Power: Your ability or capacity to act or perform effectively…
The Black Belt is all about Power- whether you’re an actual kicking and punching Black Belt, or you just want to think like one!
There are people ready to feed you all kinds of crap about power or tell you why you can’t have it or don’t deserve it. After 40 plus years of believing their crap, I was able to condense most of the problem down to…
The Top 5 Lies About Power:
1. Power corrupts. No it doesn’t; people corrupt power. Power can be used for benefit or destruction; the choice is yours.
2. Power is just for the powerful. Well then, how did they get there? Developing power is a process that can start with the barest minimum of resources. It’s your responsibility to develop your power. Start now.
3. Money is power. No it’s not; neither is knowledge. Money and knowledge are valuable resources you can use to increase your power, your capacity for effectiveness. It takes action to transform money and knowledge into power. If money and knowledge were in and of themselves power, all rich and smart people would be powerful and no stupid or desperate people would be. Is this true?
4. Power is control. No, power is your ability or capacity to perform or act effectively. Control is imposing your will on others. Power is the currency of a leader; control is the currency of a dictator. Which one do you want to be?
5. You can’t get it! The worst lie of all! Every human being has the capacity to develop tremendous personal power. Within the scope of your unique talents and abilities, your potential is unlimited.
Power is your ability or capacity to perform or act effectively…
The one thing you can always control in your life is the ability to cultivate power. You can expand your ability, or capacity, to perform or act effectively at any time in any place. You don’t need money, knowledge, or fame to increase power. Expanding your resources is part of developing power.
You can start with little or nothing and take one simple step and become more powerful…
…and after all, every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!
I like it when people challenge my ideas and opinions. If I can’t defend my position, then I need to re-evaluate and modify … or just plain change my mind!
After my presentation at a recent conference, someone challenged me on the role of luck in my life …
During THE SENSEI LEADER keynote, I talk about my transformation from loser to leader––from drug abuser and dropout to Black Belt and to where I am today. During this presentation, someone in the audience asked me about the most significant factors in my transformation.
“Luck!”
Of course there were other factors––people who encouraged and helped, my willingness to succeed once I decided to change course––but even the existence of those factors depended largely on luck! I can’t help thinking that I’d be dead or in jail had a friend not turned up at exactly the right time, or had I been born in a different place or time––or even once or twice had a cop not had something more important to deal with than me at a particular moment.
Luck.
As I said, after this event, a member of the audience challenged me on the role of luck. It seemed to him that I was giving luck a little too much credit. Was it just a matter of chance that instead of sitting in a prison cell that I was speaking to a group of top executives about leadership?
Well, to a large extent––yes.
Now here’s the turn …
Every single day each of us is exposed to circumstances, conditions and opportunities over which we have absolutely no control. Too often our perception of control, or lack of it, is shaped by the outcome. If something turns out right, we too often ignore the role of chance. If it goes badly, we give too much weight to bad luck.
Every player at a poker table has the same odds of drawing a good or bad hand. The best players are those who can make the best of a bad hand––and those who know, as the old song goes, when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.
Life is largely a game of chance, but just like in poker, there are ways to improve your odds. Two of the best are:
Awareness
Gratitude
Champion poker players are usually very aware people. They notice the slightest “tells,” or signals that indicate whether their opponents are playing a good hand or if they’re bluffing. They can’t control the cards they’re dealt, but they can pay full attention to what’s happening at the table and play their hand based on awareness and experience, not just the luck of the draw.
It’s the same way in real life.
You’re constantly exposed to opportunity and the potential for disaster. The more aware you are the more you’re likely to seize opportunity and recognize and avoid disaster. People who are very aware are usually the people who seem to “have all the luck!”
Gratitude helps you take a realistic inventory of where you are and why.
I don’t like the old cliche that says that every disaster or mistake is a lesson. It can be––if you make it so.
When something goes your way, it helps to appreciate it and to acknowledge whatever it took to deliver this success. When something goes bad, it’s very useful to appreciate the experience and the role it can have in future achievements.
