Step Three ROAR

One day, you just stop waiting and wake up with the attitude of someone who’s sure that they’ve been holding back what they want to shout for too long. Your chest, swollen with effort and passion, is stronger than steel armor and contains the powerful energy of eternity’s artilleries. The breaths of fire are your desire for victory. The unruly flames are your longing to crush the doubts that were deposited on you, the reproaches and ridicule that you received when you insisted on preparing to unleash the irrepressible power that you carry within you.

Now is the time for you to buckle down and keep your willpower stronger than ever, resist with persistence, and understand that self-control will allow you to seal the leak through which the pressure you have concentrated can seep. It will serve as a saber to defend you from the temptations of immediate joys and the siren song of weaknesses. You owe it not only to who you are now, but who you will be after you’ve deployed the shrapnel of your talent.

With all the pieces you’ve gathered about you, and the mastery you’ve acquired to arrange them strategically, you’ll be able to combine your desires with your skills, your profitability with your contributions. This doesn’t take away from the fact that your development naturally brings growth in your personal well-being, resources, freedom, joy, and productivity. This map re-creates the battlefield you must invade.

LOVING. I DON’T KNOW ANY OTHER WAY TO LIVE.

Once you decide to command the front line of your cry, you’ll be unstoppable on your way to total victory. But this will not come without changes. You will leave behind the people who have anchored you to the past, you will rebuild what you understand to be mistakes, and you will even have a new perspective about the final day.

Yes, it will hurt to tread on the parched field of betrayals and lies. Yes, there will be distortions that will attempt to extinguish what is rumbling within you. Yes, the battle will also include setbacks and defeats. Even so, this is the defining phase, the one that will prevent you from being devoured by your fears and doubts, the false limitations you’ve imposed on yourself, and the deaf noise of criticism that doesn’t let you hear that your opportunity has arrived.

Roar, because you have no choice but to choose between thunder and silence.

SELF-CONTROL

Releasing the roar goes beyond a moment of enthusiasm; it requires a series of efforts. Today’s cry is only possible because it’s composed of many heartbeats that were held back when we wanted to let go, to stop resisting, to take a sweet breath, even if in that sigh we lost the whirlwind’s intensity.

When you decide to move from the inflame phase to the roar phase, you’re giving up everything that has been holding you back. To avoid returning to that spot, you need an essential ingredient: self-control. This is the power we use to manage our desires, emotions, and behaviors when we need to lean toward what we consider right, which also helps us achieve our goals.

A good example of self-control is choosing an hour of intense training at the gym over lying in bed with your phone as your scenery, water over soda, studying over partying. The key in this process is that we are exchanging one gain for another: an immediate and tangible pleasure for a distant and undefined one. We avoid eating a delicious chocolate bar because we have a clear motive: to improve our health, weight, or figure. But this benefit will not happen in the short term. What’s more, our final goal doesn’t just depend on this small sacrifice but on a series of them. Yet the joy we derive from eating that chocolate can be fully encompassed in quantity and time. We’re rejecting a clear and certain satisfaction for a greater yet uncertain one. There’s no greater pleasure than beating ourselves. You’ll never regret yesterday’s discipline and your future self will always be proud of you.

No different are the temptations that come from certain emotions, impulses, or desires, which we must control to achieve prosperity and quality of life.

Self-control is not a new concept; the Word already advised us, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). It is mentioned once and then gently emphasized by the insistence that self-control is greater than the treasures of all the plunder of kings and their armies. Fortunes are more than expendable resources; with self-control, we can always generate more.

MY CHALLENGE IS TO CONTINUE TO ASK GOD FEWER QUESTIONS AND LISTEN TO HIM MORE.

To those who believe that biblical texts aren’t enough to explain human phenomena, let me tell you about a transcendent scientific study whose results coincide with the wisdom contained in Scripture. Aside from its revealing content, this research is enriched by the ingenuity and innocence that only children can bring. The experiment was conducted with students at the Bing Nursery preschool near Stanford University, where the daughters of the project’s director, psychology professor Walter Mischel, were studying.

