The Surprising Reward When You Do What You Set Out To Do

I tried to research for you how many students, globally, continue training in the martial arts until they earn their black belt. It turns out, there are far too many variables to find a true percentage.

One thing is for sure though; the percentage is "small". Some guesses were as low as 1%, but many others were in the 3% to 5% range. A few reports believed the number was a bit higher.

Whatever the actual percentage, reaching such a promontory in martial arts resembles the journey in other aspects of life. The more personal commitment required to get there, the fewer who will have the determination and stamina to go all the way.

Are We Here For The Belt?

So do you train for the black belt itself? Or do you train for what it represents?

There are many personal reasons why people sign up for their first martial arts class. For many kids, it began with a nudge from a parent. For other kids, it truly was their idea after they fell in love with a movie or comic book or video game hero.

You'll hear a variety of reasons from adult students too.

"It looks like a fun way to get into shape." 

"I wanted to learn some self-defense skills."

"I started so I could meet new people."

So there are many reasons why we walk through the door for the first time. I'm fascinated by why we stay.

That reason, why we stay, shapes who we are as a person. That's why I started my hunt for a percentage of people who stay with it, to black belt and beyond.

Do you stay for the black belt? There's no shortage of people in the world who would argue how important it is for you to set clear goals. A clear goal, well-defined, well-visualized, goes a long way toward helping you achieve it. 

And proving that you've set a goal, and achieved it, helps high schoolers get into the university of their choice, and it helps adults ace the interview and land that job.

But those accomplishments, as great as they are, are just more rungs on your ladder, (yes, even when you tie the black belt on for the first time), if you only look at it as a conquest. By that I mean, something to have.

But what if, instead, it was something to be? 

Our Surprising Reward From The Martial Arts

Consider the martial artist who trained for years and earned her black belt. And then stopped.

Goal achieved, right? Isn't it time to move on?

For two reasons, I say, "No."

Reason # 1: Henry David Thoreau believed there's more richness we can draw from our accomplishments than what we get.

"When you achieve your dream, it's not what you get, it's who you've become."- Henry David Thoreau

Why should you care what one of the most prominent philosophers of the modern age thinks? Well, I care because Thoreau spent a lot more time contemplating life than I do. He had no cell phone, no rat race job, no television, no internet, and no Hollywood. He lived, he thought, and he wrote.

He had time to see and experience life on this planet without the insane distractions we have today. I don't gamble, but I would bet on him and bet that he got it right.

Reason # 2 is that trump card we all have, and love to play. Personal experience. What's more convincing to us than that?

I can't count how many times I've told my friends and family that I will practice martial arts until my last breath. I simply get too much out of it. Let me list only a fraction of the rewards I experience anew each day:

• self-defense skills
• more confidence
• new friends, supportive of my development
• fitness, and better physical health
• the reminder that I am able to learn new things

This list, and other things, is who I've become. And I know that if I put my martial arts practice aside one day, even with the satisfaction of checking off my list of accomplishments "black belt," I will have lost a part of who I am, simply because I stopped.

Don't stop. Don't lose a part of who you are. That, and the fact that you'll find friendly, familiar faces right there alongside you for the long haul, will be the most rewarding part of your martial arts journey.

The Shocking Truth About Multitasking (And How Martial Arts May Help)

For decades, we've celebrated multitasking. We've been asked about it on job interviews, and we've held it up as one of our strengths when relating stories of our workplace prowess in order to land that job. 

Even on the homefront, parents (and let's be honest, especially Moms) have long had the uncanny ability to juggle the baby, the toddler, the dog, and everyone's schedule in the house. Beginning their days in a fine-tuned, efficient regimen that would make any Army Drill Sergeant proud, everyone would be roused from slumber, washed, dressed, fed, walked, and out the door within 60 minutes flat.

And now we're learning about the dark side of multitasking. Teenagers, and yes, even adults, are trained like Pavlov's dogs to check their cell phone for every beep and buzz for the latest text, Snapchat, Facebook update, and even that nearly-extinct mode of communication, the phone call. We do it in meetings at work, and in gatherings with friends. And when we look up from the warm glow of the phone, thinking we can indeed "do it all," it takes us a minute to wipe the "Huh?" from our face and recall where we are, who we're actually with, what they may have just said to us, and what we're doing.

Texting while driving has been called the new "drunk driving" because it's proven to distract drivers more, and slow their reaction times more, than alcohol. Given what we know alcohol does to the brain and nervous system, the fact that texting while driving makes us more dangerous underscores the idea that our brain simply cannot perform two tasks at once well.

