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Right Hook Life & Nail It Between The Legs: Your Your Guide to Grabbing Life by by the Balls and Winning Unconventionally [In 4 Simple Steps]
To say that I’ve lived an unconventional life is i s an understatement.
Growing up on the gritty streets of the South Side of Johannesburg, South Africa in government housing (similar to housing projects in the US) taught me early on that how smart you are means nothing and how tough you are means everything. I was bullied relentlessly as a kid, to the point where I had to have ‘secret’ routes from school and within my neighborhood just to make it home safely. But home wasn’t safe either. either. My mother a raging alcoholic would fly into fits of anger, anger, smashing things against the wall — or more frequently frequently,, my head. When I was 17, during yet another one of her drunken rages, she kicked me out of the house. Destitute, alone, and with less than $20 in my pocket, I found myself sleeping on a bench in the park where I used to play as a kid.
My future, if I even had one, consisted of a giant neon sign blinking, ‘FAILURE.’ ‘FAILURE.’ I was destined to become another statistic, eaten up by poverty, poor parenting, and lack of education.
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Right Hook Life & Nail It Between The Legs: Your Your Guide to Grabbing Life by by the Balls and Winning Unconventionally [In 4 Simple Steps]
To say that I’ve lived an unconventional life is i s an understatement.
Growing up on the gritty streets of the South Side of Johannesburg, South Africa in government housing (similar to housing projects in the US) taught me early on that how smart you are means nothing and how tough you are means everything. I was bullied relentlessly as a kid, to the point where I had to have ‘secret’ routes from school and within my neighborhood just to make it home safely. But home wasn’t safe either. either. My mother a raging alcoholic would fly into fits of anger, anger, smashing things against the wall — or more frequently frequently,, my head. When I was 17, during yet another one of her drunken rages, she kicked me out of the house. Destitute, alone, and with less than $20 in my pocket, I found myself sleeping on a bench in the park where I used to play as a kid.
My future, if I even had one, consisted of a giant neon sign blinking, ‘FAILURE.’ ‘FAILURE.’ I was destined to become another statistic, eaten up by poverty, poor parenting, and lack of education.
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But somehow, I beat the odds and proved everyone wrong. Although I didn’t know it then, through my passion for martial arts and the lessons learned on the mat, in the ring, and on the streets, I would reach the pinnacle of personal and professional success.
What follows is my hard-hitting, unconventional system for success borne out of my hard-knock, unconventional journey to the top. It’s It’s a no-holds-barred approach approach to winning the martial arts of everyday life on your own terms!
One piece of advice… This is something I tell all my students:
“The answers are easy, easy, but the practice is hard.”
People love to overcomplicate success. ‘It can’t be that easy,’ they say. The tools for success aren’t difficult difficult to understand, but they are hard to master. master. Bottom line: I can provide you with the best-in-class best-in-clas s tools, but unless you put them into action, unless you practice, you won’t see any success. So, let’ le t’ss get real and get ready to hustle! h ustle!
Rodney King, 2015
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Right Hook Life
02
2. Feel The Fear And Just Fucking Do It Anyway
05
3. Intentional Success
20
4. Get Your Voodoo On: Ritualize! Ritual ize!
26
5. Live For The Boooooooom!
32
6. Final Thoughts
43
7. About Coach Rodney King
45
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Feel The Fear And Just Fucking Do It Anyway Let’s not mince words. Life can be a fucking scary place. Fear can be such a debilitating emotion that it can stop you dead in your tracks.
There I was, 20 years old, fresh out of the military, standing outside a nightclub as the bouncer. Did I mention that the entrance age for the club was 24? Yeah. I was shitting myself.
Let’s just think about that for a second. I was the kid who was bullied relentlessly. Having my head flushed in the toilet and being cornered on the way home and beaten senseless were daily occurrences. Things got so scary that I started to skip school, feigning dozens of made up illnesses. When I saw the bullies coming my way, I would search for an escape route and haul ass, running as fast as I could, only to hear them laugh and heckle me as I did.
