Recently in the past few weeks, people have asked why I think martial arts schools are behind the times.  Why I referred to the school I used to attend as crap in mybio.

Bruce Lee said it best:  ”Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it.”

In earning my kinesiology degree, I learned something about human movement that not only undermined years of martial arts practice, but destroyed the basis of most martial art foundations.

Most schools teach by practicing patterns of movement.  There’s nothing wrong with this, but eventually people need to move past this mode of learning.

I remember learning how to write, doing lessons in workbooks.  One of them required me to follow dotted lines for each of the letters of the alphabet.  Once we graduated from that simple lesson, our class moved to copying simple sentences my teacher wrote on the blackboard.  Then she wrote simple paragraphs that we copied into our notebooks.  The paragraphs we copied got longer.  As we moved up the elementary school echelon, we were taught the structures of the three paragraph essay, then the five paragraph essay.  We were given subjects to write about and we wrote.  And so on and so forth.

Now, imagine teenagers in high school, or students in college being given homework, copying dotted letters of the alphabet.  That is what you have in the traditional martial arts school.

Have you seen old English calligraphy?  All those swirls, extra lines, and decorations?  How inefficient would that be in everyday writing?  A lot of that is in traditional martial arts, as well.

In our particular school, we always made fun of Tae Kwan Do students.  They limited themselves to kicking, and when sparring they didn’t allow striking to the head.  But one thing they did a lot was sparring.  Sparring is the key to truly learning anything.

Kinesiology taught me that people need to be in dynamic environments if they are to perform in dynamic environments.  If I taught you a martial arts technique to deal with a right punch, and I drilled that technique over and over again, all you would’ve learned was the technique.  What you wouldn’t know how to do is react to the right punch.  To do that, you can’t be told that a right punch is coming.  And sparring gives you that opportunity.

Yes, learn the technique.  Yes, practice the technique.  Then forget it.

The above quote by Bruce states exactly how I live my life.

When I first attempted my first three novels, I had no idea what I was doing.  Then my best friend suggested many sources that spoke on the structure and techniques of fiction writing.  I read them, attended seminars and learned so much.  But those lessons didn’t sink in until I sat down and wrote.  By the end of my many revisions and writing myepisodes,I had to go back and do one last revision/rewrite.  I’d changed so much as a writer that I had to do a line by line examination of my manuscript.

I didn’t want to at first.  I knew it would take a long time.  But once I dug in, I became more intimately engrossed with my story.  And something happened that was unexpected.  I fell in love with my story again.

I also realized that I’d broken some rules of writing.  I didn’t do it on purpose.  That’s just the way the story needed to be told.

Bruce Lee said:  ”Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.”  That has definitely worked out for him.

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Do you work at the US Mint?

I was waiting for a free table at my favorite place to write, Borders. And I overheard a high school student asking a grad student about working in the financial sector.  The grad student had financial looking books on the long table.  He said that if you worked for this certain company doing this certain kind of trade, you’d make a lot of money.

Something inside me wanted to jump up, slap the grad student across the face, and take the high school student, shake him, and tell him to follow his passions.

If that’d happened, then I’d be writing this post in jail.

The more important question was why did I react this way. And why do I react this way when I hear people say, “Do this and you’ll make lots of money.” Or the more infamous, “I’ve created a system that will create fast, easy money, bring you girls from all over the world. See this car I’m driving? Would you like to drive this car?” Then in faint, white fine print ‘Results may vary. Results not typical.’  The kind of fine print that not even Sherlock Holmes could find.

As I was waiting for a table, I checked through my unread emails and came across a newsletter from Michael Neill. Check him out. He’s awesome. He wrote about the difference between earning money and making money.

Aren’t those two the same?

The only people in America that make money are the people who work in the US Mint. The rest of us earn money.

The earning part is where most people don’t understand.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and he’s helping his close friend produce some videos. My friend said he knew how to get free actors. We laughed because actors would work for free just to get their faces and names out there. But these actors are on to something. They’re putting the work in, serving others, with the hope that it’ll pay them back.

To start a fire in a fireplace, you must give it wood. This wood is the service you give before you can get heat, the payback.  Life is full of dualities.  Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin, the yin and yang, complete opposites that work with each other.

Will I make money from my books? No. Unless I use the pages to print money. But that would be a big no no.

My job as a writer is to write the best book that I can write, to write the story given to me, and have fun doing it.  I’ve put my soul into it.  As the fame photographer Rodney Lough has said, art is the language of the soul.  Everything else follows.

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First off thank you all for your responses.  Some were awesome, while others were really entertaining to read.

The Million Dollar question is a great conversation starter.  So if you’re at a party and you don’t know any one, ask them the question.  Then take the time to read them.  See if they’re telling their truth.  If they answer with ‘I don’t know’, which is common, then continue the conversation by asking what their interests are.  Once they list them, ask why they don’t pursue them like an actor would pursue an acting career.  Ultimately, the question is meant to free up your mind about money.  If money is taken cared of, or guaranteed, what profession would you take up?

