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Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (The Stoic Virtues Series)

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Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (The Stoic Virtues Series)

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Highlights & Notes

choice was between vice and virtue, the easy way and the hard way, the well-trod path and the road less traveled. We all face this choice.

Yet virtue—arete—translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental.

In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

Doing the right thing almost always takes courage, just as discipline is impossible without the wisdom to know what is worth choosing.

“We become builders by building and we become harpists by playing the harp,” he wrote. “Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.” Virtue is something we do. It’s something we choose.

Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself. Publilius Syrus

Freedom, as Eisenhower famously said, is actually only the “opportunity for self-discipline.”

We must keep ourselves in check or risk ruin. Or imbalance. Or dysfunction. Or dependency.

In this sense, we’re all in the same boat: The fortunate as well as the unfortunate must figure out how to manage their emotions, abstain from what should be abstained from, choose what standards to observe. We must master ourselves unless we’d prefer to be mastered by someone or something else.

In the first book of this series on the cardinal virtues, courage was defined as the willingness to put your ass on the line—for something, for someone, for what you know you need to do. Self-discipline—the virtue of temperance—is even more important, the ability to keep your ass in line. The ability … … to work hard … to say no … to practice good habits and set boundaries … to train and to prepare … to ignore temptations and provocations … to keep your emotions in check … to endure painful difficulties.

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

No, it is an illusion. Under closer inspection: No one has a harder time than the lazy. No one experiences more pain than the glutton. No success is shorter lived than the reckless or endlessly ambitious. Failing to realize your full potential is a terrible punishment. Greed moves the goalposts, preventing one from ever enjoying what one has. Even if the outside world celebrates them, on the inside there is only misery, self-loathing, and dependence.

It is through discipline that not only are all things possible, but also that all things are enhanced.

Freedom requires discipline. Discipline gives us freedom. Freedom and greatness. Your destiny is there. Will you grab the reins?

Our body is our glory, our hazard and our care. Martha Graham

It’s easy to be disciplined when you have nothing. What about when you have everything? What about when you’re so talented that you can get away with not giving everything?

You have to do your best while you still have a chance. Life is short. You never know when the game, when your body, will be taken away from you. Don’t waste it!

The funeral lasted just eight minutes. Looking out over the man’s friends and teammates, the priest found a flowery eulogy unnecessary. “We need none,” the preacher said of the man, “because you all knew him.” No tribute was needed, his life, his example, spoke for itself.

What are you willing to put up with? What can you do without? What will you put yourself through? What can you produce with it? You say you love what you do. Where’s your proof? What kind of streak do you have to show for it?

We owe it to ourselves, to our goals, to the game, to keep going. To keep pushing. To stay pure. To be tough. To conquer our bodies before they conquer us.

While you’re fresh. While you can. Grab that hour before daylight. Grab that hour before traffic. Grab it while no one is looking, while everyone else is still asleep.

The pleasure of excess is always fleeting. Which is why self-discipline is not a rejection of pleasure but a way to embrace it. Treating our body well, moderating our desires, working hard, exercising, hustling—this is not a punishment. This is simply the work for which pleasure is the reward.

just lying around and seeking pleasure. We have been given incredible gifts by nature. We are an apex predator, a freakishly elite product of millions of years of evolution. How will you choose to spend this bounty? By letting your assets atrophy?

Swim. Lift weights. Train in jujitsu. Take long walks. You can choose the means, but the method is a must: You must be active. Get your daily win. Treat the body rigorously, as Seneca tells us, so that it may not be disobedient to the mind. Because as you’re building muscle, you’re also building willpower. More important, you’re building this willpower and strength while most people are not.

The first step, he said, was to pull yourself out of the ignorance of your dependency, whatever it happens to be. Then you need to get clean—get clean from your mistress, from your addiction to work, from your lust for power, whatever. In the modern era, we might be hooked on cigarettes or soda, likes on social media, or watching cable news. It doesn’t matter whether it’s socially acceptable or not, what matters is whether it’s good for you. Eisenhower’s habit was killing him, as so many of ours are too—slowly, imperceptibly.

The body can’t be in charge. Neither can the habit. We must be the boss.

Slavery, we have to remember, was a deeply inefficient and inferior economic system, on top of its misery and cruelty. Why would you choose to be one?! Especially to something that increasingly feels less good to do?

That’s what Lou Gehrig’s coach was trying to tell him when he caught Lou taking a nip before games for his nerves. You’re not going to like where this road ends, he was saying. And it always seems to end in the same place.

