Make discipline easy, with Jia Jiang

Jia Jiang, author of Easy Discipline, explains how to make progress toward your goals

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode will be a slightly longer one part of the
series where I interview fascinating people about how they take
their days from great to awesome and any advice they
have for the rest of us. So today I am
delighted to welcome Ja Jong to Before Breakfast. Jah is
the author of the new book Easy Discipline and is

(00:33):
also the author of Rejection Proof.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
So Jah, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hey, Laura, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm very excited to have you here. Why don't you
tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, so I'm hi. I'm Jah. I am the author
of Easy Discipline. So for a long time, I saw
myself I say, tech entrepreneur, you know, I mean now,
I saw myself I pursue my whole career as a
tech entrepreneur and grew up in Beijing, China, and I

(01:03):
saw Bill Gates at the early age. And then so
I'm like, I'm gonna be that guy. So that I
said from an early age that I want to be
the Chinese version of Bill Gates. But then the longer
I spent in my life, so finally pursued my dream.
Started in my thirties, and then I got rejected with
an investment. That's where like, oh, I hate, I hate
this rejection thing. You know, I don't feel good when

(01:26):
I get rejected. So then I started, So I started
this project called one hundred Days of Rejection Therapy. You know,
I started writing, you know, blogging about rejection because I
was afraid of rejection. I started just doing rejection on purpose,
getting rejected every day and then after and then my
blog went pretty viral, and I started talking about rejection

(01:50):
a lot, and I give just like you, I give
a tech talk. I was talking to you about, you know,
the tech talk came out and help a lot was
my career. And then the more. Then then after that
I started doing build another company, another company, the more.
But the more company I built, the more I feel
like I want to write more. And you know, every

(02:11):
time I write something, I write uh you know, marketing emails,
I write letters and I feel good. And then eventually
I just discovered that man, I'm a I'm a writer
at heart. I'm not this tech like I could do
spend my whole life, building companies, hiring employees. But writing
is what I want. That's what I'm doing right now.

(02:32):
So that that's really led into the second book. I
just wrote the Easy Discipline. So I'm a I'm a
I guess I'm a foot time author.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Now, oh well, it's exciting a career change.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, ye, career change. And actually it's a I talk
about I wrote about this in the book. So for
most of our most people think about life, I say,
ambitious goals. Right, you have a you have a lot
of goals. You have a lot of pursues, you have
a lot out of a you know, transaction to get

(03:02):
to ward that goals too. When you set a goal
and you try to achieve that goal, what most people
end up doing is they feel they have to because
goals are hard. They have to feel hard. They have
to like grind their way through the work. They have
to do things that tolerate. You have to tolerate pain,

(03:22):
even tolerate now pain. You tolerate more pain than other people.
They can reach those goals. Easy disciplines the opposite. It's
about how to have fun, how to actually enjoy yourself
to success, How do you love your work? More, how
do you bring artistry and enjoyment and systems into your work.

(03:44):
So instead of fighting against gravity, instead of doing the things,
the hard things, what if you can turn things easy?
What if you can have fun while achieving discipline? So
that's what this book is about.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, because you point out that humans are pretty wired
to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. And of course
the avoiding pain on some level makes it challenging to
achieve goals. But if we can orient our goals so
that we are seeking pleasure while doing them, we might
have a better chance of achieving them. But I'm curious
how this works for a lot of goals.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
To like turn turn the work into pleasure.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
I mean, if somebody has like a goal to run
a marathon, how do we how do we turn this
into something that is that is pleasurable?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah? Absolutely, So you got a good point. So a
lot of times we think marathon is a goal, right,
it's a goal, it's a heart goal, and to do
that goal you have to do the heart the things
you'll hate. But what if you can not turn do
the things you hate, Like if you hate first of all,
if you hate running, maybe marathon is not a good thing.

