Success loves discipline with Justin Maust

Justin Maust: I came home one day and she goes, tears, like starting to run down her eyes. And she said, Justin, you are, you're miserable. You're miserable. You're not the man. I thought you'd be when I married you 16 years ago, you're not the husband. I thought you'd be when I married you 16 years ago. And you're, you're not the father that I thought you'd be in when she said that with her tears rolling down her cheeks and her hand on my shoulder.

And she's like, I love you. Something's got to change.

Tiffany Sauder: I am Tiffany Sauder, and this is Scared Confident.

I have always naturally struggled with discipline. I've gone so far as to say that. Disciplined people are boring and I don't even know what it'd be like that I have since realized that's a coping mechanism for my, or I have this observation about things that, the thing that is very much in the foreground for someone is oftentimes the thing that they're terrible at.

Tiffany Sauder: And so it becomes. So visible to you because it's difficult. And so discipline is that thing for you. And I think we sometimes I'll go the, the extreme example where I really saw this, the CEO of Zappos wrote a book called happiness and not too long ago, committed suicide. And as we sort of better understood the story, really struggled with happiness.

And I'm like, isn't that wild that he wrote a book on happiness, but it was so. Foreground for him because he struggled with it. I am a happy person. I don't think about happiness actually. So maybe just starting with your own. I think people can wrongly assume that the Justin Moss of 2022, who is by appearance is very disciplined.

It must be natural.

Justin Maust: Yeah, nothing natural about it at all for me. So there, there's a couple points that I'm going to go down the path because it was it. You never get here because of just one thing. Most of the time, there's like several things that hit you over life. And I have always had tons of energy.

I've always been intense. I've always been able to achieve a little degree of success. But I always could feel it on the inside that I, I never was getting where I wanted to freak and go. And my brother and I founded a mission with a couple of friends called the five star life. And it's a character leadership youth mentoring program.

And I never wanted to be in a non-profit. I never wanted to be a fundraiser, but I love my brother and I wanted to have tremendous impact. And I'm like, I'm a faith-based person. So I'm like, well, Lord, I don't know what you want me. But I can go help Seth until I figure it out. Right. My difficulty is I do not have a structural bone in my body.

I was good enough. Do you know, to get limited partnership with Edward Jones, because I just had lots of energy, but at some point the passion and the energy isn't enough to sustain the kind of success that I wanted. And I had to face like, okay, w what's what's the route. And one day I was reading the Bible and there's these fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, all these amazing words.

And the last freaking fruit of the spirit is self. And I looked at myself and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I have zero like zero self control in terms of how I'm approaching my life. And it was, it was like a mind blown, like, oh my gosh, I don't have this fruit that I'm supposed to have in. I'm like, I think it's interesting that that's the last fruit self-control and you have love and joy and peace and.

Where do you think you can get some of that is if you have a disciplined mindset and I'm going to choose. So I just realized at that moment I needed it. I was aware enough to know that I needed it. And I was aware enough to know that I did not have it on the inside of me. So I started looking out. Well, who has it, like who's structured?

Who has, so I bought programs because I realized I didn't have some of these things. I had to build some disciplines and I'm like, oh, I like that word like this. This is going to help me get somewhere because I was always the. And the race that the tortoise and the hair, I was always the rabbit,

Tiffany Sauder: the rabbit I did.

And I did the rabbit loving rabbits. I feel the same way. I was so proud to be a rabbit

Justin Maust: until I realized the freaking turtle always won the freaking race. And so honestly, I showed up late to my own keynote talk. That was another converging point for me when you're a keynote speaker and you show up late.

Because you procrastinate. Like I ha I was addicted to procrastination because I was good enough to skate by, on my natural ability. And it just, there's so many points where I was, I would just got the point where I was sick of myself, like looking at myself, going, I think I have more talent than this than what is being displayed, but it's, it's not producing the results.

Tiffany Sauder: I love the parallel in the journey. You've taken us on as a business, whenever. Like the beginning of transformation is always this idea of having to face the brutal facts. It's the first steps like Jim Collins writes about that. Like you have to face the brutal facts. Interesting. It seems you had the courage to kind of do that on your, under your own weight.

