#99: You Are a Master [Video + Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #99 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “You Are a Master.”

Do you ever feel like a martial arts “loser”? Ever feel like you’re so far away from achieving your goals that you might be better off just giving up?

STOP! I bet you’re doing just fine. In fact, I have some good news for you–

You are already a master…you just don’t know it.

Is that possible? Can you really be a master without knowing it?

Well, that’s the advice someone gave me years ago. To be honest, those words of wisdom made no sense at the time, but over the years, I believe I figured out what my teacher was trying to tell me. If you’ve got a few minutes, I’d like to share that message with you!

Uh–42 minutes, actually. But if you listen on double speed, it’s just 21. 🙂

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

You Are a Master

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TRANSCRIPT

Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #99 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

Today, what are we talking about today? Well, I’ve got some good news for you. You, my friend, are a master.

Say, what? Yep, surprise, you’re a master!

Now, this little piece of advice came to me years ago when I was starting out in Taekwondo. I mentioned this one other time in an earlier podcast, but I didn’t really go into detail about it. So today, I think I will.

We were at class and we had a guest master come. He lined everybody up and he sparred us one at a time, went right down the line. And to make it even cooler, not only was he kicking our butts, he was wearing one of those weighted vests, all the little pockets with little weight plates in it. So he was carrying around probably another 30 pounds while he was doing all of this sparring.

Now, at the end of the session, we were all beat up, ragged, and he was beating us up, beaming. Sweating, but beaming, and he was looking out upon us and feeling merciful. He just shared a little bit of a pep talk, which ended with the idea of this. He said,

You are all masters. You just don’t know it yet.

I thought that was very encouraging. I thought that was beautiful. And yeah, at the moment, it made me feel better, like I’m a master. I just don’t know it yet. Okay. I am a master.

Unfortunately, it felt good, but it didn’t leave me with any actionable steps to take to keep that feeling going. Because if he had said, Let’s spar again, I don’t think my performance would have changed at all. It certainly didn’t help me with my next belt test. There was actually nothing that it helped with. But yet it felt good.

So I wrote it down because I figured maybe someday this will pay off. Someday that will make sense to me. And I’m here to tell you that eventually I did find a way to make sense of it for me. Whether or not that’s what he intended, I don’t know.

But I was at a seminar recently. I shared this idea, my interpretation of what this idea meant. And it went well. A couple of people said, Hey, I really liked what you said. And I thought, Hey, I should probably put that into a podcast. And here I am. That’s what podcasts are for, right? So let’s break it down.

What does this piece of advice mean? You’re already a master, you just don’t know it.

First, let’s back up and define our terms. Master. What is a master? In its simplest terms, I think we would all agree, a master is someone who can do something very, very well. But it’s important to notice here, a master of one thing does not mean that you’re a master of everything.

If you just master one skill within a larger art, you’re really just a specialist. You’re a master of one thing within a larger category. So say for instance, in martial arts, maybe you’re not great at brick breaking. Maybe your memory is terrible when it comes to forms. But for some reason, round kicks. They just fit your body. You don’t ever remember having a problem with them. You just love round kicks. And despite all of your other failings, the round kick is always there for you.

People even comment on it. They say, man, you’re really good at round kicks. So in that sense, you’re a master of the round kick. And that’s great. You’re a specialist.

Mike Tyson in the world of boxing. We think of him, maybe I do, as a master of the peek-a-boo style. Not of the Philly shell. He’s not a master of all boxing styles, but he was a master of what he did, right? So a specialist within the art of boxing.

And of course, this pertains to everything. If you’re a chef, professional chef, in a professional kitchen at a restaurant, that doesn’t mean you’re great at everything you cook. But maybe you specialize in soups. Maybe you are known for French onion soup. Everybody knows you’ve got the best French onion soup in town, if not the world, and you are a master of it. Not of everything, but of that one thing.

So that will be the first level of mastery, a one skill specialist.

Obviously, that opens the door now to the next level or category, I think, of mastery. You can be a, what I would call, multifaceted master. You’re not just good at one thing within your category, your art. You’re good at maybe two or more things.

You’re not just good at round kicks, you’re good at maybe all kicks. So now you’re a specialist in kicking, not just the round kick. I think that would be our goal. If you’re a martial artist, you don’t go into a martial art thinking, I just want to be the master of the round kick. You want to be a master of the martial art of whatever it is you’re studying, right?

