Discipline Your Mind – Master Your Thoughts

0:00Freight Rail does more than move goods. It drives America's economy. Every dollar invested generates another $2.50 in economic activity, spurring growth from farms to factories. And here's the best part. Freight Railroads fund their own infrastructure, saving taxpayers' billions while powering the economy forward, from reducing highway congestion to delivering goods safely and efficiently. Freight Rail keeps America moving. Learn more at AARC.org slash America's engine. United Health Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing caregabs, identifying risks earlier and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. You can work on microhabits with regards to your conscientiousness and I think the best microhabits is to set up some aims for yourself, goals that you actually value. Well, all right, you're going to have to put some effort into your life.

1:01And you need to be motivated to do that. And so what are the potential sources of motivation? You can think about them in the big five. But then there are dimensions that you want to consider your life across. So we ask people about, well, you know, if you could have your life the way you wanted it, it could three to five years. If you were taking care of yourself properly, you know, what would you want from your friendships? What would you want from your intimate relationship? How would you like to structure your family? What do you want for your career? You have an intention for the thing and that the intention is going to determine the outcome. And I want you to live the dream because I'm not living the dream because I'm special. I'm living the dream because I was obedient to the call of the dream. So often we spend our lives wishing and hoping and hoping and wishing and desiring things. This is what I know for sure. You don't get what you wish for. You don't even get what you hope for. You get what you believe. The dream is greater than anything that I could have imagined.

2:05I am responsible for the choices that I make in my life. I am responsible for every action. There is an equal and opposite reaction. So what does that mean? That means everything that you are putting out into the world, every action. There is an equal and opposite reaction. It means no matter what you do, you are responsible for the energy that you are pulling out into the world because that very energy is coming right back to you every single time. Whether you believe it or not, because it is law. It is law. It is law that what you put out into the world is coming back. Hard work pays what we thought. It's not paying for me. It's not overforming. I'm immediately going to launch myself into training for professional wrestling. I couldn't have launched myself with

3:06that type of training that I did every day for hours in a boxing ring that was stiff like concrete. Every day for hours, I couldn't have launched myself with that type of mentality. I did not fall it on my face after 10 years of football failed. I want you to think about those goals. I want you to taste them. I want you to internalize it. I'm telling you to drink your drink because I want you to sell it. I want you to taste it. Just like when the weather is changing, you can feel it. I want you to be able to feel when you're getting closer to it and closer to it. You've got to have a dream session. You've got to take out 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and you've got to actually go in the room, close the door, and you've got to see yourself doing it. You've got to feel yourself doing it. Sometimes desire waits for a trigger. Wakes for something to happen. Who knows what the happening may be? A song, the lyrics, the movie, the dialogue, a seminar, a sermon, a book,

4:07an experience, confrontation with an enemy, a conversation with a friend who finally levels with you. Whatever the experience it is, it's so valuable. Here's my best advice. Welcome all experience. You never know which one is going to turn everything on. Don't put up the walls. The same wall that keeps out disappointment, keeps out happiness. Take down the walls. Go for the experience. Let it teach you. Here's what life is all about. To become all that we can possibly be. The full development of all of your potential, that's number one. Number two is the wise use of all of your resources. That's what life is all about. Full development. Let us consider this question. If you could do better, should you? In the time a lot of to labor, in the time given to economics, care for family, success, achievement, productivity, the creation of value, the development of skills and

5:12creativity, if you could do better, should you? I think that one of the greatest satisfaction of living life to the fullest is doing the best you can with whatever you have. And you want to be happy, but you got to get there. It's a shortcut to getting there. Identify your gift and get busy with it. God gave all of you a gift. Identify your gift. It is the thing that you do the absolute best with the least amount of effort. That's your gift. Get busy at that. He put that gift inside him. He didn't hide it under a rock or put it under the mountain or put it on the mountain somewhere. He put the gift in you. If when the alarm clock goes off in the morning and you ain't happy about it, you ain't doing what you want. So you fighting up string, you're going to guess what God created you for. If your job makes you sick to go to, if you aren't happy with waking up to go the way you got to go, it's because you ain't living in