I’m not the lollipops and puppy dogs guy so I won’t preach to you about “the attitude of gratitude” and all that muck. That hasn’t been my experience.
What I have learned is that gratitude serves as a practical inventory. When I take the time to be thankful for what I have, I see very clearly the material, emotional and spiritual resources at my disposal right here and right now. No matter how little that might be, that’s what I’ve got to work with.
Luck and chance plays a huge part in our lives.
Hell, you or I could have been sitting in an office in the World Trade Center on September 11th. What’s important is what you do with whatever cards you’re dealt.
Keep you eyes, ears, mind and heart open––practice awareness, and you’ll be more likely to seize opportunity and avoid disaster.
Be grateful and you’ll appreciate what you have in any given moment––and what you have is always more important than what you don’t.
I’m very aware of the role luck has played in my life––and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to cultivate my awareness. There’s a chance things may have turned out better at any given moment in my life, but I know with certainty that they could have turned out far worse.
It doesn’t bother me in the least to admit …
… I’m a very lucky guy.
Photo of cards by Arvind Balaraman and FreeDigitalPhoto.net
I don’t have a problem with people enjoying themselves on Memorial Day …
Life is busy and fast these days, and it’s important to take time to enjoy friends and family. You shouldn’t feel guilty when you fire up the grill or head for the beach.
You should also feel gratitude for the people who made it possible for us to enjoy ourselves this weekend––those who gave their lives so we could enjoy ours in relative safety and security.
We should all also remember the origins of Memorial Day. It has become a time to remember all who have fallen in war, but it started specifically to honor those who sacrificed their lives to preserve the Union and end slavery.
Sadly, we’ve all but forgotten what these people fought for. Our nation is divided in many ways––by ideology, by race and by senseless violence.
It’s time to come together again. It’s time to renew the ideal that we are much stronger as a Union.
When Oliver Wendell Holmes gave his first iconic Memorial Day speech in 1884, he was talking about soldiers from opposite sides of America’s Civil War coming together in respect and brotherhood. I think his words have an important lesson for all of us today …
So far as this last is concerned, to be sure, there is no trouble. The soldiers who were doing their best to kill one another felt less of personal hostility, I am very certain, than some who were not imperiled by their mutual endeavors. I have heard more than one of those who had been gallant and distinguished officers on the Confederate side say that they had had no such feeling. I know that I and those whom I knew best had not. We believed that it was most desirable that the North should win; we believed in the principle that the Union is indissoluble; we, or many of us at least, also believed that the conflict was inevitable, and that slavery had lasted long enough. But we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred conviction that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every men with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief. The experience of battle soon taught its lesson even to those who came into the field more bitterly disposed.
You could not stand up day after day in those indecisive contests where overwhelming victory was impossible because neither side would run as they ought when beaten, without getting at least something of the same brotherhood for the enemy that the north pole of a magnet has for the south–each working in an opposite sense to the other, but each unable to get along without the other. As it was then , it is now. The soldiers of the war need no explanations; they can join in commemorating a soldier’s death with feelings not different in kind, whether he fell toward them or by their side.
Let’s enjoy our Memorial Day. Let’s also be grateful for those who made it possible.
Oliver Wendell Holmes gave another iconic Memorial Day address at Harvard University in 1895. Here is a short video highlighting his closing remarks:
Why, more than ever, is it a liability to be wealthy––particularly if you earned it?
Why do so many successful people feel the need to downplay and hide their achievements?
In the dojo it’s customary to show respect and deference to those who have earned the Black Belt and higher degrees. Those people represent, by example, that it is possible to master a difficult skill and to overcome internal and external challenges to achieve something meaningful.
People who have earned the Black Belt are also a tremendous resource. Many martial artists go on to become Sensei. They become a valuable resource as they help others achieve Black Belt and explore their full potential.
Instead of respect for highly successful people, we suspect them––of something!
