gave me the discipline that I have in my life today, so that I can teach you all and work with people and speak to groups all over the country and work with people all over the country and the world, teaching them how to build systems and discipline and habits that again enable them to reach their goals. What a beautiful thing.

Speaker 3:

And I wouldn't change a thing about those difficult moments. I wouldn't change a thing about the environments being as tough as they were, because they provided the tools to create so many things, to create this podcast. To allow me to tell you about discipline and share a little bit of a testimony that, from the original introduction, when I was 15 years old, to now, 17 years later, as a 32-year-old 32 year old Discipline has been the fuel to create so many things that you see from me today, and I believe that when people become because I really think this is discipline, is a process of becoming. It's not something that you just have. I really believe in wiring this stuff into your DNA to where it's really. It's a part of who you are. It's not something you have, but when you have and when you become, rather, when you become unshakable, when you become unshakable discipline.

Speaker 2:

I'm thrilled to talk about the Unshakable Discipline Mastermind Group. This has been my baby that I've been working on for the last couple years, and it is now out and available and perfectly timed as we enter the new year. If you are looking to level up in 2025 and be surrounded with more like-minded and ambitious individuals and grow in multiple areas of your life that you deem is most important to you, then this is exactly who we want to have in the Unshakable Discipline Mastermind. This mastermind is all about surrounding yourself with driven individuals who are committed to personal and professional growth, success and excellence, and every week, we have a mastermind session where we learn from some of the best thought leaders, authors and CEOs in the world Many who have been on this podcast before. They're going to provide actionable and invaluable insights and strategies and tools to help you achieve your biggest goals, refine your mindset, be more present with your family, excel personally and professionally, and everything in between. Also, on a monthly basis, we host challenges designed to push you out of your comfort zone, help you grow and, ultimately, give back more in the community and be a vessel of service.

Speaker 2:

You also get the Unshakable Discipline course, which is something that I've created over 13 years of practice and research in the domain of personal development and goals and discipline, pushing your body and mind to greater heights than you believed possible. This is my exact playbook that I've been working on since 2011 that you get in a self-paced course. Right now, we're offering membership at 30% off for the first 20 founding members. Go to unshakabledisciplinecom that is unshake as in milkshake, disciplinecom and you can experience the course, be around amazing people, all for a very small investment $67 a month right now and you'll get that locked in for life and have access to the course and any future courses that are developed. Unshakabledisciplinecom. I wish to have the opportunity to work with you in the new year. Let's go.

Speaker 3:

Life becomes limitless, truly limitless, because you have all of the resources available. You've built systems that align with your goals. You've built systems that are pushing you forward and you will be. You will be your dream, and I wish that this is also selling you on the why. So I said what's the value of discipline, but really, here's why you should invest in becoming unshakable discipline in 2025. So how do we actually do that? How do we build unshakable discipline? How do we become unshakable discipline?

Speaker 3:

Discipline starts with first get clear on what it is that you want and what you desire. We often ask the question how do you become more disciplined? Well, let's start with what is it that you want to create? Or maybe discipline is something that you believe you have now, but there's a part of life that you don't feel as disciplined in, that you want to grow more disciplined in. Okay, what is that thing? What is the area of life that you want to be more disciplined in? And this is going to actually help you push towards something that's meaningful, because we say I want to build more discipline, let me, let me, let me build more discipline. Give me the tools. Awesome, cool, thank you, but for what reason? What's the driving force. And if you need help with that, here's a question to ask what's important to you in life and what does success look like? Two questions and ruminate on those for a little while. That'll help you really become clear on what you want. And then, once you've done that, now we're going to identify the habits that align and support that thing or that area.

Speaker 3:

So the most common one that I bring up is let's say that you want to run your first marathon. You want to run a marathon. How about that? Okay, what habits support that thing? Probably getting up early, having a routine workout schedule, eating healthy, following a clean diet, running and doing strength workouts. Those are all things that you want to make habits. Stretching in the morning easy things easy. Easy in theory, not always easy in execution because of life, but we're going to cover that in a minute.