I think sometimes it takes a big crash for me, I think less in my forties, but my twenties and thirties, I played a life like a big game of bumper cars. I would just run hard until I crashed into old. And then I would be like, okay, this is not sustainable. Something just broke a relationship or something.

And so then I would take stock and then I would like zoom again. And like again, on my natural ability on my instincts, you know, these words that rabbits use to make themselves feel good about the fact that they've just valued. Speed over intentionality, like in everything.

Justin Maust: And I actually abhorred, I actually, I was like you, I was like, I don't even want, I don't need an agenda.

I don't need structure. Like I don't put me in a box. You can't put this in a box. And yet now I, now I crave, like now it's like, oh my gosh, I get so much more done when I'm owning just a handful of disciplines. And the reason why success loves discipline is so meaningful to me. Tell me, tell me person, where do you want success?

Where do you want it? And I promise you, I can promise you there's a couple of disciplines that if you would just own them daily. You would have that success.

Tiffany Sauder: So let's talk about your journey after you had this sort of moment of like I'm sick of myself. I don't like this it, how old were you about when that happened?

Justin Maust: I can tell you when it hit me the hardest, and this is October of 2009. There was a moment that all of these other points converged because it was a message from my wife and I had been stuck in this mission that my brother and I were working with. And I love my brother and I loved the mission. I I'm so passionate about that mission, but I was stuck personally in my wife, looked at me.

I came home one day and she goes, tears, like starting to run down rise. And she said, Justin, you are, you're missing. You're miserable. You're not the man. I thought you'd be when I married you 16 years ago, you're not the husband. I thought you'd be when I married you 16 years ago. And you're, you're not the father that I thought you'd be in.

When she said that with her tears, like rolling down her cheeks and her hand on my shoulder. And she's like, I love you, but something's got to change at that moment. She like called out. All of those converging points that have happened in the previous 10 years where we're, you know, how we IDs and we confront the brutal facts.

We identify, discuss, and solve these issues. My wife just, I call it, stabbed me from the front in love to say, wake up, like you're, you're we're 16 years into this marriage and we got three kids and they need a dad that's going to be more engaged. And so it was at that moment. Not on my watch because I've got someone that wants to champion me and love me and stabbed me from the front.

I am going to change. And that's really when I decided to embrace and go on that journey. So

Tiffany Sauder: that was like 35 ish. Is that right? So I think there's, again, an observation. Thank you. It can be really difficult to create new in the same environment. You see people like get divorced at 16 years cause they realize they need a restart, but figuring out how to put new ingredients, new behaviors together in a familiar environment can be really difficult.

And for rabbits, my first reaction usually to a crash is a binge on the other side at an unsustainable level. So how, how did you build. The house again, you know, in a way we're 10 years later, you actually do have a different outcome in your life, your relation, like it all actually changed. How did you piece that back

Justin Maust: together?

So when my wife had that conversation with me, I, I made that decision. So number one, it was a decision and. Then I, I actually was, I was going through a bit of a battle. Like, I, I love this mission I was passionate about, but I felt stuck. I knew there was something more in me. I was not, I didn't like where I was headed in that quote from Jim Rowan says when the pain to stay the same as greater than the pain to change, that's when you'll change.

Totally. 100% like Aero to me was okay, now the pain is so great. I'm going to. So then it was just simply the mindset was made. And then I started researching, I, I bought, uh, one that night. I was, uh, learning how to be a John Maxwell speaker, trainer, coach. And I realized I had a procrastination problem. So I started pointing out what are the, what are the root issues?

And I didn't know this. I didn't have any tools for it. The problem was there and I knew I had to fix it. So I started researching and I bought, I bought a program online. It was like one o'clock in the morning after a John Maxwell training. And it was how to overcome procrastination in 27 days or something like 31 days, whatever it was, I bought the freaking program.

And that helped me think about. All of my internal decisions. Cause I was, I was passive aggressive. I didn't like facing the problem. I was an avoider conflict avoider. I just wanted everybody to like me and all of me trying to get everyone else to like me meant I didn't work on myself. Because I was so focused outwardly of, of being this.

