Your Performance Coffee & Apparel

Discipline

October 18, 2018

Written by Jeff Lund @alaskalund

I once routinely lied to myself and believed that I couldn’t get to my job as an English teacher before 7:02 a.m. (school started at 7:30. This is when I lived in California). I was the advisor of a club that met at 7 on Wednesdays, and every Wednesday at least a few people were waiting outside of my room. No matter what, I just couldn’t make it at 7. The truth is, I didn’t make it happen. Every time I lied to myself, I was outsourcing control of my day to something else – a train, traffic, whatever I could to deflect responsibility.

Life is made up of tiny details that add up to you. Much has been written about starting the day with purpose and efficiency to boost productivity. Starting the day in a rush can doom productivity and attitude.

I’m writing this before breakfast and before coffee, pissed off because I realize I haven’t had the discipline to write anything since Sunday and today is Thursday. I could come up with a bunch of really good sounding excuses to fool everyone but really, I just didn’t get it done. That’s the truth. I woke up at 5 a.m. listened to a podcast every morning, did some air squats or lunges to get the blood flowing, made breakfast and arrived at school 90 minutes before the first bell. Great routine, but I didn’t accomplish the reason I started waking up so early in the first place – to produce content. The intent is not to shame myself, it’s just to make myself uncomfortable enough to want to change – and follow through with it.

If I don’t make my routine more purposeful, then at some point during the dark, cold winter, I might convince myself that the extra hour of sleep wouldn’t hurt. Tim Ferriss talked about the cost of inaction in a Ted Talk and that really resonated with me. It’s not easy to become self-disciplined enough to pursue big goals, let alone small ones. But you have to start somewhere. I thought back to my days before I started writing for a newspaper in Manteca as a side hustle, then sent off outdoor articles to magazines who rejected me either with an email or silence. Rejection isn’t easy, but insulating from rejection, settling into comfortable stagnancy, is worse because it’s easily excused.

I remember when Danny and I taught together at East Union High School in Manteca and the day I told him I was moving to Alaska. He was excited. “Awesome, man!” I was a little shocked because I figured a close friend would be sad to see me leave, but he knew it was the right thing and was excited. That turned out to be his last year teaching at EU as well, as he went full send on Caffeine and Kilos and the rest is history.

Full Send, the only way you get results. That’s one of the reasons you buy PR Blend or shirts from CK. Other brands have comfortable shirts. The coffee market is flooded. There’s something about this lifestyle. It’s not just about the comfort of the shorts, the shirts or the taste of the coffee. The brand, the lifestyle, is what you want, what we want.

Happiness and productivity is not about the two minutes you arrive late, or the inability to brew coffee at home.

But maybe it’s the starting point to something better.

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