Keys To Living A Life Of Discipline! Feat. JC 'Dragon' Doornick

Welcome to the Unscripted Authentic Leadership podcast or podcast. We are seeking to lead change while also seeking to understand. We are all set as a platform for leaders to come together to unite to develop the power of the leaders in the areas of business, family and community. I am your host, Lafayette Lane, Geographic co-host John LeBron. And today we are joined by our special guest, Jay-Z Dragon Door. They put those heads together, put those top lows in the comments section. Jay-Z has joined us today to have a conversation about how to put discipline in your life. Just a little bit about Jay-Z. He is the co-founder of a worldwide humanitarian relief organization serving the third world with health, education, housing and food receiving awards such as The Humanitarian of the Year. That's Major Jay-Z and his wife, Mike. Now run an international virtual health transformation and lifestyle coaching company that served the USA in parts of Asia. You can hear more about their journey on the rise Up with Dragon Podcasts and just started a new podcast, Bookmarks of Art, called Enough Ts Made Simple Today. Jay-Z has joined us today right here on the Entrepreneur Authentic Leadership podcast. Jay-Z, thanks for coming. All so blessed to be here. And I got I got to just jump in and say my wife's name is not Mike. That wouldn't that sound fun? It's actually a Mecca, but everybody thinks that says she's South African. So a lot of those are No, no, it's okay. It's all about, you know, fetus. That would be about the 50th time it's happened. So it's cool. Well, that's really cool. She's from South Africa. I mean. Yeah. So, I mean, I was going to ask you about your backstory. So, I mean, let's let's get right to the conversation. How did you get started? I mean, you have a very interesting. A lot of things going on, the humanitarian park as your speaker and things of that nature. Kind of a mixed bag. I love it. A melting pot. If I could I could say how did you get started on this journey, man, of what you do and how did you get here? You just we just mentioned your wife is from South Africa. And so you're a very interesting character to tell us about who you are and tell our audience, man, who you are. Who is the dragon? Yeah. And how can we relate that to success and discipline and all that stuff? And one of my favorite quotes is who you are determines how well what you do works. So before we talk about what we're going to do that works, we got to talk about who we are, work on the who more than to do. So I come from a I come from a very, very interesting family. So I've been blessed to come from a very, very functionally dysfunctional and fascinating family. Both my parents were professional athletes. My dad was an Olympic skier. My mom was a professional tennis player. And, you know, that sounds awesome, but it came with a lot of things, you know, so I just I grew up in a household that was very, very focused on on health and success and things like that. So at a very, very young age, I was very, very into the idea of becoming a doctor. In our family, though, when you grow up with a very, very health conscious family, you know, the idea of what a doctor is is a little bit different. So we always looked at like natural health care as as, you know, doctors. And we looked at medical doctors as emergency doctors. You know, like I grew up in a family where if you had a like a sore throat and strep throat or something like that, my mom would like give me a cup of water and give me a hug and like say a prayer or something like that. So I just grew up really just appreciating simplicity and things like that. So I gravitated towards the idea of becoming a chiropractor. We were always going to see these natural practitioners. So I just I was in all by my chiropractor, who's kind of a mentor of mine, look like he was driving a nice car. And I like the idea of helping people. So I went down that path at a very young age. I had decided I was going to do that. So and I didn't know I didn't really know all the other stuff that came with it, but I decided that I was going to become a servant at a pretty young age. And it showed up even when I was young. I always liked the idea of helping people and holding the door for stuff that someone or just, you know, just going out of my way to make somebody smile because of what I did. So I learned at a very young age how to appreciate that. So I went down the road of chiropractic, and I also have an entrepreneur real spirit. So I went through that process of going to chiropractic school and came back to New York, got married and built a very, very successful chiropractic practice. You know, and what I mean by successful, I'm saying I made a lot of money, but I didn't know what success was at the time, and it wasn't that. So you know, I've tried to give you guys the quick rundown of the story. So what happened to me, I think happens to a lot of people and this is not discipline you know, it doesn't you can become very, very successful the wrong way. And I became very, very successful as a workaholic. So and you know, at the time, this was like a nightmare time of my life. So I always, like feel it when I go through this. But, you know, I look back now and if not, if I didn't go through this, I wouldn't know what I know now. So I was basically working 80, 90 hours a week. We had two little kids and I had a lovely wife that I went to high school with, high school sweetheart and all that stuff. But I never saw them