I began to experiment by combining CrossFit, Ninjitsu and Ashtanga into my training regimen and toughness has three secrets—controlling the body, the mind, and the emotions.
The major lesson I gained from my journey into Zen was that I could gain control over my mind if I practiced. The key was to learn to be silent, truly, in your mind silent. When you are silent, you can then witness the mind in action. In doing so you begin to separate your identity from “the thoughts” and get acquainted with that part of you watching the thoughts. That space between the thought and the watcher—your witness—is where the magic is. Absent that space, efforts to develop concentration, confidence, creativity, and spirit fall short. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. —Sun Tzu Step 1: The first step is to focus your mind and prevent it from running all over the place. Step 2: As you discipline your monkey mind, you will begin to learn to connect with your internal witness. This is that part of you that is untethered from your ego. As you connect and identify with your witness, versus your ego, you will begin to protect your mind from negative and defeating influences. Those influences include fear-based thoughts, negative internal feelings, and negative external influences. Rooting out negative emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that will hold you back can take much time and effort. Step 3: This step is to feed your unfettered mind with super-food for success. This food is in the form of powerful, positive imagery as well as positive emotions directed toward your desired future states, skills, and victories. Step 4: In this step you activate a daily training plan to nurture your internal vision through repeated practice and to prepare for the fifth and final step, which is to… Step 5: Take massive action, and recruit like-minded teammates to align with your vision and help you win your missions, every time. Fish Bowl Guided Visualization Find a comfortable place to sit in a chair, on a cushion, or on a stool. The key is to keep your spine straight and to avoid discomfort that will capture your mind. Begin the practice by closing your eyes and scanning your body from toes to head. This is a sensitivity awareness drill that can also be done as a stand-alone awareness deepening exercise. It will bring your mental attention to parts of your body one at a time. Now you are ready to clear your mind completely using the fish bowl technique. In your mind, imagine your skull as a fish bowl and your thoughts are the cloudy, murky water (not too far from the truth, I might add!). Your breathing is the filter. Each deep breath you take in and out is a cleansing breath that begins to clear the murky water of your mind. You begin to sense the water of your mind getting cleaner and clearer as you breathe. After ten breaths it is mostly clean; after twenty it is as pure as a natural spring on a sunny day. As you imagine the clarity of your mind, you realize that what you are witnessing is a “no mind” state. In this state your mind is unspoiled by thinking. You maintain that state as long as you can. If you start thinking again, your fish bowl gets dirty and you can recommit to cleaning it. Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level Being outnumbered, coming from behind, being low on funds, these don’t have to be disadvantages.6/24/2014
We spend a lot of time thinking about how things are supposed to be, or what the rules say we should do. Trying to get it all perfect. We tell ourselves that we’ll get started once the conditions are right, or once we’re sure we can trust this or that. When, really, it’d be better to focus on making due with what we’ve got. On focusing on results instead of pretty methods. As they say in Brazilian jujitsu, it doesn’t matter how you get your opponents to the ground, after all, only that you take them down.
How are you going to solve this problem? How are you going to get around the rules that hold you back? Maybe you’ll need to be a little more cunning or conniving than feels comfortable. Sometimes that requires ignoring some outdated regulations or asking for forgiveness from management later rather than for permission (which would be denied) right now. But if you’ve got an important mission, all that matters is that you accomplish it. Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. There are a lot of ways to get from point A to point B. It doesn’t have to be a straight line. It’s just got to get you where you need to go. But so many of us spend so much time looking for the perfect solution that we pass up what’s right in front of us. Take a step back, then go around the problem. Find some leverage. Approach from what is called the “line of least expectation.” Being outnumbered, coming from behind, being low on funds, these don’t have to be disadvantages. They can be gifts. Assets that make us less likely to commit suicide with a head-to-head attack. These things force us to be creative, to find workarounds, to sublimate the ego and do anything to win besides challenging our enemies where they are strongest. These are the signs that tell us to approach from an oblique angle. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Here are the 8 key business trends affecting us all today:
