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The reason discipline is everything to me is none of this makes any sense. I should not have any of the success on paper. I am not academic. I am not well spoken. I have crippling ADHD to the point where I can barely read. I'm not
Greg Lav explains how discipline leads to freedom and success, sharing personal struggles and lessons on saying no, controlling vices, and embracing individuality.
Key Takeaways
- Discipline is the foundation of freedom and success.
- Saying no to short-term pleasures is essential for long-term achievement.
- Control over substances and emotions enhances productivity and life quality.
- Authenticity and embracing your unique self are powerful in professional and personal growth.
- Success is a reflection of character developed through discipline and sacrifice.
What the video covers
- Greg Lav shares his personal story of overcoming ADHD, poor academics, and lack of natural advantages through discipline.
- Discipline is framed as freedom, not restriction, allowing control over emotions, cravings, and short-term pleasures.
- Success requires intentional sacrifice, including saying no to social events and family holidays to focus on long-term goals.
- Absolutism in substance use (alcohol, nicotine) is recommended for clarity, but controlled use is possible with discipline.
- The key skill to develop is the ability to say no consistently, even when facing FOMO or social pressure.
- Embracing one's unique identity and authenticity is crucial, especially in professional settings.
- Discipline enables control over vices and emotions, which leads to true freedom and options in life.
- Success reveals character rather than builds it, highlighting the importance of discipline and self-control.
- Greg discusses the importance of preparation, timing, and knowing when to leave situations to maintain success.
- Long-term discipline leads to meaningful relationships with people who understand and support your goals.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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even athletic. There were no signs of a trajectory of my future success when I was a child, when I was a teenager, when I was even in my early 20s. And the reason that I was able to
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succeed in my life is because of discipline. Lesson number one, discipline is freedom. We'll start this off with a quote. The most powerful man is the man who has power over himself. One of the biggest misconceptions in modern
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society, especially for men in their 20s, is that they think discipline is restrictive. The reality is that discipline is freedom. A lot of people think that freedom is doing whatever you want when you want. But the reality is
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that then you are following your cravings. You are following your vices. You are following your emotions. And the worst is you are following your anger.
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You are not free. You are controlled. You are controlled by those vices, by those cravings, by those emotions. It is a path of short-term pleasure and a path to a painful life, which to me is a boring life. And I want to be clear,
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none of my success makes any sense. On paper, I was never an academic. I graduated college with a 2.3 GPA. I have crippling ADHD to the point that I can't even read. I am not well spoken. I just
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got in trouble my entire childhood. And I am sitting here today because I was able to realize that discipline is not deprivation. It brings rewards. Real discipline is having access, having freedom, having options and still being able to control yourself and using those
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things as tools or as building bricks to the life that you want to build. And once you harness that, you realize that nobody controls your life. You control your life. For you, this may look like learning how to control your emotions
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before they ruin a relationship, whether that's a business relationship or a personal relationship or a friend or a girlfriend, whatever it may be. It may look like learning how to say no to short-term pleasures. It may look like
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simply doing difficult things when nobody is watching on a consistent basis. And once you start to meet people who are older, who have built a successful life, you will realize that that life came with sacrifice.
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Intentional sacrifice. Intentionally saying no to short-term pleasures to go after something greater. Next lesson.
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Everybody says they want success, but they still want to live the same exact life that they've been living. And they clearly aren't on the trajectory to success right now. You will need to make changes. And the number one skill that
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you will need to learn is the ability to say no. There is literally a joke amongst my peers in Austin, Texas, where I currently reside, my friends, at how good I am at saying no. Unfortunately, nine out of 10 times when they ask me to
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go do something on a weekday or a weekend, I say no. I've had to learn that discipline of being able to say no even when I so badly wanted to go in the short term. I had FOMO, whatever it may be,
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because those were the days where I truly got ahead. A lot of my early years of entrepreneurship, five, six years, dude, I didn't go to Thanksgiving for five years. I didn't go to a family Christmas for years. We were working out of our Santa
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Monica Airbnb with our team on Thanksgiving because the next day was Black Friday. January 1st was the Super Bowl of wellness, and I would miss Christmas every year to prepare for January 1st. First, in fact, the first year where we finally did get to go back
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to Christmas, we had a massive 18-wheel, four 18-wheelers stolen, full of products on their way to a massive launch in January. And I had to leave Christmas after one hour to go address this highway robbery that my business
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was dealing with. This is the reality of building something great. You will need to say no to things. You will need to say no to the family holidays. You will need to say no to these social events.