6:14your gift. Your gift is the thing that you do the absolute best with the least amount of effort. The problem with people is we don't pursue our gift often times. We try to go get an education and make it think that's going to get us somewhere and then we try to pursue a passion. If you identify that gift man, that gift is the thing that can make you great. Wait for this sweet fruit. Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific and dedicated writers of her generation. Yes, but would this be admirable if she simply rushed her books out? Obviously not. prolific cannot be a euphemism for sloppy. It's not simply that Oates shows up and writes a lot. There is on top of this hard physical labor, serious mental discipline that moderates her drive to create and polish what she ultimately publishes. I almost never publish immediately, she

7:15explained. Each one of her manuscripts after the completion of the first draft is placed in a drawer where it sits sometimes for a year or more. There, it gestates. Oates thinks about other projects. She explores other ideas. She reads more. Researches more. Lives more. Things more. It's not that these first drafts aren't good. It's that we must always doubt our first burst of excitement and indeed anything that comes easily. Oates's patience is about acquiring perspective, about giving all the tiny decisions that go into a book enough time to get them right. It may be that she adds a few pages. It may be that she cuts whole characters or scenes. Most of the time, the changes are very minor, but the precautionary process is essential as it is with any meaningful act of creation. When Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation,

8:17he not only waited for the right political and military moment to deliver it. But he put it aside multiple times as he was writing, like a painter with their sketches. He said from time to time, adding a line or two, touching it up here and there, anxiously watching progress of events. Was this easy, waiting for the right moment, whether one is a writer or a politician, is an agonizing thing? But as Aristotle reminds us, patience is bitter, but it's fruit is sweet. No matter what it is that we do, we will have to cultivate beyond hustle and hard work, the discipline of patience. It may well be that this soft skill challenges us more than the hours in the chair or the years of grinding when your instinct is to go when you really want to get after it, waiting. Well, the waiting is the hardest part. To wait for news, to wait for the right opportunity, to wait for things to settle, to wait for the solution to come to you, to wait for

9:23people to come around, to wait while you check your assumptions, to wait and see if you think better of it. What do we get out of waiting? Well, the Bible says that through our patience we come to possess nothing less than our souls. The discipline of patience prevents us. From acting on insufficient information, from picking the wrong option, from going too soon, from forcing it, from rushing people or giving up on them, from the wrong conclusion, from missing out on all the wonderful rewards that come to those who wait. Patience, as Edison illustrated, is a primary ingredient of genius. Even fits of inspiration or flashes of brilliance are worthless without the patience to polish, refine and ultimately release. Edison's genius was exactly this. The patient commitment to test things over and over again, to put an experiment or an invention aside

10:23until someone could procure him better raw materials, figuring out how not just to invent the light bulb, but to doggedly develop a way of delivering their electricity underground to the first block of houses and then navigating the politics required to actually make this a reality in New York City. 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. Meanwhile, the patient person is not only easier to work with, but more protected and resilient. 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. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs and they will then

11:27be powerless to vent your mind, buckle up and wait. That's what it takes. We will need not just day, today patience, but long patience, shackleton level patience, to put the book in a drawer while it just dates, 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, but that's the point. If things went exactly the way we wanted, if it didn't demand discomfort and sacrifice and patient endurance, then no discipline would be required and everyone would do it. Then the fruit wouldn't just be less sweet, someone would have already eaten it. Freight rail does more than move goods. It drives America's economy. Every dollar invested

12:51generates another $2.50 in economic activity spurring growth from farms to factories. And here's the best part. Freight railroads fund their own infrastructure, saving taxpayers' billions while powering the economy forward, from reducing highway congestion to delivering goods safely and efficiently. Freight rail keeps America moving. Learn more at ar.org slash America's engine. Hiring Pro combines real-time insights and candidate data from the LinkedIn network with the criteria you've set for your role to deliver you a list of top-fit candidates. Businesses who use LinkedIn are 24% less likely to reopen a role in the next 12 months. Hire right the first time with LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Post a free job today at LinkedIn.com slash Pandora. Now with the Home Depot, receive 12 months special financing and free basic installation on carpet projects with life proof, life proof with pet proof technology, home decorators collection,

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