The Laws of Charisma

CHAPTER 8

SELF-DISCIPLINE:WILLPOWER EQUALS COMMITMENT

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves . . . self-discipline with all of them came first.

—HARRY S. TRUMAN

When we hear the words self-discipline or willpower, we tend to get a little tense. We think of all our bad habits, things we don’t want to do, or all the times we tried to exercise willpower and failed. Self-discipline is a critical life skill we need to develop to be charismatic and highly influential in the long term. Sure you can have some charisma without discipline, but lacking self-discipline will slowly erode your ability to influence others, especially when they see your weaknesses. An old saying is that, in life, you will ...