I want to be a Taekwondo master. I want to be a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu master. And that suggests multifaceted skills. I have to be good at lots of different things to really claim that title.

Of course, mastering a skill is the first step to mastering the overall art. And then I think what we’re going to get to is that mastering of an art then leads perhaps to mastering your life. That would be the logical progression. So let’s back this up one more time.

So what is a master? You’re really good at something. Multifaceted master? You’re good at several things. And if you’re a master of life, well maybe you’re pretty good at everything. Everything you need anyway.

Now here’s the problem. The problem is as a student, you are choosing a goal. So you say, Hey, I want to be great at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or whatever. And then you go take that class, maybe you’re even there for a year or two, but you’re not a master. And you’re just losing all the time.

You’re getting crushed. You’re coming home bruised and sweaty and tired. You are not feeling not just like a master, you’re not even a champion, you’re not even the best in the class.

It’s just a horrible experience that you can find yourself in as a student working towards a very large goal. And that problem is based on the idea that you’re focusing on what you cannot do, you’re not focused on what you want to be.

You’re focused on the here and now– Yeah, I want to be a master. That’s why I’m here. But today, I’m not a master. And that bums me out because then who am I? I’m just this guy who can’t do a lot of things.

That can be really defeating. Of course, it’s unfair to judge yourself like that. We know that and yet at least I fall into that trap of focusing on what I can’t do and letting that define me. And then define my day.

If I go and I get beat up, the whole day it bothers me. I’m not what I want to be. And then what does that lead to? Why is this a problem? Because not only am I having a bad day, but now I’m losing my confidence. I’m not good at this. And now I don’t feel good at anything.

Now I’m losing my motivation. I don’t even want to go back to class. That’s the place where I feel like a loser. That’s the place where I have proof that I’m a loser because I’m tapping out, I’m getting hit. That’s hard to face over and over again.

Of course, if I’ve lost my confidence, I’ve lost my motivation to continue learning, I can even start to forget anything that I’ve ever done in my entire life that was successful. If you’re being dramatic– and I am, I’m being dramatic– that’s the extreme of it.

You defined yourself by your success at a chosen goal. When you failed at achieving that goal right away, you then let that overlay your entire self-image so that you feel like a failure at everything, and you don’t even want to participate in life anymore at the darkest edge of that thought.

Now, all of this is natural, of course. That’s why I’m talking about it, because I’m pretty sure you understand exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been there or are there.

It’s the ego. It’s just natural for your brain to categorize good/bad. As you start working with someone, your ego immediately is going to tell you, this guy’s better than you, or you’re better than this guy, right away. Even if you don’t want to, even if you’re just chill, and you’re objective, and you’re cool like that, it just comes up.

You’ve never sparred with this person. You just saw them for the first time. You put on your gloves, you line up, and then right away, that first exchange, either, I got this guy, or, Whoa, this guy’s got me. It’s just natural.

The trick here is, though, the solution to this problem of defining yourself by one moment, or one goal, or one failure, is to widen out your judgment. Widen out the categories, widen out the qualities that you’re looking at yourself. Because yes, maybe you’re not so great at this one thing, but I’m sure earlier in the class or earlier in that day, your ego told you you were really good at something else. You just need to remember that.

You need to accept, of course, as a student, what you’re not good at, but at the same time, you can’t stop accepting what you’re good at. The ego can work both ways. It can hurt you, make you feel like a loser, or it can help you and remind you of what you should be proud of, what you are good at, what keeps you going. That’s also part of your identity.

So when you’re feeling low, when you feel like a loser, the trick is to widen out your lens and see yourself in the larger picture.

If you’re a martial artist and you say– I get this email all the time. In fact, that should be my next video, something about flexibility again. I get this email all the time from beginning students, even people in their 60s or 70s, who say– I really want to do a full split, but I’m having such a hard time, and class really sucks because I can’t do a full split.

Now, look– maybe I am here to judge your goals on some level. But why do you want to do a full split? Okay, but that’s a separate issue. Hey, if that’s your goal, I’m all for it. Go for it. Achieve that full split. But at the same time, who cares?