(04:52):
You know, because marathon is.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Compulsion run a marathon, but yeah, not a good goal
for you.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
If if running itself it brings a lot of pain,
then maybe marathon is not a goal. Maybe your goal
should be something that you love, something that's that's a
marathon equivalent of the things that you love. Right if
maybe if you like to to sing, maybe your goal
should be, you know, be a singer or getting on
the you know, the some talent shows. Maybe that's an

(05:20):
equally ambitious goal, but you enjoy the action more. Now,
if you really want to do a marathon, if you're
thinking marathon that itself is something that you have to get,
but you hate running. What if you train something that
doesn't involve that spend a lot of times doesn't involve
in running itself. So for example, if you like cycling,
maybe you can train your aerobics, you know, using cycling,

(05:44):
but then put the then you put the running in.
Now you do something you like and something you don't
like together, So now you're adding those those those works
and combine them into your goals. Right, So for example,
I hate running, I hate I hate running, and I
just felt is boring, but I bought ever since I
bought a peloton. I become very fit because I love

(06:06):
doing peloton. You know, I love the idea of someone
would teach me, would train me, would be accompanying me
to do training. So I started cycling on a peloton.
That was a great product, and I'm still doing it
every day. It's really life changing. But now I substitute
something I hate, which is running by myself, to something

(06:27):
I love, which is getting being led by an instructor
over a screen. So that's how you try to find
the things that you love and use that towards your goals.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
But you still need some structure with it, right, I mean,
I assume you love writing and you wrote a book,
and I'm sure not every moment of it was completely blissful.
There had to be some way to make sure it
was all done as you intended to do.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
I'm wondering how.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
You how you involve the pleasure and something that does
need to be a little bit structured like that.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, so totally so my you know, my biggest the
thing that bothers me the most, right, that holds me
back most is distractions. I get distracted a lot, and
I don't think I'm along here. You know, modern technology
is predicated upon us spending so much attention on these
apps on the phones, and you know, on these things

(07:21):
that because you know, attention is money, attention is at revenue.
So these so I do get distracted. Law, So I'm like, Okay,
how do I structure this in a way where I
don't get distracted? Because when I'm getting distracted, I'm not producing.
I'm consuming. But if I don't get distracted, I'm producing.

(07:43):
That's what I want. So to get not distracted, I
instead of going staying at my house and write, trying
to use my willpower to not get distracted, to not
get online, just to write. I I drive to this
each every day. You know, I live in northern California.
I will have this beach called the Half Moon Bay.

(08:04):
I drove there every day in my car, and I
leave my phone at home. So I leave in the
morning and I load up my my books. I want
to listen to podcast interviews such as this and hopefully
hopefully you're you know, all listening to this podcast now.
So but I listen to podcasts and I load them

(08:26):
up on my on my iPod and the iPod, the
old iPod. Right, So I'm sure, Steve.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Jobs, I haven't heard it referred to an iPod in
a while.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yes, But because the iPod is not a phone, right,
So I loaded up on my iPod purposely like an
old one. I leave my phone at home and I
will listen to this this iPod to get inspiration. Then
I drive to this beach. I stayed there all day
in my car to write, so I don't have my
Internet connection with me. So now and that my Ever

(08:57):
since I've adopted this practice, my activity, just I can
say literally is like fivefold, at least five old, maybe tenfold,
because the distraction is gone. I become way more creative.
I become way more focused. And that focused, the focused
work for a long period of time is a game changer,
not just for me, and it's for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
But we're going to take a quick ad break and
then I'll be back with more from jud Jang. Well,
I am back talking with Jud Jang, who is the
author of the new book Easy Discipline and also the
author of Rejection Proof. We've been talking about doing your
writing at half Moon Bay, if you are lucky to

(09:40):
love to live anywhere near there. That is his productivity
hack there but you made your name jout with your
rejection video. It's probably a lot of people who are
listening to this have have seen a video of you
purposefully seeking out rejection, trying to get yourself to I
believe one hundred rejections and struggling to get there because

(10:01):
people kept saying yes to.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
You for various things.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
And I think the most famous one, the one that
sort of really broke through, was was your Crispy Kreme encounter.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Can you can you talk about that?

