I’m going to do my best to not get philosophical during this post. A bit of my personal philosophy may creep in here and there, but I’ll try my best to be as normal a human as possible.
Listen, we’re all in the same boat. Life is going to throw us curve ball after curve ball. There may be ups and there my be downs. The trick is, in my opinion, to learn how to ride the waves as best as possible, but more importantly, how to acquire a surf board as opposed to just floating in the ocean trying to swim. If you’re stuck with the latter, your arms may get tired.
Analogies anyone?
I’m a watcher and a listener. One of my favorite pastimes is to seek out interesting and successful people and to observe them. I rarely attempt at reinventing the wheel. I let others do the research for me. If you’re a winner, I want to win right alongside you. I’ve done a lot of this and throughout my life, I’ve figured out a few things. One of which I’ll discuss below.
In order to be successful at anything, you need to be smart, but you also need to be focused. An old friend told me once that if you focus your whole heart on something, really focus it, there will eventually be no alternate route to a successful one (I won’t even touch the definition of success – that topic bores me).
I mentioned Eddie Bravo and Joe Rogan in a post I wrote yesterday. Both of these individuals are wildly successful in their respective careers. How did they become successful? Was Eddie Bravo painting cars at the same time he was competing on the world stage? Was Joe Rogan waiting tables as he was climbing the entertainment ladder? No, both of these guys were focused on getting better and better at what they were already good at.
But, there’s a trick to all this and it’s important to mention here. In order to find and achieve your measure of success, you need to choose a growing and dynamic industry. If you do this, it’s going to make riding that wave all the more simple. And this really is the point of this post.
Can you make a life in Jiu-Jitsu?
A while back, in between all the other things I do in life, I realized that no matter how lousy the economy got, there were a few truisms:
1. People still love to get and stay in shape and Jiu-Jitsu is becoming wildly popular.
2. The online world is larger than it ever was and continues to grow. With all the new entrants every day, there’s a need for someone to guide them.
3. Instead of vacationing in Tahiti, people are looking for places to get away closer to home. The mountains being one such place.
After realizing these things, I’ve been positioning myself to take advantage of them. My life is changing immensely and in a year’s time, you should hopefully be reading very different posts. I have my fingers crossed and am excited by the prospects.
After my daily online browse this morning, I came across a great article that was written on November 5, 2012, so it’s obviously very relevant. It’s called, “A Reminder Of How Far Jiu-Jitsu Has Come.” In this article, the author tries to express the rapidly changing dynamic of the sport I love so much. I even alluded to Jiu-Jitsu’s growth potential in my previous post called, “Nate Diaz Breakdown by Rener and Ryron Gracie.” I did a horrible job of getting to my point in that post, but it was supposed to do with how creatively and successfully the Gracie brothers have taken advantage of a growing industry. They’ve adapted and changed and like I mentioned to my brother-in-law during last night’s conversation, they were like Chameleons in an ever changing environment. We should all be so talented.
I guess my point in this post is this: If you want to be successful at something, you need to make a hard decision on what that something is. Then, immerse yourself in it. Get great at it and then start branding yourself as an expert in it. No one else if going to do it for you. Sometimes in life, you just need to make a choice and get to work.
Eddie Bravo and Joe Rogan talk BJJ and MMA
Just a few additional thoughts…
The Jiu-Jitsu Skeptic
This morning, I sat down at my computer for my normal routine. I checked my email, checked my sites, finished up a few odds and ends from last night and dove into Jiu-Jitsu videos. I know, that last part doesn’t really fit with the others, but since I’m addicted to Jiu-Jitsu, it does. It really does. Ask around. You’ll find that others may be inflicted with the same disease.
One venue I often look toward for the latest goings-on is Facebook. I’ve “liked” so many websites over the past few months that I’m now pretty much inundated with news on Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, class schedules, photos and advertisements. It’s good I suppose, because that’s what I was looking for when I clicked their like buttons – I wanted to keep my “finger on the pulse” of the scene. This way, when I write posts myself, I’m able to stay current.
I’m not sure why today was the day, but something struck me. You see, I’m the kind of guy who always wants more. I try not to be that guy, but I guess I was born with the trait. I can tell you that it’s a frustrating one and one I sometimes wish I didn’t have, but the fact is, here I am and here’s how I act. Traits aren’t something someone can easily shed. We’re stuck with them.
As I was browsing Facebook this morning, I became aware of the overwhelming feeling that I had seen everything before. The tipping point may have been noticing that Stephan Kesting re-posted yesterday’s video promoted by Keenan Cornelius on the 50/50 armbar. The thing is, I was going to do that. Not because I wanted credit for finding something useful and having the chance to run my fingers through my hair, but because I wanted to make it available to those who may find it interesting or helpful – those who may not be subscribed to the same feeds as I am. I’ve done it before with good response.
I hold Stephen Kesting to a higher standard than I hold myself to though. He’s obviously devoted his life to Jiu-Jitsu and for him to offer up a re-post, I don’t know, I just felt a bit let down. And it’s not just from this one isolated occurrence. I’ve more and more been noticing people from many industries running out of things to say. They’re now engaging in, what seems like, plain and simple content generation for the sake of filling their websites and Facebook pages with “stuff.” They have subscribers and they need to keep those subscribers well fed. It’s all over the place. When it comes to genuine uniqueness on the internet, there isn’t much to find.
But here’s the question – are they feeding their subscribers well? Is a daily barrage of semi-useless, already been seen information worth reading and viewing? I began asking myself this and, unfortunately, I seem to have dug the hole I was teetering on the edge of, deeper.
Personally, I’d rather read or watch one well thought out and put together piece. I’d like to chew on that for a few days and perhaps even add it to my favorites. I’m not sure I need to stay on top of the latest Metamoris results or the technique of the week. Do I participate in Metamoris? No. Am I currently working on the technique that’s floating around, or that had gone viral, on the web? Probably not. Well then, what am I doing? I had to answer that question this morning and I decided that I really had no idea.
I should really follow the advice I give other people when it comes to my own life. When people ask me “what they should do,” I oftentimes ask them, “Well that depends. What’s your goal?” They stare through me with bewildered eyes and, typically, offer no response. It’s almost as if they had never given that any thought. “Hmmm, I wonder if I should identify an end point before I muddle around and make a mess of the middle.” I can see them thinking. I’ve been confronted with similar questions once in my life and I’ll never forget the situation. A friend sat me down after I had filled them in on a major, life changing decision. They said, “Jay, what are you after? What’s your goal? What do you want?” I remember sitting there (after making that life changing decision I just told you about) saying, I haven’t the foggiest idea. I knew what I didn’t want, but I had no idea what I wanted. Life changer. One that taught me how reactionary I actually was. How am I supposed to make my way through my days if I have no idea where I’m heading, or at the very least, where I would like to head?
After reflecting for a while, I began jotting down notes on thoughts I’ve had through the years. Things that have upset me and things that I’ve never gotten good answers to. Things about Jiu-Jitsu. And after a few minutes, I found myself tracing my fingers down the backside of a piece of paper I had resting on the corner of my desk – a piece of paper that was then scratched full of notes that made only marginal sense. And a piece of paper that now sits before me begging to be shared right here in this very blog. I wrote down what I think are fairly clever ideas this morning and I ask you, if you have time, to please humor me and read the rest of what I have to write. If you do, I can promise that, while you may not end up as thoroughly concerned as I am, you may find yourself questioning the trajectory of the sport we all love so much.