If you’re feeling bad about your progress, you feel bad about your class and you’re losing motivation, well, here we go. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re letting that goal define your experience and then define who you are. That’s the problem.

So here’s a fact: You are already a master. Maybe you just don’t know it.

So the first question you have to ask yourself is, what are you a master of? What have you forgotten or have not given yourself credit for being good at?

You might have to think about that for a while. Maybe not, but maybe. I think a lot of people walk around not considering what they’re good at, because we’re all focused on our next achievement. But the fact is everyone– you, me, everyone you see– is a master of at least one skill. That first level of mastery.

There is one thing that you are amazing at. And other people probably recognize it. And maybe sometimes you recognize it, but then you forget it. Or you’re humble, you think, well, that’s not important. Or Yeah, but that’s not what I wanted.

I need you to count those things. I need you to ask yourself, what am I a master of? And use that word. Go ahead. I won’t tell. What are you a master of? What are you not giving yourself credit for being and for doing well?

The next question is, how can you use that skill that you are a master of to help you achieve your next skill?

Presumably one skill is not enough for you. You want to be a multi-faceted master. You want to master life. So once you’ve taken inventory of what you’re really, really good at, you need to figure out, well, how can I use that now? How do I acknowledge that and use it like a tool to get to the next goal?

Now in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to really start nailing down what you’re good at is to exercise the muscle of giving other people credit for what they’re good at. So as an exercise, here’s what I recommend to you…

I want you to look at other people and as quickly as you can, identify what they are masters of.

And I don’t just mean easy people. You can think of your teacher. If you’re a martial artist, you have a teacher. Maybe you call them a master. Maybe they call themselves a master. I don’t know. But what are they good at?

That’s probably really easy to see because there is some skill set that made you sign up. You want to achieve the same thing. So what are they good at? That’s easy.

But what are they bad at? You may love your teacher. But like I said, mastering one thing doesn’t mean you’ve mastered everything. So maybe you have a teacher who is a wonderful technician, but a lousy communicator. Maybe they’re wonderful at building a community spirit in their school, but they’re terrible at marketing the school and they’re always about to get kicked out of their space.

That’s just one way to start looking at qualities in other people, good and bad, so that you can start opening up your range of categories, so you can look at yourself ultimately and have a fairer view of what you’re good at. That’s the idea of the exercise.

So don’t just think of teachers because that’s kind of easier. It’s actually more challenging to look at classmates, your peers, other people who are at your rank perhaps or lower. I already said it’s a fact– so it must be true because I did say it– it’s a fact that everyone you see, everyone you know, is a master of at least one thing, one quality.

So look at the people that you don’t normally think of as masters of anything and challenge yourself, what are they really, really good at? What should you give them credit for? What I did is I came up with a list of people, as my own exercise, people that I know who are not necessarily black belts or teachers. On the contrary, these are peers or people younger than me, people of lower rank, even children, that I know, who I believe exemplify at least one masterful ability in a skill or equality that I admire. And if I’m being honest, I want to achieve.

I don’t care if the kid’s five years old. If they’re doing something better than I am, well, then they’re inspiring to me. They are now my teacher, and I want to be like them.

I’m just going to give you a list of a few qualities that I have to give other people credit for.

First one that comes to mind, there’s a young lady I knew who was incredible at being objective. She was just a young lady, but if you rolled with her or sparred with her and you hit her, you got her in a bad position, choked her, she never ever beat herself up about it, ever.

Where I might be thinking, You idiot! You stupid– what have you fallen for that for? Right? Do those sounds sound familiar? I can be really hard on myself and get angry, lose my temper with myself. She never, ever, ever did that. It was almost robotic, except she was a very warm person, so it wasn’t robotic. She just already had this natural or whatever, somehow she worked on it, masterful ability to just see learning as learning and not get personally involved in it.

So that I would consider a quality. If you have that, then own it. You are a master of just being objective. You don’t take losses or slipping or failing, making mistakes personally. You just say, okay, that’s what happened and you move on right away. No baggage. That’s amazing if you can do that.

I could think of a young man who is absolutely fearless, far more than I am.

If I’m sparring with someone new, maybe a little timid, Oh, I’m going to test the waters a little bit, and I’m not sure if I should pull out my big guns yet. Not this kid. This kid was fearless.