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah? Absolutely so. I did this rejection one hundred Days
of Rejection Therapy video where I record myself getting rejected
on purpose. One day I walk into is during the
Olympic year, I walk into a Crispy Kream donor shop
and ask them to make me donuts that look like
Olympic rings, you know, And in my mind there's no

(10:35):
way they're going to do it, right. I was just
go in, I'm gonna make this ridiculous request and make
a joke then leave, right. But donut maker, she took
me so seriously. Her name's Jackie, She's from New York
and she was like, Okay, what's the color of Olympic rings?
And if you make it this way, I guess stuck.

(10:56):
If you make it that way, maybe you can make
your work. How about we try to make it look
like Olympic rings and without actually linking them. I'm like,
whatever you do, I'll you very happy. Then she fifteen
minutes later she came up a box of donuts that
looked like Olympic rains. She did an amazing job, and
she gave it to me for free. She's like, this
is my pleasure. So it's all mean and yeah, and that.

(11:19):
When I was walking out at donut shop, I just
had tears in my eyes because why she was so kind.
You know when you watch videos about fast food chains
and usually it's not that flattering. You know, usually something
bad happens. But she was so awesome, you know, this
great customer service and this human kindness. But also I learned.

(11:42):
I was thinking, what else have I missed in my life?
Just because I assumed these requests I will make would
get rejections. You know, the number one rejection I make
is not by other people, it's by myself. You know,
I reject myself all the time because I don't want
to get rejected by other people. So if you know
that fear of rejection. You know, if I'm afraid of rejection,
let me just say no to myself. You know, we

(12:02):
do that all the time. I do that all the time.
So but that day it was the aha moment. You know,
I can't say since that day my life changed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Although and it turns out it changed things for Krispy
Kreme too, right, didn't they get enough sort of marketing
out of this that which as far as I know,
this wasn't planned, right like this, this was just this
just happened.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
No, it just it just it just happened. Just one
day I was driving to work in the morning. I
saw Crispy Crims signed by the highway. I was like,
I'm gonna ask them to make me Olympic donuts. And
you know, then after work I went in and I asked,
and this magic thing happened. It got captured on video.
You know a lot of times you encountermagic in life,
it doesn't get captured. Right. But because this my blog

(12:50):
is about you know, it's a blog. You know you
have to record it, you got captured. That video went viral, uh,
in millions and millions of vieus. It was the time
that you get munions of views on YouTube. It was
a big deal. It's not that big of a deal
right now. Back then, it was a big deal and
it was all kind of newspapers. Krispy Kreme stock actually

(13:11):
went up the day with the video of enviral. So yeah,
I probably made someone rich.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
People who are stockholders and Krispy Kreme. No, it's a wonderful,
wonderful lesson. And you know, don't reject yourself. Other people
can reject you, but don't reject yourself and asking something
and many times they don't.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
But still rejection is challenging.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
So if people are listening to this and like, okay, John,
you're very courageous, you know all this, What can you
tell me about being able to take rejection better? Like
how I can get myself to be okay with people
saying no to me.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, so this is actually also related to easy discipline.
You know. The core idea of easy discipline is you
enjoy the work right, try to figure out ways to
of the process instead of just focusing on the result.
When I see well seek out rejection, I try to
enjoy the rejection. I shouldly enjoy the process, you know,

(14:10):
I shouldly enjoy the process of me showing you up
and ask instead of getting focusing on getting a yes
or no. If I focus on getting the result, you know,
I get yes or that get no, I get very anxious.
I get very try to you know, find the right
word to say and try to do the right thing
so people will do the things that I want. But

(14:31):
if I don't focus on the result and focus on
the progress the process, which is I want to have
a great conversation, I want to know that person. I
want to perform well. I want to, you know, have
the eye contact. I'm to smile, I'm gonna have I
want to make jokes. I want to crack myself up.
I'm want to crack the other person up. If I
focus on the process of making that request, then the

(14:54):
result will take care of yourself. You usually perform much
better if you focus on the progress and you focus
on having fun. So in terms of people think I'm
you know, courageous in seeking rejection, I mean I don't
think so, because I feel like I'm just having fun.
You know, if you have fun, there's nothing courageous or
scary about any of it. You're just doing what human