I always called it the smiley face on the end of the stick, meaning I felt like I didn't have enough value. So I just needed to be the smiley face and the energy guy and everybody liked me. And then I'm like, screw that. Like I need to get me healthy. I need to become the kind of man that I could stand before God and hear well done.

Good and faithful servant. And so for me it was, it was all of that. And I just. Like facing these really hard things, internal battling, and then building the discipline found, okay, now I have to have a daily agenda and I was, you know, I haven't made mine yet this morning, which normally I like to do it every morning, but I have, I don't know how many of these little books of creating daily.

And in there, this was probably the most helpful thing that got me really moving was Darren Hardy wrote a book called the compound effect. And in there he gave an analogy of tracking like building agenda, but then tracking your time. And for six years I tracked in 15 minute increments on most days. What I did, and it helped me see all the opportunity, all the good stuff, all the bad stuff.

Like I literally tracked a argument with my wife 29 minutes. Like I would literally be that literal from sunup to sundown. When you get that raw with yourself. You have all kinds of fuel to grow because you're like, holy smokes. Look at what I'm doing with my time. I don't want anybody to see this journal

Tiffany Sauder: as you started to kind of piece together, let's call it Justin.

Two point. Oh, how did people react to that? Did that change some of your friendships and relationships? Because I have to imagine they were like to some level kind of startled that you were actually changing.

Justin Maust: Yeah. So it definitely changed me, but again, it goes back to the pain was there and it was enough of a pain that I didn't really care what I had to do to make the.

I was committed to making the jump. I wanted results for my wife and I, I want a results for my kids. I want a results for just where I wanted to go more than I wanted. So many of these other things that I started setting goals, building disciplines, to get them and then getting them. And then I'd do it over the little ones, little bowls, and then over and over and over and maintained.

I don't know who said this, but the most. The most critical trait of the most successful people on the planet is self awareness. And when I became more self-aware and they're were, we're constantly growing in this, but I just started looking at myself and I cared less. I actually really cared less about what anybody else was thinking about.

I was focusing on, what do I think about me? What do I think about what I'm doing here? And I would just watch myself and the response from friends. I don't have as many friends as I used to. That's the best way I can say it. Like I had a conversation with my wife. Because there is it okay. If I don't have that many friends, like I'm, I'm used to being the life of the party and she's like, it, it, you know, I'm happy to be your best friend.

Like you don't need any other best friends. And I'm like, sweet. I, let me, let me just have a handful of relationships that are critical. And I just want to go pursue all that. I feel like God has called me to do. And I would rather get more excited about that then doing a litmus test of does Tiffany like me today.

And does Billy like me today and all. You know, show I, it's not a show. I, I do care. I, I want to serve you as, as your implementer. But I'm, I'm committed to being the best version of myself. And it doesn't really matter to me what other people think anymore. And it used to matter all lot, like way too

Tiffany Sauder: much.

I can relate to that. There is a place where being liked and being affected. Are not all they can be at odds with one another. And you do have to kind of pick at some point along the like life journey, because when you decide to be effective, that's actually when you grow, when you decide to be liked, your circle may grow, but you're not necessarily growing in a way that's like rich and

Justin Maust: experience.

Yeah. So I've always said that smiley face in the end of the story. But meant that I was empty. Like I'm just on the end of the stick. The interior is, and.

Tiffany Sauder: There's definitely a 2.0 Tiffany. 1.0, Tiffany had a, like for real chip on her shoulder and I was motivated by beating other people like winning and 2.0, Tiffany began to understand that the real way that you win is actually by helping other people get what they want and where they're going. And by extension you then get what.

But it's not really the primary objective. And so I would say if I used to go to market kind of with like clenched fist, like literally like fighting punching. Now I go to market with more of an open hands. And I, I mean that in like every sense of the word, like go to market, like business the way I think about relationships.

But yeah, I would say that's 2.0, Tiffany. So let's, let's move to, what are some of the things that you adhere to as like, these are sacred ground, as you look to hang on to Justin 2.0,

Justin Maust: mindset. Mindset is a really big deal because if, when I'm, when I'm in the right mindset, Uh, man, I think better. I perform better.