And at age 20, there I was, a bouncer. An occupation of violence. In other words, tossing the assholes and troublemakers out of the club. The most polite thing I did was punch them really hard in the face just once.
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My first night on the job, shit started with a group of guys who’d been drinking way too much and decided it would be fun to pinch a girl’s butt as she walked by. Needless to say, the girl’s boyfriend wasn’t impressed. The call went out, and my fellow bouncers and I were there in seconds to break things up. As we ‘escorted’ the troublemaker and his friends out of the club, the head asshole turned to me and said, “What the fuck do you think you’re going to do, you little wanker? Looks like they’re hiring children at this club.”
To be honest, my knees were shaking so hard, I thought I was about to fall down. My stomach was churning, and I felt sick. My mouth was dry, and I broke out in a cold sweat. To make matters worse, or likely because of it, the head asshole was built like a brick shithouse. And there I was, all 170 pounds of me, ready to throw up. I was so scared and nervous that I didn’t think I’d be able to move.
The head asshole opened his mouth again and started to move toward me with his hand beginning to raise up, and there it was mid-flight a right hook aimed straight at my head. I ducked, popped up, and with one well placed right hook of my own, I floored him. Twenty minutes later, they still couldn’t wake him up.
Now, I’m certainly not saying you should go around punching people left and right, nor am I glorifying violence. On that day, I was defending Page 6 of 46
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myself, but that experience made a crucial impression on me as the years went on. The lesson wasn’t immediately evident that day, but over time, as I had more similar experiences, it became clear to me that just because you’re ‘afraid,' it doesn’t mean you can't make shit happen. That old saying, ‘feel the fear and do it anyway,’ took on a vivid, dare I say visceral, meaning.
Although I can’t know for certain, I can assume that as a fellow human being, we share similar thoughts, sensations, and emotions. Some of these emotions, such as fear, may arise from situations that remind us of past traumatic experiences, or our thinking mind can talk us into a fear state. In the latter scenario, what we tell ourselves internally kicks off a fear response. In the former, our body responds first, only to have our thinking mind classify that response as ‘fear’ later on.
Looking back, the guy I faced that night was actually scary looking, but he also reminded me of the guys who bullied me growing up. Before I could even process why I was so scared, my body went into survival mode as a way of letting me know, ‘We’ve been here before.’ I immediately began scanning my body and mind to make sense of why I was feeling the way I was, and my only conclusion was that I was afraid: afraid that I didn’t have what it would take to handle that guy. Luckily though, I didn’t have enough time to reflect on my fear in the moment. In a way, that asshole did me a favor. His quick reaction time between Page 7 of 46
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insulting me and throwing that punch didn’t give me much time to assess my fear. I simply had to react, without much thought to how I was feeling. Given more time, I might have allowed my thoughts to undermine my ability to react and therefore chickened out.
Two lessons stand out from this experience, but they are also, essentially, one. (Now there’s a Yogi Berra-style statement for you!) Our thoughts can trigger fear, or the physiological changes that typically take place in a fear response can happen first, and we then interpret them as signs of fear. They may seem different, but in fact, they’re virtually the same. The common denominator in both is the story, or narrative, we create. The story leads to fear, or feelings lead by a story become fear. But here’s the thing, and it may seem confusing at first: it’s only when we begin with fear-inducing thoughts, or we interpret or label a series of feelings as fear, that true FEAR emerges.
