Editor’s note: This is the book I wish I could have written. The title is the answer I’ve long given to anyone who asks me “what’s the key to success in business”. Hollins brilliantly and simply bursts some theoretical bubbles about self-discipline and replaces them with more realistic practices built around awareness, flexibility, and habit development. The reason 90% of start-ups fail is because their founders can’t accept that they must “do the things you hate to do”.
The Spartans can teach us about discipline by subtraction rather than addition, i.e., what we choose to not focus on.
In my first job out of college, I worked with a fifty-something bachelorette named Alice Shoenholtz who often made me think and just as often, made me laugh. Once I asked Alice if she thought she’d ever get married. She said, “Sure, honey, if I find me a cardiac with a Cadillac”.
