How to Be a More Disciplined Person: Lessons from Craig Ballantyne

What are the top 1% of high-performers, producers, and achievers doing differently? How is it possible to get more done, scale your business, and have MORE time for what matters, not LESS? The answer is simple: high achievers realize that being a disciplined person is as crucial as any other aspect of their business.

It’s what you need, but it’s not what you think. You can’t hustle and grind into your ideal life. Our guest, Craig Ballantyne, shares with us an alternative definition of becoming more productive through discipline…and how working less may actually get you where you want to go.

Intrigued? Join us for a conversation with “The World’s Most Disciplined Man,” author of The Perfect Week Formula, The Perfect Day Formula, and Unstoppable, coach, and builder of multiple 7-figure businesses.

If you want to achieve more than you thought possible, while working less… tune in now!

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Why is Craig Ballantyne the World’s Most Disciplined Person?

[2:30] “It came about…because about 10 years ago I was finishing up my career in the fitness industry, and I was starting another business, helping entrepreneurs be more productive. And some of my friends would be like, ‘Man, how do you get so much done?’… And they first started calling me the most productive person. Then that just kind of morphed into the most disciplined, because in order to be productive, you really have to have discipline.”

Craig Ballantyne’s journey began as a fitness coach, where his intense structure and repeatable routines laid the foundation for his later success as an entrepreneur and author. His book, The Perfect Day Formula, outlines the core of his philosophy: that sustainable habits, not fleeting motivation, drive lasting success.

Craig has a reputation for extreme consistency. He is known for waking at 4 a.m., sticking to strict routines, and following a minimalist daily structure that eliminates decision fatigue. It’s that level of commitment that earned him the title of the “World’s Most Disciplined Man.”

However, the way Craig Ballantyne identifies a disciplined person may not be what you’d expect. Craig shares that most people define discipline as additional tasks to do. 

[3:20] “I actually take the opposite approach, and I call it effortless discipline. And what this is, is it’s really not using willpower, it’s not making your life harder. It is simply building systems into which success becomes automatic.”

This same principle applies to financial habits. Just as Craig relies on systems to eliminate friction, tools like Infinite Banking help you automate good money behavior by controlling your personal economy. While being a disciplined person is indeed about waking up early and sticking with routines, it’s also about building systems that work for you, whether in business, fitness, or finances.

Becoming More Productive 

[5:40] “…I joked that I was lazy and undisciplined because I didn’t have the systems and stuff at home in order to be effective, disciplined, and productive. But anybody can build the systems around themselves to be successful.”

The trick, Craig asserts, is not adjusting your life to fit his productivity principles and systems. Instead, you adjust the systems to fit your life. For example, he frequently shares the idea of “attacking your morning” with his audience. Some may interpret this as a call to wake up earlier, however, Craig recognizes that many people are night owls. So it’s less important when people wake up, and more important that whatever time they wake up, they make use of that time. 

If you’re wondering how to be a disciplined person, it starts with designing a routine that eliminates distractions and gives your best hours to your highest priorities. Craig encourages you to identify the “3 most important tasks” for the day and complete them early, before the chaos sets in. 

This structured approach allows you to stay focused, reduce decision fatigue, and accomplish more with less effort.

Here are a few of Craig’s go-to tactics for becoming more productive:

• Establish a consistent morning routine that suits your lifestyle.
• Start your day by completing your top three priorities.
• Avoid using email, social media, and phones during your first few work hours.
• Build systems that automate repeatable decisions and free up mental space.

Rather than relying on bursts of energy, Craig shows that becoming more productive is simply about building a routine that makes discipline automatic. 

Creating Systems in Your Day

[12:30] “We can control our morning: we can control what time we get up, we can control what we have for breakfast more than most other meals. We can control what time we get started on our work—that sort of stuff. And we control what we let into our heads—whether we go to YouTube immediately, or Twitter immediately, or we actually sit down with a book. Or we sit down and work on our number one priorities. We have a lot of control in the morning. And the more control we put over the morning, the better we’re going to be able to deal with the chaos that comes in the afternoon.”

[15:30] “Everybody listening to this is probably familiar with Dilbert, you know, the cartoon. And Scott Adams, who writes Dilbert, has actually written some really great books on being successful in life… The title of his book is ‘How to Fail at Everything and Still Succeed in Life,’ I think. And he just talks about how everything is not about goal-setting, it’s about system building.”

Craig Ballantyne continues to say that goal-setting is really like wishful thinking. Creating a system, on the other hand, helps you make strides toward your goals. Goals don’t necessarily have systems in place, though. So you can make a lot more progress setting up systems that keep you consistent, rather than goals with no structure.

[17:51] “One of the things I have as a system is public accountability… That works really well for me, and I build it into my systems.”

These daily systems are what separate a goal-setter from a truly disciplined person. Craig’s approach includes time-blocking key hours of the day, eliminating unnecessary decisions, and establishing routines that run on autopilot. 

Instead of relying on motivation, he builds guardrails that make the right actions almost inevitable. In doing so, he shows others how to be a disciplined person without forcing themselves to grind through every day.

There is also a clear link between personal discipline and financial control. If you’re looking to apply this same structure to your money, start here to see how the Infinite Banking strategy helps build systems for long-term financial success.

Why Value-Alignment Matters

[23:55] “I see people who are productive in life, but you actually look at the things that they’ve done, and they’re productive at the wrong things. So you can get 118 things done in a day, but if they’re things that don’t actually do anything for your real, true goals… It’s like being in Los Angeles and running really, really fast west if you want to get to New York City.”

[24:35] “Your values and vision drive every decision.” 

[25:40] “You say that you want to go this way in life, but your actions are actually going in the opposite direction. And you’re not aligned. That misalignment causes stress, anxiety, fights with your spouse, and all that sort of stuff.”

[27:35] “It takes a lot of introspection and self-reflection to figure out what you truly, truly want. Because a lot of us, what we say we want are things that society has suggested that we want, that our friends want, that our friends have.”

This is where many people get stuck. They chase productivity without direction, discipline without alignment. But a truly disciplined person doesn’t just follow a routine; they also build habits that serve a purpose rooted in personal values. 

Craig Ballantyne emphasizes that sustainable discipline begins with clarity. What do you want? Why do you want it? Once those questions are answered honestly, your daily actions gain meaning rather than just being motion.

About Craig Ballantyne

Craig Ballantyne is known as the “World’s Most Disciplined Man”. Born lazy and introverted, and suffering crippling anxiety attacks, Craig built systems that allowed him to become more productive, resulting in the development of multiple 7-figure businesses stress-free. 

His first multi-million dollar business was his Turbulence Training fitness empire with over 151,000 customers and 25 million YouTube views. He then wrote his first book, The Perfect Day Formula, which has helped over 50,000 entrepreneurs learn how to be a disciplined person, ultimately getting more done and making more money.

Today, he owns EarlyToRise.com and coaches thousands of entrepreneurs from over 45 countries. His latest book, The Perfect Week Formula, shows you how to build your business around your life, rather than trying to squeeze in a little bit of life around working all the time in your business. Craig lives with his wife Michelle in Vancouver, Canada.

Get Free Copies of Craig Ballantyne’s Books

Craig and his team have a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) of giving away 100,000 digital copies of his books. That’s because Craig knows his books can change lives–and we do too! 
You can connect with Craig on LinkedIn, on Instagram @RealCraigBallantyne, or by email at craig@craigballantyne.com.

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