A man satisfied with so little could never be tempted.

When we desire more than we need, we make ourselves vulnerable. When we overextend ourselves, when we chase, we are not self-sufficient.

By being a little hard on ourselves, it makes it harder for others to be hard on us. By being strict with ourselves, we take away others’ power over us. A person who lives below their means has far more latitude than a person who can’t.

The less you desire, the richer you are, the freer you are, the more powerful you are. It’s that simple.

Thus the axiom from author Gretchen Rubin: Outer order, inner calm.

The space where great work is done is holy. We must respect it. Because a person comfortable with a messy workspace will become comfortable with sloppy work. A person who doesn’t eliminate noise will miss the messages from the muses. A person who puts up with needless friction will eventually be worn down.

Imagine what you could get done if you had the discipline to proactively put everything in order first. If you committed to orderliness and enforced it on yourself. Don’t think of that as another obligation, another thing to worry about. Because in practice, it will free you. Once the systems are in place, once the order is established, then and only then are we able to truly let loose to turn ourselves over to the whims and furies of creativity, to pushing ourselves physically, to audacious invention or investment.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. Clean up your desk. Make your bed. Get your things in order. Now get after it.

Show up … … when you’re tired … when you don’t have to … even if you have an excuse … even if you’re busy … even if you won’t get recognized for it … even if it’s been kicking your ass lately.

Consistency is a superpower. Day-to-day willpower is incredibly rare. Lou Gehrig was a solid position player and a good hitter.[*] But his success really was rooted in the fact that he didn’t miss many days of work. It’s quite likely that had he continued at his normal pace and not been stricken with ALS that he would have put up career numbers that surpassed Babe Ruth’s. Gehrig wasn’t just able to show up despite injuries and fatigue. He also had to push through ennui, doubt, and just plain not feeling it. He had slumps, like we all do, but he also understood what they meant. As a minor leaguer, he had struggled at the plate and thought about quitting. The Yankees’s owner sent down a scout to walk Gehrig through the very basic math of a batting average. A good hitter hits .300, and hitting .350 is terrific. Hitting .400 is almost unheard of. What does that translate to? Missing on six tries out of ten. A hitter can also go days, weeks, without touching the ball! That’s what the scout told him: The most important thing a young ball player can learn is that he can’t be good every day. You don’t have to always be amazing. You do always have to show up. What matters is sticking around for the next at bat.

One thing a day adds up. Each day adds up. But the numbers are only interesting if they accumulate in large quantities.

But that’s the point: We’re fit to tackle the big problems only if we do the little things right first. No strategy will succeed—however brilliant—if it ignores logistics.

By focusing on form, by sweating the small stuff, we make ourselves stronger—stronger, in fact, than if we’d just rushed in and thrown ourselves at supposedly harder problems. By ignoring the little things, we make ourselves vulnerable.

Dating back perhaps to time immemorial is the poem and proverb about a horse. “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,” it begins. And then because of the shoe, the horse was lost and because of the horse, the rider and because of the rider, the message and because of the message the battle and because of the battle, the kingdom. For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. Because of a blister, the game was lost. Because the little things were ignored, because discipline lapsed, everything was lost. Save yourself. Save the world. Get the little things right.

He was courageous under fire, sure, but not courageous enough to start or finish a battle he knew he might lose. He wasn’t disciplined enough to push himself. In the end, war—as well as life—is about getting up and going. About diving in, even it’s scary or hard or uncertain.

Inevitably, the person who chooses when to try and when not to is liable to choose incorrectly and betray their team, as Manny Machado did in a National League Championship series game in 2018. “I’m not the type of player that’s going to be ‘Johnny Hustle,’ ” Machado told reporters after being thrown out half-jogging after hitting a ball deep in the hole to shortstop, “and run down the line and slide to first base. That’s just not my personality, that’s not my cup of tea, that’s not who I am.” Imagine what Lou Gehrig would have thought about that? “Always run them out. You never can tell,” was the commandment of the Yankees clubhouse. A great player shouldn’t even need to be reminded of this—it should be in their blood. “There’s no excuse for a player not hustling,” Gehrig would say. “I believe every player owes it to himself, his club, and to the public to hustle every minute he is on the ball field.” If you’re not a person who hustles, who are you? Where does that leave the people counting on you?

You may lose battles, Napoleon said, but never lose a minute to sloth.

