Is It All Worth It?

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power"

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

You control every aspect of your life down to the microcosm.

Do you feel your desire to have this control has made you successful?

Has it hindered relationships?

Has it made you totally and unequivocally happy?

An athlete I train (Joe Mreczko) randomly texted me these questions.

Before answering them, I asked him to tell me why he asked them and what he thought I would say.

While I could have just answered, it wouldn't have helped either of us.

He wouldn't have learned the true "why" behind his questions and I wouldn't have learned how I am being perceived.

I now welcome you into both my mind and Joe's. I am sure you can find a little bit of yourself in either one of us.


You control every aspect of your life down to the microcosm.

Joe's Why:

My thinking behind the first statement is I know you control everything that is actually withing your control. 

You wake up the same time every day and not because you have to. You do it to stay on your schedule.

Jocko's Watch

You eat the same meals every day, which includes beans and sauerkraut. 

My daily breakfast

You even bring your own food to holiday parties.

No matter what, these things don't suffer no matter where you are or who you are with.

I don't know if it was how you were raised or if it came from motivation that derived from having a chip on your shoulder from sports.

My Why

I believe that if you don't set your priorities, someone else will set them for you.

This is why I always try to live my life on "offense" as opposed to "defense".

• I wake up BEFORE my alarm clock because I don't want my alarm clock to control me.

• I set-up meetings with people BEFORE they set them up with me, so I can dictate WHEN, WHERE, HOW LONG and in WHAT FORMAT they will be.

• I make reservations at restaurants with healthy options, so I can control what I eat when having dinner with friends.

Why do I feel I need this control?

I believe it is because I am self-aware of my short-comings.

I do not have enough natural talent in any area of my life to simply let things happen.

• I am not naturally ripped, so I need to control how I eat.

• I am not naturally athletic, so I need to make sure I control how I train.

• I am not naturally smart, so I need to make sure I control how and when I learn.

Some people say I am super-disciplined.

Others say I have tremendous willpower.

They are wrong about both.

The discipline they see is really the product of developing the right habits over the course of my life.

• Waking up before 5AM is not a choice. It's a habit.

• Eating beans and sauerkraut at breakfast is not a choice. It's a habit.

• Training 4 times a week is not a choice. It's a habit.

These habits allow me to exert my willpower to where it matters most. 

There is only so much willpower you can exert in a day and I don't want to waste it on deciding what to have for breakfast or on what time to wake up.

Has it hindered relationships?

Joe's Why:

I can't imagine ever walking into my family's holiday meals with anything other than wine, especially Biotrust Protein bars.

Have you ever had to defend it? Is it worth it?

And when you are out with your wife, do you ever feel she thinks it's boring that you don't split cheesecake with her or anything like that?

My Why:

Any relationship that this lifestyle has hindered was not worth having.

The people that usually have the hardest time with it are those people who either don't want to see you achieve your goals or those who feel shamed.

As I have often said, people will give you a harder time for eating a grilled chicken salad than they would for eating three hot fudge sundaes.

This is why you need to surround yourself with the right people ... especially if it is the person you are going to marry.

Do you feel your desire to have this control has made you successful?

Joe's Why:

Joe didn't give one.

My Why:

Success has different meanings to different people.

To me, one form of success is maximizing your talent to help others.

If this lifestyle has helped me to inspire someone else to live a healthier life, than I would say it has been successful.

Has it made you totally and unequivocally happy?

Joe's Why:

Do you fight the thought of regret of what it would be like to let loose every now and again, or sleep in, or anything?

You have to understand that as much as I am skeptical of your need for control, I also believe in and am motivated by what you do. 

I know "happiness" has different scales for different people., but we have had totally different experiences as far as social life and everything like that.


George's Why:

I believe my article "Pick Your Own Pain" does a great job answering Joe's question, as does the picture below.

Wrap-Up

Thank you for taking the time to enter both Joe's mind and mine.

If you are comfortable enough, please reach out to let me know your thoughts.

I am sure many of you can relate to both of our perspectives on lifestyle, success, and overall happiness.