Mischel came from a Jewish family that had left their country, Austria, when it fell under the rule of Nazi Germany. Settling in Brooklyn, like thousands of other displaced persons, had a transformative impact on that child and left the grown man and researcher with a burning desire to explore the factors that determine perseverance and improvement. Understanding the configuration of self-control was an enigma that Mischel had long wanted to solve, and he found the answer in the ingenuousness of the children at Bing Nursery.

The study that his team developed in that preschool is, in my opinion, one of the finest and most fruitful findings in the history of the study of human behavior. It didn’t just illustrate clues as to why successes and failures occur, but it also made it possible to monitor the effects that self-control has on more intimate dimensions of life.

The group of researchers began a series of tests to find out how children coped with the need to choose between an immediate and a future benefit. The test was carried out with students who were older than three years (old enough to understand the instructions), but younger than six (innocent enough in the calculation of their reactions). The lure needed to be something that the kids would see as valuable while also allowing them to reflect on the instructions, so the researchers decided to ask them to choose between eating one candy or eating two.

Before we proceed, I’d like to note that scientific studies like this one are often much more sophisticated than how we usually present them. To be brief and didactic, I’ve simplified some of the procedures without altering the results or conclusions, which are accurately expressed in this chapter. That specific study is even more complex because it spanned several decades. Since I know you’ll find this subject fascinating, I invite you to read Mischel’s own account in the book where he summarizes the findings of his five-decade-long research: The Marshmallow Test: Understanding Self-Control and How to Master It.¹

Rather than a scientific procedure, this study is reminiscent of a joke from a hidden camera program. The researchers took the children to an area of the school that they called the “Surprise Room.” After gaining the children’s trust, the collaborator suggested a challenge: She told them that she would leave a candy on the table and exit the room for a while; if upon returning, the evaluated students had not eaten the candy, she would give them an additional one.

SUPPORT IS A BEAUTIFUL AND ENDANGERED WORD.

The challenge was clear: eat one immediately with certainty or make a sacrifice and wait for the promise of receiving two. In the language we’ll be exploring, we can look at it this way:

Instant gratification: This is the candy the researcher leaves in the room. We can enjoy it right now, without making an effort to wait for it, just as we enjoy many pleasures, even if they’re counterproductive to our desires.

Delayed gratification: This is the pleasure of eating twice as many treats, as a result of the effort involved in waiting for a higher reward. It causes a momentary discomfort, but we’re confident that it will be worth it because that effort leads us to a higher pleasure, like getting good grades after giving up several outings with friends during finals.

From the outset, the results were revealing. The first thing the researchers found was the series of resources the children, even the youngest ones, used to convince themselves to wait. They generally understood that it was worthwhile to hold out, even if they didn’t do so. Naturally, we understand that sacrifices will have a favorable conclusion in the long run. We don’t need to reach adulthood to understand that waking up early to study is a better choice in the long run than staying in bed. This is something we know whether we get out of bed or not. This inner conviction leads us to develop methods that help us curb the desire to take the bait of immediate pleasure.

What the children did while they waited in the Surprise Room reveals how difficult it was to pass this test. Some would move away from the temptation with strategies such as turning their backs to the treat or covering their eyes. Others would approach it and caress it or rub it on their faces without actually taking a bite.

Oftentimes marshmallows were used to tempt the children. That’s why this study is popularly known as the Marshmallow Test. You can use this name to find more information about it in books, videos, and references. If you want to have fun, search the internet for videos related to the “Marshmallow Test”; this will help you better understand the experiment and you will see the enormous efforts made by the children subjected to this test to achieve the greatest possible benefits.

THE POWER OF WAITING

After the publication of the first results, the subject was forgotten in scientific circles, but as time went by, Mischel wanted to know what had become of the thirty or so children who had participated in the project. He went back to the school with a set of questions, and the answers were shocking. The same children who had displayed the greatest willpower to get the second marshmallow after a few years showed superior performance in most of the basic educational and social indicators. This difference wasn’t because they were smarter or came from more educated or wealthier homes. The only common factor among this group of children was their ability to self-regulate, which was an essential fuel for achieving their goals.

I GOT THE BILL I OWED FOR SEVERAL STUPID THINGS THIS MONTH.

The development of self-control is triggered by personal drive. Those who show the ability to resist giving up an immediate pleasure with the intention of obtaining a greater one are much more likely to achieve success in different dimensions.