Allow me to explain… Every week I have to stand up in front of people I don’t know in different parts of the world and coach them. Since I take what I do very seriously, it’s not uncommon for me to experience butterflies, notice my heart rate elevate, sense clamminess on my hands, and feel my mouth dry up. This is my body recognizing stress and preparing for a performance. Sometimes, these internal stirrings are mild, but before a big event, they’re much more pronounced. I have two choices in that moment: I can interpret those feelings and Page 8 of 46
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sensations as fear and anxiety, or I can view them as indicators of excitement. There’s a stimulus (the upcoming coaching event) and a thinking response (my thoughts about fear or excitement). My response, the way I interpret that stimulus, is going to dictate whether I take action or buckle and fold under the pressure. I could engineer this process in reverse, too. For example, before the first whiff of fear, I could begin having fear-based thoughts, which would ultimately invoke a fear response in my body. This could include thoughts like, ‘I’ve never done an event this big. I’m not sure I can handle it.’ This process might begin with an apprehensive or self-limiting thought that if left unchecked and allowed to feed into the other stories I tell myself about why I won’t be able to do this, can quickly invoke physiological responses that I invariably end up labelling, consciously or subconsciously, as fear.
Although I survived my inner narrative that night when facing the head asshole, things haven’t always gone so smoothly. There’ve been more times than I can count when I was faced with the threat of interpersonal violence outside nightclubs - when situations had dragged on long enough for the narrative in my head to grow so powerful, so strong that I was mere seconds away from becoming overwhelmed with intense emotional responses which would’ve rendered me useless. The phrase ‘a deer in headlights’ comes to mind here. You can become so worked up by the story in your head that you can literally freeze, leaving Page 9 of 46
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yourself completely unable to respond. To some academic types, this may seem like an oversimplification of the process, but it’s been my experience.
Here’s a question I’m often asked in martial arts circles: ‘What about when you go from zero (no thoughts of danger or physiological preparedness for danger) to responding when someone randomly attacks you? Is that a fear response?’ I typically reply that I love those situations simply because you have to respond without thinking. You have to rely on your training, and thinking can’t get you into trouble. But to be serious for a moment, I don’t see that reaction as a fear response per se but rather a survival response. The physiological changes that happen during or before a fight are simply the body’s way of preparing to perform and, ultimately, to survive. These precede any label, such as fear, anxiety, etc. Those labels are words we use in order to make sense of our feelings and even justify them. As I said before, we could just as easily interpret them as excitement. Why do people who bungee jump think it’s fun? They come out of that experience feeling amped. But just before they jumped, any one of their internal stirrings - in a different situation, under a different narrative - could be interpreted as intense fear and prevent them from acting.
Looking at things from this perspective has helped me to better understand the difference between fear and survival. Survival-based Page 10 of 46
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responses are essential as they keep you alive and safe, but fear is only fear because you created a story, a narrative around an experience that you then label as fear. This is why fears are often said to be totally irrational. To the thinking mind, however, giving strength to a story is rational. The question, therefore, is: what can you do about it?
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had much luck with telling myself not to be afraid. So often, you wind up with two conflicting stories. One story tells you it’s rational that you’re afraid of the situation you’re faced with, and another one tells you that you’re being silly. So, which one is it?
The best solution I’ve found is not to argue with either story. Neither of them is true anyway, in most cases. They are only interpretations being sown in the mind that seem to be the right justifications in the moment. If every fear story were accurate, you wouldn’t be able to achieve anything. Every day, people are faced with real fearful events but manage to push through and succeed nonetheless. The question is: how?
Most people just find a way to get through it. They develop a strategy, mostly subconsciously. Most people can’t even tell you how they do it. But, what if they could? And what if you could recreate the same
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strategy? How would you turn something as debilitating as fear into action, or rather a more agile force that can work in your favor?
Step 1: The notion so often thrown around is that you can learn to
‘control your fear.’ I’m here to tell you: that is utter bullshit. There, I said it. Nothing irritates me more than when I see self-defense instructors and self-help gurus peddling that nonsense. All it ends up doing is making you feel like a loser when you can’t ‘control the fear.’ The fact is, you will never be able to control your fear or any emotion, for that matter. You can’t control fear anymore than you can control what life throws at you. In case you hadn’t already noticed, life is impermanent and imperfect. Nothing remains the same. Nothing ever goes exactly to plan. Control is an illusion often conjured up in a misguided attempt to avoid the fact that you cannot control anything.