Multitasking takes us out of the moment. It is the opposite of millenia-old techniques and philosophies like Zen, meditation, and other salves that humans have found improve focus, rather than detract from it.

So where does the jury stand on multitasking? Is it a virtue of career and parental excellence? Or is it a parasite eating away at our ability to focus on what we're doing in the moment? 

Dr. Travis Bradberry published an article in Forbes that presents the results of a few studies conducted by prominent institutions, including Stanford University, about what multitasking does to our brains. The truth will shock you.

How Multitasking Impacts Our Brain

I encourage you to read Dr. Bradberry's full article, but here, in list form, are the highlights. When you're done reading this, perhaps you'll deem "lowlights" to be a better word choice.

• The Stanford study found that multitasking makes us less productive.

• People who focused on one thing at a time accomplished more, and had better memory recall.

• The Stanford study even analyzed a specific sub-group: those who believed they were really good at multitasking, and actually thought it made them perform better. The results from Stanford? In a word: Hogwash. This sub-set of people performed the worst. They "had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another," Bradberry tells us.

• Conclusion: Our brains can only focus on one thing at a time. That means, you can't, in fact, text and drive. You're not doing either effectively. Here's what I mean:

• A University of London study found that multitasking lowers IQ. (Quite a bit in fact.) Grown men in this study lost 15 IQ points, which dropped their IQ levels down to the level of the average 8-year-old child. Bradberry drives the point home in his article when he writes, "So the next time you’re writing your boss an email during a meeting, remember that your cognitive capacity is being diminished to the point that you might as well let an 8-year-old write it for you."

• One more study, this one from the University of Sussex, found that multitasking may cause brain damage. Researchers had study participants watch TV while simultaneously texting on their phones. When they scanned the volunteers' brains in an MRI machine, the investigators found damage to the parts that are responsible for empathy, and cognitive and emotional control. Scary stuff if you ask me.

So I'm sold. I've seen enough. I'm trying to get better at putting aside my distractions and staying focused on one thing at a time, whenever possible.

But perhaps the most important task ahead of us is to cast shadow on multitasking, and place a new virtue into the light. Let's praise the lost art of doing one thing at a time, and doing it well.

That's one of the reasons why I value my martial arts training so much. I've found that when I am in class, it's one of the very few times in my week when I am in the moment. I'm truly and deeply focused practicing my technique. The time flies by because I enter this flow state.

Aside from keeping my IQ out of the 4th Grade level, I find the focus I have in my martial arts class enhances my mood too. I'm sure there will be more studies about multitasking that will report out in the next few years. I look forward to reading them. And I won't be surprised if researchers conclude focus improves mood.  But I promise you I won't be reading them on my cell phone when I'm in the company of my friends.

From now on, instead of lauding my juggling skills, I'll be keeping distractions at bay, and elevating the role of focus in my life.

What about you? For sure, there are events during our day when we are forced to switch gears and perform a few tasks at a time. But will you look for those opportunities where you truly can control where you'll place your attention? 

I think your brain will thank you, and so will the people around you.

5 Ways to Lead by Example (Plus 5 Inspiring Quotes!)

Lead by example. Those may be among the most urgent words we need to hear.

Someone is judging you right now.

Even if they can't see you right now, they can still think about something you said to them earlier. They remember how you acted, or reacted. They noticed what you wore for clothes on your body and what you wore for an expression on your face.

You left an impression, and someone formed an opinion. Then they rendered a judgement.

5 Opportunities to Lead By Example

There are countless ways, but here are 5 to get us started. 

1)    Don't ask others to do what you can't, or won't. 

• This is a big one. It mattered 2,000 years ago when kings led soldiers into battle at the front of their armies, and it still matters today. We're human, and this one won't ever go out of style.

• If you're leading a martial arts class, you better bring the same intensity you demand from your students and classmates.

"Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means." 

-- Albert Einstein

2)    To be a great leader, you have to be a great follower.

• How can you expect people to do what you ask them if you bristle when others ask you to do things? People notice this. No one follows a poor follower just because they’ve been promoted into a “management” or “leadership” role.

• Leaders and followers sometimes need to switch roles. An adaptable person needs to have all bases covered. Follow as if your turn to lead is just around the corner. Lead like your turn to follow is coming soon.

"He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander."  

-- Aristotle

3)    Eat last. Rest Last. Rise first.