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But the good news is that the people who stick around throughout years of you saying no are the realest friends that you will ever come across, are the people who truly understand, are truly rooting for you, and truly the
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people that you do want to still have around you after a decade of that lifestyle. And it is not forever. Now I always have Thanksgiving. I always have Christmas. It's a beautiful holiday every year. I do say yes to far
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more social activities, of course. But there was a period of, call it, five, six, seven, eight years where I did say no nine out of 10 times. Next lesson, and I know this is extra powerful for anybody in their 20s
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because you are probably trying to figure out your relationship with these substances. My thoughts on alcohol, nicotine, whatever the hell your choice of substance is. The unfortunate answer is that absolutism is generally the easiest answer to all things in life. It
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is easier to not have a drink of alcohol than it is to have two drinks of alcohol. It is easier to not ever have nicotine than to use nicotine as a nootropic. And it is an incredible nootropic. It is easier to just say,
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"I'm only going to eat chicken and rice," instead of saying, "I will occasionally enjoy a cheeseburger consciously." Absolutely, 20s or trying to figure out your relationship with these substances. And you should definitely have periods of months, if not a year straight, where
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you don't touch alcohol, where you don't touch nicotine, where you don't touch anything like that. I have truly found over the last couple years when I have the discipline of controlling my vices.
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The word control does not mean zero. At this point in my life, over the last couple years, I've had a fantastic relationship with these substances because I have discipline. I use alcohol to celebrate in many scenarios. I use it
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as a social lubricant, especially with people that I don't know that I need to get a little looser with, right? I use alcohol to go have, go create killer memories with my friends and my wife.
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Alcohol is okay, guys. I know everybody's saying that zero is always the answer. I don't know if it is. I use nicotine almost every single day. It has been such an incredible nootropic to help me focus on my goals
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and be cognitively sharp. To pair nicotine with caffeine, with a Bloom energy drink, there is nothing that makes me lock in more, like more than that for a short, for a couple hours. If there is one rule that I
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encourage you to ask yourself around substance use, and notice how I don't say substance abuse, is am I getting more out of that thing than that thing is getting out of me? You should ask that about everything in your life,
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whether it is social media, overall media and movies and reality TV, alcohol, nicotine, you name it. You know what to put in these categories.
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Are you getting more out of that thing than that thing is getting out of you?
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Next lesson, you are a one of one. Embrace that. I remember when Bloom was first starting to raise money. It was our first time raising money. And we were trying to raise $100 million. I was probably 27 years old. And I was living
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in Venice Beach, California, wearing cargo shorts, a baggy t-shirt, and Air Force Ones every day. And I felt like an idiot walking into these rooms with bankers and private equity guys. And I had no idea how to speak the jargon of
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enterprise value and finance, whatever the hell. And I called my buddy who was crushing it on Wall Street, a high school friend. I was like, "Dude, do I need to buy a suit? Can you
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teach me some of this vocabulary really fast?" Like, they were like, and he said, he said, "Greg, you're Bloom. You and Mari, you and your wife are Bloom.
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Enter a room as yourselves. If you wear cargo pants and Air Force Ones every day, and they probably have seen your Instagram, do that when you enter the"
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enter the room with energy because energy is contagious. You need to be the best version of yourself when you enter a room. And if that is not authentic to you in the beginning because you have no track record. You have no reason to be
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confident. Then you need to just you need to build that up, bro. And that might mean faking it in the beginning.
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You might not have any confidence because again you have no track record. But in the beginning you need to fake it for that one hour that you're in the room and make that that confidence that conviction so contagious that they now
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become confident and convicted into the idea that you are selling them. Bloom is now in 60,000 retail doors. We launched this product full national in Target in 2023 or something like that. We had no reason to deserve that launch for our
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product. We flew to Minneapolis where the headquarters of Target is and we hit that deck. Like we had no doubt in our mind that it would be a blowout success.
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You would have been crazy to not believe us with how much confidence we had about the idea of a target launch. And that changed the whole trajectory of our life. And we didn't walk in there with suits. We didn't we we walked in there
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clean. We walked in there groomed. We had our [ __ ] together, but we were ourselves. Nobody in 2026 wants to see another MPC. We are sick of seeing this mannequin person that walks around. Be authentic to yourself, but be a clean
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version of yourself. Be a convicted version of yourself. Be a confident version of yourself. And walk into a room with confidence. I don't care if you're an introvert. I am an introvert.
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You can fake it. And eventually it will become easier. Next lesson, guys. Wake up early. I know this is like cliche and everybody talks about this [ __ ] and it's, you know, first and foremost, if I told you somebody wakes up at 5:00 a.m.
