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HI Bogdan,
Thanks for inviting me to your forum and for the quote! Here is an article that fits in well with this!
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You Must Be Prepared To Pay The Price
- by Stuart Goldsmith
(c) 2005 Stuart Goldsmith - Worldwide Rights Reserved
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Successful people know that they must sacrifice
something today in order to achieve a lot more
tomorrow.
For years I denied to myself that this was one of the
secrets of becoming a millionaire, or achieving
anything else of note for that matter.
I think the reason that I avoided naming this secret
was because I dislike the word 'discipline.' There's
something Dickensian about it - more than a whiff of
the workhouse and shades of 'honest toil for the
bosses,' but there isn't a better single word which
adequately covers this concept.
'Focused Will' is close, but that's two words. Single
words work better for concepts like these, so we're
stuck with discipline.
In my discussions with other multi-millionaires, this
was the word they used most frequently when trying to
explain their success. I became really excited when I
finally accepted this. A lot of things fell into place.
This was the key concept which differentiated the rich
from the poor; the successful from the failures.
Discipline.
Without it, you're one of the 80%+ - the failures in
life. Remember, this is not my judgement on others - I
have no right to judge. These people are failures by
their own admission and definitions. If you were to ask
them if they feel they have succeeded in life, or
failed, they would readily confess to having failed,
although they would, of course, blame factors outside
of themselves for this failure.
With discipline, you have a good chance of rising above
the crowd and retiring early as a wealthy man or woman.
Everything I write is aimed at preventing you from
reaching retirement with nothing. If you reach
retirement as a pauper dependant upon charity, having
lived a life of quiet desperation, frustrated, never
having achieved anything much of note, not really
having had a good time (apart from the odd high point),
never having dreamed, never beaten a real challenge,
then your life is a failure by any standards, but
certainly by your own. Of course, if you are happy in
your powerlessness and poverty, then none of this
matters.
Are you a disciplined person, in general?
There are hundreds of indicators of a disciplined mind,
not one of which is essential, but put together, they
start to add up to a pattern.
Can you get up in the morning? Are your shoes clean,
your hair and teeth brushed? Are your car and house
tidy? Are your personal papers (gas bills, bank
statements, etc.) filed in some sort of reasonable
order? Do you turn out a good job of work, even when
nobody is looking? Do you ever get drunk? (No
disciplined person would ever get drunk!). Do
you use recreational drugs?
I could think of five hundred more indicators, but you
get the idea. It's up to you to look at your life and
make an honest assessment of your level of discipline
or lack of it.
Again, I am not judging you. Live how you want to live,
including in a pigsty, unwashed and doped-up half the
time - it's your life. But if you want a life of power
and wealth, then I can guarantee you will not get it if
your life is anything like I have described.
Discipline is vital.
When I meet consultation clients face to face, I often
say something like this:
"There's nothing really special about me. I'm just an
electronics engineer made good. You could do what I
have done."
I say this to try and remove the 'guru factor.' You
can't get people to emulate you if they think you're
the incarnation of a sun-god!
So I tell them I'm just a regular guy, and that's the
truth. Yes, I have an education and a certain amount of
common-sense. But I also have discipline.
Often, the people sitting opposite me do not have
discipline, or at least they haven't made it central to
their lives because, heck, it takes discipline to be
disciplined! I can see the lack of discipline in the
way they dress, the way they sit, and the way they talk.
Marilyn L. Ali
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