• Feed your family, your students, or your employees first. “Feeding” them applies to more than just food too. Feed them breaks, vacation, knowledge, and training. Give friendship to get it in return. Give respect first, and watch it boomerang back to you.

• If there’s inconvenience to be found, we take it on ourselves. People more willingly follow someone who voluntarily takes on inconvenience in order to spare others the same.

• Leaders plan for their followers’ physical, mental, and emotional needs after dark and before sunrise. Leaders get there first and go home last.

"Officers eat last."      

-- Unknown, but it is the foundation of every Officer Corps in history

4)    Demonstrate self-command. We must be able to lead ourselves before we can lead others.

• Can’t quit smoking? How can you expect to motivate others to drop their own vices? To lead a fitness class, one must be in excellent shape. To teach martial arts, one must master technique through hours, and years, of practice. 

• Don’t expect others to arrive on time if you don’t do it yourself. Be on time, be organized, be ready. Dress like you respect yourself and others. 

"What you are speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying." 

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

5)    Deliver value through your actions first; your words, if they are even needed at that point, can follow later.

• Think about this: We don’t need words to lead. People follow behavior. If we consistently project the right behavior, people will notice, form an opinion, make their judgment, and follow our lead.

• Mother Theresa of Calcutta did not lead her life-saving team because she was fluent in the many Indian dialects in the Calcutta slums. She arrived, rolled up her sleeves, put herself in great physical danger through her hands-on care of the sick and contagious, and went to work. Those are actions, and many people followed her example because of those actions.

"Not the cry, but the flight, of a wild duck leads the flock to fly and follow." 

-- Chinese proverb

Thankfulness and the Martial Arts

By Mike Massie, author of Martial Arts Character Education Lesson Plans for Children

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

So just what does being thankful have to do with the martial arts? Rather than deliver a long-winded lecture about how you should be thankful for what you have, I’d rather share a story with you that illustrates how martial arts training gives us a greater appreciation for the good things we have.

When I was a child, my family was very poor. We often went without food at the end of the month, and our utilities were frequently cut off. Some winters we had no electricity, and our only means of heating our house was with a kerosene heater. We’d block off two rooms of our house by placing blankets over the door frames, since the heater was only sufficient to provide heat to our bedroom and living room. In the summer sometimes our water would get shut off, and we’d have to haul water by the bucket from the neighbor’s outside spigot to fill the bathtub so we could bathe.

Back then, I knew things were hard and frankly I was quite embarrassed at our family’s financial situation. However, as I grew up and improved my economic situation by starting my own business, I found that those early experiences made me thankful for the things I had and for what I’d been able to accomplish. And despite what some people may say about the United States, I’ve always been proud to be a citizen, and thankful that I was born in a nation where I had the opportunity to pull myself up from poverty to success. I thank God every day for my blessings, and it’s because of the hardships that I’ve faced that I’m so grateful for all I have.

By the same token, the hardships we face in the martial arts make us more appreciative of our accomplishments, as well as the opportunity we’ve been given to achieve them. The many long months (or even years) of practice and effort we invest before each belt promotion or competition victory allow us to savor those milestones even more. We’re more thankful for those achievements because we know that we’ve overcome hardships and sacrificed a great deal to achieve those rewards. Quite simply, our accomplishments mean more to us because they were difficult to achieve.

In turn, these experiences help us gain perspective so we can be thankful for the things we have and the blessings we enjoy in other areas of our lives. I believe this also helps us appreciate others more as well, especially the sacrifices they might make for us. Knowing what it feels like to achieve something meaningful and lasting in the face of great hardship allows us to develop the humility to realize that we have much to be thankful for in our daily lives. Family. Friendship. Work. Home. Love. The importance of all things is brought into sharper focus when gazed through the lens of what has been sacrificed by others in their creation and care.

Moreover, we can also gain an appreciation of what life would be like without these blessings, since we’ve been able to experience life before and after achieving something meaningful through great sacrifice. Imagine for a moment what your life would be like if you couldn’t train in the martial arts; now imagine what it would be like without family, friends, or love. The sense of loss is almost palpable when we think about it, so much so that it hurts to even consider it.

So, this Thanksgiving I encourage you to consider all that you’ve accomplished in your martial arts journey, and to allow those experiences to be a reminder of how much more you have to be thankful for every day of your life. Then, take time to thank those people who are most important to you, both for the sacrifices they’ve made to be a part of your life, and for the joy they bring to you as well.

