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*This transcript was automatically generated by AI and may contain errors. *
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We come to the third part of life goal achievement, identifying an achievement. And that is, the first thing I want to say to you is, the number one thing you need to succeed is discipline. Discipline. Without discipline, nothing will happen. I can give it… give that to you in writing. You write it down and you will know. Without discipline, absolutely nothing will happen. So make absolutely sure that you are disciplined. As somebody said, you want to change the world, as soon as you get up in the morning, make your bed. If you cannot make up and make your bed in the morning, believe me, you’re not changing anything. You can want anything you can say. I want to do this, I want to do that. There’s a huge difference between wanting and getting. You want, but you don’t get, because you have not invested. The simple rule in life, and this rule is irrespective of everything, the same rule applies to you, whether you’re black or white or Asian or Indian or green with blue spots, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are from the north or the south, whoever or whatever you are or might be, the same rule applies. And that rule is that investment, reward is directly proportionate to investment. Reward is directly proportionate to investment. You want a big reward, you have to make a big investment. The return on investment, the multiplier, multiplying factor can change. There are some investments which have a much higher multiplier than others. And by all means, look at that. But no matter how big the multiplier is, the final result, the yield, depends on the quantum of investment. Even with a multiplier of a million, somebody who invests one dollar and somebody who invested a million dollars, the reward will be, the difference will be that of a million. So it is extremely, extremely important that you get disciplined. And as I said, discipline begins with making your bed. As soon as you get out of bed, make your bed. Make sure that your shoes are cleaned. If they are leather shoes, they won’t be shining. If they are non-leather shoes, they won’t be clean. Make sure the clothes you wear, depending on what those are, some might need ironing, others might not need ironing, but they should be neat and clean. If you are okay with going around in the world looking like something the cat brought in, morning, then believe me, the world will treat you like that. The world will treat you like something the cat brought in. And even there they will say, well, they know the cat made a mistake, brought in the wrong thing. So don’t do that to yourself. We define how we want the world to treat us and the world treats us accordingly. This is the reality of life. We define how we want the world to treat us and the world treats us accordingly. So make sure that you define yourself in a way where people will respect you. People will treat you with deference. People will treat you with seriousness, that when you say something, people will listen, that your opinion will be taken into account and that you will have influence. And all of that will happen only and only if you create that impression for yourself. It’s not a matter of deception. I’m not asking you to deceive anybody. It’s a matter of understanding and accepting that people go by what they can see. Nobody’s going to do a dive down in-depth research about you. Nobody’s going to say, you know, it doesn’t matter. I mean, he talks like a fool, but he’s really a nice guy. And maybe he has great achievements. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t seem to have grown up. His behavior is like a four-year-old who’s having a tantrum, except that even the four-year-old’s tantrum ends at some point, but this one’s tantrum is like lifelong. It doesn’t matter, you know, let me… Nobody’s interested enough in you to do that. They will just discard you and you will be treated like a fool. Even though you might well have great talents and so on and so forth, nobody gives… I’m trying to keep my language clean in this, but you can fill in the blanks, right? So please don’t do yourself this great disfavor. Be disciplined. As somebody said, every one of us, every single human being must feel one of two pains. Every single human being must feel one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The thing about it is that the pain of discipline is temporary because it goes away. Then you start enjoying your disciplined, structured life because the secret to productivity is not talent. The secret to productivity is not money. The secret to productivity is not even time. It is structure. People who are structured are hugely more productive than people who are not structured. Now being structured doesn’t mean that you have no spontaneity in life and, you know, everything has to be according to a timetable and whatnot. It’s just a matter of prioritizing and working according to that priority. That’s it. You can have all the fun in the world, but on a structured format and that gives you the best utilization of your time, which is, as we all know, an un-renewable asset. It’s an asset which, once it’s gone, it’s gone. Nobody can bring back lost time. Lost time is lost life. Life is what? It’s a collection of seconds, collection of instances. A one second gone, that’s one second of my life, is gone, never to return. I can’t buy it back. I can’t negotiate it back. I can’t force anyone to give it back to me. It’s got finished. So it is in my own interest to ensure that I get the maximum out of every second in my life. So this is what you should do. Be disciplined. I want to repeat that everyone must suffer from one of two pains, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. And as I said, the pain of discipline is temporary because you start loving it. You start loving that beautiful structured life you have. And the second thing is that because of the pain of discipline, because you are disciplined, you start seeing success and then you start enjoying it. Whereas the pain of regret is permanent. If you have to say to yourself, and I really don’t want to enrage this on anybody, if you have to say to yourself, if only I had done this, if only this, if only that, this is the most tragic statement in any language. If only is the most tragic phrase in any language. Because the person who’s saying if only is saying that I had the chance and I blew it. I had the opportunity but I did not take it. I didn’t fail. I chose to fail. I made the active choice to fail. Doesn’t that sound completely insane? I mean, why would you actively choose to fail? But this is what we do. When we refuse to discipline ourselves, we are actively choosing to fail. Not discipline. Second thing is metrics, measurement. If you say I think today was a good day, how do you know? Because the reality of life is that only what you measure you know. Michael Harry, who was the guy who invented the Six Sigma quality standard, he used to work for Motorola. Michael Harry said if you want to see what people value, see what they measure. It’s one of the most, it’s one of my favorite quotes and it’s one of the most beautiful and one of the most profoundly wise things that I have ever heard in my life. He said if you want to see what people value, see what they measure. And this is so, so, so true. We talk about time, right? We say time is money. But ask yourself, if you lose $100, I won’t say $20, maybe you have enough to lose $20. Suppose you lose a $100 bill. Believe me, you will feel the pain of that. Losing $100 will not drive you to starvation or something, but you will feel the pain of that. But on an average, people spend between four to six hours, not minutes, hours on social media, on this and that and the other. And at the end of that, which you should do, and I’m going to come to that in a minute, ask yourself, what did I gain? The whole issue of FOMO, fear of missing out. So because of fear of missing out, because of FOMO, we are checking our phones every three seconds. It is as, I mean, I’m not, I’m not, you know, saying these numbers off the top of my head. This is what the research tells us. Every three seconds, fear of missing out. And now, so obviously, if you’re checking your phone every three seconds, I assume you haven’t missed out because you made sure you didn’t miss out. So ask yourself, so I didn’t miss out, what did I get? What did you get? You have no idea, right? So four hours of your life went down the drain and that is every single day. Just think about that. The value of that time really is that if you were to come to the last day of your life, which every single one of us will come, and at that time, if the angel of death tells you, I’m willing to give you the amount of time that you used to spend on social media. Now, do you want it? The answer is, of course, absolutely. Because then I can straighten my affairs, I can do whatever I need to do to make sure that I end up in the right place. And then the angel says, but you have to pay for it because nothing is free in life. You’ve got to pay for it. What will you pay? I’m sure every single one of us will say, I will pay whatever you want, whatever. But believe me, that day will not come for you or me.
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