Enter to Win a Free Signed Copy of Discipline

Goodreads.com is hosting a free giveaway for my recently released book Discipline. To enter to win a copy  you must be a Goodreads memeber (free to join--click here), and have a U.S. mailing address. Ten signed copies of the book are up for grabs. Details below.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Discipline

by Ken Parsell

Giveaway ends July 14, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

William James on Exercises in Discipline

In The Principles of Psychology, William James gives us a brilliant explanation of what I have referred to in my recent book Discipline as "exercises in discipline." He writes:

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But, if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.

A Tale of Fat Ken

“Whatever you do, don't end up like Ken Parsell.” “After he got married, he totally let himself go.” “He's like huge now—seriously—doesn't even look like himself.” “We use to play soccer with him, he probably can't even run anymore.” “...” etc., etc.

Such things were probably said about me during the years following my marriage, and rightly so. To say the least, I bulked up a bit. To be blunt, I got fat. Not that I was terribly self-conscious about it. For the most part it was just annoying. When I was younger I would scoff at people who said things like “I can't button my pants anymore!” “What do you mean you can't button your pants?!” I would think to myself. “How does that even happen?” Well, how exactly, I'm not entirely sure of. At first I thought that my wife was shrinking my clothes. “What kind of laundry detergent are we using?” I would ask her. “I think it's shrinking my clothes.” “Are you doing something different? These shirts are getting tighter on me.” “You're gaining weight” she would say. “What?! Like those people who couldn't button their pants that I would laugh at when I was younger? Pfft! No—this is different—my clothes are definitely shrinking.”

Fortunately the self-deception ended, and I realized the problem didn't involve things like the way the laundry was being done. The problem was me. When I got married I weighed somewhere around 175 to 180. During the highpoint of my “bulking” endeavors I reached upwards of 220 to 225. I would fiddle with diets, or exercise, or both, but never really took it seriously. The following pictures illustrate my change of appearance quite nicely:

The picture on the left was taken in May 2007 (8 months before I got married), when I probably weighed about 160 or 165. The picture on the right was taken in December 2010 (36 months after I got married), when I weighted 1,000 lbs. Just kidding. Actually I have no idea how much I weighed when that picture was taken, but I remember screaming “Madre de Dios!” when I saw it. The picture was taken by my aunt during Christmas, and at the time I was sure that she must have had some funky-weird camera lens that created the optical illusion that I was bigger than I was. To my horror, my wife assured me that I actually did look like that, and it was at that time that I realized my clothes weren't shrinking after all.

But again, for some reason I wasn't that concerned. So I continued halfheartedly flirting with random diet and exercise regimens. If I lost some weight, great. If I didn't, I wasn't seriously hurt by it. This continued until the spring of 2012 (last spring). I happened to be organizing my notes and getting ready to start writing Discipline, when I got the idea that I should take my “research process” a step further. Since I was going to be writing about the subject of self-discipline, why not apply my “discipline process” to my own weight loss? I had been slowly growing more concerned about the prospect of potentially becoming a diabetic, I was still annoyed with my tight fitting clothes, and I knew that I wanted to lose weight eventually. So I decided to take the plunge.

After a period of trial and error, I settled on combining elements from Doug Varrieur's Fat To Skinny diet, and Tim Ferriss' Slow-Carb diet, mixed in with two to three 15 minute kettle bell workouts per week, and committed myself to it exactly as I advise a person to do in my book Discipline. When I began on May 14^th, I weighted just under 210. By July 20^th, I weighed 180, was down to 170 before the end of the year, and have since been maintaining that weight. The picture below was taken in October 2012. Thankfully, I no longer weigh 1,000 lbs.

My point in discussing this is simply to illustrate that discipline directly affects our ability to do things. Yes, the regimen I followed was effective, but it doesn't matter how effective it happened to be if I failed to actually do it. Discipline helps us do things, regardless of what it is that we are trying to do. If I had failed to adhere to my commitment, I wouldn't have succeeded as I did. It's as simple as that. A lack of discipline undermines our ability to do things. Whereas, the more disciplined we are, the better able we are to do the things we set out to do.

My recently released book, Discipline, discusses the subject and how to develop it in detail.

Now Available: Discipline

I am pleased to announce that my latest book Discipline is now available for sale on Amazon.com!

Here are the links to the paperback, and the kindle editions ($6.93 for paperback, $1.99 for kindle—and by the way, you can read kindle books on a variety of different devices, click here for details).

Discipline is a lightning-fast read that will help you develop self-discipline in record time. It's a super focused look at one of the most daunting tasks many people face, conquering the “what,” “why,” and “how” of this often hard to pin down subject.

If you're a member on goodreads.com, you can add/review the book here. 

Get Ready!

I have received confirmation from Amazon.com that Discipline will be available for purchase this coming week in both kindle and paperback formats! An "official release" announcement, complete with links to the book, will be posted the day everything is ready to roll.

I would also like to apologize for previously stating that the book would be released in January. There were a few unanticipated hiccups and quirks that needed to be sorted out during the final phases of publishing which caused a bit of a delay.

Coming Soon...

"Official Announcement" forthcoming.

New Year's Resolutions & Book Announcement

As the year draws to a close many people will begin committing to "new year's resolutions." Resolving to save money, or lose weight, or eat healthier, or pay off debts, or be more friendly, or whatever: they begin the new year with hope and anticipation. But oddly enough (hilariously, in my view), by the second month of the new year, most, indeed the great majority of them, will have failed to follow through on their resolution(s). Statistics vary, but the data generally shows that by February almost 90% of "new year's resolution makers" will have either forgot about their resolution altogether, or given up (for whatever reason) on actually doing it. Why is this? The short answer is because they lack discipline.

Of course I'm not talking about you, dear reader. There isn't a doubt in my mind that you are a member of the elite 10% who actually has the sense to do what  you commit yourself to do. After all, you read this blog. And you don't just read it, you act on it. You don't just understand this stuff intellectually, you take the time and put forth the effort to understand it functionally as well. So naturally it isn't a surprise that you're not a member of that "90% riff raff" that spends their days mindlessly wandering the planet. Indeed, no surprise at all.

I'm sure that you've bumped in to some of those 90%er's, haven't you? Perhaps you wonder if there is anything you can do to help them "break the spell"? To help them exercise a bit of their humanity? To help them out of the darkness and guide them into the light? Or (heaven forbid!) you might happen to be one of those 90%er's! One of the few who may be lurking here trying to find a glimmer of hope! In either case, prepare yourself for my new book: Discipline: What it is; How to develop it; Why you should.

To begin with, Discipline will be released next month--just in time for you "new year's resolution" folks! The book is quite short, and is specifically designed to cover the "what, why and how" of developing self-discipline. Unlike The Catalyst of Confidence, which covered a wide range of topics, Discipline focuses on one, and attempts to cover it in scrupulous detail. The book will retail on Amazon.com for under $7.00 in paperback, and $1.99 on Kindle. What could be a better new years gift to yourself?

Stay tuned for more updates!