The first step to improving yourself and your life is to build discipline.
Today I will share with you the simplest secret to build your discipline.
Before we get into that, I want to tell you the truth.
The truth is, I used to be lazy.
I used to stay in bed for hours scrolling on TikTok.
I remember I would lay in my bed, I hadn't brushed my teeth yet,
I was feeling sweaty and gross and I just remember being hungry.
Like I wanted to get some food because I just woke up.
And I was just scrolling through TikTok and I was just swiping through.
I was hungry and I needed to make food to quench my hunger.
But I just didn't have enough willpower to get up and out of bed to make food.
I didn't have enough willpower to do the simple act of walking a couple inches
or a couple feet to my kitchen.
I couldn't do it.
So I just remember feeling like helpless.
I remember I just felt trapped.
And at this time I was in middle school and my alarm would wake me up
and I had a few hours to kill before school.
So I would just wake up, go on my phone, watch YouTube
and then walk over to the couch.
I didn't shower, didn't brush my teeth, I didn't do anything like that.
I just brought my phone with me to the couch and then I would just start watching YouTube.
This was every single day before school.
Like first thing in the morning I would watch YouTube.
And I remember I was so lazy I didn't even make myself food.
I had my mom make me a smoothie every single day.
So I would drink a smoothie.
Then once I was done drinking the smoothie, by the way while I was drinking the smoothie,
I would watch YouTube the whole time.
So I was just entertained 24-7.
And then I would finish the smoothie and then I would get ready for school.
But the fact is on the weekends, since I didn't have anything to do,
like on the weekends I didn't have to go to school.
I didn't have some place to be.
So I just didn't go anywhere.
I didn't like get out of my bed for a long time.
I would just wake up right away, grab my phone, watch TikTok
and I just did not want to get up.
And this happened pretty much every single weekend or every single day I didn't have school.
But there was one instance in particular that I really remember.
And this instance didn't really stick out much in like my days.
Like this was an average day for me.
And I would just wake up, grab my phone, start scrolling on TikTok.
And like I said, I was like hungry.
Like I needed food.
But it was just so much easier to scroll through TikTok.
And there's this concept that I didn't understand at the time.
But I want to explain it to you real quick.
So I learned about this in a book called Toofty the Priestess.
And pretty much your attention can either be fully immersed in the outer screen.
So the outer screen is anything that's happening outside of you.
So for example, if your attention is fully immersed in this podcast,
then you are asleep, essentially.
If you're not paying attention to your inner thoughts or your inner like functions of your actual body,
and you're just fully immersed in this podcast, then you're asleep.
And it's not just podcast or entertainment.
It can be anything.
For example, today at school, I was fully immersed in listening to my teacher.
I was fully immersed in watching these two guys next to me just like mess around.
So at those instances, I was asleep.
And then the other option is you can be fully immersed in the inner screen,
which is anything inside of your body.
So when you're deep in thought, when you're just thinking about something, you're asleep.
And usually when you're immersed, you're on autopilot and you're just acting as if someone else was controlling you.
And it's actually like that.
Like when you're fully immersed, you are not in control of your own reality.
You're not actually making your own decisions.
So you can get fully immersed in the outer screen or the inner screen.
And you're asleep when you do either of those.
The way you wake up is by holding your attention in between the two.
So you hold your attention in between the outer screen and the inner screen.
What that looks like is, let's say you're listening to this podcast, but you're also aware of your own thoughts.
You're also aware of yourself.
That is what it looks like to be awake.
So throughout the day, it's best to be awake because then you're in complete control of your actions
and you can actually make conscious decisions on what to do.
Going back to the story of me laying in bed, scrolling through TikTok,
I was in this zombie-like state and I was asleep the whole time just scrolling through TikTok.
But there was times when I would just kind of wake up and I was like,
I probably should get up, get some food, take a shower, brush my teeth.
I probably should do that. I was awake at that time for a brief moment.
And then I was like, but it's so much easier to just to keep scrolling.
And then I just went back to scrolling and I instantly fell back asleep.
I would argue that those times when I was actually just mindlessly scrolling through TikTok,
I was mindless and I wasn't actually experiencing those situations as myself.
I was just asleep. Like, like that's the nature of being asleep.
