How to be a Ninja of life.

Hello to all our listeners and welcome to Influencer Mindset Podcast. And today we have a very special guest, a person who is a writer, martial arts instructor, ex-army fighter, musician, singer, songwriter, producer. What else I can say about this guy? An amazing, amazing guy. I'm very lucky to know him and be his friend. Friend. We've been working together doing Milave Malkas for the past maybe a little bit over a year. And today I invited him to the podcast to talk about his special book. Can I see the book?

Yeah, sure.

Special book, it's called How to Be a Ninja of Life. And we're going to ask Eliyahu a few questions about the book and about the whole concept Ninja. How are you, Leo?

I'm doing great, thank you, Uzi Moses PhD PhD, for having me.

It's such a pleasure to have you, brother. I was really looking forward to sit down with you and to really kind of dig your brain a little bit about your book. So what can you tell me a little bit about your book? How did you come up with it? What made you write that book?

Sure, so I've been teaching martial arts now for 10 years about teaching martial arts to adults and children. And what I noticed is that it's very hard for children especially to focus on you when you're teaching them a technique. So instead of saying to them, okay, you stand like this and you have to put your hand here and then your other hand there, I did it as a story. I said, once there was a boy, his name was Haru, and he put one hand here and the other hand here. So right away, you're not teaching them a technique anymore. You're telling them a story and they're able to focus a lot better and then they're able to get it. And it works for adults as well. Adults or children, they sometimes get overwhelmed when you're teaching them a technique. They look at it and they say, ah, forget it, I can't, I'm not going to be able to get that. And they get deterred from learning it. So I tell them through a story. Eventually I had a bunch of stories ready, so I decided to write them down. So I created this book, and in each story there are different life lessons. Like, the first one is about self-control and just how to self-regulate, how to breathe. The second story is about appreciation because it's such an important part of our life. Just to say thank you. And it shows how by saying thank you, you can open up all these different doors, etc., etc. There's all these different stories. There are a lot of fun characters that they come alive in different ways, and they all know each other from the dojo. And I'm actually working on an animated series of it as well. So working on that, it's a lot of fun. We had Teresa Brecken, who she illustrated it, has really beautiful drawings that can accompany on this adventure to learn martial arts, but also life lessons and just how to succeed in a society.

That is so cool. I mean, it's really fascinating that you could convey, you know, martial arts, a way of thinking and discipline, and bring it down to children. What would you, what would you think, what would you say to adults that want to maybe try this method about being a ninja, what would you give them as the main tool for them to kind of, you know, be more successful in life? You know, the name of the podcast is Influencer Mindset. And, you know, I believe that influencer mindset is a mindset that not only has to do with, you know, putting your word out there using social media, but in general influencing your environment in a positive way. Because when you do that, you're really affecting the world in a major change. And I've been seeing you influencing a lot, Elio, and really proud of you. So just a little bit, you know, kind of break it down for us, like in a simple way, what tools we can use to be good ninjas of life.

Right, that's very well asked. And I could say like this, the book and really the whole ideology It's geared towards parents and educators and really any people. And the main thing is you are a ninja of life. It's a choice. It's not so much, okay, once I work on this and then I can learn that and then I can learn that, okay, then I'll be a ninja of life. That's not the point. The point of the book is you make a decision. I want to be a ninja of life. What does that mean? I want to stick to something. I want to see it through. I want to give it a chance. Okay, I gave it a chance, it didn't work out. That doesn't mean it's a failure. Just means, okay, time to try something else. Did I really give it a chance? These are questions that you need to ask yourself in order to be a ninja of life. It also has to do with balance. Every day in the morning, having a routine, even if it's a 10-second routine, it will affect your whole day. If you, when you wake up in the morning, We say modayani, but other people, they breathe for 10 seconds. If you could do that every single morning, that is being a ninja of life. If you want to do one set of pushups every morning, 5 pushups, if you want to stretch for 10 seconds, whatever it is, that's being a ninja of life. It's about two things, routine and consistency. If I had to really narrow it down.