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every day, you'd be like, "Wow, that guy has his [ __ ] together. he's probably doing great. You would just make an assumption out of somebody that wakes up at 5:00 a.m. every day. But the reality is is I have had years of my life or
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chapters of my life where I would wake up at 8 a.m. every day. And I have had chapters of my life where I wake up at 5:00 5:30 every day. Chapters where I was waking up at 5:00 5:30 every day. I
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got so much further ahead at such a faster pace. There is something so spiritual about the early hours of the day. It is quiet. There are no notifications. I even swear that when I do go on social media that early in the
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morning, my algorithm is like very positive and motivating and it makes me want to just put down my social media and go after my goals. Entrepreneurship is very selfish. It is the reality of entrepreneurship is the reality of
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trying to create a life of greatness. There is not a better time in 24 hours to be incredibly selfish than before everybody else wakes up. You will not feel any guilt for it. You will not feel any inconvenience that comes with it. If
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you can create a circadian rhythm where you are regularly waking up at 5, 5:30 in the morning, I promise you that you will get so much further ahead than everybody you know waking up later than that. It is a massive unlock. It is a
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massive superpower for anybody chasing greatness in their 20s, 30s, 40s, I don't care what it is. All right, next lesson. Blessed to be stressed, baby.
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Modern society will make you feel guilty about being stressed. In my 20s, I was tremendously stressed regularly. One of the reasons I was tremendously stressed is because the stress that I did have, society was making me feel guilty for
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it. They were telling me that you shouldn't feel that way. You're working too hard. You don't need to do XYZ. But I [ __ ] wanted to. And now when I'm 31 and I look back at my 20s and some of
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those chapters where I was the most stressed, it's honestly a [ __ ] fantastic memory. It's romanticized in my head as some of the coolest, most badass chapters of my life because I was under [ __ ] pressure and it's what
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turned me into the man that I am today. that pressure truly did create diamonds.
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And society is so obsessed with with ease at this point in 2026 that we are forgetting that to actually create something great, you will need to go through chapters of tremendous amount of stress and people will see it in your
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face. Your family members will see it in you. But if they're truly rooting for you, they will support you and they will and they will embrace it and they will they will know that it is temporary. It is not supposed to be forever. Money
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without freedom is just paper. Do not ever create a scenario where you are a slave to anything. We already spoke about controlling your vices and your emotions and your cravings. Do not ever want to be a slave to those things. But
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I am talking about more so signing up to have a [ __ ] boss. Do not sign partnerships, whatever that may be, that do not increase the quality of your life or increase slashmaintain your freedom.
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If you find yourself in front of a decision balancing the option between freedom and money, choose freedom every time. That is the whole point of this video. The whole point of this video is to be build a great life where you truly
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have the power over yourself. And if somebody has the power over you because of a bad a bad contract that you signed or a bad line of debt that you signed up for or a decision that was frankly too
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risky, then there is no point of the potential money that you will be making.
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I've seen too many people who sign up for incredible salaries and cannot even say yes to the things that they want to say yes to. I'm here in Nevada with my [ __ ] boys right now. This is my job
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now. Nobody can tell me what to do. It does. I I don't need to tell you how much money I have. I don't need to tell you the material things that I have. The whole point is that it is Wednesday
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morning and I wanted to drive out into the desert and film a video for the next generation of entrepreneurs. That is what freedom is. That is what true wealth is and that is what this video is about. There's a massive element of
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freedom that comes with amassing wealth. Of course, it's [ __ ] freedom. coupons 90% of the time. But if there's somebody controlling you to where you can't even deploy those [ __ ] freedom coupons, then you're just in shackles, homie.
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You're in shackles. So, you need to find that balance between pressure makes diamonds, a healthy level of stress, but never actually giving away the freedom that you have in your life. Next lesson, never take no for a [ __ ] answer. I
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know that sounds cliche, but if you are truly going after building a great life because you are watching this video, you I'm sure you are. You will always be dating up. You will be going after goals that you shouldn't be going after. You
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will be the least wealthy person in the room, the least experienced person in the room, the youngest person in the room. You will be going after even maybe women that you aren't qualified to go after. Right? I have a wife that I am
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not qualified to have. I have a job that I am not qualified to have. I am constantly pitching retailers with ideas that I'm not qualified to pitch them on.
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I have no right to be beating the largest energy drinks in the country right now. But I did because I refused to take no for an answer and I was able to get deals done that I should not have
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ever been able to get done. You are a one of one. You have the ability to go after any dream, any mission, to pitch anybody in any room. Hold your head high. Have confidence. Do not ever coward or show fear. And if you are
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pitching somebody, chances are you are pitching somebody who is not the superior at that company. Even at this point in my career, I am generally not speaking to the superiors of the largest retailers in the country. Of course not.