For many people, the illusion of control feels much safer than accepting the fact that they don't have any. But that’s not their fault. No one is ever taught what to do with emotions that become unhelpful. I want you to get this into your head now: in its purest form, there is no such thing as an unhelpful emotion. All emotions are inherently good. This is often dependent on context, of course. If you were walking in the woods, turned the corner only to find a grizzly bear staring you down, and you felt no fear, you might think it would be a good idea to go up and pet the bear. And we all know how that story would end. Page 12 of 46
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After two decades of intense martial arts practice and over 20,000 hours of sparring with people from all over the world - including world champions, people who went on to compete in the UFC, and special forces military operators - I can tell you with full confidence that just because you’re thinking or feeling a certain way, it doesn’t mean you can’t get in the ring, do your best, and kick ass. Without exception, the only time thoughts and feelings have caused me problems is when I either tried to control my fear, anger, anxiety, etc., or I allowed my inner narrative about what I was feeling to get the best of me.
Step 2: The physiological changes that happen in your body, which you
then define or recognise as fear, are going to happen with or without your consent. Said another way, if we go back to my grizzly bear example in which you turned a corner in the woods and ran into one, tell me you're not going to instantly shit yourself. And now try to tell me that somehow magically you’re going to control that fear. Probably not, right?
If you can’t control your fear, or any other emotion (anger, anxiety, etc.) for that matter, what can you do about it? I hinted at the answer in Step 1.
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What you can do is acknowledge your capacity to manage your inner state. By definition, ‘managing’ is very different than ‘controlling.’ When you manage your inner state, you recognize that it exists but then change your relationship with what is holding you back in a way that still allows you to achieve success. When you attempt to control something, you try to exert power to influence or direct either your behavior or the course of events. For example, trying to influence your behavior by telling yourself not to be afraid doesn’t help. In actual fact - and I know this from first hand experience sparring against some of the toughest men on the planet - the more you tell yourself not to be afraid, the more worked up you get, and the more you second guess yourself.
As such, your first goal is to change your relationship with the emotions that are holding you back. You must develop a subtle awareness of what it actually feels like to be hooked by strong emotions. This starts by learning how to notice feelings when they first arise. Returning to my earlier example, when I’m coaching around the world, and I feel the butterflies in my stomach and the dryness in mouth, I recognize these signals as the typical precipitants of a strong emotion, like anxiety or fear. Noticing these feelings early on allows me to catch them more quickly, before they consume me. With enough practice, you can feel what will become fear before you even label it as such. The label is the hook. It’s our story, the narrative we use to describe and justify why we’re feeling a certain way. Page 14 of 46
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Step 3: Step 3 is the crux of this practice. Once you’re able to
recognize the beginnings of a strong emotion, you’ll learn to interrupt the momentum of these feelings by slowing down your own reactions to them. In other words, you’ll teach yourself to interrupt the cycle of stimulus and response. Between the stimulus (i.e., the event that triggers the feelings) and your response (i.e., the story or narrative you use to make sense of the feelings) is a gap. Admittedly, it’s a really small gap, but once you learn to manage it, your way of dealing with unhelpful emotional states will shift. Put another way, your story will stop running you.
Step 4: This step is all about what you do during the gap between
stimulus and response. Allow me to give you an example. Imagine this scenario: I wake up in the morning in my hotel room. Today is the big day. In 2 hours, I’ll be in front of dozens of people who I’ve never met before, and I’ll be sparring with all of them. Picture it: dozens of people, all with amazing fight games, trying to punch me in the face. Now imagine repeating that experience dozens of times throughout the year.