1. Global marketplace gets personal To take advantage of this you will need to excel at producing specialized products and services to meet the personalization demands of customers. This means catering to your target audience with specific language and location-based features like Viewsy, a location analytics solution for the physical stores to better understand their foot traffic. 2. The rise of the entrepreneur Small businesses are already taking advantage of web and mobile technologies that allow them to take on the corporate giants, with customers no longer knowing, or even caring about the size of the firm that provides their goods and services. 3. Virtual workforces explode We have already shifted towards a flexible, on-demand workforce that enables businesses of all sizes to get more done with less. This mobile and virtual workforce can scale according to your needs and demands. 4. Mobile domination is calling As technology prices fall, the adoption of sophisticated mobile technologies will continue to permeate our everyday lives. In time, smartphones will replace or bypass desktops and laptops and will emerge as the new standard for both businesses and consumers. 5. Consumers are the new CEOs From our reliance on (and increasing addiction to) mobiles, and with smartphones becoming smarter, our ability to have real influence as consumers grows. We can make more informed decisions about what we purchase and why. 6. Social is your business foundation Social media has transformed the way we market, sell and serve our customers. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Google Plus have made this consumer power even more possible. 7. Digital currency is king It’s becoming easier and more accessible to do online banking and to make mobile payments. Digital wallets like Google Wallet and smartphone apps from major banks are opening the door for us to manage our finances from anywhere and to make payments from anywhere. As consumers become more trusting, we will find ourselves in an increasingly cashless society, turning to tools like Trustev. This is a real-time, online verification for shopping online that uses social fingerprinting technology to create a real and visible relationship between consumer and retailer. 8. Crowdfunding is the new angel investor You don’t need to hit up investors anymore and give away large chunks of control of your company, instead you just need to turn to one of over 500 crowd funding sites to finance your dreams. In fact, it’s such an important trend, that I wrote a book on it: How to Fund Your Dream Idea on Kickstarter. “It’s not about how you work 10 times harder. It’s about how you work 10 times smarter and everything to do with how you find a wave that’s 10 times bigger. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in, there’s going to be a way for you to leverage waves.” ~ Roger Hamilton, author of Fast Forward Your Business. The trick to taking advantage of these “waves” is to pick the ones you can ride most effectively. Imagine you’re a surfer. You want to catch these waves early and then ride them all the way to the beach. But first you need to learn how to catch the wave and get up on the board. So let’s start paddling. The Suitcase Entrepreneur: Create freedom in business and adventure in life Excellence is a matter of steps.
Excelling at this one, then that one, and then the one after that. Saban’s process is exclusively this—existing in the present, taking it one step at a time, not getting distracted by anything else. The process is about finishing. Finishing games. Finishing workouts. Finishing film sessions. Finishing drives. Finishing reps. Finishing plays. Finishing blocks. Finishing the smallest task you have right in front of you and finishing it well. Whether it’s pursuing the pinnacle of success in your field or simply surviving some awful or trying ordeal, the same approach works. Don’t think about the end—think about surviving. Making it from meal to meal, break to break, checkpoint to checkpoint, paycheck to paycheck, one day at a time. And when you really get it right, even the hardest things become manageable. Because the process is relaxing. Under its influence, we needn’t panic. Even mammoth tasks become just a series of component parts. I know that seems almost too simple. But envision, for a second, a master practicing an exceedingly difficult craft and making it look effortless. There’s no strain, no struggling. So relaxed. No exertion or worry. Just one clean movement after another. That’s a result of the process. Do that now, for whatever obstacles you come across. We can take a breath, do the immediate, composite part in front of us—and follow its thread into the next action. Everything in order, everything connected. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new.6/18/2014
Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new. It’s the preceding feature of nearly all successes. There’s nothing shameful about being wrong, about changing course. Each time it happens we have new options. Problems become opportunities.