It did not matter if I stuck my fist in his chest or I kicked him back– I’m three times his size– he would just come after me like a monkey. A rabid monkey. A rabid, psychotic monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew. This guy was fearless.

And when I would drive home, I’d kind of giggle about it because I would have to appreciate what he was doing. Yeah, I could back up and say, well, I’m way bigger. I’d still kick his butt. Good for me. But the quality that he showed, that he did not let anything stop him from attacking and you had to deal with him, boy, I would love that kind of spirit– to be that fearless.

I could think of a young woman, actually in her 30s, but younger than I am, not high ranked at all, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but her posture– I think she does gymnastics, maybe some dance.

But anytime you just catch her just walking around in class, or getting up in between a roll, or in the roll, she just has this amazing ability to find her center and keep it balanced and postured.

Absolutely, that’s a skill. Some people are always leaning and falling and stumbling and off balance, but not her. So I look when I see her, it’s like a little reminder, like, hey, she’s a master of balance and posture. Can you exemplify some of that? Because that seems more achievable right now than trying to choke everybody out.

Can you at least sit up straight? Can you stand up straight? Because she can, no matter what. She does. So that’s another quality you might be a master of.

I just worked with a young guy the other day who is unbelievable. A master. He blew me away with how much he trusts his body.

I just did a podcast, I think the last one called, Tame Your Brain, where you think too much, you judge too much, and it screws up your performance. He doesn’t have that issue. He said it out loud, he said, I trust my body.

That’s amazing– to be a teenager or young 20s and to already have a trust in your instincts, and your feelings, and your guts, and your body, and be able to turn off your brain mostly so that you can just operate and be in the moment. Incredible. If you can do that, well, take credit for it. That’s incredible.

I just worked out with a young woman, probably early 30s, it doesn’t really matter. I’m just trying to give you a range here from little kids to 20s, 30s, older people. It doesn’t matter. Everybody can teach you something.

But I worked with a woman I’d never met her before. It was the first time we worked together. And her accuracy, her control over technique was beyond mine.

I think I’m pretty skillful, pretty controlled. She was just better. She wasn’t higher ranking, been doing the art a couple of years, but she could put her knuckles right on my chin with just enough pressure. She could move me just enough. Not too sweet, not too spicy, right in the middle. Perfect for the drill that we were doing. I had to comment. I said, Wow, you have really good control, because it caught my attention.

Again, when you get into this habit of noticing things that other people aren’t measuring, you don’t get a certificate for that. Best control in the class today, no such thing. Yet there was a quality that she was masterful at. How she got it, that’s a separate discussion. I don’t know, born with it, maybe natural talent, okay. But she has a quality that I don’t have and other people don’t have, and she’s a master of it.

So if you have that quality, own it.

I worked with a guy, he’s about my age, creative. When you work out with this guy, he pulls off these techniques that no one seems to have ever taught him.

I don’t see coming, they’re just in the moment, I guess he’s trusting his body or he’s thinking quickly. I don’t know how he does it, because that’s his thing, but he can just create techniques out of nothing. I mean, what I stick over there, he somehow twists, moves, flips it around so that I’m at a disadvantage.

I just think, What is that? And I’ll say, What was that? What did you do? He’ll just shrug, say, I don’t know. Now whether he’s lying to me and hiding some hidden technology as an alien, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you that he’s a master at it. Other things he’s not so good at.

All these people that I’m talking to you about have other glaring problems with their training. They have things they’re working on. But like I said, I’m just trying to find at least one thing that every one of these people can teach me. And his level of creativity, I find inspiring.

There’s another guy I know who’s incredible with timing. I believe he does some dancing, but he just has a sense of rhythm. So that if you’re learning some combo or there’s a kata, he automatically picks up that rhythm.

Boom, ba-ba-boom, bang, hitting pads. There are rhythms to these things, right? And he just always gets those rhythms right away. While I’m sometimes clunky like, Wait, how does this go? Goonk, shung-shung– How did that go?

So he’s got a smoothness to his moves that I have to work for. And he just has it. He’s a master of timing. A bit of a jerk, so he’s not a master of everything, but of timing, he’s right on it.

I’ll give you two more in this category.