From the moment I begin to think about the upcoming event, even as my eyes open, my physiology begins to change. But I immediately recognize that the onset of these feelings is actually my entire embodied self preparing to perform. Instead of creating a narrative Page 15 of 46
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around those feelings - like telling myself, ‘I’m afraid because…,’ ‘I’m anxious because…,’ or ‘I’m tense because…,’ - and then finding myself neck deep in internal dialogue about either trying to change the story or justify it, I simply label what I’m feeling. ‘Ah, tension’ or ‘Ah, anxiety.’ Nothing more, nothing less. With practice, I’m simply being mindful about the inner stirrings in my mind and body. I’m also slowing down my reactions to what’s happening.
Mindfulness means paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience from moment to moment. When you’re mindful, you’re able to enter into the places that you fear because you do so fully and non-judgmentally embracing the unfolding of experience from moment to moment. More importantly, you’re no longer run by your emotions. Don’t get me wrong: all the inner feelings you usually recognize as fear or anxiety are still there. The difference is that you’re not having an inner dialogue about them. You drop the story, the hook.
Being mindful enables you to be more present, focused, and astute, aware of the experience unfolding in front of you. This means your responses will be precise and not clouded by emotions which are almost always attached to unhelpful thoughts.
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Outside the night club, when I threw that guy out, and he came back at me with a right hook, I simply reacted from my fight training. In that moment - and not even realizing it at the time - my thinking mind was switched off. I didn’t have time to overthink the feelings I was having. The right hook coming my way simply didn’t give me the opportunity to. There was no gap. This is what I meant earlier when I said that the head asshole did me a favor. If we had pushed and shoved each other around for a while, as often happens scuffles, I may have begun to interpret my thoughts and feelings as apprehension and fear and I might have attached some sort of self-limiting thoughts to it.
I want to make this abundantly clear: it’s not what’s happening outside of ourselves that’s the problem. It’s not even what’s happening inside that’s the problem. The problem lies in the ways in which we interpret what happens to us, inside and out. I’m not saying you shouldn’t acknowledge how you feel. I can label my feelings as fear, but as long as that’s where it begins and ends, I give no further power to my feelings - especially not the kind of unhelpful power that attaches a story or narrative to them - which has the potential to cause you to quit or freeze.
I’ve used this approach successfully in thousands of sparring matches with some of the world’s toughest opponents. I’ve also used it successfully in business as an entrepreneur. I’ve even used it Page 17 of 46
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successfully when asked to speak publicly, my least favorite thing in the whole world. I’m not trying to blow my own horn by telling you this. I’m telling you this because if I, the kid who grew up in total fear, the kid who lived with uncontrollable anxiety, can do it, I know you can do it, too. I know that you have greatness in you. I know that you want to achieve success in your life. I know that this thing called fear is likely holding you back. I’m here to tell you that fear is only as powerful as the story you weave around and through it. Short circuit that story, go out and do what you’ve always wanted to do, and I’m telling you, you will be so surprised. You’ll realize that just because you’re thinking or feeling a certain way, those thoughts and feelings don’t define your results. The only things that can define that or stop you from reaching your personal success are the self-limiting stories you hold on to. They’re only stories, fragments of history enmeshed together to make you believe they’re real. Me punching you in the face is real. The story you choose to tell yourself about it is exactly that, whatever story you decide to tell yourself.
Now, get out there and just fucking do it! Implement this four step plan. Success is yours for the taking.
Just Fucking Do It Anyway Cycle of Success
• Something happens. Page 18 of 46
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• Feelings/Sensations/Thoughts arise. • An emotional response begins. • You recognize it and label it, ‘Ah, fear.’ • You don’t do anything more with the label. • You stay with how you’re thinking and feeling, without judgement (i.e., no story).
• You embrace the fullness of how you feel, don’t run from it, and just fucking do what you were about to do anyway.
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Intentional Success Q: ‘Hey, Rodney, what do I need to do to have an awesome boxing game like you?’
A. ‘Simply dedicate yourself to the craft for four hours a day for the next 10 years, and you will!”
People usually get quite quiet after this or more often than not, it’s common to have a barrage of excuses come flying at me.
