closing the circle self-discipline and drive

Episode 23 – Closing The Circle: Talking Self-Discipline & Drive (ft. Kim Walls)

How do you combat failure? How do you REALLY pursue those goals and chase those dreams? And what is self-discipline? Those are two big questions we’re always asking ourselves, and in this podcast, host Marisa Donnelly teams up with Kim Walls (entrepreneur, CEO & Co-Founder of Furtuna Skincare and mom of two) to talk about exactly that (and much more).

Both self-proclaimed workaholics, Kim and I talk about what it means to have a strong work ethic and strategies for getting things done. We share our perspectives on creating a sense of balance and self-discipline, and how there isn’t an endless supply of willpower in life. When we’re excited about doing things, we do them. When we’re not, it’s hard. But that’s where the discipline comes in.

Highlights From the Episode:

[2:15] “Recognizing that my comfort is in chaos and trying to understand that [chaos] maybe [isn’t] the healthiest place to be — [that] is part of how I think about balance.”

[4:10] “I love a million things coming at me in a million different directions. It feels good, and alive, and empowering to be thinking about a thousand different things at once. But the limited side of that is… if you’re thinking about a thousand different things at once… then it makes it harder to complete any one thing.”

[4:30] “Seeking competition is a part of how I seek balance. I really need to close the circle, dot the ‘i’s,’ cross the ‘t’s’ — but it’s an exercise in discipline that allows me to do that.”

[7:00] “We don’t have an endless supply of willpower. It’s easy to do the things that don’t require willpower because we’re so excited about doing them. But then there are things that require a lot of willpower… If you do the thing that requires you to exercise your will power first, it’ll happen. But if you try to do that at the end of the day, or end of the list, your willpower is exhausted and it’s much harder to get it done.”

[14:40] “My kids see me work and I’m perfectly happy to tell them… ‘You have to wait.’ And sometimes that’s pretty unpopular because people say kids should always, always come first. I just don’t believe that. I think that we need to sometimes put ourselves first. [Our children] learn from us… We want our children to be brave, and strong, and empowered, and confident, and all these wonderful things. And if we don’t model that, they won’t do it.”

[30:35] “While I hate failing… I’m willing to. I love the journey so much. In the same way I love to see a house built, I love to go through the process of trying to create these things and feeling like they’re making a difference in people’s lives.

There’s a really high rate of failure in what I do, and I have failed before… I hate it, and I know it might happen again. But I’m willing to engage in that because the doing of the work feels so good.”

To listen to other episodes of the VulnerABILITY Podcast, click here.