I was not actually experiencing it.
When you're awake, that's when you experience things.
So if you're just mindlessly scrolling through TikTok and you're asleep, you're not experiencing it.
It's not a real experience.
That's why looking back on that memory just feels like a daydream.
It feels like just something that is not really real.
I can't really imagine it like my other memories.
Like I have memories of me going to the park playing soccer.
Those seem real, but just laying in bed scrolling through TikTok just seems terrible.
And I remember like saying to myself after like hours of scrolling and just hours of saying,
but it's easier to just keep scrolling.
I just remember saying to myself, this is miserable. How do I get out of this?
That's all background. And I want to flash forward to when I actually started reading books,
like actually started reading self-improvement books that I wanted to read
that were actually helping me move along in my life and helping me improve in my life.
And one of the early books that I read, it was called Unplugged Alpha.
So this book, I just read because I just saw it recommended to me on a YouTube video,
but I read through the whole book. It was a pretty quick read and I definitely recommend it.
And one of the biggest things that I got out of it was just focused on your personal development.
But the biggest actionable step that I got out of the Unplugged Alpha
and really the biggest benefit that I got from it was the secret that I'm going to tell you.
And it's to take cold showers.
Now, this was just a passing comment on this book.
The book was not about cold showers. It was just one passing comment that he wrote,
but it really stuck with me. He said, the simplest way to build discipline is to take cold showers.
Once I read that, I instantly just told myself, okay, I'm disciplined. I take cold showers.
I just had this mindset shift. I realized that I know that I need to build discipline to see success.
You can achieve anything you want if you have discipline. I knew that.
I knew that successful people have a lot of discipline.
And so I was looking for a way to build discipline that was simple,
that I didn't really have to go out of my way to do it.
And so it was so perfect because I already take showers and so it's not going to take any extra time.
So I simply just replaced my warm showers with a cold shower.
So now I take cold showers because that was my new identity.
I implemented this new identity, which was I take cold showers.
This is huge. The identity piece of things is huge because...
And by the way, this story took place six months ago.
At the time I read the unplugged alpha that was six months ago.
At that point of time in my life, cold showers was not a new concept to me.
Like I had taken cold showers before, but the reason why I took them was for the health benefits and the muscle recovery benefits.
So I didn't really do it for the discipline.
I never really thought of improving my discipline by doing cold showers,
but I still took cold showers for the health benefits.
Like when I was playing soccer, I used to train outside and at the gym and I would take cold showers to recover quicker.
But since I was just doing it for the health benefits, I used the excuse to only have the beginning of my shower as cold and the end of my shower as cold.
And then I would actually take my shower warm.
That was the excuse that I used.
But it wasn't until I had this identity shift after I read the unplugged alpha,
this identity shift of I take cold showers in its entirety.
Like I only take cold showers.
I completely shift my identity.
From that point on, I told myself, I am not using hot water on my face ever again.
I am only using cold water throughout the whole shower.
That's when I actually started taking entire showers cold.
And it was not easy.
I'll tell you that.
I remember all the time I would have these negative thoughts.
Every single shower, especially in the beginning, I had, oh, I don't want to do this.
Oh, just use warm water.
Like all of these thoughts run through my mind while it's taking it.
But I'll tell you the negative thoughts were always the worst before I even got into the cold.
Once I got into the cold water, the negative thoughts either disappeared completely or they were not as bad
or they didn't have as much control over me.
And so I knew that I just had to step into that water.
I just had to start.
Just had to do it.
And so every single time I had negative thoughts, I just reminded myself of my identity.
I reminded myself that I take cold showers.
I am successful.
This is what successful people do.
I just remember sitting in that cold.
And even to this day, I still take cold showers every day, by the way.
I just remember saying to myself, this is just, this is what successful people do.
This is what successful people do.
I just kept on reminding myself that.
And now it's November and it's starting to get cold.
Like over the past month or so, it started to get really cold.
And that means that the pipes, the pipes that the water goes through are colder.
So that means the actual cold of the cold shower is colder.
So I'm just sitting in freezing cold water.
To the point where if I have my head, if I hold my head underwater for like too long, like a couple minutes,
I get a headache, I actually get like a brain freeze.
I always just remind myself, this is how you build discipline.