Here’s the thing, do you want to be successful?
The truth: success doesn’t happen by accident. You must become
intentional about creating the right behaviors to ensure that it happens. Intention means taking action. Yet as obvious as this sounds, this is the biggest stumbling block for most people: taking action.
Just the other day, I downloaded a free ebook about achieving success in the inner game. The whole book was filled with affirmations. Really?! Give me a break. How is memorizing a bunch of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ affirmations going to help you succeed? It won’t, for two reasons. One: Page 20 of 46
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you’re likely lying to yourself anyway. If you don’t have the right skills, knowledge, motivation, etc. - or you aren’t doing anything to get them - lying to yourself won’t magically create them either. Secondly, these kinds of so-called success affirmations lack action. Repeating positive mantras to yourself won’t make you get your ass up off the couch and make shit happen.
You want to make stuff happen? Want to achieve your goals and live your dreams? Then start by setting an intention every single morning when you wake up. An intention isn't an affirmation; it’s a plan. As I always tell my students, ‘Luck is for people who don’t have a plan.’
When I started boxing at the age of 16, everyone was far more skilled at it than I was. I was training at a boxing gym in the midst of the city, and everyone there was hungry to succeed as a way to get out of their impoverished neighborhoods. My coach, Willie Toweel, didn’t take kindly to slackers either, so I knew right away that in order to not only survive the training but also the sparring matches in the ring, I had to develop a plan to improve.
I didn’t leave my success to chance. I got to the gym earlier than anyone else and when I didn’t have to be at school, I was the last one to leave. To be truthful, I often skipped school just to stay at the gym. I broke the game down as best as I could and kept a journal, writing Page 21 of 46
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down not only what I learned but what I needed to work on. I then set an intention to develop specific parts of my game each and every single day, no exceptions. This plan meant catching the first bus to town at 5:30 AM. It meant arriving late to school every day (when I actually went) to face the wrath of the principal. But excelling at boxing and martial arts was what I wanted more than air itself.
When you want to achieve success in a specific area of your life, it can be overwhelming. What you see as the pinnacle of success can seem so far away. You’re left asking yourself, ‘How am I ever going to get there?’ That kind of thinking can make you believe that the endeavor is simply impossible. As badly as you want to achieve your goal, it seems completely unattainable. What I learned about setting intentions for boxing is this: although you have an end goal in sight, you want to focus your attention on the process . The destination is important as it keeps you focused on the end result (See vision board in Chapter 4), but the journey is far more important.
As simple as this may sound, what allowed me to succeed was focusing on the journey, the process. I knew that I had zero talent for the boxing game. Hey, I was the kid who was never chosen for a sports team in school. I had two left feet. I also knew that as insurmountable as it seemed to become good at boxing, I was able to break the process down as best I could and start with the things easiest to succeed in. Page 22 of 46
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This is the secret to succeeding at anything at life. Decide what you want most, be completely pragmatic about it, and break it down - as best as you can - into steps that lead up to the end goal. The first steps you create shouldn't focus on the things you know you can do. Following this strategy in my boxing training, I knew that I could start with the jab and cross, move to my footwork next, then learn to defensively block punches thrown at me, and focus on evading punches later on. I didn’t begin by targeting my evasiveness on day one. Why? Because that’s a skill that can only be developed once you know how to move, are’t afraid to hit back, and have the confidence to deal with oncoming strikes.
Most people fall short of success because they want to start either where success happens or one step away from where success is certain (See the problem with perfection in Chapter 4). That would be like me going into a boxing gym at age 16, something I had never done before in my life, turning to the coach, and saying, ‘Who’s the champion here? Put me in the ring with him.’ What do you think would’ve happened? I probably would’ve gotten seriously hurt, beat up, quit that very day, and abandoned my dream of mastering the sweet science of boxing.