Grefg, that's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, I know we have, you know, everybody's trying to have, you know, a morning routine that it's like, you know, helping them in life, you know, like meditate, workout, stuff like that. But I like that concept that you're saying that, no, it really doesn't matter how much time you spend on the routine as long as you're able to break something from just being— from doing nothing to do something. And even if it's 5 minutes or 5 push-ups, it still puts you in the category of ninja because you are getting outside of your comfort zone and you are doing something for yourself as a ninja of life. And I really like that. So what would you recommend for adults, you know, as a normal routine, you know, like something that is really doable on a daily basis? You know, I wake up in the morning, I say, you know, some people have a whole, you know, bunch of prayers that they do and meditation that they do. But let's just say I'm just a regular guy. I just wake up in the morning and before I even start anything, before I even start praying, before I drink my coffee, right after I finish maybe brushing my teeth, what would you say would be a good routine to kind of keep ourselves more ninja-like?

Right. So everybody needs to choose it for themselves. And what I tell all my clients is choose something that there is no excuse not to do it. So for example, stretching for 10 seconds. There's no way you're going to say, I can't do it. It's too much. 10 seconds. You can't stretch for 10 seconds. You can't breathe for 10 seconds. But everybody has to choose their own thing. For some person, it's going to be something else. Choose something that there's no excuse not to do it. And then the secret is you do for 10 seconds. You're really going to continue for 20 seconds. 30 seconds, because you're going to say, I love this. This is amazing. I now, every morning when I wake up, I work out for 20 minutes every single day. I've been doing it now for years. In the beginning, it was not 20 minutes. It was 60 seconds. But then I knew I could do more. And now it's 20 minutes every, every day. So that's really the secret. It's a psychological thing. You're convincing yourself. So that's what being a ninja of life is. You're not so much being a ninja against other people. The enemy is within, so to speak. You're being a ninja against yourself, your own doubts, your own depressions, your own excuses, your Haman. You know, it's Purim tomorrow night. Haman, what's Haman doing the whole time? He's saying to Achashveirosh, the people, the Jewish people, they're not good for you, they're not good for your society. That's exactly what Haman is doing. We all have that Haman in our brain. Oh no, I can't do it, it's too much. So the key is to psychological warfare against your Haman in your brain. Do something that there's no excuse that you cannot do it.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, we talk a lot about in this channel, in this podcast, we talk a lot about the godly soul and the animal soul. So you would say pretty much waging war on the animal soul in a ninja-like way because obviously the animal soul, wants to keep you, you know, lazy, not moving, not growing. And I think that we should find any type of techniques and approaches to help us fight this thing. It's a force of nature that was created by the Creator for us to overcome. So, and when we do that, when we overcome it, then we are receiving all the blessings that comes with what God wants to give us without having the concept of bread of shame, which means getting something without doing anything because we don't like it. In Hebrew, it's called lechem boshet. So to remove that feeling of receiving something, like even if you're in a good shape physically, you know, you can't just be in a good shape physically without putting some kind of effort into it. And I think morning routines, it's one of the, The basic things that people should do. Absolutely. You know, I mean, even telling myself, even though I have a gym routine that I go at least 3 times a week, but still I can always add a little bit more in the morning. And everybody should add something, you know, even if it's stretching.

Breathing is a good one.

Breathing is a great one. And especially when it comes to teaching your children, because The book is more, is more, um, focused on kids, right? On like teenagers.

Not necessarily. It's really for all ages. Uh, the one who edited the book is in her 70s, the editor, and she said to me, you should make this book for kids too. I said, oh, stop it.

Okay.

It's good for all ages because it's these concepts, these concepts that we've spoken about are really good for any age, you know, consistency, routine. Also not being hard on yourself, not pushing yourself. Yes, you can always strive for more, but we always have to be happy also with what we're doing now. We have to appreciate all of the wins that we have. And in addition to add-on, absolutely.

