Even though I'm clear on my vision and my context, do I do the things every single time that I should be doing and not do the things I shouldn't? Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not. There are times when I procrastinate. There are times when I make excuses. There are times when I hit the snooze button. But you know what I don't do anymore. That's really helped me to do the things that are important to me a lot more than I used to and to do them most of the time. I don't beat myself up. And I learned this from my sponsor. In my sex addiction recovery, I really struggled to stay sober. I struggled to not look at pornography. I'd been looking at pornography since I was 13 years old. Now I'm 33 years old. I realize I'm an addict. I'm working a 12 step program. I'm trying to beat my addiction. Welcome to a Changed Mind. A journey into the topics that matter to you most. From the neuroscience and spirituality of mindset and personal growth. To groundbreaking strategies for health, wealth and relationships. To open and honest conversations about pressing global issues such as the environment, censorship, corporate capture and democracy. Each and every episode reminds us of the certainty of the goodness of the future and provides the teachings, tools and timeless wisdom inspiring you to create real, lasting change in your life and in the world. If you've been desiring a sanctuary for your spirit, a place to go to tune out the distraction, negativity and doom and gloom so that you can tap into the deep power, the vibrancy, and the potential you have inside your in the right place. Welcome to A Changed mind.

You know what's interesting? We beat ourselves up for not being disciplined. We make promises to ourselves that we continue to break. We don't do the things we know we should be doing. And then the discipline market comes along and tells us we need to time, block, hustle more, wake up at 5am, do a morning routine. But here's the thing. None of those things are the reason you actually lack discipline. And today I'm going to show you what's really preventing you from the discipline and consistency you want. And these two things, when you understand them, will allow you to become disciplined beyond your wildest imagination. No matter how long you haven't been doing the things you know you should or making promises to yourself that you don't keep. If you're like I was most of my life, you probably wish you were more disciplined. The idea is that if you could just be more disciplined, you'd be able to create the results that you want. You'd create the body that you want, the business that you want, the health that you want. And it makes sense. If I could just get to the gym, if I could just get up every day and put in an hour of work towards my dream business, if I could just get up earlier, I'd get more done in my day. But we don't do these things. Instead, we hit the snooze, we go to bed late, we eat the cookie, we drink the alcohol, we smoke the joint. And so we look at our day to day activities and say, look, I'm just not that disciplined. If I were, then I'd change my behavior and I'd get the result. So let me first say that no matter where you are in your life right now, I want you to know that you are very disciplined. You might just be disciplined at the wrong things. You might be disciplined to scrolling and spending hours on social media. You might be disciplined to a poor sleep, hygiene and watching TV or scrolling on your phone or eating too late. You might be disciplined to fear and worry and indecision instead of making progress in your business. So to be clear, you're disciplined. We just need to change what you're disciplined at. Because if you're not doing the things you know you should be doing and doing the things you know you shouldn't, then it's necessary to shift your discipline if you want to create a change in your life. Now, when we don't do the things that we know we should do, not only do we claim to be undisciplined, which is not true, but then we beat ourselves up over it. I don't like getting up early, so most of the time I don't get up early. And for years I'd say to myself that I was lazy, that I didn't have any willpower. I would compare myself to other people, all these five AMers, the motivation, the hustle crowd, and then feel like that there was something wrong with me. And I just ultimately sit in this like puddle of self loathing that didn't get me anywhere, other than making it even harder to change my behavior because I felt so shitty about myself. On top of that, the discipline market will sell you tools to become more disciplined. So you've got everything from time blocking to just hustle more, to all kinds of complex morning rituals like cold plunges or meditation. Now don't get me wrong, like I enjoy my morning routine, but doing these things isn't actually the way to Become more disciplined. And these things are the byproducts of becoming more disciplined. Like you ever say, I'm going to be more disciplined. So you start getting up early and meditating, or you quit coffee, or you change a habit and it lasts like three or four days, and then you don't get up, or you grab the coffee, or you do the old habit, and then you're like, see, there it is. I suck. Forget it. I'll just go back to beating myself up. And I want you to see this, because if you want to change your behavior, it's not about willpower. It has nothing to do with motivation. It's actually about these two distinctions that I'm going to lay down for you that have changed the game for me, that have helped me do the things that I don't want to do, that I struggled with doing for years. And literally in an instant, I snapped the habit. So here's distinction number one. Discipline is a byproduct of context. So I have a private client, he runs an auto body shop.