Believe me, I’m not saying there aren’t crooks in positions of power in business and politics, but as with any other group of people, the crooks are the exception, not the rule.
Most successful people earn their success.
They earn their wealth and position through hard work, discipline, focus and perseverance.
Jealousy and trash talk doesn’t get you one small step closer to your own success. You become successful by studying successful people, seeking them out as mentors and by doing what they do.
The term Sensei literally means “one who went before.” You get to Black Belt by following the example and accepting the teaching of someone who already did it.
Success in the real world is no different.
For some weird reason, the anti-success fervor really ramps up every time presidential election cycle. Wealthy or successful candidates are vilified and challenged on every dollar they’ve ever made. It’s as if wealth is a disease rather than a worthy aspiration.
Who do you want leading the U.S. government––arguably one of the largest and most complex organizations on earth?
Do you want someone who has loused up everything they’ve done?
Do you want someone who has never been successful at anything?
Do you want someone who does nothing but bitch and moan about how unfair it is that other people seem to achieve what they have not?
Of course not! You want someone who knows how to achieve––someone who knows how to get things done!
Worse are the candidates that downplay their own accomplishments. Knock it off!
Be proud of your achievement. Be proud of your wealth––as long as you didn’t steal it!
Even worse than that are candidates and leaders who have achieved a great deal yet still spend their leadership capital commiserating with those who feel disenfranchised, left behind and locked out.
If you want to help people escape the cycle of poverty and underachievement––show them how you did it!
If you’ve come from nothing, you are an example of how to do it and your achievements serve as an inspiration for others. Be the “one who went before” and share the wealth; not by giving people the proverbial fish, but by actually teaching them to fish.
When you see someone who is successful you have a couple of simple choices:
Another study just concluded that positive thinking does not necessarily produce greater results.
For years research has concluded that positive thinking alone does not make you more productive, more successful––or even happier. You’ve got to align your thinking with realistic goals, a clear plan, and productive action to produce tangible results.
Why “think positive” when people who don’t bother produce relatively the same results?
Because it’s not the means––it’s the objective.
It was no accident that the greatest declaration of personal freedom ever produced included “the pursuit of happiness” as one of our three most precious rights of man. Happiness––positivity is the goal, not just a way to achieve it.
While a positive attitude might not guarantee the results you’re looking for, what, really, is the alternative? To go through every day with a crappy, lousy attitude that alienates other people and drives you to the depths of depression?
The problem with many of these studies, as I see it, is that they’re focused on the productive output of human capital. That is––research is usually centered on the usefulness of attitude as it relates to tangible productive output.
I hate the term “human capital.” We’re talking about PEOPLE!
What is seldom factored in are the long term consequences of ignoring people’s sense of happiness, contentment or positivity at work. The effects of negativity, however, are well documented.
In a work environment where people are mostly negative and pessimistic, far less work gets done. There is little if any innovation. There are higher degrees of work related health problems, stress and anxiety. There are lower levels of loyalty and trust.
No––a positive attitude does not guarantee productivity, but a pervasive negative attitude can certainly erode it.
It’s about balance.
It’s about finding a degree of satisfaction and happiness in your work while preserving a health sense of reality and making sure that your positive attitude inspires productive action.
Most important is the fact that you spend a huge part of your life at work. Once again––means or ends?
Is your positive attitude simply a means to achieving some distant, tangible goal? Or––is your positive attitude a reward in itself?
For my money, I’d much rather work with a positive attitude most of the time and do work that makes me happy.
I didn’t need another study––I know through experience that positivity is no guarantee of outcome. I’ve also learned, however, that when I achieve, I feel much more positive.
Given the choice on any given day––I’ll choose positive. And that’s a much more rewarding outcome.
Power: Your ability or capacity to act or perform effectively…
You should also feel gratitude for the people who made it possible for us to enjoy ourselves this weekend––those who gave their lives so we could enjoy ours in relative safety and security.
Think Like A Black Belt: The Blog! 