I went to an ACE school my whole life. In general it's a system where the student has more to remember and has more responsibility placed on them than in public schools and it's an environment of high discipline, at least my school was.
(I won't go into how much or little I like that system, and what a very highly qualified psychologist has told me about placing a large amount of responsibility on a child at too young an age)
In 1999 I got expelled from school, an event I'm rather proud of believe it or not. I have since become great friends with the teacher responsible, and though it took him a while to come around, he now sees things (read: the teachers' attitudes and ridiculous endless unnecessary time-wasting procedures) the same way I do.
Anyway, after being "asked to leave" I spent my days waking up at 1pm or later. I argued that since I "work" until late in the evening, it was ok to get up at 1pm. I spent a large part of the day watching TV, not working. I drove my dad's Mercedes convertible around as if it was my own. I was paid a salary for working on a sideline project my dad and I started to encourage teenagers to become a doctor, surgeon, nurse or specialist. I didn't even come close to justifying that salary.
For years I held on to the possibility that my dad's project would explode and we would all be multi-millionaires. Then something interesting happened: I grew older. I started to realised that my life was going nowhere. I realised that I needed to do something.
I decided to wake up early in the morning and work full days on my dad's project to help it get on its feet. The next morning I didn't wake up. I set the alarm, but when it went off I just killed it.
I made a serious decision that the next day I would wake up early. I couldn't do it. The warmth and comfort of my bed was just too much every single morning. I'm a Christian, and one day I was in church and the pastor spoke about self discipline. This was the issue I was struggling with so I listened attentively.
It made no difference though, other than to reinforce that it was important and I needed it. I knew I had to make a change, but I had declined so far after years of not having to wake up early and do anything. I didn't have the strength of character and self-discipline necessary to make the change. And then I prayed, honestly and sincerely - because the simple fact was I couldn't do it. I had tried.
A few months later I got a job offer from an old acquaintance. I wasn't even slightly qualified for the job but he held a fatherly role in my life, so he was willing to mentor me and teach me accounting and financial reporting etc, stuff I knew just absolutely nothing about, and when he told me he would pay me R10 000 a month I tried my best to act as if that was "ok I suppose" but inside I was doing cartwheels. I told him I'd think about it, but I was sold right away. R10k a month, are you kidding me!!
Well he drove me to the limit, no beyond it. Every morning I'd wake up at 5am to leave for Edenvale before 6am because ANYTHING was better than sitting in the traffic and anything was better than being crapped on for being late. Since I was in the area from 6, I started going to the gym. I might as well do something with the two hours I had to kill before work.
At gym, my new boss started showing me that I can go beyond the limits I thought I had. I nearly blew chunks a few times in gym, but I became fitter and healthier, feeling better about myself.
At work, my boss shouted at me for every mistake. Once I forgot to call him after finishing a meeting at a client. He called me and asked me how it went. I told him and then he asked me why I didn't call. I told him what I considered to be a perfectly acceptable reason, I forgot. I mean, people are people, we forget stuff.
Well he scolded me big time, "Reg you don't forget. This is the last time you ever forget anything, ever again if you are working for me."
I think you'll agree that that's not a reasonable boss speaking. A funny thing happened though, I didn't forget much after that. For the simple reason that I didn't want the pain of him crapping all over me if I did. Today, in business, I seldom forget things I have to do.
I hated my job, my life, so much I can't even express it to you. I cried once while driving somewhere, it just became too much.
Do I recommend my boss' leadership style? Absolutely not. He's gone through many employees in the name of building their character by making their life tough. He lost all his employees three times over at last count, leaving him man-alone. I think his company would be much larger, happier and successful than it is today (though it is successful) if he didn't make his employees' lives a living hell. But, it was what I needed at the time in my life when I needed it.
The point I'm making is that it was terrible. So terrible in fact that one day in January, after only six months of working for my boss, I called up my close friend Harry Baladakis, and 1 Feb I handed in my resignation. The first day of March we launched a team building drumming company.
Since that period in my life, I get up early, I have a schedule every day, and I'm productive the whole day. I'm unmarried as of this writing, so I don't feel at all embarrassed telling you that I want an attractive female PA. Why not kill two birds with one stone right!
Now, I finish what I start and very importantly, I don't wait for things to happen, I make them happen. It's empowering to know that if you want it to happen you can make it happen. Novel concept I know! Someone once said, "Reg is trying to start a business", and I told them without hesitation and with complete conviction, "I'm not trying."
I made more money in the first year of my interactive drumming company's existence than I would have earning the salary I got at my job. Between November and December of 2009, only a year and a half after quitting my job, we made more in those two months than I would have earned in a whole year at my job.
As Anthony Robbins always says, I say this not to impress you, but to impress upon you the benefits, the value of cultivating self-discipline in your life. It's VITAL for success. It's a precious character trait to develop, and whenever I'm tempted to sleep late on a week night, I just remember what it took to cultivate my self-discipline and that's enough to make me never want to go through it again, so best I maintain it. It's literally, an answer to my prayer.
I look at friends and people I know that are in the same place I was at a few years ago, trapped in a place where they think life owes them a living, believing that some day, something will come along and they'll be just fine. It's not going to happen.
You should do something every day that you just don't feel like doing. Some days you'll have to do many things you don't feel like doing, but do them. If you can, spread them out over a week or so so that you don't lose all inspiration, but do them.
If there's something you're always postponing or something you hate doing, make it your first order of business. If you do it last you'll be more-easily tempted to push it down until tomorrow.
Something that also helped me is an audio course called 'The Science of Self-Discipline'. It helps with the practical steps you can take, but unfortunately the motivation to do it needs to come from within.
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