In my book I separate people into two basic categories, those who follow their passions and those who don’t.  Their lives are then dictated by their decisions.

A lot of times people think they know what they want, but it’s really fueled by societal pressures, like getting married at a certain age because it’s the norm, or they choose a major in college because they think it’s practical, like software engineering.

People often forget what they loved and settle for what’s easy.  Because it takes courage to go for what you want, doesn’t it?

So how do people forget or settle?

It’s never from the inside, from your intuition.  The culprit is always from the outside.  See my article on What Do They Know.  Outside influences can often times mimic intuition.

Now here’s part two.  If you were to ask yourself the Million Dollar question, how would you know if it was your truth?

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Brad Pitt. A friend on mine told me a story about him. We were talking about how we’re surrounded by people who’ve not only chased their dreams, but have achieved them. What most people don’t see is their perseverance. Pitt had dropped out of college, moved to the city of angels, did a lot of odd jobs like wearing a chicken suit to promote El Pollo Loco for years, before he landed his first major roll in Thelma & Louise. Now he’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

There was a study done on a high school class. The study followed late into their adult lives. It found those who stuck to one career path had earned and attained more than their combined classmates who didn’t. This story has floated around the self-help industry for many years, and is rumored to be just a folk tale. But its prevalence tells us a truth.

I was talking to a friend, and she’d reconnected with one of her long time classmates who works for Coke. This person is about ten years younger than I, but has climbed much higher on the corporate ladder. I’d always moved from job to job. She’s worked for Coke since high school, about eight years now, and illustrates an important point about consistency.

A few years ago, I went to a Renaissance Faire. I love them. My girlfriend at the time and I were watching a turtle race. Each person would place bets on a turtle of their choice. The race started. Contestants yelled and screamed, urging their turtle to crawl faster. One turtle, slow and steady, made great headway and was literally one step away from crossing the finish line. Then it stopped with one foot stuck in the air. All it had to do was place the foot down, and, bam, it won. It just froze. Another turtle from behind took the win.

So what’s the point? Once you find your passion in life, follow through with it. Whether success is truly overnight—it does happen—or takes time, love the process. If you love to act, go into every audition and act! If you love to work on projects for your company, or love reaching sales goals, go in every day and love working.

For the process is really what we love. The goals matter little. Why? Well what happens once an actor becomes a huge movie star like Pitt? What happens to the sales executive who reaches their ultimate sales goal? They continue to act, continue to sell, continue their work. All of them display a high level of dedication (knowing what they want), focus (loving what they do), and take each step toward their dreams (doing what they love).

Love your work. The goal will come.

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One day I was rummaging through a fantasy book store and came across The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende.  The book was first published in 1979 in German.  Ralph Manheim translated it to English.  I must have seen the movie dozens of times.  I loved the characters, I loved the story within the story, and I totally loved the soundtrack.  So when I saw the hardcover, I bought it.

For parents and children, this is totally appropriate.  It’s an allegory on life, and if you watch the movie with your kids, ask them what the movie means.  It’s the one thing that I don’t see parents doing is asking their kids what things mean to them.  Do it and you’ll be surprised by what you find out.

When I mentor students, I always ask what things mean, or how they feel about the experiences they’re going through.  It’s also my main tool in getting them to open up.  Eventually, they spill the beans about anything that I ask.  I need to know what they’re thinking, feeling in order to help them out.  Click here if you want to read more on talking to your children.

If you read to your kids, read The Neverending Story.  If not, then watch the movie.  Don’t have the money to rent movies, well the whole movie is on youtube:  Part 1.

While I was perusing youtube at work, don’t tell my boss, I came across the Karate Kid.  This is an interesting movie.  Not because of the awesome cat-like choreography.  To me the hero is interesting.

A normal underdog story goes something like this:  hero enters new world (town, school, wizard school), is overwhelmed by bad dude (love interest’s ex, bully, the most evilest powerfulest wizard), gets a gift (learns the way of love, learns how to fight, learns he’s a great wizard), and, voila, hero wins.

Most of the times, the bad buy is an actual bad guy.  Not in The Neverending Story or Karate Kid.  The antagonist is the hero’s disbelief in themselves.

When we look at Neverending, Bastian, the hero, must follow his inspiration, his love for books, fantasy, and story.  It isn’t until he fully gives in does he overcome the antagonist, self-doubt.  In Kid, Daniel must believe in himself.  He never got stronger, faster, or learned more karate then the bully.  The bully was never the obstacle, just the opportunity.  His teacher guided him to trust in his ability, to let go of his self-proclaimed weaknesses.  In doing so, Daniel prevailed, or what I like to term kicked ass.

I’ve always loved stories that have this undertone.  When I look at the characters I’ve written in my book, all of them at some level must deal with self-belief.  It’s the one thing I hone in on when I mentor people.   I use stories to open conversations with children, to guide them toward their passions in life, their truth.

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