leave early in the morning and come home late at night because I was under this, you know, this understanding that my role as a father was to just make money and feed the family and nothing else. And the weird part about that for me is that my big hang up, my big thumbs sucking story about my dad is that he was never home, you know? So I always complained and blamed my dad and any any circumstance that ever happened to me in my life, it wasn't my fault. It was either my mom's or dad's my manufacturers, you know, it was always their fault. That's why, you know, if you ever have a problem with your car, it's not your you always blame the manufacturer. So that's what I was doing as a child. So, you know, I would look at my kids in the morning and tell them that they're the most important things in the world. And I love them, my two boys. And then I would proceed to leave and and miss everything in their life. So as you can imagine, you know, that, you know, as you know, God only prunes the branches he wants to see grow. I got pruned. So I, you know, divorce, natural progression there and depression. And, you know, I was living this this bipolar life where I was very, very successful getting all these accolades, as you said, you know, on stage in front of thousands of people getting humanitarian of the year and all that stuff and getting a lot of chest bumps and, you know, just feeling like real important in that world. But at home, everything was just a mess. And what's interesting is that all I ever really wanted to be a good dad. That's my goal in life. But I lost track of that. So I think that I just had the I just had the the gift of consciousness. You know, some people just keep going down that road. But I just I saw it and and I said, this is not right. So I started, you know, going through this this process, you know, went through a divorce very very unhealthy. It gained a lot of weight. But I but I made a conscious decision that I wanted change. So long story short, you know, I really believe that if you if you if your intentions are good and you and you're just really, really ready for, you know, create space, something that you need will show up. Matter of fact, I think everything that we need is always showing up is just a matter of whether or not you can see it. So this guy walks into my office, one day, and on the side I was doing the humanitarian work. You know, I started a worldwide organization building orphanages, and I was in Haiti for the earthquakes and all that stuff. And just if you if you knew me back then, you would have thought I was just like Mother Teresa. You would have just thought I was the greatest guy in the world. But you didn't know what was going on inside. And you also didn't know that I was doing all of that stuff because I felt so bad about myself. I wanted to feel better about myself. So there's a there's a lesson for everybody, right? They're human beings. Don't think, say or do anything that doesn't have value for themselves. We don't even we don't even pray in church you know, we we claim that we do things for others and we don't want anything in return. But I had a mentor one time. He said to me, he goes, why are you doing all this? This humanitarian work? And I said, well, it's the right thing to do. You know, these people are in need. They have much less than me, you know, the earthquake and all that stuff. And he goes, But why are you doing it? And I said, What do you mean? He goes, What are you getting out of this? And I said, Oh, no, this is not for me. This is a selfless act is for them. It's not for me. And I don't know if you're allowed to swear on the show, but he said, bullshit. It's what he said to me. And I and I, nobody ever said that to me. You know, my big ego. And he goes, he goes, You do it because it makes you feel good. So that was a big lesson for me is is it's okay to go out there and do things to feel good you know? So anyway, this guy walks into my office out of nowhere, you know, and I was at I was in a dark place, and he walks into this office just like on the perfect time. It's almost like, you know, that one time where you pray for something and then, like, it shows up and you just think it's like divine intervention in that intervention. So he shows up and he and he's talking about this, you know, coaching system and there's, you know, get physically healthy and mentally healthy and all that stuff. And I was just like, that's exactly what I need. Right? Now. And what's interesting about that is I would've said no to this guy or any other day. Then that day I just had reached this this point where I was ready. So I said yes to this. I this guy became my coach. I went on this program and just lost £80 and got really, really healthy. While I was in this crazy practice. And it just transformed me. I just, you know, Martin Luther King has this. He says it all the time in his speeches. He talks about the this concept of the fierce urgency of now he's on my board of directors in my office here. I have pictures of all the people I call on to get advice. And Martin Luther King's one of them got Mandela and Gandhi is up there as well. So that's that's another ideas who's on your board of directors, you know, because you should be calling on some people that have some answers. So anyway, I started going through this physical shift. I learned a valuable lesson that on a healthy body rests a healthy mind. So a lot of a lot of people out there trying to work on personal growth and self discovery and and all that stuff. If you're not taking