Many business owners are hesitant to create too many rules for their teams; they want to avoid the “command and control” management style of the past and instead liberate their team to do their best work. But without structure, too much freedom can actually impede progress, productivity, and innovation.

This week’s guest on the Elite Entrepreneurs podcast is the extraordinary Ed Rush. Ed is a decorated former Marine combat pilot and aerial dogfighting flight instructor. Since his time in the Marines, Ed has turned his unstoppable can-do attitude toward speaking, writing, and coaching everyone from small startups to multi-million dollar and multinational organizations, CEOs, founders, political leaders, sports teams, national universities, Hollywood stars, and one of the contestants on Season #1 of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice.

Needless to say, Ed’s time in the military taught him that discipline can be a powerful resource, both in active duty and in business. In this episode of the podcast, Ed shares why discipline isn’t the ugly word it might seem at first, and he explains how discipline can create order from chaos and free your team and your business to achieve its absolute best by creating a different kind of freedom.

Giving Yourself the Freedom to Innovate

Ed Rush takes every Friday off from work, and that includes calls, meetings, and emails. It’s something he warns clients and new hires about well in advance. For Ed, that time is sacrosanct and is dedicated exclusively to thinking and innovating. The idea seeds Ed plants on Fridays germinate throughout the rest of his week and often lead to new opportunities he wouldn’t have considered otherwise. Ed Rush firmly believes that many business leaders spend too little time working on their business and too much time working in the business. But, by surrounding yourself with the right team members in the right roles, you can carve out space to work on lead generation and business development… things that can really move the business forward.

Ed also believes that all growth comes in what he calls “sprint and rest” cycles. Whether it’s growing a tomato plant, growing a teenager or growing a business, big growth spurts should be followed by periods of rest and preparation for the next growth spurt. This natural cycle of growth and rest is crucial for allowing you the time to shift gears, recharge, and then get growing again.

Discipline Creates Freedom

As Ed explained during our conversation, some amount of discipline is necessary to avoid falling into chaos. Having defined fences in place gives your team a better sense of the space they can operate in. Discipline creates freedom in the sense that it provides a degree of focus. This doesn’t mean you should become a tyrant of a business leader; on the contrary, by “painting lines” you help the parking lot avoid becoming a traffic jam and allow your team to work more creatively and efficiently.

Ed Rush has much to teach business owners about how discipline creates freedom, without allowing your organization to fall into chaos. If you’d like to learn more about Ed and the work he does, please visit his website at www.EdRush.com. You can also find his extraordinary book “The 21 Day Miracle” at www.EdRushBook.com or on Amazon.