Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building and GOLA GV.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six point thirty. Today we're talking about something
Speaker 2: that quietly destroys high performers. Self discipline. Not the motivational
Speaker 2: poster version, not the four am cold plunge version, not
Speaker 2: the grind yourself into the ground version. Real self discipline,
Speaker 2: and more importantly, how to practice it without turning it
Speaker 2: into self punishment. I see this in leaders all the time,
Speaker 2: especially the driven ones, especially the ones who care, especially
Speaker 2: the ones who built something from scratch. They believe discipline
Speaker 2: means pressure. They believe discipline means no excuses. They believe
Speaker 2: discipline means push harder, longer, faster, and over time, discipline
Speaker 2: turns into something ugly. It turns into internal bullying. You
Speaker 2: miss a workout, you trash yourself, you miss a goal,
Speaker 2: you call yourself weak. You make a mistake in a
Speaker 2: meeting and you replay it for three days. That's not discipline,
Speaker 2: that's punishment, and punishment rarely builds sustainable leadership. I learned
Speaker 2: this in aviation. When I returned to flight school after
Speaker 2: twenty five years away, I was not a kid anymore.
Speaker 2: I had a title, I had experience, I had built teams,
Speaker 2: I had commanded incidents. Yet I was back in a
Speaker 2: small single engine aircraft making rookie mistakes. One day I
Speaker 2: botched a landing, not dangerous, but sloppy. I felt the
Speaker 2: frustration rising. The internal voice was loud. You should know better.
Speaker 2: You're better than this. Minds trant direct looked at me
Speaker 2: calmly and said, good, now you know what the fix
Speaker 2: that was? It No drama, no shame, no ego, just data.
Speaker 2: That is discipline. Self discipline is not emotional violence against yourself.
Speaker 2: It's calm correction. It's the ability to say that was
Speaker 2: not my standard. Now I will adjust. In ems, if
Speaker 2: we miss an IV, we do not throw the whole
Speaker 2: medical way. We adjust technique, We reset, we try again.
Speaker 2: If a team member makes a documentation error, we do
Speaker 2: not question their identity. We coach the standard. Yet leaders
Speaker 2: rarely give themselves that same professionalism. Here's the difference. Punishment
Speaker 2: attacks identity. Discipline protects standards. Punishment says you're not good enough.
Speaker 2: Discipline says your performance was not aligned with your standard.
Speaker 2: That distinction matters. High performers confuse the two because they
Speaker 2: believe intensity equals excellence. It does not. Clarity equals excellence.
Speaker 2: If you want to practice self discipline without self punishment,
Speaker 2: here are a few tactical shifts. First, define your standards clearly.
Speaker 2: Most leaders punish themselves for violating vague expectations. I should
Speaker 2: be better better at, what, better, how by when? In aviation,
Speaker 2: we have checklists at altitude, air speed, heading specific numbers.
Speaker 2: If you want discipline, define measurable standards for your day.
Speaker 2: Calls returned within twenty four hours, work out three days
Speaker 2: a week, read ten pages, leave work by a certain time. Concrete. Second,
Speaker 2: separate the event from your identity. A bad meeting does
Speaker 2: not make you a bad leader. A poor decision does
Speaker 2: not erase a career of sound judgment. Red key moments
Speaker 2: are about ownership, not self destruction. If you made the
Speaker 2: wrong call, own it, fix it, learn from it, then
Speaker 2: move forward. No dragging it around like a weight vest. Third,
Speaker 2: build recovery into your discipline. This is where most leaders fail.
Speaker 2: They schedule output. They do not schedule recovery. In scuba diving,
Speaker 2: you respect surface intervals and flying. You respect rest requirements
Speaker 2: and emergency management. You rotate crews during prolonged incidents. Why
Speaker 2: do you think you are exempt? If you run yourself
Speaker 2: into exhaustion and call it discipline, you're lying to yourself.
Speaker 2: You are burning fuel without checking the gauges. Real discipline
Speaker 2: includes sleep, It includes time off, It includes mental rest. Fourth,
Speaker 2: watch your internal language. If you would not say it
Speaker 2: to a team member, do not say it to yourself.
Speaker 2: You would never look at a strong employee who had
Speaker 2: one off week and say you are useless. You would say,
Speaker 2: what happened? How do we fix it? Apply that same
Speaker 2: leadership to the person in the mirror. Fifth track, progress
Speaker 2: not perfection. This is seven minute leadership at its core.
Speaker 2: Seven intentional minutes per day compounds. It's not about crushing
Speaker 2: one day and collapsing the next. Small, consistent, disciplined actions
Speaker 2: build identity over time. When you miss one, you reset
Speaker 2: the next day. No theatrics. Let me give you a
Speaker 2: reality check. If your self discipline leaves you chronically exhausted, resentful, irritable,
Speaker 2: or disconnected from the people you lead, it is not discipline.
Speaker 2: It is ego disguised as work ethic. The most dangerous
Speaker 2: leaders are not the lazy ones. It's the ones who
Speaker 2: punish themselves into emotional isolation. Because when you are hard
Speaker 2: on yourself and the wrong way, you slowly become hard
Speaker 2: on others hon titans, the patience shrinks, the margin for
Speaker 2: error disappears, and culture follows that energy. Self discipline without
Speaker 2: self punishment produces calm leaders. Calm leaders make better decisions.
Speaker 2: Calm leaders recover faster. Calm leaders hold standards without creating fear.
Speaker 2: You want to be elite, then master this set high standards,
Speaker 2: hold yourself accountable, correct quickly, recover deliberately, and move forward
Speaker 2: without drama. That's what professionals do. You don't need to
Speaker 2: beat yourself into greatness. You need to coach yourself into consistency.
Speaker 2: So if today's episode hit home, here's your challenge for
Speaker 2: the next seven days. When you fall short of your standard,
Speaker 2: pause before reacting. Replace criticism with correction, Replace shame with adjustment.
Speaker 2: Treat yourself like a professional you are responsible for developing
Speaker 2: that one shift alone can change how you lead, how
Speaker 2: you think, and how you show up for the people
Speaker 2: counting on you. This has been the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast,
Speaker 2: and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.