And that means changing the relationship with failure. It means iterating, failing, and improving. Our capacity to try, try, try is inextricably linked with our ability and tolerance to fail, fail, fail. On the path to successful action, we will fail—possibly many times. And that’s okay. It can be a good thing, even. Action and failure are two sides of the same coin. One doesn’t come without the other. What breaks this critical connection down is when people stop acting—because they’ve taken failure the wrong way. When failure does come, ask: What went wrong here? What can be improved? What am I missing? This helps birth alternative ways of doing what needs to be done, ways that are often much better than what we started with. Failure puts you in corners you have to think your way out of. It is a source of breakthroughs. This is why stories of great success are often preceded by epic failure—because the people in them went back to the drawing board. They weren’t ashamed to fail, but spurred on, piqued by it. Sometimes in sports it takes a close loss to finally convince an underdog that they’ve got the ability to compete that competitor that had intimidated (and beat) them for so long. The loss might be painful, but as Franklin put it, it can also instruct. Great entrepreneurs are: never wedded to a position never afraid to lose a little of their investment never bitter or embarrassed never out of the game for long. It’s time you understand that the world is telling you something with each and every failure and action. It’s feedback—giving you precise instructions on how to improve, it’s trying to wake you up from your cluelessness. It’s trying to teach you something. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Action is commonplace, right action is not. As a discipline, it’s not any kind of action that will do, but directed action. Everything must be done in the service of the whole. Step by step, action by action, we’ll dismantle the obstacles in front of us. With persistence and flexibility, we’ll act in the best interest of our goals. Action requires courage, not brashness—creative application and not brute force. Our movements and decisions define us: We must be sure to act with deliberation, boldness, and persistence. Those are the attributes of right and effective action. Nothing else—not thinking or evasion or aid from others. Action is the solution and the cure to our predicaments.
We may be able to articulate a problem, even potential solutions, but then weeks, months, or sometimes years later, the problem is still there. Or it’s gotten worse. As though we expect someone else to handle it, as though we honestly believe that there is a chance of obstacles unobstacle-ing themselves. We’ve all done it. Said: “I am so [overwhelmed, tired, stressed, busy, blocked, outmatched].” And then what do we do about it? Go out and party. Or treat ourselves. Or sleep in. Or wait. It feels better to ignore or pretend. But you know deep down that that isn’t going to truly make it any better. You’ve got to act. And you’ve got to start now. We forget: In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given. And the only way you’ll do something spectacular is by using it all to your advantage. Life can be frustrating. Oftentimes we know what our problems are. We may even know what to do about them. But we fear that taking action is too risky, that we don’t have the experience or that it’s not how we pictured it or because it’s too expensive, because it’s too soon, because we think something better might come along, because it might not work. And you know what happens as a result? Nothing. We do nothing. Tell yourself: The time for that has passed. The wind is rising. The bell’s been rung. Get started, get moving. We often assume that the world moves at our leisure. We delay when we should initiate. We jog when we should be running or, better yet, sprinting. And then we’re shocked—shocked!—when nothing big ever happens, when opportunities never show up, when new obstacles begin to pile up, or the enemies finally get their act together. Of course they did, we gave them room to breathe. We gave them the chance. So the first step is: Take the bat off your shoulder and give it a swing. You’ve got to start, to go anywhere. Now let’s say you’ve already done that. Fantastic. You’re already ahead of most people. But let’s ask an honest question: Could you be doing more? You probably could—there’s always more. At minimum, you could be trying harder. You might have gotten started, but your full effort isn’t in it—and that shows. Is that going to affect your results? No question. While you’re sleeping, traveling, attending meetings, or messing around online, the same thing is happening to you. You’re going soft. You’re not aggressive enough. You’re not pressing ahead. You’ve got a million reasons why you can’t move at a faster pace. This all makes the obstacles in your life loom very large. If we’re to overcome our obstacles, this is the message to broadcast—internally and externally. We will not be stopped by failure, we will not be rushed or distracted by external noise. We will chisel and peg away at the obstacle until it is gone. Resistance is futile. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph A professional can keep working at a high level no matter what is going on around him or inside him.6/14/2014
What is a professional, anyway? A professional is someone who can keep working at a high level of effort and ethics, no matter what is going on—for good or ill—around him or inside him. A professional shows up every day. A professional plays hurt. A professional takes neither success nor failure personally. In the end, for me, it comes down to the work itself. A pro gets younger and more innocent as he or she ascends through the levels. It’s a paradox. We get salty and cynical, but we creep closer, too, to the wonder. You have to or you can’t keep going. Any other motivation will burn you out. You develop a practice, and the practice gets simpler and less self-oriented over time. We rise through the levels of professionalism by a process of surrender. We surrender to our gift, whatever that may be.