I stay more focused. Like focus is a really challenging thing for me. I just have lots of ideas. And so I have this morning power routine and it's, it's just a little sheet. It's a document. And on this document, You know, several elements that just helped me stay focused, life vision, some life goals, 10 year target, some one year goals, some affirmations as a, as a Christian man.

Some of my commitments, my core values, some key scripture, some power quotes. And when I say affirmations, this is like, I'm not there yet, but I'm affirming to myself that I'm going to get there. And so there were lots of affirmations of building. And my, my power quotes, like what are the quotes that have deep meaning to me that I want to hold onto love is the bond of perfection.

That's one, success loves discipline, and then I love this line. I got this from the movie. It's not a great movie. I love assassination movies, but on this, this dude on his gun, he had engraved victory. Love. Preparation. And I was the guy that was never prepared. And so you got to pick some mindset things.

So that's one tool for me. The other one was I told you having a daily agenda. Where I write out my day set up to sundown and then I track my reality. That's another huge tool. And then the third tool is my, I call it my war tracker in EOS. It's just a scorecard for the business. What are the key measureables that that business needs to succeed?

I I'm, I've declared war with habitual mediocrity in my. And you have to declare war when you're fighting an internal battle, because habits will take over. And if you don't have the right habit, those unintentional habits can really frustrate you. So for me, it's that weekly action register. What are the key disciplines that I'm using on a daily?

So I track did I set my daily agenda? I tracked it. I reviewed my morning power routine. Did I read the Bible? Did I exercise? Did I get seven hours of sleep? So those are things that I track to just kind of sustain the kind of life and the kind of person that I want to be. It's it's through discipline.

Tiffany Sauder: So practically.

What time of day do you do? Obviously the morning power routine is probably done in the morning, but like really practice. Do you read that out loud to yourself? Do you read it internally? Just like really literally. What does that look like? And then even your scorecard and your tracking, do you do that during the day?

Do you do at the end of the

Justin Maust: day? Let me just say this. I can still go right back to old Justin so easily. Like it is. So this is never felt like completely natural to me. It is taken really. And it still requires effort. I just got out of my annual season where I was running really hard and almost like a hold onto the wheel and just focus on delivering that.

And so a lot of my disciplines have fallen off over the past 90 days because I was laser-focused on delivering in one key area of my. And I sacrificed a lot for that. So I'm in the middle of rebuilding, so I can give you some fresh, raw, scared, confident feedback that Justin Moss has to recalibrate on a regular basis.

And so one of the things that I'm doing is I that weekly accountability like you have on a scorecard with your leadership team, my son wanted to do this with his best friend. And so we have a little group and every week we get on a call and I report my Justin healthy disciplines to those two young men.

And I'll tell you what, like it's convicting if I sucked that week. And so, so practically I do this in the morning, but if I don't, it still counts. If I do it in the evening. Like my scorecard is just freaking get it done if I didn't do my agenda. First thing in the morning, which is ideal. Sometimes I'll stop at two o'clock in the afternoon and I will make my agenda for the rest of the day too, to just carry out the discipline, even though I missed half of it, because I'm just going to keep getting up like success.

Failing forward. And sometimes it's even the daily failing where crap, I didn't do my agenda. I don't beat myself up. I I've stopped beating myself up because I am working my hardest in, I'm just not willing to let my weakness overshadow my strength. So it's two o'clock in the afternoon who cares make your freaking agenda?

So I create my agenda. I actually have a more productive afternoon because I took the 10 minutes to make the. So ideally I do this the night before, or the first thing in the morning. I do my morning power routine. I read the Bible or listen to the Bible. One of the two. I usually get a workout in, in the, in the evening because my kids are older.

So I do early morning stuff. Usually for work. I try to track my sleep because I got shingles one time working so hard. It's never been about work ethic for me. It's been about focused, sustained discipline to get the result. That's where, like where I've struggled, work ethic is not a problem. So tracking, I track usually at the end of the day or at the end of the week, especially if I'm doing this well and I track everything all day long, then I don't have to track my in my scorecard.

I can just look back over 15 minutes and capture all the work that I did in my scorecard or in my journal. in your job you work with lots of companies like mine, maybe 25 30 on any given quarter.

Yeah, 25 to 30 clients, 25 30 companies.

