The Desert of Arizona
Cloudy 39 Degrees
Each Sunday, I spend an hour or two learning about Filipino martial arts. And I am blessed to have an amazing teacher.
Eventually, of course, you become your own teacher. That’s what the great teachers understand. They don’t work with you in an effort to make you a mini THEM. They work with you to make you a better version of YOU.
To be frank, it is a brutal martial art we practice.
Even now as I sit here, my upper arms are highlighted with black and blue marks. Those come from something called “compressions” where various parts of your arms and wrists are put in a vice like grip using the sticks we use to fight.
At first, you think your life is going to end, or at least you’re going to lose a limb or something. Slowly, over time, you develop the ability to maintain your center. Eventually, you can respond to things that would have put you on the ground months earlier–like getting whacked in the head with a stick 🙂
My wife has no idea why I subject myself to this torture.
I’m going to tell you why.
Because showing up every week forces me to expand the “edge” of where I thought I could go.
It’s up to you where you set that “edge” for you.
Set it too close in and everything looks like a big obstacle. It’s not because it IS, it’s because your perspective doesn’t know otherwise.
Set it a little farther out than you feel comfortable being and something amazing happens.
You don’t die.
Eventually, you begin to move through life without fear. This feeling spreads through everything you do including your business dealings. When you are not afraid of any outcome, you are able to go through life in full possession of your power.
People (including clients) respond to this in a major way. It is palpable.
You become bigger than your biggest problems. Really, this is the “back way” around to a solution to the poor self-image issue. If you deal with confidence issues, this is a way to fix them. Live BIGGER.
It is on the “edge” where real life happens.
The question, really, is just how alive do you want to be?