Few of us hustle as much as we could. Are you someone whom colleagues and clients can count on to be there when they need you? Or will they have to prod? Will they have to beg? Will they have to repeat, again and again, the urgency of the situation? And what will it say about you if they do?

We hustle because you never know—when it will make a difference, when someone might be watching, when it might be our last try, when “the slows” might cost us everything. We should always run them out. Run, period. Because it’s who we are.

Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control.

“Practice over a long time turns into second nature.”

We don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to the level of our training.

. . and when you meet them, they will beat you. Or kill you.

Look, this is not a drill. There is no greatness without practice. Lots of practice. Repetitive practice. Exhausting, bone-crunching, soul-crushing practice. And yet what emerges from this practice is the opposite of those three feelings. Energy. Strength. Confidence.

The quiet calmness of knowing that, from the practice, you’ll know exactly what to do when it counts … the pride and the dependability of doing it too.

But that’s what the greats do, they don’t just show up, they do more than practice, they do the work.

“I have always lived a very conventional life of moderation,” she explained, “absolutely regular hours, nothing exotic, no need, even, to organize my time. We each have a twenty-four-hour day, which is more than enough time to do what we must do.”

If you do it right, it’s also torture not to do it. The sled dog gets anxious if it doesn’t get to wear its harness. The horse wants to go out and trot. The bee dies if cut off from the hive. When you find what you’re meant to do, you do it.

Always and forever, the reward is the work. It is a joy itself. It is torture and also heaven—sweaty, wonderful salvation. And that’s how you manage to do prodigious amounts of it—not grudgingly, but lovingly.

We don’t get anywhere in this life without work. But we can get somewhere magical when we do the kind of work that doesn’t even feel like work. When we follow the excitement that gets us into the harness, that gets us out in the fields, when we follow the urge to get moving and get at it. Decide who you want to be, the Stoics command us, and then do that work. Will we be recognized for it? Maybe, but that will be extra.

And there can be something about cleaning up—a nice shave, freshly ironed garments—that puts us in the right headspace, too, just as cleaning up our desk can work wonders for our productivity and focus.

While the world is unpredictable, one thing we do control is how we take care of ourselves. Making our bed, tucking in our shirt, running a comb through our hair, these are little things we can always do, practices that instill order and cleanliness in a messy situation.

how to play the game of appearances without being distracted or consumed by appearance.

We dress well … but not too well. We take care to take care of ourselves … but never at the neglect of the people or things in our care. We take our appearance seriously … without taking ourselves seriously. As they say in fashion circles, we wear the suit, the suit doesn’t wear us. We look sharp to stay sharp, to be sharp … because we are sharp.

But most of us spend our lives building up walls between us and anything unpleasant … not understanding how dependent this makes us. The whole point of success, we feel, is to never have to struggle, to have not only what we need but everything we want on demand: hot water. Nice clothes. Food—of the finest ingredients, cooked by the best restaurants … delivered to our door in minutes—at the slightest pang of hunger.

A person who understands the value of discipline. A person who is comfortable being uncomfortable. Go run a marathon. Sleep on the ground. Lift something heavy. Do the manual labor yourself. Jump in the cold lake. Success breeds softness. It also breeds fear: We become addicted to our creature comforts. And then we become afraid of losing them.

By seeking out discomfort, we toughen ourselves up. If we’re not going to live an utterly Spartan existence day to day then we better at least practice toughness regularly enough that we’re not afraid of it.

All self-discipline begins with the body, but it doesn’t just magically happen.

The fact of the matter is that someday, life will have serious discomfort in store for us. Are we going to dread that? Or just be ready? We train ourselves in self-denial as a form of self-preservation. “Take the cold bath bravely,” W. E. B. Du Bois wrote to his daughter. “Make yourself do unpleasant things so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.” The person who has the upper hand of their soul, the person who can go without, the person who does not fear change or discomfort or a reversal of fortune? This person is harder to kill and harder to defeat. They are also happier, more well-balanced, and in better shape. We must practice temperance now, in times of plenty, because none of us know what the future holds—only that plenty never lasts.

Logical, yes. Burnout and injuries are way more expensive than time off.

Yes, our work is important. Yes, we hustle. Yes, our drive is how we became successful, our love of the game is what got us here. But without the ability to rein this in, we will not last. We don’t just want to be fast and strong now—we want to be fast and strong for a long time.

It’s something you not only have to do, but something you have to enforce in yourself—in terms of both quantity and quality. The higher the stakes, the more driven you are, the more stressful the situation, the more discipline sleep requires.