Tiffany Sauder: I want to understand, like, what do you observe across that number of data points, which is significant.

What have you learned about discipline? As you've worked closely in helping companies transform their cultures, transform their results, transform their people, their organizations. What, what are your observations?

Justin Maust: Success is boring people off. Put up a front and a facade of, of changing and moving. And, but when I look at the core requirements to be successful, it's the methodical grinding activity that people are just committed to doing nothing that I've ever done that has sustained, came from one-offs came from a burst of energy.

Now things got ignited from a burst of. But long-term results are actually the mundane. It's the, the methodical grind in the person that usually wins more often than not is the person that is freaking loves the grind and the journey like John Maxwell says everything great is uphill. And that's the picture.

Success loves discipline is an uphill mindset that I am signing up for the. In the moment I let go of those incremental little disciplines is the moment I start not getting the results that I want. Now. I don't see it right away because I I've had some of the disciplines and it's good enough kind of like my body.

Like I've not been working out that much for the past 90 days, but nobody would really notice that unless you spend a lot of time with me, but I know it because I know how I feel and it successes the same. Business success. Most of the time, people are trying to be busy on the peripheral and they avoid the core hardest work.

And it's the hardest work that actually gives you the results that you want. That's my biggest observation.

Tiffany Sauder: Well, I think at face value, it's like a successories chant. Like, okay. But when you really understand. And I think I relate to Justin's story because I too have a very tension filled relationship with discipline.

Like I don't love it, but I have come to like, appreciate and respect it. And I think I shared that, like I realized I didn't have the outcomes that I wanted because I wasn't willing to do the work. And when the work comes only episodically, you don't get a chance to like rest sustainably now. Your outcomes also come episodically.

And so discipline is about doing the right thing over and over and over. And I said the right thing, the productive thing for your goals over and over and over and over again, even on days that you don't feel like it. And that drum beat is really difficult when it hasn't been a really explicit decision.

And so this idea of like success loves discipline. Like you don't get success without discipline. And I think Justin has chosen the word. In part to say, like, if I focus on loving discipline and committing, not just with my Headspace, but with like my, my soul and my heart, like committing with your like full being that is when you get success.

So when you know him and when I think discipline is really acute, because it's not something natural, you start to understand, there's a real intentionality with each one of those words of, we all want success. If you are willing to do the work to get there, then the next question is like, well, what do I do?

And the reality is none of us really know exactly the formula that gets a success, but if you're disciplined, you'll iterate towards it. And when you decide to love the discipline, you love the behavior, success, successes, and natural outcome. So I think that's why like, don't let it be a corny successories poster.

It's much richer than that.

What you're saying was a profound discovery for me when we started working with you. And I had a different understanding of what success looked like, because the way it's marketed is a series of Superbowl moments. That's like how success is marketed. But I also think for me, discipline was disconnecting my behavior from how I felt.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And actually, because I'm similar to you in that my motor and my work ethic has never been, what's been my issue. It's that I, I can fragment that energy across way, too many ideas and people and, and not have a real understanding of what complete implementation looks like in, I believe it's built to last where Jim Collins talks about the 20 mile March and he tells the story of these two explorers that were going to the south pole.

He talks about the team that got their first. They marched 20 miles every single day in the most profound part of that story for me was actually that even on the sunny days, when everybody was at high energy, they still only went 20 miles. They didn't go to try cause my, you know, the rabbits personality is to go 150.

Yeah. I go 120 miles today, so let's do it. And the restraint to simply do the behavior. Irrespectively completely disconnected from how you feel, because I also can get a lot of energy from grinding when I feel bad about something like, this is hard, I'm going to war. Like everybody did this exciting. You know what I mean?

Like I can make it very. And I think rabbits love a fight. And that was so profound to me to see. Cause it's not a, it's not a parable. It's, this is actually a story that happened. And to see that his leadership showed the restraint, even when the team could have gone further to me was the most profound part of that story and getting to the place where you would completely disconnect your behaviors from the.

Justin Maust: Yeah. And that's the positive part of the story? The negative is the other team because they didn't own the 20 mile March. They didn't just lose the race. They all died. Th they all lost their life because of a lack of discipline and a lack of preparation. They literally lost their life. And I think for me in America, we are so blessed.