care of your body, it's very hard to take care of your mind because your body it's interesting. Your body is where your heart is. Right. I always tell people, stop trying to be successful with your mind. Use your heart. So anyway, this physical change unveiled this new version of me, and then it just started to rain, guys, you know, I mean, I just became who I wanted to be. I got my priorities straight. And because of that authenticity of where I was at and the idea of paying forward this gift that I received, not to not to get, but you know, what I was getting out of it was the glory of helping other people so that I could feel helpful in helping other people. That's what paying forward is. And I just boom, right time, right place. You know, I got involved in a company that was like a $50 million company a year. That's now $1.5 billion company. All my skills, my God, given skills, just became useful. I'm now find myself speaking on stage in front of 15,000 people live starting my podcast and just have this message from my life experience of teaching people how to make sense of things. So you know you're going to see my book come out and if you listen to my podcast Rise Up a Dragon, it's just all about helping people remove the blindfolds that I used to have from their mine and giving them the access to a higher level of consciousness. You know, if anybody becomes more aware and conscious of what's really going on in life, not what you've been told things is going on you become free and then, you know, it's like the captain of a airplane. He says, Ladies and gentlemen, the seatbelt light is off. You're free to roam about the cabin. No. So that's that's my story. In a nutshell. Wow. Amazing. We want to give you the long version right so I'll go have I'll go have that. That was really good, Casey. Yeah. So right there at the end, you said remove the blindfolds. Maybe are aware of what's really going on. Can you can you unpack that a little bit? Because that kind of reminds me of the movie The Matrix, how there's a life that everybody's sort of meandering through. And then there's another life that everybody can see if they're really looking for it. But the problem is, people are so caught up in their problems, they're not really looking for it. And that's the whole red blue pill, blue pill thing. I love the movie, but it's hard to explain to someone like people I don't understand that movie like it's just about where you perceive life and how life really is and what really happens behind the scenes. And are you going to allow your mind to unlock and actually see and live the life? How it how like actually see how life works. So you said remove the blindfolds, unpack that. What kind of blindfolds are we talking about that we have? Well, in the spirit of the matrix, how far down the rabbit hole you want to go? You know, I don't want I don't want anywhere freaking anybody out but that's it's a great question. And and I'll try to interpret this because this is something I speak very passionately about. The real question is, is when you're when you're looking like let's say you're going through an event and you're perceiving that it's a it's a negative, you're you're a victim of it, it's happening to you. That's going to that's going to change the course of your whole life. You know, so I'm very, very passionate about that moment between the stimulus. The thing that's happening. Right. And your response to it. Now, there's a great book, you know, Victor Frankl, great author Victor Frankl talks about this, the space between the stimulus and the response. Now, try to try to really understand what I'm seeing right now. It's a change your whole life we are all programed to perceive things and respond to them. Now, this programing, you know, on a simple level because you're talking about reality and perceiving reality. So when I say you have blindfolds on, I'm saying that you're you're unable to see what actually is happening. You're seeing what you've been taught to see. Right? So when I say remove blindfolds, I'm not saying you can't see. I'm saying you can't see what's actually happening because of you're programing. So I always refer to the programmers or the manufacturers, as I said, as your MF TPS and that stands for a mother, father, teacher, preacher, and now society. So very, very important to recognize that whatever it is that you're consuming on a regular basis is is what becomes your reality. So I'm very, very you know, I know we want to talk about discipline and I've got I've got a morning routine that I just help anybody. So but but just understand right now in this space, let's remove the blindfold and just become aware that you are being programed by what you consume on a regular basis. If you're watching the news If you're, you're listening to this podcast right now, that might be a positive programing to receive. But nonetheless, you're being program so as you're going through the world, you've got your MF TPS going on. But then also let's go back and pick up the book Sapiens that talks about the evolution of man. I don't know if you guys ever read that books, one of the best books ever because it teaches you where we come from before you were born and you know, let's, let's just acknowledge the fact that, you know, we used to the three of us in another time would be sitting in a cave and asking each other what's a good time to go out and eat without getting killed by a dinosaur? You know, so we've we've been we've come from an evolution that's afraid of everything in order to survive