Ishi: The Discipline of Determined Intent

In 2022 I collapsed at mile 22 of the Ironman World Championships marathon in Hawaii after years of qualification attempts. The failure was not physical breakdown but absence of self-governance. Effort continued while awareness had already stopped.

The same pattern sank HMS Artemis at her moorings in 1971, evaporated €1.9 billion at Wirecard and destroys careers in software engineering, clinical practice and technical leadership every year. Capable people operating inside accepted standards drift into failure through accumulated lapses in attention. By the time collapse becomes visible, erosion has been active for years.

This book presents the Ishi Spiral, a 4-phase discipline that governs how intent is set, how practice is structured, when persistence is justified and how reflection prevents drift before collapse forces correction. This is not productivity advice. It is self-governance designed to operate under fatigue, uncertainty and constraint.

The problem is structural, not motivational. We push through fatigue because stopping feels weak, or we abandon work before effort compounds because discomfort gets misread as misalignment. Both patterns destroy capacity. Both emerge from the same failure: the absence of a mechanism to distinguish endurance from self-harm while choice still matters.

The Spiral operates through four phases: Decide (Ishi 意志), Forge (Shugyo 修行), Persist (Gaman 我慢) and Reflect (Hansei 反省). The Japanese terminology is deliberate because English lacks precision for the states between action and awareness that matter under load. These are not borrowed aesthetics but working concepts tested across dozens of ultra-endurance events, failed startups, organisational transformations and the collapses that occur when persistence outlives judgment.

The book documents failures alongside whatever success survived them. I lost half a million dollars (NZ) between 2004 and 2010 carrying a business past the point where continuation made sense, refused to withdraw from races when disengagement was already clear and watched capable teams hollow themselves out inside systems that rewarded motion over judgment. The case studies include Kodak refining film while digital photography rendered it irrelevant, Bonza Aviation collapsing six months after launch and American Apparel burning out through ungoverned intensity.

These are not cautionary tales about poor planning but examples of drift normalised until correction became impossible. The same dynamic appears in endurance sport when persistence crosses into damage and in organisations when alignment erodes while activity remains high.

What the discipline requires: Handwritten Ishi Cards that cannot be revised without confrontation. Structured reflection that separates decision quality from outcome. Boundaries set before fatigue arrives. Abort conditions defined when judgment is clear.

What it does not promise: Transformation in thirty days. Reassurance when discomfort appears. Ease or elimination of friction.

What it offers: Coherence between what was intended and what was actually done when motivation left and fatigue arrived. The ability to persist without damage or withdraw without failure. Alignment that survives contact with reality.

This is version 0.92, published iteratively because the discipline evolves through use rather than perfection in isolation. If effort feels misaligned, if burnout is approaching or if persistence has turned into obligation defended by sunk cost, this exists to interrupt that pattern before collapse becomes the inevitable outcome.

Ishi is not a framework. It is a discipline. Disciplines are tested under load, not admired from distance.