Welcome back and congratulations on the momentum you have generated so far. It will come in handy now as we tackle the root cause of all despair - our addiction to pleasure.
When I talk about pleasure, I don't mean happiness. Happiness comes from within and is authentic, healthy, and aligned with the greater good. Pleasure, on the other hand, is what we seek to soothe ourselves with when we aren't happy. It’s external, something ingested or acquired. Sometimes referred to as “desire,” “indulgence,” or even “laziness.”
Unlike happiness, pleasure is the short-term gratification that often comes at the expense of the long-term, greater good. In other words, pleasure can be an obstacle to what we truly want and who we are truly becoming.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, offers us a simple and effective litmus test. He says, “We value the present more than the future, so… As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure we get from action, the more strongly we should question whether it aligns with our long-term goals.”
When you have trouble doing what you want to be doing, or not doing what you don’t want to be doing, you are out of alignment with your own integrity. And this causes despair. It repels others and slows you down.
The reason this is hard is because the most tempting form of pleasure is instant gratification. The immediacy of the dopamine hit is a strong temptation.
Discipline is what counterbalances this. It’s the choice to delay gratification for the long-term greater good. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”
One of my favorite clients struggled with profit. They were addicted to spending more money than they made. It went all the way to the top and was pervasive on the leadership team. They had a problem with discipline - when it mattered most, they made decisions that felt good in the moment but didn’t pay off in the long term.
They tried to grow themselves into profitability by selling more, raising their prices, and doing more marketing. Those are noble disciplines in their own right and were certainly part of their growth plan. But they weren’t enough to counter their spending habits.
When they started implementing EOS®, they used the weekly Level 10 Meeting™ and the Scorecard to focus on the measurables that were off track and specifically their expenses. By reviewing them every week, they brought awareness to their addictive habit. Over time, they finally broke the cycle, created discipline around spending, and freed themselves of these old patterns.
More than any one tool, EOS® provides a comprehensive system for discipline. It works because it creates a framework to help you and your team overcome the temptation of short-term, instant gratification and prioritize your own set of values.
When you start to make disciplined decisions, you start to free yourself from the behaviors and habits that hold you back. And this is true not just at the company level or the team level but at the individual level too. At the end of the day, your organization is a collection of individuals who are also growing and learning new and better ways of doing things. As goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the organization.
The superpower of discipline is habit. Discipline is the catalyst for change that creates new habits. Once the habit is formed, the discipline required to maintain it reduces. People who create healthy habits go on to use their discipline as catalysts to layer on new habits. They create a foundation of healthy habits that allow them freedom from short-term gratification so that they can create new capabilities and open new potential.
Next week, you’re going to learn how these last two choices form together to create a new way of doing things that will attract others to you and accelerate your journey.
Until then, enjoy your journey!
Big Love,
Philip