And not only is he growing his auto body shop, but he's building a mindset and business coaching business for other auto body shop owners. And he says to me, look, I know I should be running this training for auto body detailers on a new paint product that I'm teaching on, but I'm just not doing the things I should be doing. I'm not marketing it, I'm not filling it. I'm not out there having conversations like, what is wrong with me? I'm, like, dragging my feet and I don't know why. And my question to him was, well, why do you need to do it? Why do you want to do it? And he answered with the usual answer. He said, look, it can bring in an extra 5,000, $10,000 in a weekend. It'll help my clients. They'll be able to deliver better services through their own shops. Now, this guy has a vision of going from successful auto body shop owner to successful coach of auto body shop owners, to successful coach of all kinds of business owners, to having big events and seminars and building a business very similar to like mine, where he's helping hundreds of thousands or millions of people. And I said, look, man, you don't want to do the training because you think you're doing a training. You're not seeing that what you're doing is your vision. So, like, people think I'm over here at my house jumping up and down all day long like I do at one of my seminars. Guess what? I'M not. I'm reviewing email copy, I'm responding to emails, I'm managing my team, I'm reaching out to, to partners. I'm trying to get my message out there. Getting uncomfortable pitching myself to speak on stages, getting interviewed on podcasts. But I know what I'm really doing. I'm working on my vision. I'm working on my vision to create new systems for humanity. I'm working on helping people end their personal suffering. I'm working on ending all suffering in the world so I don't confuse these daily mundane tasks that I'd prefer not to be doing. I'd rather be out there sharing my message and making a global, global impact and running a billion dollar transformational empire. But guess what? This is the path to do that and I'm clear on it. This is my game. So you have to ask yourself, when you're not doing the things that you believe you should be doing, what game are you playing with those things? Because if you don't know what game you're playing, of course you're not going to do the things that make you uncomfortable. You're not going to be disciplined with your diet if you don't know how it connects to your spiritual vision. You got to be disciplined with your sleep. You're not going to be in your routine because there are always going to be things that show up in the moment that are going to give you a quicker hit, a faster pleasure than the longer term joy of achieving your full potential. And so if you know what game you're playing, these things are not a sacrifice, they are a joy. I love what Arnold Schwarzenegger said when he talked about training at the gym. You got to listen to this guy. You have to listen to great people because they hold the clues to what you want to unlock. And so he talks about having a goal. He says, when you have a goal, when you have a vision, everything actually becomes easier. He said, people always asked me when they saw me in the gym, why is it that you're working out so hard five hours a day, six hours a day, and you always have a smile on your face. And he says, I told people, because I have a goal in front of me is the Mr. Universe title. Every rep I do takes me closer to turning this vision into reality. Every set, every repetition, every weight I lift gets me closer. He says, I couldn't wait to do another 500 pound squat. I couldn't wait to do another 500 pound bench press. I couldn't wait to do Another 2000 sit ups. I couldn't wait for the next exercise. And at the age of 20, I went to London to compete in Mr. Universe contest and became the youngest Mr. Universe ever. He says you have to have a purpose and it makes perfect sense.