I knew a guy, I worked out with him for a couple of years, and then one day, I was taking a fall and I hit his leg and there was something metal. I hit something metal under his pants. GONK. And I was like, Whoa– what are you wearing there? Shin pads? What are you doing? He rolled up his pant leg and he was wearing a knee brace.

It turned out he had been wearing this knee brace the entire time that I knew him. He had injured his knee years before. Someone took a bad fall on his leg and he didn’t like the medical technology at the time, so he was stalling for a surgery. He kept thinking the technology is going to get better, so I’m just going to wait and wear this brace to protect myself until I’m ready for the surgery.

He ended up wearing it for a long time, decade plus, and now we’ve lost touch. But my point is, he was working through an injury, through pain, without making any drama about it. He never talked about it, he didn’t use it as an excuse to quit, or to not show up, or to sit on the sidelines.

I’m not kidding, for a couple of years, I just stumbled literally into it and went, what’s that? And then it turned out, Oh yeah, he’s working with all of this pain and worry, but didn’t make a drama about it, just got to work, kept moving on, kept learning. Incredible.

Which brings me to the last one I thought of. I worked out with a guy in a wheelchair. There was a student, part of the class, he was in a wheelchair. He had been in a car accident, lost the use of his legs, but came to class to do what he could.

Now, what do you call that, fighting spirit, perseverance, indomitable spirit? I don’t know, but whatever that is, he was a master of it. Because again, he didn’t wallow in any self-pity, he wasn’t dramatic about it, he just showed up, did the work as best he could.

If he fell out of his chair, he fell out of his chair. If he got punched, he got punched. Just like anybody else. Well, actually, no, not just like anybody else. Better than other people. His ability to just move forward was amazing.

Of course, that would make me think, Oh my God. My identity now is so involved in martial arts as a student, as a teacher, as a podcast guy. If I got into a car accident and I lost my legs, would I keep going? Would I be able to show up in a wheelchair and keep working out?

I don’t know. I would say at this point of my life, I’m not sure I’ve proven to myself in my character that that would be an easy transition. Just thinking about it honestly. I’d like to think I’d be back. I’d like to think I’d smile and say, Okay, well, that’s the cards I’m dealt and here I go. I’m going to play them. I don’t know. What about you?

I’m just giving you a wide range of qualities that we don’t measure. You don’t get plaques for, you don’t get trophies for, but they count. These are things you can be masters of– objectivity, trusting your body, creativity, timing, perseverance. These things count.

Now of course, everyone on that list that I just mentioned was a martial artist. These are people I knew in the context of martial arts. But as I hope you can already see, in fact we talked about it, a skill can lead to mastery of an art, but mastery of the art hopefully leads you to mastery of life. That’s the big goal.

This is fight for a happy life. That’s the show. That’s the shirt. So that’s really what we’re gunning for here. I want as many qualities to be mastered in my life as possible because then I’ll have more tools to achieve that next skill and that next goal.

So I’d like you to consider now, if you’ve gone through your list of martial arts personalities– teachers and students, classmates– and you’re starting to warm up to the idea of how to see what they do well, now I want you to widen that out to everyone you know. Because everyone in your family has at least one thing that they are a master of. Could be something you don’t even like.

Oh, they’re very manipulative. Okay, well, are they good at it? Give them credit.

Think of your friends, think of your co-workers, and then the big one, think of your enemies– if you have enemies. I’m not here to create trouble, but I’m literally requesting that you consider everyone you run into as a teacher, and consider what are they a master of, and therefore what can they teach me? What can they impress upon me and inspire me to achieve? And enemies can do that too.

The guy that hurts you, the person that rips you off, they’re doing something well because they got you. So what did they do? How did they do it? Give them the credit for it. You don’t have to like them, but you give them the credit for the skill that they used to get it because you can use the same tool, they’re just tools.

On that list, personally, not just enemies, but now thinking about my family, my friends, what other qualities outside the realm of martial arts have I thought of that you could be a master of? Right off the bat, patience. Are you patient with yourself as you learn these skills, as you develop as a human being, as you make your dreams come true?

Some people are so patient. I’m not. I’m rather impatient. I recognize that, which is why I recognize it when other people are just calm and they move forward piece by piece. Amazing.

