Newsletter
Issue one is on its way. Join the list and it will arrive in your inbox.
SubscribeA monthly newsletter
Return on Discipline
A monthly newsletter, co-written each issue with someone remarkable, on how they hold the line under pressure and what it costs them.
The idea
You have a finite amount of time, energy and attention. Discipline is how you spend it. The question is where it earns the highest return.
Some disciplines compound for decades. Others only look virtuous: the packed routine that avoids the one hard decision, the early alarm that produces nothing. Each month I sit down with someone who has had to choose, and we work out which was which.
Where discipline pays
Craft and career
The habits that build a body of work.
Money and investing
Patience, process and what you refuse to do.
Building a business
Saying no, and sticking to the plan when it hurts.
Endurance and health
What training and recovery teach about limits.
Focus and habits
The routines worth keeping, and the ones that are theatre.
Relationships and learning
The long-term compounding that rarely shows on a spreadsheet.
How it works
01
One conversation
Each month I sit down for a long conversation with someone who has had to practise discipline when it was costly: an investor, a founder, an athlete, an explorer.
02
One essay
We turn it into a single essay that we write together, and we both approve it before it goes anywhere.
03
One principle
You leave with one idea to test in your own life that month, and a clear view of what it costs.
Coming soon
Podcast
The full conversations behind each essay, coming later.
About
I'm Jack Hogan. I've spent my career in institutional capital raising and investor relations, and I recently finished my first Ironman.
I used to think motivation was the important piece. It isn't. Motivation comes and goes. Discipline is what is left when it does. Staying disciplined on the days I feel unmotivated is what builds consistency, and consistency is what compounds: small gains, one per cent at a time, that add up to far more than any burst of enthusiasm.
Discipline, not motivation, is a core value in how I train, work and spend my time. Return on Discipline is where I explore it properly, one conversation at a time.
Jack Hogan