You want to think clearly tomorrow? You want to handle the small things right? You want to have the energy to hustle? Go to sleep. Not just because your health depends on it, but because it is an act of character from which all our other decisions and actions descend.

Does endurance always conquer? Of course not, but nobody wins by throwing in the towel. Nobody wins with weakness. We will taste pain on this journey, that’s a fact. We will be given a million opportunities to stop, and a million reasons why that’s okay. But we can’t. And it’s not. We keep going. We put our butt in the chair. We will not be deterred.

Those who think that they can live a high spiritual life whose bodies are filled with idleness and luxuries are mistaken. Tolstoy

“People pay for what they do,” writer James Baldwin wrote, “and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.”

When we speak of temperance and self-discipline, we are referring to a person who has themselves under control. The body is the first step in that journey. We treat it rigorously. We restrain it. We dominate it. We treat it like a temple. Why? So it may not overrun and override the mind. So it may not deprive the mind. In that sense, we are constraining ourselves physically … to free ourselves mentally and spiritually. No one who is a slave to their urges or to sloth, no one without strength or a good schedule, can create a great life. Certainly they will be too consumed with themselves to be of much good for anyone else. Those who tell themselves they are free to do anything will, inevitably, be chained to something. Discipline is how we free ourselves. It is the key that unlocks the chains. It is how we save ourselves. We choose the hard way … because in the long run, it’s actually the only way.

What man is happy? He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind, and a docile nature. Thales

Discipline isn’t just endurance and strength. It’s also finding the best, most economical way of doing something.

Smart? Discipline is a far rarer commodity at the top than brilliance. Temperament may be less charismatic, but it survives. It stabilizes.

A weak mind must be constantly entertained and stimulated. A strong mind can occupy itself and, more important, be still and vigilant in moments that demand it.

We have to understand: Greatness is not just what one does, but also what one refuses to do. It’s how one bears the constraints of their world or their profession, it’s what we’re able to do within limitations—creatively, consciously, calmly.

We pause. We gather ourselves. We put it up to the light. We ask: Is this true? Is it actually as upsetting as it feels? As scary or annoying as I first thought?

A leader can’t make decisions on impulse. They must lead from somewhere more rational, more controlled than that. That’s not to say they won’t ever be tempted, that they won’t have impulses. It’s that they are disciplined enough not to act on them. Not until they’ve been put up to the test, put under or in front of the light.

But what is the main thing for the rest of us? That is the main question. If you don’t know the answer, how can you possibly know what to say yes to and no to? How can you know what to show up to? What to wake up early for? What to practice? What to endure? You can’t. You’re winging it. You’re vulnerable to every shiny, exciting thing that comes your way, every “I’ve got a potential opportunity for you,” every “It’ll only take a minute,” every “Thanks in advance,” every “I know you’re busy but… .”

If you don’t know where you’re sailing, the Stoics said, no wind is favorable.

This means first, the discipline to step away and think: What am I doing? What are my priorities? What is the most important contribution I make—to my work, to my family, to the world? Then comes the discipline to ignore just about everything else.

It is impossible to be committed to anything—professionally or personally—without the discipline to say no to all those other superfluous things.

Here is the inescapable logic: Everything we say yes to means saying no to something else. No one can be two places at once. No one can give all their focus to more than one thing. But the power of this reality can also work for you: Every no can also be a yes, a yes to what really matters. To rebuff one opportunity means to cultivate another.

In tech, they speak of “feature creep”—when a founder or a project manager isn’t disciplined enough to protect the core concept of an idea and allows too much to be jammed in it. Trying to please everyone, they end up pleasing no one. To try to do everything is to ensure you’ll achieve nothing.

No one can say yes to their destiny without saying no to what is clearly someone else’s. No one can achieve their main thing without the discipline to make it the main thing.

Because it is extremely rare. In a world of distraction, focusing is a superpower.

In yogic tradition, this is called Ekāgratā—intense focus on a singular point. The ability to put your mind fully into or onto something, allowing you to understand both it … and yourself in a new way.

No, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth concentrating on today. It’s worth focusing on now.

But as Aristotle reminds us, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

It is impossible for an impatient person to work with others. It is impossible for them not to make errors of judgment and of timing. It is impossible for them to do important things, because almost everything that matters takes longer than it should, certainly longer than we would like.

As da Vinci wrote, “Patience serves as protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you.