Consistency. Do you show up to work out? Do you show up to build that business? Do you show up to constantly figure out ways to make your relationships better? Are you consistent?

Do you just talk about stuff or do you do stuff? And do you do it again and again and again and again to get the results that you want? That’s a talent all of itself, a skill. Something to master, patience, consistency, doggedness.

What about asking questions? Some people are so good at asking questions. Maybe I’m afraid of looking stupid. Maybe I’m afraid of, I don’t want people to know that I don’t know something. Maybe I don’t want to hear my voice. Whatever.

Other people have no problem standing up, Hey, I have a question. They don’t care. They don’t mind. They’ll take that risk. They are masters of getting information through saying, Hey, look at me. I have a question. I admire that.

What about people who can ignore haters? Ignore the critics? That person asking questions, I mean, maybe they’re just not intelligent. They never thought that they’re going to get judged. But let’s presume that they understand that there are critics and haters in the world, but they move forward with their life anyway.

They are able to hear a comment on Facebook that’s not kind and just say, That’s okay. I don’t even know that person. They have a chip on their shoulder. That person must have a really sad life to try to hurt my life.

Some people can do that so easily. I’m getting better at it. I’m not a master of it, though. So when someone else I can see just brushes off the hate, brushes off the critics, doesn’t fear that stuff, just keeps going– awesome. Thank you for that inspiration.

Approachability is one I jotted down. Some people, as soon as you meet them, you just feel like you’ve known them forever or you want to know them forever. The way they talk, the way they look at you, the way they treat you, you just feel safe. You feel comfortable. You want to know them better. You want to be their friend.

Other people know, you might know them for years and never really feel close to them. They’re a little prickly. They’re a little standoffish. There’s always that little bit of a wall there.

For me, I’d rather be a master of approachability. I would like people to feel comfortable coming near me or feeling that they can be my friend. I would love that. That’s a wonderful thing. I’m not a master of it. It’s something I’m working on. But when I meet people who already have it, oh, I love it. I say, Wow, look at you. So welcoming, amazing.

Dealing with loss, how do you do with that? Whether you’ve lost a job– the world changed so much with the lockdowns and COVID. I think probably everybody lost something, if not someone, some money, some opportunities, some freedoms. How do you deal with that?

Did you blame, did you hide, or did you try to find opportunities? Did you deal with it in a way that’s masterful, that you made the most of what you had? That’s a talent, that’s a skill. That’s something I think we can get better at. And some people do it so well.

I’m inspired every time I see someone who’s been dealt a really bad hand and they keep playing their cards. They keep playing, and they wait for the next hand, and they just keep going. You think, Wow, what took that person out of the game just gave you a chance to reposition.

And to that end, the last one I’ll throw out for today, another quality of mastery that I’ve noticed in people I know, change. Just change in general.

I know a guy, he’s older, he’s 70 something. He changes his house. He moves every couple of years. He’s probably, I don’t know, 15 years. I think he’s been in eight houses.

Now, I just moved. After college, I lived in one place, Buffalo. Moved to Los Angeles, stayed there for 28 years, mostly in one single apartment. And I just moved over here to North Carolina. And for me, I’m thinking, oh, that was hard. It was really hard for me to move, picking up new identity, new things, new, I like routines. I like habits.

To me, it’s amazing that he can just pick up and move every couple of years to a new area, new house, start over, pack up, move. It blows my mind. But how wonderful. He’s so resilient in my mind. He’s so unafraid of the next thing.

Instead of hanging on to what he has, he’s willing to roll the dice and try another one. And if it doesn’t work out, he tries another one. Amazing to me.

How about you? How do you handle change? Are you a master of change or do you fear it? Do you avoid it?

Anyway, the point is mastery. You can master a skill. You can master an art. You can master life. You can make a goal of just one skill or you can make a goal of multiple skills. You can be a specialist. You can be a multi-faceted master. These are the choices.

But I will tell you, at least in my experience, that if you choose to be a specialist– I’ve already told you that, in my opinion, everyone is a master of at least one thing, and that includes you– but that’s not enough, in my opinion, for a happy life. I believe you’re going to need to branch out and add additional skills.

The goal is really to be that multi-faceted master and to not just play this one skill over and over again, because it’s just limited. There’s only so much you can do with one tool. The more tools you have in your toolbox, the more you can achieve and the faster and easier you can do it.

