Former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink speaks the truth, the brutal but beautiful and ugly truth about war, and leadership, and excellence. Not just in execution for battle, or training, but in life. And he restates something that was drilled into me as a new financial Rep two and a half decades ago: discipline equals freedom.
Vince Lombardi proclaimed Winning is a Habit.
Aristotle taught that “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an act, but a habit.”
As a new Rep we were repeatedly taught “To live like a king, you need to live like a slave.”
Og Mandino preached “I will form good habits and become their slave.”
We have seen over and over and over again that new Reps fail because they don’t have enough qualified people to call. And this is one of the areas of their practice that is almost completely under their control, so failure to acquire enough referrals to run their machine is 100% on them.
There is one thing, one tiny thing that these rookies can do to change their outcome.
It’s simple but not easy.
Most importantly, it takes discipline.
It takes discipline to do their prep work before each and every encounter in the field.
It takes discipline to practice their craft every single day.
It takes discipline to ASK for introductions, every single time.
It would be easier to sit on the couch and veg out at night or watch Game of Thrones ( https://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones ) than to run feeder lists for your meetings. But who says you can’t do both at the same time?
It would be easier to not say “Let’s pause and take a minute to brainstorm here…” and let the client get away with saying “I can’t think of anyone” instead of engaging, challenging, and guiding them to answers.
In fact, almost ANYTHNG is easier than looking a person in the eye and asking for the introductions you deserve for helping this person. Because of our ego.
We fear rejection.
We are afraid of being told “no.”
Our egos do not want to be exposed to the risk of another person essentially saying “I don’t like you enough to introduce you to another person.”
And so we weasel out of asking, because it is uncomfortable.
Thus discipline.
It hurts to get rejected.
Just like it hurts to lift the weight, or run the hill, or get hit while practicing a sport.
And yet you did it.
You practiced and improved.
You scrimmaged and implemented what you practiced.
You played the game, and played to win.
You didn’t win every time, but every time you gave it your all. Because of the discipline you developed.
Why is your career, your future, and the future of others less important than a game?
Take the shot.
Ask the questions for introductions every time.
Practice asking the questions, so you don’t have to think when it is game time. So that you just execute your game plan with the skills that are ingrained in you at a subconscious level from practice.
From discipline.
The Master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.
Because they have decades of discipline. But all Masters were neophytes once.
And they developed the habits of practice, of discipline.
Because Discipline equals Freedom.