Like we're so blessed. And so we don't really see that it's life and death, but there's a ton of people like me that were internally dying. And not living to my full potential and that's death to me if I'm living in America and I can't like fully express all my talents and my skills because of something I'm not doing.

Oh, that's just as like, painful to think about, you know,

Tiffany Sauder: so the two last questions as we close out here, I did a series and season two call dear 24 year old self. So I'm curious to know that Justin Mastive today, what advice would you give your 24 year old?

Justin Maust: Oh, well really quick. I would tell myself the only way you're going to get there is through discipline, like the only way.

So whatever you need to do to get over yourself and get over your ideas that you can do it without it it's a lie and stop wasting your time there. The other thing I would say is Justin, you have ridiculously. More talent, more ability, more skills than you ever thought possible. And if you keep running and honoring God, you are going to have ridiculous impact, but start now because your 46 year old self, the only regret he has is he wished you would have started when he was 18, not 24.

He wish he just wishes. And I love my life and I'm totally excited. I'm going to live till I die, but the compound effect of discipline is so good. It's so exciting. I like the compound effect and I just missed out on that. And I was a financial advisor that taught, you know, invest early. I so. I even knew it, but I didn't know it on the inside.

So that's what I would tell my 24 year old self.

Tiffany Sauder: When I hear you talk, it's almost like watching somebody who went back to college as an adult, like they paid attention so much more when you go in, your parents are paying for it and you're going, cause you like are supposed to, I mean, you're there and you're absorbing it, but you don't understand its application.

And I feel like this last 10 years was you sort of going to college, so to speak and paying so much attention. Like you said the pain was at a place where you knew you had the change, so yeah.

Justin Maust: Yeah. It's cool to observe. It's worth it. The pain is worth it. Going through the pain of change. It is so freaking worth it.

That's what I wish I would've learned because I was, I avoided pain, you know, I avoided conflict. I avoided hard things. I avoided structure because of the, the pain. It's you, you pay it an ounce of an ounce of pain or you can have like a ton of regret. Like which one do you want to pay? You're going to.

You're going to have pain either way. Which one do you want? You know, an ounce of pain or 2000 pounds

Tiffany Sauder: of regrets. The other thing that's coming up for me as you're talking about that is, as I think about phases of change, the first one is you have to face the brutal facts and then you have to eat the shit sandwich because there actually is consequence.

From the fact that you sort of can subconsciously think once I've acknowledged it, the poopy part must be over and it's like, it's actually not. And, uh, I love this, uh, uh, Marc Andreessen wrote a book and, uh, or maybe it's Ben Horowitz. I think it's been a whirlwind and it says, eat the shit sandwich. Don't nibble on it.

And it's like the speed at which you're willing to like, just like, you know, like I'm going for it. I'm doing it. I'm doing. It speeds it up because it's not go, you cannot avoid it. It's not

Justin Maust: possible. No. Yeah, yeah. That's I love that and that, and that's what going uphill, everything great is uphill is you have to eat the shit sandwich daily life.

And I think, I mean, does it taste better over time? I think it does. Like I, now I've done it so many times to where I enjoy my routine and I love that. I'm correct. But man, it's easy to fall back.

Tiffany Sauder: What does fear tell you to. We talk about fear at scare. Confident. What does fear say to you as you look at using the talents that you have and the lessons that you've learned to help others?

Justin Maust: Fear tells me to when I start feeling fear, it's usually when I'm, when I think I'm getting close to hitting the ceiling and I get excited.

So I I've literally, I look forward to hitting the ceiling. I look forward to these hard things because I know I'm just around the corner. It's about to get. Like, so for me, I don't have many fears except not like living to my full potential. Like that's a real, like I want to maximize the life God's given me.

And so when I feel fear, it's usually my, my desire is to step into it faster because I used to step away and just avoid. And so that's, that's what fear is telling me is you're about to turn the.

Tiffany Sauder: My mission for scare confident is to give women the permission to passionately pursue a life of ant. This project is really about having a conversation. So if you have questions, comments, feedback for me, or something that you want more of, let me know, text me at 3 1 7 3 5 0 8 9 2 1.

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