This is how you build discipline.
And there's one thing that I want to note.
When you have the negative thoughts and when they're the strongest, when you don't want to do it the most.
So when you're having the most resistance to taking the cold shower, that's when it requires the most discipline.
But that's also when you get the most discipline in return.
So let me explain.
It's like lifting weights.
The more you lift, the stronger your muscles get.
And so if you lift heavy, your muscles will get stronger.
And when you're in that cold shower and you really don't want to do it, especially on that day,
and you do it anyways, you get the most benefit on that day.
Use that as something to lean against.
Use that knowledge that you get the most benefit on the days when you don't want to do it.
And use that as comfort to do it anyways.
Now, you may be disappointed hearing that cold showers is the simplest secret to building discipline.
But to be honest, it really is.
And once I learned about it, I instantly changed my identity.
I instantly knew that I needed to take action.
I needed to actually do it if I wanted to get the discipline.
It's those who accept the fact that this is how you do it.
They accept the fact that you need to take action to build discipline.
That's those who actually start to build discipline.
I only built all my discipline over these past six months because I actually took those cold showers.
I did not miss a day.
So always take a cold shower.
Sometimes I actually take multiple showers a day.
For example, over the summer, I took like three or four showers a day.
I took my first shower when I woke up.
I took another shower once I got home from the park.
I took another shower once I got home from the gym.
And sometimes I went to the park again and got another shower.
So all of these showers were all cold.
And even today, on days that I go to the gym, I take two showers and they're all cold.
Every single time.
So every single shower you take should be cold.
Do not have any warm showers.
So take action and actually build discipline.
Now this was just the first step.
This episode was just focused on the first step of self-improvement.
And I actually created a framework.
I actually mapped out six steps for self-improvement.
Just from what I learned from my past year of experience.
And I actually figured out two principles to follow on your self-improvement journey.
These are all the principles and steps that I took to improve myself throughout my journey.
And they allowed me to skyrocket.
But it took me a while to figure these principles out.
Like I said in this, in the story, I was on TikTok.
I knew I needed discipline to actually get up and read or actually get up and start my day.
But it took me months to figure out that discipline, the simplest way to build discipline, was cold showers.
So you guys have two options.
The first option is to wait an entire week for my second episode to release.
Because I'm actually going to be posting weekly episodes.
And for these first six to eight weeks are going to be focused on these six steps and two principles.
So I'm going to be releasing one step per week.
So you guys have an option to either wait an entire week for the second secret.
And then another week for the third secret.
And so on and so forth.
And you'll be waiting a total of eight full weeks to learn all this stuff.
Which is still a good deal because to be honest, it took me many months to learn all this stuff.
So you guys are already getting a better deal than I did.
But the second option is to click the link in the description called free gift self improvement guidebook.
To claim your free gift.
And I actually created an entire in depth guide mapping out the six steps, having actionable steps, as well as the two principles.
And I map out all of this stuff for you.
And it's completely free.
You just have to go to that link and give me your email and then I'll send it to you.
So those are your two options.
And that's it for today's episode.
And I want you guys to look out for next week's episode.
It'll go live on Friday, every single Friday.
Next week's episode is November 17th.
But also if you're interested in receiving live coaching from me, click the link in the description called coaching call.
And you can sign up for a one hour call with me.
And in this call, we can really do whatever you need help with.
So you'll tell me your story and I can help you and give you tailored advice.
There's one thing that I learned and it's having a mentor is so valuable.
I hear it all the time.
Having a mentor is a shortcut to success.
And I see it.
I see it because I am kind of mentoring someone that's one year younger than me.
I see it with this guy that I'm helping out.
I'm actually giving him a lot of tips and he's grown so much.
He's actually getting a lot of valuable insights from me.
So much so that to where when we talk, he's looking forward to it.
So if you guys want a one hour live coaching call with me, just click on the link in the description called coaching call.
And you can sign up.
But you got to act quick because I don't know how long this offer will be available because right now I'm just starting out my business.
And I want to help you guys out, but soon once my time gets more valuable, I'm going to take this coaching call down and it won't be available anymore.
But I'm not sure how long it'll be up for.
And if you're watching this video in the future, it might already be gone.
So click on that link and that's it for the episode.
So have a great week.