Right. So that's that's something that we have to recognize that we're still we've evolved from that. So as we proceed when we go through life and we see things, you know, that are happening, we automatically create a perception of that thing and an opinion of something that happened. And what I like to teach people to do with my podcast and my book and I have a system, a structured system that I call the interface response system that teaches people how to create a more efficient and effective interface between you and stuff. And things where you can start becoming more in control and determining like what you allow in and what you don't. You know, what, what it's like. A great analogy is, is I teach people to become the bouncer that standing outside of a bar and the bar is your life, right? So before you let anybody in the bar, you're going to check IDs and you're going to see if they're on the list. And if you become an ineffective bouncer, then you're going to make sure that the bar is packed with only the people and things that you want in life. So that's what I mean. That's a long winded way of saying it is if you can learn how to do that, you can all of a sudden unveil the hypothetical truth. But if you let the real deep down the rabbit hole is I don't think we, any of us could really handle the truth, you know, just like in A Few Good Men, you can't handle the truth because I think the truth would probably be too much for any of us. So I want everybody to understand that when I say the truth, I'm also talking about the truth that I want to believe in, that supports my goals, dreams and visions and things that matter most. That's important, too, because if I ever tell you that I learned the truth, I think you guys should just look at me and say, That's great, man. We're proud of you, you know? But it doesn't mean that it's actually the truth. So we talk about discipline. Yeah. What would you describe as discipline? What does that mean to you? Well, I mean, you can look at the definition for discipline, but, you know, I would say discipline is when you it's all it's all going to be focused on your goal. Right. Because you could say that discipline means practicing something with with consistency. Like that could be an easy way to you know, say I'm disciplined, meaning I'm doing I'm reading every day for 10 minutes or something like that. You could say that person's discipline, but it's always got to be connected to your desired state, your compelling desired state where you're going. Right. So that's important to understand because if you're if you're practicing discipline, but it's not connected in supporting where you want to go, then you're doing what I work, you know, every day you know, if you watch a motivational speaker and he says you should exercise and read and, you know, do this morning routine and you're doing it. But I come up and say, where are you going? And you can't answer that question. That's not discipline. I think that's just foolishness, you know? So so when I teach people discipline, the first step to building discipline is to creating a desired state and getting to know it so well. A great example of how to get that that done is do you guys have kids? Yes. Okay, great. Yeah. So so you guys know what it's like when your kids come to you and they want something. Okay. So I'll give you an example. My son, Jackson. Jackson, came to us one day and he says he wanted a dog, and he said, You're not get a dog, right? We shut him down right away, which was foolish of us, but we just said, You're not getting a dog. So Jackson proceeded to ask for that dog every day, multiple times. He even showed us pictures of the dog he wanted. He got a stuffed animal of the dog. He drew pictures of the dog. So what I realize that kids do that we've lost sight of is that when they want something, they actually have the ability to go into the future and experience what it's like to have that thing to the point where they could draw it and explain it and sell it to you until you know. And by the way, that dog's name is Rex. Of course, he's got the dog, right? So before you can build discipline you got it. You got to set a desired state. And an easy, easy exercise would be to look at the idea of like a physical, mental and financial state. Of well-being. And if you were to draw that on a piece of paper, what I would recommend that everybody does is draw a circle around those things, like actually write them your perfect physical shape, your perfect spiritual or natural shape. You can write a bunch of words there and then also a financial, you know, whatever it means. You have to be financially whole, draw a circle around it and then draw spokes from that circle and connect that to all the things that matter most to you in your life. That's a step that everybody forgets. They say everybody wants to be happier, healthier and wealthier. And I always say, why? So if you connected to everything now, all of a sudden you've taken a goal out of your mind and you've harmonized it with your heart. Now you've got something you can work with, you know? So at that point now you can start saying Well, what are the things? What are the rungs in the ladder that I need to take to get there? So that's where your action steps come in. This is where discipline is built. So let's say I've got this physical, mental and financial state. So then naturally I got to do something with my eating and my exercise. I got to do something with my my spirituality and my, you know, reading and stuff like that. And I got to