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

11 Ways The Modern Diet Let Us Down

It's hard to look away when history stares you dead in the eye.

Business Insider published an article by Kris Gunnars that shows 11 historical charts that will convince you to re-think how and what you eat.

The charts show the correlation with how our diet changed, and what disease epidemics soon followed.

Check out the full article, but here are the highlights of how the modern diet let us down.

Copyright (c) The American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition

1. Our Sugar Intake Has Skyrocketed. Nowadays it seems everywhere we go, sugar shows up. Sugar is like that "friend" that overhears your plans and invites himself along.  It has snuck its way into almost everything we eat. Gunnars shows us a chart that tracks how sugar intake skyrocketed in just the last 160 years...and obesity, "coincidentally," did too. At the....Exact. Same. Time. (Creepy.)            
2. Soda and Fruit Juice Consumption Has Doubled Since 1990. These two drink categories are just liquid sugar. (It's scary how recent some of these facts are.)
3. Average U.S. Calorie Intake Has Gone Up 20% Since 1970. We're not eating more. We're just eating more crap with more sugar in it. That's what cranks up the calories. Calories can be good, if they are nutrient-dense. Most foods with sugar simply don't have the nutrients the body needs. This is where the term "empty calories" was born.
4. Butter is Better. This chart is one of the most telling. It shows that the average American consumed around 20 pounds of butter per year in the early 1900's. Back then, heart disease and diabetes were not the epidemics we see today. Instead, during the decades since we were encouraged to replace butter with processed vegetable and seed oils, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes have climbed to be the killers that they are today.

   

   Copyright (c) Dr. Stephan Guyenet. The American Diet. 2012.

5. The Modern Diet Replaced Heart-Healthy Butter With Trans-Fat Laden Margarine. This is my other favorite chart. (Can you tell I like butter?) Butter produced from grass-fed cows actually has been shown to be heart-protective because of the Vitamin K2. Margarine may have fueled the heart disease epidemic.
6. Soybean Oil Has Become A Major Source Of Calories. It climbed in the 1950's, but really spiked in use in 1969. You'll find soybean oil in most processed foods. A good rule of thumb: Shop around the perimeter of the grocery store. That's where the fresh (real) food is...the produce section, deli, butcher shop, butter and eggs. The aisles in the middle of the store carry the processed foods.
7. Modern Wheat is Less Nutritious Than Older Varieties of Wheat. Basically, a new type of wheat came on the scene in a big way in the 1960s. It's called the Modern Dwarf Wheat, and it contains a lot less magnesium, zinc, iron, and copper than the wheat our ancestors ate prior to the '60's.
8. We've Decreased Our Egg Consumption By 33% in the Modern Diet. Somebody told us that eggs were high in cholesterol, and since the 1950's we've scaled back. But as the country got sicker, and our cholesterol got higher, we were backing off of one of the foods that actually raised our HDL Cholesterol, aka "The Good Cholesterol". Eggs. If you can find eggs laid by pasture-raised hens, you'll be eating one of the healthiest and nutrient-dense foods a human can eat. (Note: look up "pasture-raised". It is a big step above "cage-free". Not the same.)
9. People Are Eating More Processed Foods Than Ever Before In The Modern Diet. No surprise there. Again, when you see these charts for yourself, it's just amazing how all of these bad dietary habits skyrocketed in the 1960s and 70s.
10. We've Consumed So Much Vegetable Oil That It Has Literally Changed What We're Made of. We are what we eat. Our body composition has changed over a few decades compared to our closest relative, the chimpanzee. The chimp's diet has not changed, nor has its body composition.
11. The Low-Fat Dietary Guidelines Were Published Around The Same Time The Obesity Epidemic Started. This one is hard to dismiss. Like I said, history staring us dead in the eye. The modern diet, and its correlation to obesity, should make us pause.

 

 

 

 

 

Master Ken Teaches His Two Hand Wrist Grab Defense

Copyright (c) Master Ken

Thanks to Master Ken for creating another excellent training video. He makes it looks so easy! Watch him perform this useful defense if someone grabs your wrist.

He takes decades of intense training and boils it all down to 50 seconds of visual poetry.

How to Make Doctors Irrelevant

How to Make Doctors Irrelevant - The Daily Beast

Thanks to Daniela Drake for writing it, and to The Daily Beast for publishing this story about the amazing and inspiring results that Dr. Terry Wahls has been getting for herself and her patients.

To read the full article from The Daily Beast, click the link above.