(15:17):
nature wants to do.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, well, I love your quote from your book that
you don't work hard because you love the result. You
work hard because you love the work. And I think
that's that can make almost anything possible.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Absolutely absolutely if you look at people who achieve the most. Right.
In my book, I wrote about twelve different stories of
the famous world achievers. They've all accomplished amazing world things
in business, in uh, you know, in politics, you know,
in art. They all have one thing in common. They
all love their work. They didn't they didn't get there,

(15:52):
they didn't get the top of their industry by out hating,
you know, the work, like all tolerating their work. But
they get it because they really truly love their work.
And that's that's very sustainable, and that's how you can
go far. That's how it can be your best.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well, we're gonna take one more quick ad break and
then i'll be back with more from Ja Jang. Well,
I am back talking with Ja Jang, who's the author
of the new book Easy Discipline, also the author of
Rejection Proof. So, John, we like to talk about people's
schedules on this show. I'm curious how you start your days.

(16:33):
Do you have any sort of usual way you begin
your mornings.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, I U The first thing in the morning, I
try to exercise, you know, that's the I try to
get up and reduce as much fiction as possible and
get to my palaton or get my weight training. So
I have a home. I builded a home gym in
my garage, and I get there as soon as possible.
That's the first thing I do, because that's a you know,

(16:57):
if I wait, and then I feel like if I
could compact, the most important thing to me is that
exercise in the morning. Then once I get it done,
I have something really, you know, very much accomplished. And
after that I go to a draft to hafum Bay.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Oh, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well, I'm curious that if it was building the whole gym,
about making it as easy as possible, making the discipline easy.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Absolutely absolutely so. I've ever since I was a teenager,
you know, I was taught to exercise and I start.
I'm a very experimental person. I run all kind of
experiments on myself to see what works and what doesn't.
Going to gym just doesn't work for me because the
the friction of going from home, getting the car to

(17:40):
go to gym, and it's and then changing clothes and
all that is way too much, way too much friction,
And then a lot of time during that friction, I
would just drop off. Also, I hate the idea of
having to choose, you know, having to choose what to do.
So get to the work, go to gym. You're like, Okay,
there are a lot of machines here. Maybe i'll I

(18:00):
lived here, maybe I'll push there. But doing a home
gym and following a program, and that takes away all
kinds of frictions. I don't have to go anywhere. I
just walk into my gym, my garage, and I just
turned around YouTube and I followed this. I followed this woman.
Her name is Caroline German. She's amazing by the way.
She's this Irish woman. She she does you know, she

(18:22):
just work out with you on YouTube. But before I
did the p and I dy x, you know, and
by this guy Tony Horden, very famous, you know, or
in the late two two thousands and early twenty tens,
this this pretty famous gym. And I did that because
I didn't have to think about what to do. Someone

(18:44):
just tell me what to do and I'll do it,
and I do a good job. So I reduced all
kinds of thinking friction doing friction. I just focused on
the work myself.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
And so then you mentioned you youd like to drive
out to half Moon Bay to do your work. I'm curious,
what is the schedule like there, Like what are you
usually leaving your house getting there? How long are you
working at half Moon Bay?

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah? So I leave my house around eight o'clock and
I got there around nine. And during that again, during
that one hour, I purposely make it long about an hour.
You know, some people want to reduce their commute time.
I actually, you know length in my you know my
commute time. I'm a writer. I don't have to go anywhere.
I can sit home and do it right. But I

(19:26):
purposely do it because I want to listen. I want
to listen to my books, favorite books and podcasts that
inspires me. They give me new ideas. And when I
get so, when I get there, it's about nine o'clock
and I write, and I write to about two o'clock,
about five hours. I try to get about four to
five hours in and also during the time sometimes sometimes

(19:50):
I'm just walk the beach and give me more thinking time.
But I tried to get it done before two o'clock
and after that just free time. You know, I load
all my distraction and so all my advice, you know,
all my uh scrolling and all my YouTube uh you
know everything after that, everything that is free for me.
So I give myself like very much loaded time, uh

(20:13):
and work to be highly focused, and after that I
do whatever I want.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I'm very curious about the ergonomics of working in your car,
like do.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
You have do you have a little stand for your laptop?