Treat your work as a refuge—an oasis of control and creative satisfaction in the midst of the bad stuff. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not on fire creatively every day—give yourself credit if you show up for work and make even a small amount of progress. When you put down your tools for the day, you may even see your personal situation with a fresh eye. Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (The 99U Book Series) Through concentrated thought power you can make yourself whatever you please. By thought you can greatly increase your efficiency and strength. You are surrounded by all kinds of thoughts, some good, others bad, and you are sure to absorb some of the latter if you do not build up a positive mental attitude. If you will study the needless moods of anxiety, worry, despondency, discouragement and others that are the result of uncontrolled thoughts, you will realize how important the control of your thoughts are. Your thoughts make you what you are.
The understanding of the power of thought will awaken possibilities within you that you never dreamed of. Never forget that your thoughts are making your environment, your friends, and as your thoughts change these will also. Is this not a practical lesson to learn? Good thoughts are constructive. Evil thoughts are destructive. The desire to do right carries with it a great power. I want you to thoroughly realize the importance of your thoughts, and how to make them valuable, to understand that your thoughts come to you over invisible wires and influence you. If your thoughts are of a high nature, you become connected with people of the same mental caliber and you are able to help yourself. If your thoughts are tricky, you will bring tricky people to deal with you, who will try to cheat you. If your thoughts are right kind, you will inspire confidence in those with whom you are dealing. As you gain the good will of others your confidence and strength will increase. You will soon learn the wonderful value of your thoughts and how serene you can become even when circumstances are the most trying. The Power Of Concentration It doesn’t matter whether this is the worst time to be alive or the best, it matters what you do6/8/2014
It doesn’t matter whether this is the worst time to be alive or the best, whether you’re in a good job market or a bad one, or that the obstacle you face is intimidating or burdensome. What matters is that right now is right now. The implications of our obstacle are theoretical—they exist in the past and the future. We live in the moment. And the more we embrace that, the easier the obstacle will be to face and move. You can take the trouble you’re dealing with and use it as an opportunity to focus on the present moment. To ignore the totality of your situation and learn to be content with what happens, as it happens. To have no “way” that the future needs to be to confirm your predictions, because you didn’t make any. To let each new moment be a refresh wiping clear what came before and what others were hoping would come next. You’ll find the method that works best for you, but there are many things that can pull you into the present moment: Strenuous exercise. Unplugging. A walk in the park. Meditation. Getting a dog—they’re a constant reminder of how pleasant the present is.
One thing is certain. It’s not simply a matter of saying: Oh, I’ll live in the present. You have to work at it. Catch your mind when it wanders—don’t let it get away from you. Discard distracting thoughts. Leave things well enough alone—no matter how much you feel like doing otherwise. But it’s easier when the choice to limit your scope feels like editing rather than acting. Remember that this moment is not your life, it’s just a moment in your life. Focus on what is in front of you, right now. Ignore what it “represents” or it “means” or “why it happened to you.” There is plenty else going on right here to care about any of that. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph Perspective is everything. That is, when you can break apart something, or look at it from some new angle, it loses its power over you. Fear is debilitating, distracting, tiring, and often irrational. Pericles understood this completely, and he was able to use the power of perspective to defeat it. The Greeks understood that we often choose the ominous explanation over the simple one, to our detriment. That we are scared of obstacles because our perspective is wrong—that a simple shift in perspective can change our reaction entirely. The task, as Pericles showed, is not to ignore fear but to explain it away. Take what you’re afraid of—when fear strikes you—and break it apart.
Remember: We choose how we’ll look at things. We retain the ability to inject perspective into a situation. We can’t change the obstacles themselves—that part of the equation is set—but the power of perspective can change how the obstacles appear. How we approach, view, and contextualize an obstacle, and what we tell ourselves it means, determines how daunting and trying it will be to overcome. The way we look out at the world changes how we see these things. Is our perspective truly giving us perspective or is it what’s actually causing the problem? That’s the question. What we can do is limit and expand our perspective to whatever will keep us calmest and most ready for the task at hand. Think of it as selective editing—not to deceive others, but to properly orient ourselves. And it works. Small tweaks can change what once felt like impossible tasks. Suddenly, where we felt weak, we realize we are strong. With perspective, we discover leverage we didn’t know we had. Our emotions Our judgments Our creativity Our attitude Our perspective Our desires Our decisions Our determination Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power. But every ounce of energy directed at things we can’t actually influence is wasted—self-indulgent and self-destructive. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph |
Click to set custom HTML
Categories
All
Disclosure of Material Connection:
Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” |