He's doing all the things the rest of us would do anything to avoid with a smile on his face because he got the context. He had a vision. See, your problem is not that you aren't disciplined. You aren't seeing the context for why you need to do these things. When I first started recording these episodes, it wasn't easy. It was a huge change in behavior for me to sit down, to think about what I'm going to speak about, to record a video. You ever try to do something like that? If you have, then you know it doesn't feel good. You're worried about what people will think or if I'm going to do a good job or say the right things or will people like me. All that stuff comes up for me still to this day. But I have a goal. I have a vision. I know my context. I'm going to create a podcast that changes millions of lives and that's going to plug into a business and a mission that's going to transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. I don't like going to the gym, I don't like training. I always love it when I'm done, but I don't love it before I do it. But I do it because I have a context. In order to achieve the vision, I have to be the dad I want to be to my 3 year old son, to be the kind of husband that I want to be to my wife, to set a standard for my family, my community. I'm going to train. I'm going to be physically strong. I'm going to build my mindset. I mostly train for my mindset because I'm doing things that I don't want to do because that's in alignment with the person that I want to become. Do I love training? Hell no, I don't. Do I love these small things? In and of themselves, no. But every time I record a podcast, every time I work out, every time I reach out to someone who says, no, I'm not interested in having you on my stage or on my podcast or partnering with you. Every rejection like Arnold talked about gets me one step closer to my vision. So what's your vision? You have to have a vision. You have to have context for why these changes in your behavior, doing the things you don't want to do and stopping the things you shouldn't be doing for why they're important to you. So you don't have a discipline problem. You don't have a motivation problem. You have a clarity problem. You aren't clear on your context. You want clear on your vision. Now, even though I'm clear on my vision and my context, do I do the things every single time that I should be doing and not do the things I shouldn't? Am I perfect at it? Absolutely not. There are times when I procrastinate, There are times when I make excuses, There are times when I hit the snooze button. But you know what I don't do anymore that's really helped me to do the things that are important to me a lot more than I used to and to do them most of the time, I don't beat myself up. And I learned this from my sponsor. In my sex addiction recovery, I really struggled to stay sober. I struggled to not look at pornography. I'd been looking at pornography since I was 13 years old. Now I'm 33 years old. I realize I'm an addict. I'm working a 12 step program. I'm trying to beat my addiction. And when you violate your bottom line, like an AA when you drink, or in Narcotics Anonymous when you do drugs, or in my case with sex addiction, when I looked at pornography, you recommit to another 24 hours of sobriety by picking up what's called a white chip. And I was white chip, Dave. I swear, for the first year, I was going to say meetings, I was picking up a white chip every time I went in. And then one day my sponsor said, look, here's the game plan. We're going to see what happened that led you to look at pornography. Like what made you slip. And we're going to come up with a better game plan. We're going to look at the emotions that you're having, we're going to look at healthier coping habits, and we're going to run those plays as best as you can. But most importantly, you are not going to beat yourself up. Because he said, you're in a trap right now. You feel so shitty about yourself picking up a white chip every time you go to a meeting, because you can only hold your sobriety for a day or two days or three days. And the problem is not that you can't be sober. The problem is you keep beating yourself up. And beating yourself up is like kicking yourself when you're already down. So it's important to understand that even when we're clear on our context, nobody's perfect. It's not about perfection. It's about intention. It's about you caring to be a better version of yourself and then committing to do it better next time. And even if you don't, you get back up and you commit again. Let me tell you the secret that nobody wants to tell you that winners do. We fail over and over and over again. And the only thing that's different about winners and the people who stay stuck is that winners keep trying. There are a lot of people out there, especially in this motivation and inspiration and hustle culture. All the different teachers on YouTube, don't get me wrong, there are some phenomenal ones out there, but there are a lot out there that pretend like they don't make mistakes.

That's their marketing angle. But you know what they have to. Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody stays disciplined all the time. And the difference between winners and the people who stay stuck is that winners keep trying to. And you know what? Over time, when I started allowing myself to not actually do it perfectly, but get back up and recommit, I started to stack behavior change. Until one day I looked up and I had a year and a half of sobriety without looking at pornography. My friend Cody Jefferson, who emcees my big annual event that I do once a year, super powerful husband, super powerful dad, super powerful friend, amazing man. And he has a thing that he says from stage that he teaches our community. He said, this is who I am, so this is what I do. So I chose a new identity. I chose to be a sober person. And so this is what sober people do. I chose. I decided to be successful. Way before there were any metrics that anyone could look at and say David was successful. I decided I was going to be successful in business. So I started committing to one day at a time, doing the things that a successful person would do. I quit alcohol. I stopped smoking pot. I gave up cigarettes. I started really committing to my personal growth. I started getting uncomfortable and going to events and hanging out with other people who were up to something in the world. This is who I am, so this is what I do. Is it comfortable? No, it's growth. You're moving away from the certainty of the life you have, but you have to do that in order to get the life that you want. It's not supposed to be easy or feel comfortable, but when you step into that identity that you're going after a healthy person, a wealthy person, a leader for yourself, for your family, for your community, for the world. Then there are certain behaviors that come with it. But it's not about getting up at 5am for the sake of getting up early. It's not about time blocking for the sake of time blocking. It's not about going to the gym so that you can build muscle or lose weight. It's about doing those things because it's in alignment with who you've decided to be. It's about your vision for yourself. So distinction number one is this. You don't have a discipline problem. You don't have a motivation problem. You're just not clear on why this is important for your vision. So you get clear on that and that becomes your fuel to do the things that you don't want to do. Distinction number two, readiness is not your job. So many people lack what they call discipline because they're afraid they won't be good at the thing. So that same client that I was telling you about, he said something like, I'd like to be coaching high level entrepreneurs, but I'm not ready for that yet. And I said, look, you don't have the privilege of determining whether you are ready or not. That's not your job. That's God's job. God, the universe, whatever your higher power is, determines when you're ready. So don't fall short of what's possible for you because you think you're not ready. You must make yourself available. I told him, look, if someone wants to work with you, that means you're ready. Readiness is evident by the facts that show up in your life. What shows up determines if you're ready or not, not how you feel. God doesn't bring you something you're not ready for. But if you think you aren't ready, if you think you're the judge and jury on your readiness, you'll cut off possibilities that are just waiting for you. You'll play small. You'll sabotage your own success. You'll wait to put yourself in situations where you'll meet people and create opportunities. You'll unnecessarily delay your success for no reason other than thinking you weren't ready. Believing you're not ready is one of the biggest forms of self sabotage and biggest limiting beliefs ever.