I think that the earlier, you know, a child learns it, the better. You know, I remember when I first met you and I bought the book and I brought it and I kind of introduced it to my, to my children. And I remember the reaction, they wanted to like fight, they wanted to, you know, get over something. And exactly, this is exactly what we're getting over, you know, all the, you know, negative emotions, so to say, that kind of keeps us back and not working out and not exercising. So I really, really like that concept and definitely the idea that we can all become ninjas once we break the routine and we add more exercise, move more during, during the, our daily routine. So what would you say the next step will be here?

So it's taking it into areas that are in every place. For example, not just fitness, It could be from conversation, listening more. One of the stories has to do with someone who is just learning how to listen properly without always jumping to their own conclusions in their brain. Because a lot of times when people ask questions, they already know what they want to hear. So just being quiet, silencing those voices in your head and really listening to what someone has to say. That has nothing to do with exercise, physical fitness. That has everything to do with relationships and community, which are also key parts of the book. The workplace is also really good. Work ethic sometimes. And I do this, I struggle with this, making excuses to not do something at work. For example, my boss asked me to do A, and I know that in order to do A properly, I kind of have to do at least a little bit of B. But Rosh Katan, a small brain, like we say in the army in Israel, is you just do what you have to do and you don't want to do anymore. But real work ethic and really being a ninja is finding the balance of doing that little extra. Like my father always told me a story. He said, if your father asks you to make him a sandwich, okay, you could take two pieces of bread, you could put a piece of salami on it, the other piece of bread, and give it to him. You made a sandwich, right? There's another way to make a sandwich. You take the bread, you warm it up a little, you put a little mustard, put a piece of lettuce, you put the other piece of bread on, put a few potato chips on the side.

Put some love in it.

Put some love in it. A few potato chips, a cup of iced tea. You also made a sandwich. So which sandwich are you making? That's really the question of how to be a ninja of life. And it can go anywhere. It can go to raising children. It could go to being with friends. It could go to not just morning routine, but nighttime routine. How are we going to sleep at night? A lot in modern day society, most people, and I also do this sometimes, I'll watch something in order to fall asleep, which is fine. Everything is fine, by the way, in moderation. But the question is, do you need that to go to sleep? Can you now not fall asleep because you didn't do that? What is your nighttime routine? Is your nighttime routine something that involves maybe some breathing, reflecting of your day? How did it go? But not obsessing, right? Because you can very easily think about, oh, I should have done that differently today. Oh, I stink. You can't say I stink ever unless you really stink and go take a shower. But seriously, think about what you did and just put in the correction. Okay, next time I'm going to do this differently. You cannot beat yourself up because beating yourself up, it prevents you from growing. It doesn't help you grow. That's why in the army, there's, you know, in those movies, like the drill sergeant, he's always yelling at you saying, you're nothing, you're nothing, you're nothing. When I was in the Israeli army, they never told us we're nothing. That's not how they built us up. They did make us humble in other ways. They kind of made us run back and forth a lot. but they never told us we're nothing. 'Cause you can't build someone up by breaking them down. That's not the real way to do it. You have to nurture them like a plant. You give it soil, you give it sunlight, you give it water. You never beat up a plant so that it gets stronger.

Right, that's an amazing concept. Actually, the Tanya talks about it too, that even if we are completely not connected, out of the way, not really working on bringing our Godly soul to dominate us, we should never see ourselves as completely wicked or completely bad, because that will definitely destroy our motivation. And it's so true that we always have to understand that no matter how bad things may look, we still have a Godly soul. We still have something that we can hang on to and we can fight. In your case, in your method, the ninja is the idea that, you know, you can become a ninja and you could like literally give an amazing fight, you know, to get the best out of yourself and really connect to your best version. And this is why I really like and appreciate this book and the concept of what you're saying. Pretty, pretty impressive. So, so the bottom line, do you, do you put like also with the exercise routine, do you have like meal plans or, or routine that for example food, what, what to eat, when to eat, how to eat or?