make money. So now I go when I grab those action steps, those high leverage action steps that I know support and support that that goal, which, by the way, is why you need a mentor that's already got the goal is he can actually help you build those action steps. And that is just a matter of doing them with consistency. And the best advice I can give somebody about that is discipline has to be made habitual you can't go the rest of your life just trying to become disciplined. You have to get to the place in life where you're unconsciously competent at things. Meaning like if I wake up, I'm going to read every day. I need to get to a point where I no longer know that I do that because as an unconscious habit. So that's a big part of discipline. Right there. And I think of some of the things I just explain. People probably know that they're missing so you you have a course on this, too, right? Yeah, it's coming out soon. Days to discipline. 15 question about this what happened to 21 21 supposed to be like the key here or is that just a where you get where do you get the 21 you know 21 days forms that have it never heard that. Well there's there's many different versions of that. My take on that is that if you do something with consistency for 30 days, you start to notice that it becomes common. If you do it for 60 days you notice that it's habitual like but you do it for 90 days, you don't know you're doing it, but 15 days, you know the way I got the 15 days, I'm a big, big proponent of the mortality mentality. We don't have a lot of time. Maybe that's why I shortened it. You know, I heard Gary Vee say something one time a fan walked up to him and interviewed him just because he was passing by in a car. And he says, Gary in three words, Tell me what the secret to success is and Gary looks at, or he goes, You're going to die. And I said, Man, that is super powerful because you realize you don't have a lot of time. So I like the idea of teaching a 15 day course. If somebody follows it for 15 days and does all the steps, they will lay the foundations and highly leverage the chance of them becoming highly disciplined. And then then everything you want comes into play. Hmm. 15. I was just having fun with the 15 day thing. Good. Let's play. Oh, no, you're good. You're good. What what would you define as success? Because I want to kind of go back to what you said in the beginning. You basically were saying you were a public success, but a private failure. You made all this money and you didn't feel successful. What would you define as success to you? It's funny to look at the word success for, you know, what do you want to be full of you know, because I was definitely full of something, but it might it was my misperception of success. So I have a different approach to success. I first of all, you got to you got to identify whether or not that programing is dictated, what you're going after. You know, We live in a world now, especially with social media, where a lot of people can convince you into thinking the way they think. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of personal growth is all these people are trying to get you to think the way they think and give you their tools. And so I like to look at success and use the word integrated. So I like to think that success is synonymous with living, what I call an integrated life. So what I mean by that is if I look at my core values, so obviously I got to throw, you know, my relationship with God, I got to throw my health and all that stuff. But my but the number one most important thing in the world for me would be the thing that I would take a bullet for, and that's my kids. So if you look at it that way, Lafayette, then you got to say that if I'm successful, all I have to show is that I'm a good father and my kids are six and kids are happy. You know, I always tell people, but one of my mentors said, Jake, how will you know when you're successful? How he'd be able to know that you've arrived is successful? And I said, That's easy because what I said, my kids will look at me and say, That's my dad. That's too on that for a second, right? So to live in integrated life, but we need money, right? And we need freedom. I mean, I live a very, very integrated life, but I'm financially sound, which is important. So I can take care of my family and all that stuff. But I also need to have time. So an integrated life is when you look at the things that matter most to you in life and you're rather than just playing one instrument at a time, you're orchestrating a symphony and that's what I mean, is you're integrating all of those things. You're not throwing all your eggs in one basket because I could go be the greatest dad in the world and not be able to feed my family because I don't work you know? So that's that's what I mean. So it's different for everybody, Lafayette. You know, it's and that's another thing is I don't tell people what they should do and what they should think. You know, I don't should on people. I always I always listen to people and recognize that everybody's got a different opinion about things like success according to where they're at in their current reality. So I think everything's okay. You know, I just I just think that it's important to maybe just look at, you know, are you your success or somebody else's Where did you get the name, the drag, and how did that come about? So I'll be quick about this. So my name is my real name, Jean Claude, because my dad was an Olympic skier. So he named after Jean Claude Kelly. Big skiing