We will need not just day-to-day patience, but long patience. Shackleton level patience. To put the book in a drawer while it gestates, to go to sleep and come back to it tomorrow, to let the compounding interest do its work, to let your investment appreciate, to let your plan take effect, to let people catch up to your idea that was ahead of its time … to be vindicated by events to come.

As they say, another way to spell “perfectionism” is p-a-r-a-l-y-s-i-s. An obsession with getting it perfect misses the forest for the trees, because ultimately the biggest miss of all is failing to get your shot off. What you don’t ship, what you’re too afraid or strict to release, to try, is, by definition, a failure. It doesn’t matter the cause, whether it was from procrastination or perfectionism, the result is the same. You didn’t do it.

Perfect is not just the enemy of the good, as they say, but it’s the enemy of everything that might come after. If you get stuck, your potential does too. This is why finishing is itself an achievement, an act of monumental discipline that must happen.

Of course, you’ll want to keep tinkering, keep tweaking, keep running the problems over in your mind. But you need to be able to stop yourself, to say, finally, this is done. And if you can’t do that on your own, if you have trouble with the last mile on your projects, or if you know you can fall prey to perfectionism, then do you have the self-discipline to find partners who can cut you off and balance you out?

There have been fewer quotes more misunderstood and misattributed than Nicholas Chamfort’s suggestion that “A man must swallow a toad every morning if he wishes to be sure of finding nothing still more disgusting before the day is over.”

Just as days are made of mornings, lives are made of days. To procrastinate at any time, day or night, young or old, to push it until later, is a loser’s game.

The one thing all fools have in common, Seneca wrote, is that they’re always getting ready to live. They tell themselves they just need to get some things in place first, that they’re just not feeling it yet, that they’ll get to it after … … what, exactly? Exactly nothing. They never get to it. We never do. You’ll need to be smarter than that, more disciplined than that.

You could be good now. Instead you chose tomorrow.

To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get to it later (despite not having the discipline now).

“Every fighter should be a little afraid of what could happen to him,” Patterson would reflect on the fight later, “because fear makes your mind sharper. When you have nothing to fear, your mind becomes dull.”

We’re all going to mess up. We’ll show up to a life-changing opportunity unprepared. We’ll fall off our diet or our sobriety. We’ll lose our temper and embarrass ourselves. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll be beaten. That’s the thing about discipline: It never fails us, but sometimes we fail it.

If your standards are so high that you give up when you fall short of them, then actually you don’t have high standards. What you have are excuses.

Nobody stays undefeated for long in this life.

That’s the thing about both pain and pleasure: They’re felt in the body, but they affect the mind and the mood—our temperament—which is something we must protect always.

Our rational faculties (as well as our bodies) can torture us, but they are also a gift. We ought not dull their power or mess, unnecessarily, with our chemistry.

Doing the work? The work is getting through life sober. Go on a trip? Go to therapy! Struggle with it. Heal a little bit each day, get a little better each day.

We endure pain, but we also have to address the root causes of it. The mind and the body must find a way to work together, temperately, moderately, soberly.

We don’t refrain from excess because it’s a sin. We are self-disciplined because we want to avoid a hellish existence right here while we’re alive—a hell of our own making.

“Your dinners are enjoyable not only when one is eating them but on the morning after as well!”

“Remember to conduct yourself in life as if at a banquet,” Epictetus said. “As something being passed around comes to you, reach out your hand and take a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don’t stop it. It hasn’t yet come? Don’t burn in desire for it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, a spouse, toward position, with wealth—one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods.”

Discipline is not a punishment, it’s a way to avoid punishment. We do it because we love ourselves, we value ourselves and what we do. And we find, conveniently enough, that it also heightens our enjoyment of things as well. Indeed, the person content with less, who can enjoy a small pot of cheese as if it were a culinary bounty, is much more easily satisfied and much better able to find good in all situations. Seek yourself, not distraction. Be happy, not hedonistic. Let the mind rule, not the body. Conquer pleasure, make yourself superior to pain.

James Peck, one of the only white Freedom Riders, would note several times how his refusal to retaliate would stun his attackers into a momentary lull and, one might imagine, a terrifying moment of self-reflection. Why isn’t this person consumed with hatred like I am? Why aren’t they out of control like me? Are they actually better than me?

Remember always: As wrong as they are, as annoying as it is, it takes two for a real conflict to happen. As the Stoics said, when we are offended, when we fight, we are complicit. We have chosen to engage. We have traded self-control for self-indulgence. We’ve allowed our cooler head to turn hot—even though we know hot heads rarely make good decisions.