So that’s what martial arts training is for, in my opinion. That’s what work is for. It’s to try to add another skill to master.

You have what you have now. You’ve already done work in your life. You’ve gotten this far. You’ve got at least one skill you’re a master of. And now I’m setting a new goal to achieve another one. And along the way, I will achieve certain masteries of things.

That’s the trick.

Whatever your big goal is– I want to be the greatest chef in the world– well, that’s going to start by mastering smaller things. And, you’re going to have to master the things that don’t look like they have anything to do with being a chef– showing up, asking questions, not being afraid of making a mistake and making a bad omelet. You’ve got to get through all those other character qualities to get to the actual goal that you wanted.

So the sooner you start giving yourself credit for those character skills, the sooner you can start getting towards your actual goal, your specific goals. Right?

So, to wrap this up, the next time that you finish class or you come out of a belt test, check in with yourself. How do you feel? What identity are you walking around with? Did you make a mistake? Did you get passed over at the belt grading?

Did you make a mistake– you blew your kata, you couldn’t break the board, you got beat up sparring, did you not achieve the belt– and now what? You’re going to carry that around, like you’re not a master anymore? No. Be careful with that.

You went to class, didn’t do so hot, they called you up to do a form and you forgot it halfway and you feel a little embarrassed. That new guy who showed up was brand new, somehow got the better of you. And now you’re carrying that around with you all week, feeling like a loser, feeling like I’m not good at this. I don’t even want to go back to class.

Be careful, my friend. Please be careful. You just forgot that you’re already a master. You forgot. Don’t forget the things that you’re good at. That’s the trick.

Don’t get caught up in the qualities of life that we measure but aren’t the most important things. If you’re a martial artist, and you only measure yourself by how did you do at the tournament? What rank is your belt? How many points did you get sparring and rolling tonight? If that’s all you measure yourself by, you’re going to be depressed a lot because you’re not always a gold medalist, and you’re not always tenth degree black belt.

You can’t suffer in the meantime. And then in life, you can’t just measure yourself by how much money do you make? That’s it. That’s the only measure that matters. That’s your happiness right there. No.

You can’t just measure yourself by body weight. You can’t just measure yourself by how many happy photos you have on your Facebook page.

These are measures, but they’re not fair. They’re not complete. They will mess with your head if that’s all you consider. Back it up.

Please believe me when I tell you that the most important skills to master are not measurable. They are all the things that we just talked about. And on that list of things, character skills, you are already a master of at least one of them, if not more.

So if you’re feeling incompetent, stop it. If you are feeling like a loser, stop it. If you feel like you’re never going to achieve your goals, stop it.

Instead, remember immediately, what am I great at? What am I a master of? Now how can I add to that? How do I get back to work and train to achieve my goals? That is what I believe Mr. Barkley, that was his name, meant.

When he told us that you’re already a master, you just don’t know it, he was letting us know that you shouldn’t just judge yourself by how you sparred right now.

Yeah, I beat you in this sparring match, but you’re already a master. This thing that you’re trying to achieve, to be me, to wear this belt and be this good, yeah, that’s cool, but that’s just one part of life. You’re already a master in these other categories. You’re a master of these other qualities. You just don’t know it because you’re staring at the goal and you’re forgetting who you already are.

I believe that’s what he meant. You are already a master. You are already a role model. You are already a leader. You just don’t know it.

So know it, own it, accept it, add to it. Let the mastery of that one thing, or two or three things, propel you to then master more until you’ve not only achieved your art, you’ve not only achieved your goal, you’ve achieved a happy life. That’s what this is all about. Master as many skills as you can.

Give yourself those credits so that you feel good about yourself, so that you’ll have the motivation to keep going no matter what happens. That’s the trick.

And hey, last thing. If you truly feel right now after all of that, that you are not a master of anything, that none of this actually applies to you, you are at that darkest, lowest rung of the life ladder, please believe me, you are a master of something. You are a master of survival. You are alive. And that’s a pretty good place to start.

Wow, okay, well, this one got kind of long. I apologize for that. But if you made it this far, I hope you feel it was worth it. Please don’t forget, my friend, you are a master.

Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.