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If I am declined about something that I have high conviction on, I will find their boss. So, this leads me to my next lesson. People are always watching. In a prior video, I talked about staying ready so that you don't need to get
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ready. And I listed through Tik Tok, GLP1's, COVID, whatever it may be, think opportunities that I was able to hop on because I did not need to get ready. I was already ready to pounce on them as business opportunities. And the truth is
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is that one opportunity that you capture in your 20s can change the trajectory for your entire life. You may think today that the best way to approach life is to just make sure that you are ultra prepared for that big meeting, that big
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pitch, that big interview that you may have. But life doesn't usually work that way. The biggest opportunities often show up unexpectedly. And if you are not ready when they appear, they will be passed on to somebody else. I have lost
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incredible opportunities in my 20s because I was not prepared. This isn't [ __ ] rocket science, guys. All I'm really talking about here is leave your house looking composed. Leave your house looking like you have your [ __ ]
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together. Shave every day. Get a [ __ ] haircut. Wear clean clothes every day. I have lost incredible opportunities because I was not prepared. This one's difficult to master, but if you can master it early on, you will you will
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realize the power of it so quickly. Be the quietest man in the room. Mystery is your power. I mean, this comes right from Robert Green's 48 Laws of Power. I don't go to business dinners. 99% of the time, if I have a purely business
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relationship with somebody that I'm doing business with, aka they're not like my friend outside of work, I will decline a business dinner. I do not go to business dinners with retailers. I do not even really go to business dinners
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with most of my investors. There is a tremendous amount of power from getting into the room, crushing the message that you need to get across, conquering the goal that you have with that meeting, and leaving. I have seen and honestly I
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experienced earlier in my career. If you overstay your welcome, if you go on tangents that start to come off chaotic because you are just spending more time with that person and that initial aura or energy or confidence that you had
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initially entered the room with starts to fade, you can ruin the deal. I have had people pitch me their businesses with tons of confidence. I had so much meat on the bone of the idea of who this entrepreneur was, of what this business
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could become. But as that person continued to reach out to me on a chaotic level before the transaction was complete or I kept badgering an influential person at a retailer because I was so excited that I wanted to just
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keep following up. It came off chaotic. Generally speaking, the less you say, the less time that you can, the most efficient amount of time that you can spend with somebody, the least amount of time that you can spend with somebody
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gives that person so much more space to dream of what that relationship can be with or of what that relationship can become. And I know this is kind of weird. It kind of like it's kind of a harsh reality of human psychology, but
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it's a lesson that I think you need to master in your 20s. It's a lesson where you realize I've done what I need to do here. it is time for me to leave before I [ __ ] ruin it. Before I expose how
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potentially chaotic this risky venture that I want to take on is because that's the reality of everything that we're doing. Especially if you're somebody with no track record, especially if you don't actually none of us know what we're doing. Nobody. Nobody who even
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acts like they know what they're doing knows what they're doing, right? We're all going after unchartered territory.
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And you never want to make that seem like the reality in the room that you are in. Mystery is your power. A lot of people think discipline matters less when you do have success. But honestly, these skills that you learn throughout
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the journey about discipline are the tools that are required to handle the success that you will achieve. This true life of freedom will expose the person that you really are. I will keep this broad, but to wrap this up with our
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initial point, ego, greed, vices, cravings, sins are still sins regardless of if you have access. And if there's one thing that I have learned and one thing that I want you to remember for when you do come across this life of
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freedom and success, it's that success does not build character, it reveals character. Because at the end of the day, all of this discipline, all of this pressure that you are signing up for, all of this discomfort, whether it's
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intentional or not, it is to lead you somewhere. It is to lead you to a stronger life, a freer life, a meaningful life. I want you guys to be in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 70s on your rocking chair, reflecting back on a
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journey that was [ __ ] worth it. On a journey of the harder road that is less taken. On a journey that you can look back on and be so [ __ ] proud. I promise you it's worth it. I promise you
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this life of discipline and control and having power over yourself is worth it. Guys, thanks for tuning in. I try to drop these videos every couple weeks. I really enjoy making them. My name is Greg Levecia. I go by Greg Lav, the CEO
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of Bloom. Welcome to my channel. If you enjoyed this video and some lessons that I learned in my 20s, I've got a couple more right here. I think there's two more previous to this. I'll be making more every couple weeks. Thanks for
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sitting with me here today. Let's go crush our [ __ ] goals.
Topics:disciplinesuccessself-controlADHDpersonal growthsaying nosubstance useauthenticityentrepreneurshipfreedom