Nearly every regret, every mistake, every embarrassing moment—whether it be personal or professional or historical—have one thing in common: Somebody lost control of their emotions. Somebody got carried away. Somebody was scared, or defensive. Somebody wasn’t thinking beyond the next few seconds.

When you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong—as the famous Mr. Rogers lyric goes—you must stop and do something else instead. When you see someone about to give themselves over to a fit of passion, see if you can’t help them redirect that energy. Because we’re in charge. Our training. Our teaching. Our talent. Our (good!) temperament. They are our guide. They take the lead. Not our passions. Not the momentary mild (or not so mild) madness.

“Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less.” The irony, of course, is that with power comes license to say whatever you what, whenever you want, to whomever you want. And yet, it is the discipline to not do these thing that creates the presence that powerful people enjoy.

Let them wish you talked more. Let them wonder what you’re thinking. Let the words you speak carry extra weight precisely because they are rare.

When your choices turn you into someone who has to worry about money, then you are not rich … no matter how much you make.

“Fuck-you money” is a chimera. You never get it. Nobody does. Poor people have poor-people problems and rich people have rich-people problems because people always have problems. You’re always going to be subject to the necessity of self-discipline. Or at least, you’ll never be immune from the consequence of ignoring it. And is “fuck-you money” really such an admirable goal anyway? To have so much money you don’t have to care about anyone or anything? That’s not virtue, it’s childishness. All you really need is enough money to be comfortable enough to politely say, “No, thanks. I’d rather not.” To never have to do anything for a buck that’s contrary to your values. To be able to stick with your main thing. No amount of money is ever going to truly free you. But being less dependent, caring less about money? That will free you right now.

Socrates didn’t know much. There wasn’t much he held for certain. But he was sure, he said, that “we cannot remain as we are.” It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Nobody is as good as they could be. Nobody is perfect. Everybody can improve. There are few self-fulfilling prophecies more important or more dangerous than this. If you think you have room to grow, you do and you will. If you think you’re as good as you can be … you’re right. You won’t get any better.

It takes discipline not to insist on doing everything yourself. Especially when you know how to do many of those things well. Especially when you have high standards about how they should be done. Even if you enjoy doing them—whether that’s mowing your own lawn, writing your speeches, making your own schedule, or answering your own phone.

Often, the best way to manage the load is to share the load.

It doesn’t make sense to try to do everything yourself. You have to delegate. You have to find people who are good at things and empower them to help you. You have to be strong enough to hand over the keys, to relinquish control, to develop a system—an organization—that is bigger than just us. If you want to keep the main thing the main thing, maybe you need to hire someone who can be a buffer for you—someone who says “No” for you.

The pursuit of discipline means being disciplined in all things, especially little things. And time—how we spend it, its tiny increments—is something small that actually amounts to something very large.

Routine is an essential tool in the management of time and the suppression of those negative forces of distraction, procrastination, and laziness.

While time is ultimately the dictator of our presence here on this earth, we do dictate how we spend it. As long as we are aware of it, aware of its value and the importance of managing it well. As long as we are putting it to work for us, even as it is working against us in the mortal sense. Now is the time. Because now is the only time you have.

We live in a time of vulgarity and silliness and immaturity and selfishness. A time of freedom that we have decided is actually license for stupidity, unseriousness, and excess. Look at our heroes: Reality TV stars. Influencers. Professional wrestlers. YouTubers. Demagogues. These are not heroes. These are cautionary tales. The people we ought to admire are quiet. Dignified. Reserved. Serious. Professional. Respectful of themselves and others.

Boundaries are about drawing some lines around yourself—healthy borders between what you’ll share and what you won’t, what you’ll accept and what you won’t, how you treat others and how you expect to be treated, what is your responsibility and what isn’t.

A country without borders, it has been said, is not really a country at all. So it goes with people. Without boundaries, we are overwhelmed. We are stretched too thin. So thin that those features that previously defined us start to disappear until there’s no telling where we start and the energy vampires around us end.

Why are you holding back? Why are you half-assing this? Why are you so afraid to try? Why don’t you think this matters? What could you be capable of if you really committed? If you’re not giving your best, why are you doing it at all?

What does matter is that you gave everything, because anything less is to cheat the gift. The gift of your potential. The gift of the opportunity. The gift of the craft you’ve been introduced to. The gift of the responsibility entrusted to you. The gift of the instruction and time of others. The gift of life itself.