Right, that's a very good question. Personally, it's not in the book. For myself, I do know that there are certain foods that just don't do good for me. Um, but nutrition is a whole parasha. It's like a whole, uh, how do you say, it's like a whole different thing in of itself.

You can do a separate podcast.

Yeah, right on nutrition for sure. But if I would put it in short, um, fruits are good to have in the morning. That type of sugar is good for you and it can stimulate you in a good way. If you're eating meals, you should have vegetables with your meals. I don't tell my clients to stay away from things completely. I'm not into that. I'm not into extreme either way. Candy, you know, have it after a meal a little bit. Chocolate every once in a while is fine. Even if you— some people have chocolate every day. It's not the worst thing in the world, but they have it in moderation. They're not eating a whole chocolate bar each time. So everything is in moderation. I don't believe in extremes. I don't believe in staying away from something that you really like. If it makes you happy, have some of it. Have a beer, you know, on Friday night after your Shabbat meal, or kiddush with friends on Shabbat day, or wherever it is, whoever you're hanging out with, you know, at church or at the mosque. Well, they don't have beer there, but wherever you're chilling, whatever it is, Do the things that you like that make you happy, because that's actually being a ninja of life. Being a ninja of life is, like it says in the Mishnah, there is everybody who has their time and everything that has its place. So it's very important to do that. If we're talking about eating, I mean, vegetables is very important to have with every meal. That's a known thing. Fruits, you're not supposed to have too many fruits right after a meal, because then the sugar breaks down the food and it kind of ferments it. But again, we could do a whole podcast on that. But you should know what you like, foods that you like. Even more than eating, I would say that where you eat, like if people are eating out in a restaurant every single day, it's not only someone— it's not only— forget about health, but if you're talking about being independent, that's already a whole nother topic. So if you're eating out all the time and that's the only way you eat, you never prepare food for yourself or you never eat food at home, then that's also going to prevent you from being independent in a certain way. And, you know, if you're eating out but you're eating salad out at a restaurant every night, so that is healthy physically. Well, salad, right? Depends what you're eating, obviously. But there is a concept that we talk about making food in your home because then you're creating a home that's also nurturing. As opposed to people that I know, they never make food at home and then their home is just a place where they sleep. But it doesn't have those elements of nurturing, of feeding you. So these are all— they all come back to the word balance. Really, everything that we're going to talk about is going to come back to the concept of balance.

That's cool, man. Really, really cool. So, I mean, I just adapted the keto diet.

What's that like?

It's been really challenging in the beginning, but I mean, I'm already starting to see results. You know, I never realized how addicted I was to sugar, you know, any type of sugar, you know, like fruits, from dates, from honey, just any type of sugar. And in the keto diet, you cut that out.

You can't have any fruit.

You can't have any fruit. You can't have any type of sugars. And then you just feel, you know, I remember my first week on that, I felt like a drug addict, like literally waking up in the middle of the night to eat, you know, a date just to kind of get the sugar, desire for the sugar. But after a few days, after, you know, like a week, you're able to break that. And I mean, I don't know if keto I would recommend to anybody as a way of life. It's definitely something that I would recommend if somebody wants to lose weight, which is what I'm trying to do. So it's so far so good. I still have a long way to go, but obviously combining eating with, you know, working out, that's a winning formula. And, and of course, you know, one of the greatest things about about the keto diet is it changed my relationship with food in general. You know, so now I know that if I eat potatoes, they turn into sugar in my body. If I eat, you know, white bread or rice, they have the same effect, they turn into sugar. And my body can only, you know, anybody's body works on energy. And the energy the body gets is either from, carbohydrate or from fat. So when you stop carbohydrate, when you stop putting carbohydrates inside your body, then your body gets into ketosis, which is when your body burns, uh, gets energy and starts burning the fat. And this is when you start to see results, which I really recommend. I think that, you know, combining that obviously with a goal, um, end with being a ninja of life, which is, you know, developing, like you said in the beginning, discipline, routine, and consistency. Be consistent, do it every day at the same time, you know, try to break all, you know, the laziness of the body and use that concept of, you know, being a ninja of life to fight that animal soul or that evil inclination or whatever it is that's trying to hold us back from being the best we can be. So really, I'm really, really happy that you took the time and you came here. I'd love to ask you many more questions and spend, you know, maybe I can ask you a little bit more questions.