Speaker 3:

Now build a system around it. That's the third step. Build a system. Goals are great. Systems are what enable you to reach your goals. Your systems are built off of your habits and your habits, again, are fueled by what. What is fuel? Discipline, discipline. Build a system around it. Are you in a running group who are two to three runners that have ran a marathon before. Who, not how? Who knows that you want to run a marathon? Put it out there in the world that you want to run a marathon and you're going to, because now you are going to hold yourself accountable to your word and if you value being your word, then you will push forward towards that thing. And the last step with that is repeat, repeat, repeat. Get clear on what you want, identify the habits that support that thing, build a system around it and repeat, no matter what, no matter what, no matter how it feels, no matter how cold it is, no matter how tired you are, no matter how much you don't want to do it.

Speaker 3:

It's simple in theory and if and if I could be a resource there again, there are many ways that we can do that. I'm taking on a few one-on-one clients in 2025. I will say right off the bat one-on-one clients in 2025. I will say right off the bat if you're not 100% committed and someone that isn't willing to invest a significant portion of your time and financial resources, that might not be the option for you. We also have the mastermind group. I'm happy to answer questions, but we're not going to go super in depth on that part. Now here's what I will go more in depth on. Here's the reality.

Speaker 3:

Everything I just said there is easy in terms of theory. Execution is another thing, and that's the back to what Jocko mentioned. That's the hard part. Waking up early in theory is easy. You wake up early. Waking up early in execution can be difficult. Why? Because you're tired, you're sore. Who knows what happened the night before, the day before? So stuff will attempt to get in your way, whether it's by your doing attempt to get in your way, whether it's by your doing like okay, you stayed up too late, screwing off on Instagram, or by external doing that the power went out, the dog threw up. Now how do we stay on the path, regardless of what may attempt to get in the way, what may attempt to get in the way? That's where I believe constantly pushing and testing your limits comes into play Doing something that you deem to be extremely hard on a fairly routine basis, so that you can tell your body and mind, or convince your body and mind, that you can do extremely hard things, so that puking dog, the crying baby, the tough day at work, the rain outside, the 31 degrees outside seem nothing but trivial because you've put your body and mind through things that are a thousand times more difficult. That's the beauty of putting yourself in the arena day in and day out, constantly testing and pushing your limits. So one thing, that now it's getting cold that I love doing. I say I love doing, but in the moment I don't love it very much. It's getting into the twenties and thirties.

Speaker 3:

Here in Charleston, south Carolina, in the mornings I love to run in the morning before work. That's often, some days, the only time that I have available because of what's going on after work or recording a podcast after work or recording a podcast. So when I'm going out in these morning runs, I go out and 90% of the time I am shirtless and I run shirtless not to show off or whatever. I run shirtless because it is hard to wake up in a nice comfy bed, come downstairs in an air conditioned home that's 70 degrees and then go outside and your skin and body is completely exposed to 30 degree temperatures. It's basically like walking into a cold plunge and I understand that by doing this, that okay if I can go run 10 miles in 30 degree weather or even if it's raining and it's 34, so it's just cold like sleet rain and do that repeatedly, day in and day out, then I know in many cases that's going to be the hardest thing that will take place that day. That will be 10 times harder than the tough conversation at work. That will be 10 times harder than having to stay late one day or two days or whatever the case may be. So when I'm constantly testing my body and mind, I know that I'm also proving to myself that, hey, you can do hard things, and when things attempt to get in your way, they're nothing but little pebbles, baby, they're nothing but little pebbles. So how can you, how can you do that? How can you incorporate that into your life?

Speaker 3:

Do things, challenge yourself, push yourself to do things you don't want to do. Maybe it is really hard for you to wake up early in the morning. Go do it a few times. Fight and resist the urge to get back in bed and sleep until eight o'clock and skip your workout. Take a cold shower and I'm not talking about the soft approach either, where people jump in the shower when it's warm and then switch it to cold. Jump in that sucker when it's freaking cold. Start cold and finish cold. Or, if you really want to. Yeah, start cold and finish cold. Stop doing this soft crap of getting in there, being nice and comfortable for two minutes and then being cold for 30 seconds. That's easy. Go get in the whole time. When it's cold, go do a cold plunge. Go do something, do things that are going to constantly test your body and mind.