“Your best is good enough.” Not perfect. Your best. Leave the rest to the scoreboard, to the judges, to the gods, to fate, to the critics.

Rarely does a person who competes with his head as well as his body come out second. Pete Carril

Self-discipline is not just our destiny, it is our obligation. To our potential. To our country. To our cause. To our families. To our fellow human beings. To those who look up to us. To those who come after us. Because soon enough you will be truly tested—beyond the ordinary ways in which you have had to persist and resist on this journey toward your best self. Life will demand something greater, something bordering on heroic. Your body, your mind, your spirit will have to align so that you might discover that you are capable of more than you thought possible. You will also be asked to give … more than you have ever had to give (or give up) before.

When we rule ourselves, we have the responsibilities of sovereigns, not of subjects. Theodore Roosevelt

“The impediment to action advances action,” he wrote to himself, “what stands in the way becomes the way.”

“Even if you attain the wisdom of Cleanthes or Zeno,” one of his tutors wrote to him, “yet against your will you must put on the purple cloak, not the philosopher’s woolen cape.”

That’s the thing about discipline … like courage, it is contagious.

Because that’s what great leaders do: They do the right thing, even when—especially when—it costs them.

He understood the second we stop trying to get better is the moment we start gradually getting worse.

We love them because they tried. Because they course corrected in failure, because they were humble in victory, because they did the work and got the results. This is what produces the path for us. Just as the living example and the loving instruction of Antoninus helped mold Marcus Aurelius, so, too, can the lives and lessons of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius mold us.

While we hold ourselves to the highest standards—and hope that our good behavior is contagious—we cannot expect everyone else to be like us. It’s not fair, nor is it possible. Perhaps it was a rule articulated by Cato’s great-grandfather that helped Cato love and support his brother despite their different approaches to life. “I am prepared to forgive everybody’s mistakes,” Cato the Elder said, “except my own.” Ben Franklin, many generations later, would put forth an even better rule: “Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.” Or as Marcus Aurelius put it, Tolerant with others, strict with yourself.

The only person you get to be truly hard on is you. It will take every ounce of your self-control to enforce that—not because it’s hard to be hard on yourself, but because it’s so hard to let people get away with things you’d never allow in yourself. To let them do things you know are bad for them, to let them slack off when you see so much more in them. But you have to. Because their life is not in your control. Because you’ll burn yourself out if you can’t get to a place where you live and let live. Credit them for trying. Credit them for context. Forgive. Forget. Help them get better, if they’re open to the help.

Not everyone has trained like you have. Not everyone has the knowledge you have. Not everyone has the willpower or the commitment you have. Not everyone signed up for this kind of life either! Which is why you need to be tolerant, even generous with people. Anything else is unfair. It’s also counterproductive.

The journey we are on here is one of self-actualization. We leave other people’s mistakes to their makers, we don’t try to make everyone like us. Imagine if we were successful—not only would the world be boring, but there would be so many fewer people to learn from!

We’re on our own journey and, yes, it is a strict and difficult one. But we understand that others are on their own path, doing the best they can, making the most of what they have been given. It’s not our place to judge. It is our place to cheer them on and accept them.

To reach your destiny will require such a hero. But to truly fulfill it, you will need to become such a hero yourself—to live in such a way that you call others to reach their own.

That’s what great leaders do: They make people better. They help them become what they are. As it is written in the Bhagavad Gita, “The path that a great man follows becomes a guide to the world.”

“Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts,” Seneca wrote, speaking not only of Cato but all the men and women who inspired him.

The fire within us can burn bright enough to warm others. The light within us can illuminate the path for others. What we accomplish can make things possible for others. It starts with us, it starts within us. But it doesn’t stop there. Our discipline can be contagious … and if it isn’t, how strong is it, really?[*]

Grace under pressure looks beautiful, but it is a function of magisterial self-control and will. Of course the person is scared. They are tired. They are provoked. But they manage to subsume all that. They rise above it.

Being the “boss” is a job. Being a “leader” is something you earn. You get elevated to that plane by your self-discipline. By moments of sacrifice like this, when you take the hit or the responsibility on behalf of someone else.

Too many leaders, Plutarch laments, think that the “greatest benefit in governing is the freedom from being governed themselves.”

