
Looking back on the past five days, this sequence of lessons landed as more than inspiration. Together, they formed a framework — one that replaces fading motivation with structure, discipline, and intention. Jim Rohn’s philosophy for moving from average to fortune isn’t about secrets or hacks. It’s about building systems that support consistent action and clear thinking over time.
Get Serious
Everything starts with adopting a serious mental approach to the future. Not grim, but deliberate. This step is about designing the next five to ten years by asking real questions about what you want to earn, where you want to go, and what you want to be able to share. It’s also about personal development — striving to become the kind of person who can carry the future you’re aiming for. In ten years, you will surely arrive somewhere. Getting serious is how you choose where that is.
Get Smart
Progress doesn’t come from motivation alone. It comes from ideas. Getting smart means committing to continuous education — reading, listening, journaling, revisiting ideas until they shape how you think. Rohn’s metaphor of philosophy as the set of the sail stayed with me. The same wind blows on everyone. Circumstances don’t decide outcomes. Direction comes from how you set your sail through learning and perspective.
Get Going
Knowledge only matters once it turns into a functional action plan. This step is about movement. Cleaning up neglect. Taking care of small disciplines — the walk you keep postponing, the call you haven’t made, the task you’ve been avoiding. Rohn’s reminder is blunt: you don’t get to run a corporation if you haven’t straightened out your garage. Small disciplines build the foundation for handling complicated ones.
Get Excited
This isn’t surface-level enthusiasm or positive thinking. It’s deep, internal resolve. The excitement that comes from realizing that any day you choose, you can change your life. Human capacity isn’t the problem — judgment, will, and commitment are. The kind of excitement that lasts is quiet. It stirs courage. It says, give me the chance and I’ll get it done, whether anyone is watching or not.
Get Away
The final step ties everything together through balance. Learning how to earn without learning how to live leads to hollow success. Getting away means stepping back from your Enterprise to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with people who matter. It’s about lifestyle — how you choose to live — and cultivating relationships so success is expressed with joy, not animosity. Paradoxically, this time away improves the work itself. When life is balanced, things go much better when you return.
I’ve genuinely been enjoying listening to motivational podcasts recently, not for hype, but for perspective. Revisiting these ideas daily helped them settle into practice instead of staying abstract. Heading into this week, that feels especially timely. A big content week ahead, plus a trip out to Boulder for ETH Boulder. Feels like the right mix of reflection, building, and shared experience — carrying the system forward into real-world conversations and new environments.
Carry the system forward.
– BetterCallZaal on behalf of the ZABAL Team

Looking back on the past five days, this sequence of lessons landed as more than inspiration. Together, they formed a framework — one that replaces fading motivation with structure, discipline, and intention. Jim Rohn’s philosophy for moving from average to fortune isn’t about secrets or hacks. It’s about building systems that support consistent action and clear thinking over time.
Get Serious
Everything starts with adopting a serious mental approach to the future. Not grim, but deliberate. This step is about designing the next five to ten years by asking real questions about what you want to earn, where you want to go, and what you want to be able to share. It’s also about personal development — striving to become the kind of person who can carry the future you’re aiming for. In ten years, you will surely arrive somewhere. Getting serious is how you choose where that is.
Get Smart
Progress doesn’t come from motivation alone. It comes from ideas. Getting smart means committing to continuous education — reading, listening, journaling, revisiting ideas until they shape how you think. Rohn’s metaphor of philosophy as the set of the sail stayed with me. The same wind blows on everyone. Circumstances don’t decide outcomes. Direction comes from how you set your sail through learning and perspective.
Get Going
Knowledge only matters once it turns into a functional action plan. This step is about movement. Cleaning up neglect. Taking care of small disciplines — the walk you keep postponing, the call you haven’t made, the task you’ve been avoiding. Rohn’s reminder is blunt: you don’t get to run a corporation if you haven’t straightened out your garage. Small disciplines build the foundation for handling complicated ones.
Get Excited
This isn’t surface-level enthusiasm or positive thinking. It’s deep, internal resolve. The excitement that comes from realizing that any day you choose, you can change your life. Human capacity isn’t the problem — judgment, will, and commitment are. The kind of excitement that lasts is quiet. It stirs courage. It says, give me the chance and I’ll get it done, whether anyone is watching or not.
Get Away
The final step ties everything together through balance. Learning how to earn without learning how to live leads to hollow success. Getting away means stepping back from your Enterprise to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with people who matter. It’s about lifestyle — how you choose to live — and cultivating relationships so success is expressed with joy, not animosity. Paradoxically, this time away improves the work itself. When life is balanced, things go much better when you return.
I’ve genuinely been enjoying listening to motivational podcasts recently, not for hype, but for perspective. Revisiting these ideas daily helped them settle into practice instead of staying abstract. Heading into this week, that feels especially timely. A big content week ahead, plus a trip out to Boulder for ETH Boulder. Feels like the right mix of reflection, building, and shared experience — carrying the system forward into real-world conversations and new environments.
Carry the system forward.
– BetterCallZaal on behalf of the ZABAL Team
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ZM systems beat motivation. Serious direction, smart learning, real action, quiet excitement, and balanced living — not as slogans, but as a way of moving through life. Looking forward to carrying this into a big content week and ETH Boulder. https://paragraph.com/@thezao/year-of-the-zabal-day-40
Great job my friend
Good luck 🤞
A post distills Jim Rohn's five-step framework—Get Serious, Get Smart, Get Going, Get Excited, Get Away—into practical action. It favors durable systems over motivation, promoting disciplined thinking and steady progress. The piece stresses reflection, balance, and real-world application. @zaal