Speaker 3:

I was running with someone the other day and he asked you know why do you do ultra marathons? And this is where you can do the occasional test here. These are the occasional tests. Why do you do ultra marathons? And there's a variety of reasons, but one of them being that I told them I love to explore what is possible of the body and mind and I love to explore what is possible of myself and constantly test where the breaking point might be. Most recently, I did 150-mile ultramarathon back and forth on a five-mile span of bridge, so back and forth 30 times.

Speaker 3:

Not the most fun experience in the world, very challenging. But what did that do? What did that create? It proved that, hey, I can go for nearly two days straight Nearly two days straight and really push the distance. If I can do that, man, what's an early morning wake up? What's a 10 mile tough run. That thing that may have been avoided in the past before becoming unshakable discipline is a home run. Now, there's always going to be the voices. The voices will always come visit you, but that's why I encourage people do something that you deem to be hard and hard by your definition, or whatever to be hard and hard by your definition, or whatever you believe to be hard by your definition. Now push past it, even if it's by one degree.

Speaker 3:

If you're somebody that maybe you don't enjoy running because you don't need you don't need to go do an ultra marathon but a 5k is your limit or you believe that to be your limit Go run a 10k. 10k is your limit or your perceived limit. Go run a half marathon and attempt to run it at a fast pace or whatever you deem to be a challenging pace. I'm getting ready, for I just got accepted into the Spartan death race, which I'll talk about more in two weeks, and a big reason for doing that again is it's it's it can go up to 72 hours. You don't know what all is going to be thrown at you and it's one of the most brutal races of all time.

Speaker 3:

Like there's Navy SEALs and Green Berets that haven't made it through this thing, if rather, by doing that and going through whatever the heck they're going to put me through there, part of that is so that I can explore and test my limits and go through something extremely hard Practice what I'm preaching to you guys, but it's to show my body and mind and take my body and mind to a new level so that, being unshakable discipline is a little bit easier in execution. So we've got the framework that's covered. Simply get clear on what you want, identify the habits, build a system around it and go and go and go and go. But the reality is, again, it will get difficult because we don't know what life will throw at us. How do we push past the things that life may throw at us?

Speaker 3:

Do hard things. Wake up early, go jump in the cold plunge. Go. Do something that you don't believe you can do right now. Cold plunge. Go. Do something that you don't believe you can do right now. Go sign up for tests on a quarterly basis. Go do tough things. Read two books in a week instead of one. Doesn't always have to be physical.

Speaker 3:

I'm so adamant about these things because I understand the power of it and its discipline. That has also been the key component in ending this generational curse that's existed in my family, and many of you listening probably have a desire to end some trend in your family or be the first one to start something new. Or really, you just have a commitment that you've made to a group of people or your family that they're going to have an amazing life, and you're you're you're the captain of the ship that is destined to create it and you have all the tools and by building or becoming unshakable discipline, you're going to create whatever it is that you want in this life and then some. Because by developing this framework and by constantly testing yourself, putting yourself in the arena, you will prove yourself right time and time again, that you can and that you will. And when you do these things, as we go into this new year in 2025 and focus on becoming unshakable discipline, 2025 can be.

Speaker 3:

There's no reason why 2025 won't be your absolute best year, no matter what life throws at you, because unshakable people, unshakable discipline, views life and the tough things that life may bring as just opportunities Opportunities to grow, opportunities to learn, opportunities to serve, opportunities to pivot. We don't see life as these things of positive and negative it's positive, and learning it's positive, and growth, it's positive, and opportunity. You are unstoppable, my friends, and it's my wish that you become unshakable in 2025. Let's go.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Ryan Cass

Host