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Like I'm hoping that your wrists are okay with all
this I do.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
It's actually surprisingly comfortable. You know. I worry about this
for long for a while too, because if you sit
there for that long, the car seats are now designed
for this. But I bought a stand. I chose about
different kind of stands from my laptop I find I foundly,
I found this one that's specifically designed for my car.
And I mean I drove a Model Y, you know,

(20:50):
Tesla Model Y. It is a perfect car for writing
because now you don't have to turn on your engine.
It's an electric car. It's you can have heat, the heat,
you have air conditioner. You don't run. You never ran
out of a you know battery, and it's but and
I bought the stands and that is and then I sat.
I don't sit in the drivers I sit in the

(21:11):
passenger seat. Uh and and I would then every hour,
you know, once I'm righter, for fifty some minutes, I
just walk out and walk around. I walk to the
beach and then for ten minutes and I come back
to my car and keep writing. So it actually works.
Also have this back I also have this back brace,
you know, not up brace, it's the back support to

(21:32):
make sure I have enough, you know, I don't just sinking,
you know. I have this neck pill to make sure
my my neck is so now my neck supported, I
don't have to til my head down. So I got
this whole thing set up. Yeah, so this is great.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Okay, just checking, just checking.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
I want to make sure this was, this was comfortable
before we recommend that anyone.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Else go right for five hours in their car.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
You got to make sure that you've figured this out
so your your back isn't going to be killing you afterwards.
So John, I asked all my guests, what is something
you have done recently to take a day from great
to awesome?

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Can I say more than one day, so to write
my book, I I went to Japan. I went to
this remote town in Japan next to at the foot
of Mount Fuji. You know, this very famous mythical mountain
in Japan. But there's a lake near Japan that was beautiful.

(22:30):
So about a few years ago, we took a family
trip to Japan. Right we took this We went to
this park and it was beautiful. There's a Mount Fuji
right here, there's lake right here, there's the there's a park.
And my wife Tracy is just like, wow, that park
is still beautiful, you know. So when I was about
to run into my writing my book, I was running

(22:52):
up against the deadline. Trace is like, you know, even
though you can still focus, you still come home and
there's still care is because you still get distracted. What
if you go to Japan for I give you two weeks,
probably go there for two weeks and you know, get
get the work done, you know, And I'm like, what
do you mean go to Japan. It's just like, do

(23:14):
you remember that park we went to by Mount Fuji?
Why didn't you go there? Just right there every day?
It's so beautiful. You know. There are many times I
felt that married up, you know, and there are many
many times I felt that way. This is one of
them those moments. So I went. So I flew Japan.
To Japan, I get up around four o'clock in the morning.

(23:37):
You know, it's based on jet lag, but I never
changed the jet lag. I get up four o'clock in
the morning.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
I was gonna say, that's that's about the time your
body would tell you to get up.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, that's that's really because you know,
four o'clock in Japan is about you know, it's about
one PM or here basically you you you had it
all nine used to. I mean, so, so the timing
works out right. So I get out in the morning
and go and walk into the park. I write it

(24:10):
was amazing. I just felt like I'm connected to nature.
I got so much inspiration. I get way more work
done there than I'm at home. So half mom Bay
kind of five x my productivity. And you know it's
from a low, very low baseline. By the way, I'm
naturally very unproductive, but half um Bay kind of a

(24:32):
five xtat but Japan like five x that. So I
got in two weeks, I got more work done than
I did in two months. I'm here at home, so
I yeah, I got my manuscript done in Japan. In fact,
to write, you know, to write books and things. I
went to Japan four times, go to the same park site,
in the same place, going through the same routine and

(24:55):
doing the same writing. So those days are awesome. Those
are my best stays, you know, the you know, the
most productive ones. I don't recommend everyone to go to Japan,
but find the respot, maybe go on and retreat to
do your own work, you know wherever that is.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Sounds amazing, sounds wonderful.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
All right, well, John, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Where can people find you?

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Yeah, they can find me. I read a substack. They
can find me on substack. They search my name Jaja
on substack. So that's where I do my most work,
not nowadays.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
All right, sounds good, well, John, Thank you so much
for joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
If you have.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Feedback on this or any other episode, you can always
reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
In the meantime, this is Laura.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,

(26:18):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.