Martial arts training builds discipline through surrendering to an instructor's guidance, which carries you through low motivation. The speakers also explore beginner's mind, a Zen concept where experts narrow their possibilities while novices stay open to infinite solutions.
Chapters
So the most important thing that I see with people who have had, you know, athletic martial arts specific training that they've committed themselves to, you know, both yourself as a practitioner, as an instructor, is mindset. Mindset seems to be something that— and it differentiates them in terms of everything else that they tend to do, whether they realize it or not.
One of them is discipline. And I think one of the interesting aspects of today's society is there are few opportunities for folks to experience true discipline. And by discipline, I mean the kind of discipline that soldiers on the parade ground will show, where they have to stand there for a number of hours without moving, or, you know, down to a very fine degree of control. Um, and within martial arts, that also exists. And in fact, one of the interesting things that as an instructor that I find is asking my students, why are you here? Like, why are you here having me make you do push-ups on your knuckles and sweat on the floor at 6:30 in the morning? You know, what is that all about? And I've come to the conclusion is that people actually look for that kind of surrender of decision-making and let somebody else be the guide of what they do. So, that's one aspect of it, that discipline. I mean, as the saying goes, Motivation won't get you through times of no discipline, but discipline will get you through times of no motivation. And I find that in the sales world, it's particularly relevant that the discipline will carry you through. And the other very important aspect for me is a concept, Eastern, you know, sort of Zen philosophy concept of the beginner's mind, sometimes known as Zen mind. And this concept revolves around the, the Thinking that in the mind of an expert, there's always a few number of possibilities, but in the mind of the beginner, there are infinite possibilities. And so, when you approach a problem with an expert's mind, you very quickly narrow it down to what it must be. Whereas a beginner is more likely to take a, well, let's have a bit of a think about what this could be, and where can we go, what else might it be. And I think if you approach Try and approach as many aspects of your life with that beginner's mind, or some would call it a sense of wonder. But with the beginner's mind, I think it's quite a good way to approach problems and approach life in general.