Nutrition

Nutrition can make us healthier. Feed every cell in your body the proper nutritional requirements, and eventually medicine becomes less relevant, less necessary.

Aristotle told us over 2,300 years ago, "Let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food." I wonder how many other lessons the human race learned thousands of years ago, and then forgot them and adopted less effective means.

10 Little Habits That Steal Your Happiness

Happy people have habits, just like unhappy ones. Often, it's easier to spot the ruts in which miserable people find themselves. You can tell they hate their jobs, or they complain that they "really should quit smoking one of these days."  Stuff like that.

Meanwhile the habits of happy people go unnoticed.

They are not life's lottery winners, Happy People. They are not "lucky" or "chosen." Instead, the make small, manageable changes to their life until these actions, thoughts, and behaviors become routines. I've lived my life on both sides of this coin, so I can tell you from experience that good fortune has only come after I've made a decision, and taken action.  I know many of you have had this same experience, as you've told me so.

I found this article, "10 Habits That Steal Your Happiness" written by Angel Chernoff over at Marc and Angel Hack Life. I couldn't write this any better myself, so be sure to read their full article.

Here, I give you just the list of habits that steal your happiness. Check out Angel's full article to dig deeper.

10 Little Habits That Steal Your Happiness

1. Focusing on everyone's story except your own.
2. Waiting for the perfect moment.
3. Working for nothing more than a paycheck.
4. Harboring feelings of hate.
5. Holding tight to worries and fears.
6. Dwelling on difficulties.
7. Constantly seeking fleeting contentment.
8. Trying to make a big difference all at once.
9. Holding on to someone who hurts you.
10. Over-amplifying the importance of physical attractiveness.

Happy people reverse all of the above habits. The good news is that you can do this in pieces. Remember # 8 in the above list. Master these one at a time, and you will see an improvement in your outlook on life.

10 Things the Most Successful People Do to Stay Calm

"90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control." 

-- Travis Bradberry, TalentSmart

TalentSmart surveyed over 1 million people to find out what the most successful people do to stay calm under stress. You can read the full article at Forbes. Bradberry's research concludes that we need some stress in our lives. Just make sure those stressful episodes don't last too long.

Long periods of stress lead to mental, emotional, and physical problems. Short periods of stress help us to perform at our best.

Copyright (c) Forbes

Here are 10 things the best of the best do to remain in control when stress threatens to hang around too long....

10 Stress-Management Habits of Successful People

1. They appreciate what they have. Successful people understand that gratitude improves their mood and energizes them. Biologically, gratitude has ben shown to decrease the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.
2. They avoid asking "What if?" Worrying is a natural human response. But don't let your worry get out of hand by dreaming up all the many ways something could possibly go wrong. Refocus your thoughts on fixing the problem. You have limited energy. Use it to improve the situation, not on the worrying.
3. They stay positive. Successful people actively redirect their negative thoughts to positive ones. This limits the havoc stress can cause by keeping it intermittent.
4. They disconnect. Make time for yourself. Turn the phone off. Ignore e-mails and texts for a while. Successful people protect time for their own peace of mind.
5. They limit their caffeine intake. Caffeine causes a prolonged adrenaline spike. This launches the fight-or-flight response and puts emotions in command of reason.
6. They sleep. I am an avid fan of sleep science. What better, more natural way to recharge your brain and body? Sleep quantity and quality can affect mood, focus, health, and our ability to handle stress.
7. They squash negative self-talk. Everyone does this. Super successful people catch themselves when they do it, and they switch gears right away, like pros.
8. They reframe their perspective. When you feel like "everything" is going wrong, challenge that idea. Take 5 minutes to write a list of what is going wrong in your life. You'll quickly realize that the list is much shorter than you thought, and it certainly doesn't include "everything."  This list-taking exercise is also a good time to write down what you are grateful for.
9. They breathe. You can see that the habits successful people embrace to keep stress intermittent in their lives uses both mental and physical tactics. Research has shown that when people take a few minutes to clear their mind and spend a few minutes concentrating on their breathing, thinking about the inhale, thinking about the exhale, stress levels drop.
10. They use their support system. Successful people know how to reach out for help.
11. BONUS: Exercise! Nothing takes my mind off the day's problems like my martial arts class. Unlike running on a treadmill or eliptical machine, where your mind has nothing to do but wander, martial arts requires my attention. Nothing has helped me disconnect, breathe, and reframe my perspective better than martial arts.