Of course, the entire point of self-discipline is that we are strict. We hold ourselves to high standards. We don’t accept excuses. We push ourselves always to be better. But does that mean that we whip ourselves? That we hate ourselves? That we treat ourselves or talk to ourselves like a bad person? Absolutely not. Yet we slip, unconsciously, into these negative conversations all the time. You suck. You screwed up. You blew it.

“It is hard to have a Southern overseer,” Thoreau wrote in Walden with some hyperbole, “it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself.” Nobody likes tyranny … why would you be a tyrant to yourself?

After a lifetime of studying philosophy, this is ultimately how Seneca came to judge his own growth. “What progress have I made?” he wrote. “I have begun to be a friend to myself.” A friend to yourself. You are not the enemy. You’re the person doing the best you can. You’re the person getting better every day.

From a place of love and support, we grow. It is an act of self-discipline to be kind to the self. To be a good friend. Don’t beat yourself up. Build yourself up. Make yourself better. That’s what friends do.

Managing our ambition is one thing. Holding ourselves accountable, another still. But turning down power? Willingly giving away or sharing the force that is supposed to corrupt absolutely? It is the rarest thing in the world. It is temperance embodied. We are conditioned to acquire and acquire and acquire. We are told to fight our way to the top. Some of us are lucky enough to get there. Head coach. CEO. Owner. President. Captain.

The history of Rome—indeed, the history of humankind—is almost universally the story of people who were made worse by power. From Nero to Napoleon, Tiberius to Trump, power doesn’t just corrupt, it reveals. It places unimaginable stress on a person and subjects them to unbelievable temptations. It breaks even the strongest.

The person who cannot resist is a danger to themselves and to the organization. The person who needs this, who cannot bear to be anything but in charge, they are not great, even if they achieve great things. They are an addict! They do not have power, power has them.

Plato said that the best leaders didn’t want power. In truth, it’s that they didn’t need it. Because they have conquered their appetites and their ego, they are stronger, more independent, less corruptible, calmer, kinder, more focused on what matters.

What matters isn’t the title. It isn’t the power. It isn’t the wealth. It isn’t the control. That greatness isn’t what you have. It’s who you choose to become. Or who you choose to remain.

Charging ahead is always inspiring … but sometimes it takes a bigger man—and another level of discipline—to be able to maintain your dignity when you have to go the other way.

Hope is important but it is not a strategy. Denial is not the same thing as determination. Delusion is destruction. Greed will get you in the end.

The philosopher Sextus Empiricus defined endurance as “a virtue which makes us superior to the things which seem hard to bear.”

Plenty of people have been buried in coffins of their own making. Before their time too. Because they couldn’t understand that “the way they’d always done things” wasn’t working anymore. Or that “the way they were raised” wasn’t acceptable anymore.

Flexibility doesn’t mean we throw out what’s important, but it does mean understanding how to live and let live, how to rest comfortably in our traditions while allowing new and improved ones to be created. It also means, as the world changes and our position within it changes, adjusting, finding a way to be true to our principles that doesn’t condemn us to bitterness or needless failure or being on the outside of things. Rigidity is fragility. Formlessness is unbreakable. We can choose one or the other.

Such is the paradox of success. Precisely when we think we’ve earned the right to relax our discipline is exactly when we need it most. The payoff for all our efforts? So much more temptation. So many more distractions. So many more opportunities. The only solution? Even more self-mastery!

It’s easy to be modest when you have much to be modest about. But now you’re in a position to indulge your passions. It’s easy to follow the rules when you are not above rules. Now people will make excuses for you. Now it really is about self-discipline, because all the other forms have gone away.

The virtues are like music. They vibrate at a higher, nobler pitch. Steven Pressfield

We can fight courageously for our rights, for the power to be our own masters—as we are entitled to be—but that means, ultimately, we have to be responsible for ourselves. Because if we are not, someone or something else must be. See how far you get without self-discipline, how long your success lasts, how quickly any virtue can become a vice if taken too far … including courage, justice, and even wisdom. Self-discipline is the only way. It’s the moderating influence against the impulse of all other things.

Whether it’s from the Bible or from Hercules or East of Eden or Faust, the parable’s message is the same: We have a choice. We choose between self-control and ill-discipline, virtue and vice.

Self-control must be observed physically. It must be embodied mentally. It must be rendered magisterially when our moment comes. It’s our decision what this will look like. Not just once, but a thousand times in life. Not just in the past and the future but right now, today. What will it be? Dependence or independence? Greatness or ruin? Discipline is destiny. It decides. Will you choose it?

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