family. I wasn't always called Dragon. So the concept of the Dragon is I went through a very, very dark time in my life, you know, where I found myself at one time in my life back when I was kind of sharing a little bit of story in a chair across from a therapist, you know, talking about why I wanted to kill myself. So I know, I know darkness, you know, which is a blessing to know that kind of darkness because you don't ever want to go back. But anyway, during during the dark times in our lives were very afraid and were were confused and all that stuff. And I remember during that time, I always used to assimilate it like dragons were sweeping over my head. So I always had this, like, fear associated with dragons. You know, dragons are Fire-Breathing beasts that just pillage, pillage villages. So I started to look up the dragon, you know, and what's interesting about a dragon is a dragon is a mythical creature. But if you look at different cultures, they spoke about them as if they were real. But everybody knows that they're not. And I'm not talking about a Komodo dragon. I'm talking about like a dragon dragon. So exactly. Fire-Breathing Dragon. So the idea of something that I'm afraid of that is mythical started to change me. So the reason why I call myself the dragon is because two reasons who I am today. I never in my wildest dreams thought I could ever be so who I am today. The old me would have looked at as a mythical creature. And the other idea is that concept of if you think there's a monster in the closet, the best thing you can do is get in the closet and become friends with it. So how how could you become closer to a dragon than to become one? So when I started calling myself a dragon, it was my way of just moving in with my fear. So that's it. Hmm. That's good. It's kind of there's a old thing about fear called false evidence appearing real, right? If I all heard that or basically our fears are just something that we make up. Yeah, well, we have some things that happen that make us afraid, but you typically become unafraid once you take this step into that fear. At the time, they seem pretty real, though, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. Huge. Scary. But once you get over it, you're like, Oh, I wasn't so bad. Yeah. Wow. And he also. Sophia, you were great today, dragon. Appreciate you. See, we always wrap up with the segment called Off Script. Last segment where we asked our guests to give us an off script moment. It could be anything that's on your heart and mind that you want to leave our audience with. Give us your script moment. I just think I think the last thing I would leave you with is to really take an assessment of how you're waiting to do the things that you know you need to do. I think I think everybody out there you know, we're taught that you should, you know, grow, take that place out of the comfort zone. You got to do something scary and all that stuff. Everybody knows what they're supposed to do. And, you know, you find somebody if I go up and offer somebody's help in getting what they want, getting healthy, making more money or anything, they say now's not a good time. So I just I just implore, you know, I just really, really love to shake people up and just say how do you know how much time you have? You know, what I'll do is I'll grab my phone and I'll say, hold on a second. And and I'll say, God, I'm sitting here in Lafayette right now. How much time does he have? And then I'll say, he says he's not telling. Right. So that urgency you know, I just want everybody to recognize that, you know, there's no better time than now. And I know that's easier said than done. But but everybody knows it's true. Is when we wake up in the morning, we are gifted and blessed with 24 hours, hypothetically. But beyond that, we don't know. So really, really important to learn how to become present and get rid of yesterday. Yesterday no longer applies. Future's in mystery, as we all know. It just really, really make an assessment of of what matters most to you right now. Who do you need to kiss more? Who do you need to love more? How can you be better, better to yourself, to all that stuff all the time, you know, and then just make an assessment of things in your life that just don't matter and just stop doing that stuff. You know, stop. Stop doing things that don't matter. And you just you just live a beautiful life that way. But people think they have time so they can. Salma do a little bit of this while I wait I like you to stay connected with Jay-Z. You can do that several ways. Follow him on his social media at Rise of the Dragon he also is offering a free health assessment to discover where you are. You can find the information on his bio link and Instagram. He also wants to tune into both his podcast, the first one, his Rise Up with Dragon Podcasts, and also his new podcast called In Lefty's May Simple Stay Connected to us here on script. It can become a patron, support the show or patriarchal backslash, unscripted leadership. Follow us on our social media platforms. App on script at leadership. Check out our website Unscripted Past Leadership Dot com and of course you can find our podcast available on all podcast streaming platform. Again, we say thank you to Jay-Z, Dragon Door and Nick for having this amazing conversation. Stay with us about how to put discipline in your life. As always, we pray that you be the leader that God is called you to be. We are here to build bridges and not walls. Bridges connect of walls divide. And so next time God bless you