Sure.

We still have some time.

Yeah.

So, Are you working on another book?

Right now, my main focus— I have other stories that I use that are not in the book yet. I still use them because I teach every day and I still use the stories to teach new life lessons and new techniques, physical, you know, self-defense and confidence and all that. I really am now focused on turning this into an animated series. That's going to be a lot of fun. Because in each episode you see a healthy morning routine. There's a martial arts class in it, so you're learning martial arts, and then the kids use what they learn in the martial arts class for some kind of problem that they have to deal with in their life. And then there's a nighttime routine. So it's a lot of fun. It's good for any age, and it's like having a martial arts class but at home in a fun and adventurous way. So that's right now the goal. And we really use this book to help parents and educators to engage their kids talking about topics that are very important that we don't have time to talk about or we don't feel comfortable talking about them. Anything from self-confidence or self-image that we don't really talk about these types of things because we don't have time or you don't feel comfortable. So this, because the stories talk about them, it forces, so to speak, the parents and the educators and the children to bring them up. And it shows that it's safe to speak about them. There's nothing wrong with it. And hey, look, the character in the story, he also went through it. So it's really fun and it helps the parents then reflect when they see how the parents and the teachers in the book talk to their students and children. Then they're also learning. Because, you know, I had a, I got a degree in education and I'm a parent, thank God, of 2 children. And I've been now in education for about 14 years. So it's also a way for parents and teachers to learn. It's really, really great.

Where can we find your book?

It's on Amazon.

It's on Amazon.

You just look on Amazon, you look up How to Be a Ninja of Life. If you're in LA or you want to contact me directly through Instagram or Facebook, you just look up my name, Eliyahu Kraus. You can message me and I will send you a copy and then I can inscribe it. And thank God, it's been really good. We have some story readings on YouTube where you can hear me read one of the stories or two of them I think we have up at this point. And if I can, I really wanna emphasize something. When I said routine and consistency, it's very important to do those things. But let's say one day we're sick or we forget or we're lazy. That's fine, that's normal. You just, the next day, just go back to it. Let's say the next day you're lazy again. Okay, fine, we're people. So do it again. It's like this story I heard where this teacher calls up the parent and he says, hey, listen, your son, I mean, he has days where he's doing really well and days where he's not doing well. I don't know if this school is really working out for him. You know what the parent said to him? He said, I'm a cardiologist. And when the heartbeat is going like this, That's a good sign. When the heartbeat's going like this, he's dead. Isn't that good?

Yeah, very good.

I love that.

I heard it from someone. So basically, yeah, routine, consistency, but don't be too harsh on yourself. It's okay, you skip one day, don't beat yourself up in the head. Just there is always another day tomorrow and just keep going and can start all over, which I like that concept as well. Don't be too harsh on yourself. And that's a very important point. Thank you so much, Eliyahu Kois, for joining us. I will definitely put the link to your book, to your Amazon, in the bottom of the video, and your name, so people can look you up on Facebook and find you, and, you know, book you for whatever it is that you do. I know that you've been doing martial arts classes for children and adults, and there is a lot of activities that's going on with Eliyahu, so Follow him, and we just definitely looking forward to have you on the podcast again and to see how we grow and develop and influence the world together until the coming of our Savior, the Mashiach. Amen.

We'll see you soon.