Look, I had given a couple of talks, small rooms. My first talk was 14 people. Second talk was 20 people. I gave a third talk, maybe 25 people. And then one day, I'm on an airplane. I'm flying back from Atlanta to Orlando International Airport. I'm sitting on the tarmac in my airplane seat, having a conversation with my dad, explaining to him what I just spoke on. When I get off the phone, there's a guy sitting next to me in a business suit. He's literally leaning in my seat, eavesdropping on the conversation. He jumps back and he says, hey, I'm sorry. I was just couldn't help but overhear your conversation. I said, yeah, no problem. He said, listen, what you were just sharing with your dad about what you teach on. It's like as if Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, and Joe Dispenza had a baby, it would be you. He's like, what are you doing on Sunday? This was a Thursday. I'm flying back to Orlando International Airport. I said, well, I don't have any plans this weekend. He said, will you do now? I'm holding a conference with a thousand financial advisors that are coming into Orlando. I want you on the main stage, 45 minutes, you're going to share with them everything that you just shared with your dad. I was like, holy shit, I am not ready. But I understood that readiness was not my decision. Three days later, I'm in front of a thousand people sharing my story, sharing my frameworks. Was I scared shitless? A hundred percent. Did I feel ready? Hell no. Was I ready? Hell yes. How do we know? Because it happened. Despite my fear and my doubts, I was making myself available. There's this saying we have from recovery. God, make me an instrument of thy will. Thy will be done, not mine. And the same thing happened in 2019. I got an introduction to the producer of a really huge podcast called Impact Theory. And when I was in la, I had dinner with the producer. Couple months pass. All of a sudden, I get a phone call. I say, hello. He says, hey, Dave, it's Chris from Impact Theory. Yeah, Chris, how can I help you? Hey, we want you on the show. Can you be out here back in LA next week? I thought to myself, man, am I ready for this show? They've had on Joe Dispenza, Tony Robbins, Jay Shetty, Sadhguru. Like, am I ready for this? But the answer was clearly yes. Why? Because it happened. That's what showed up. And that's distinction number two. Readiness is not your job. Don't cut yourself off from opportunities because you think you're not ready. You go out there, you be out there in that new identity, pursuing your vision. And when you are truly ready, the opportunities will always show up. So true. Discipline isn't about forcing yourself through willpower. It's about operating from proper context that connects to your actions, to your identity and your spiritual vision, while understanding that readiness is indicated by opportunities, not feelings. So listen, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I love sharing it with you. If you get a chance, if you're following along on YouTube, ask me a question, leave me a comment. This is just what I think. What is your experience? This is not a do it yourself project. We're doing this together. If you haven't yet subscribed, hit that bell icon so you get notifications. And of course, if you're listening on the audio platforms, do me a favor, subscribe, leave me a rating or review. And most important, if you love this episode, pay it forward and share it with somebody who needs to hear this today.

This is a great conversation for all of us to be in, and I'm grateful to be in it with you today and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, it's David. One more thing. If you want to go even deeper on everything we've talked about on today's episode, don't forget to jump over to www.DavidBear.com. you can find the link in the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. A couple of times week. I'm going to be sending you the latest episodes that we've released, along with additional free trainings. You'll get immediate access to my free Mind Hack ebook and go even deeper into all the tools, the technologies, and the frameworks that have helped tens of thousands of people establish a changed mind. Don't forget to jump on over to the site and I will see you in the next episode.