The opposite is also true. Unlike those of us who jump in the deep end too quickly, too many people wait for perfection. They spend so much Page 23 of 46
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time trying to make everything perfect before they launch into the unknown that they never achieve anything because they never actually go out and try to. This is why I’m a huge proponent of deciding on a goal, breaking it down into logical steps, and starting with things you know you can achieve. And yes, it will take work, but focus on getting those steps down and then move on to the next step. This is nothing like waiting for perfection before you make a move. It is setting an intention each and every day, an action plan, to work on things you know you can achieve, and then as soon as you feel yourself getting it (even if it’s not 100% perfect yet), you move to the next step. When you add up all those small steps, before you know it, you’ve achieved your goal.
Most importantly, setting an intention requires accountability. When I set an intention for the following day and decide to focus on specific first moves or steps to reach my goal, I complete them the following day - no excuses. I achieve my goals, whether it takes me 30 minutes or 3 hours. This is the kind of tenacity that success requires. Crucially, though, as I said before, your steps must focus on the areas in which you can achieve success. You begin each successive step with the confidence of knowing that you completed and achieved all the steps that came before. Each progressive step should address what you consider to be harder, further up the ladder, closer to your goal, kind of steps. This won’t make achieving your goals any less challenging, but Page 24 of 46
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because you’ve set the intention with a step-by-step manageable game plan from the onset, you WILL be able to reach them.
So, what you waiting for? Pull out a piece of paper, write down your end goal, and begin reverse engineering the process. If you don’t know what that would look like, ask someone or, better yet, ask a bunch of people who’ve already achieved the goal you’re striving for. What steps did they take, from the easiest, most attainable ones to the most complex. Then, set an intention each and every day to work though that list, starting at the bottom and progressively moving up, week by week, until (before you even realize it) you’ve arrived at your goal. Once you’ve achieved it, choose your next goal and repeat the process.
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Get Your Voodoo On: Ritualize! I’m all about rituals. I simply don’t think it is possible to be successful at anything, particularly martial arts, without them. In the old days, I used to go into the gym, throw on my boxing gloves, climb into the ring, and spar. On some days, I would have good performances and, on other days, not so good. What often confused me was the fact that these good and bad performances were against the same opponents. Now, unless my opponent miraculously improved his boxing game overnight, something else had to be going on.
Aside from my inner story throwing me off (as discussed in Chapter 1) or trying a technique that was way out of my depth (as discussed in Chapter 2), it was clear that my performance was directly linked to how focused my mind was on that particular day. I quickly realized that it was simply not possible to transition from my day outside the gym to immediately becoming hyper focused and jumping into an incredibly stressful experience like someone throwing punches at your face or trying to choke you out.
Our minds are naturally unfocused. I bet right now, as you’re reading this, you’re thinking about other things, too. These days, most of us can’t stay focused on one thing long enough to see it through. Like Page 26 of 46
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right now, I bet the TV is on in the background, or you’re checking your phone. The fact that our attention and focus are all over the place makes it even more difficult to achieve success. Every single highachieving, highly successful person, no matter whether in the ring or in a corporate career, will tell you that success requires laser-like focus.
In the previous chapter, I advised setting an intention for each day. That’s all well and good, but when you wake up, the kids are screaming, the phone is ringing off the hook, and your wife is moaning at you for not cutting the lawn. Well, before you know it, your attention is elsewhere, and you can quickly forget all about the intentions you set for the day. Having a ritual, then, is a shortcut to ensuring that you stay on track and feel focused, inspired, and energized so that you can achieve your intention.
A ritual is something you create that’s intentional. It’s what you do, without question, each time you know you have to perform. In terms of intention-setting, performance is in the action steps. Any time you take action, you’re performing, whether for yourself or others, and it takes a decisive mindset to achieve. Once I learned that just showing up at the gym and throwing on my gloves to spar was a bad idea, I began to create a pre-sparring ritual. On my way to the gym, I would listen to a specific music playlist that I created and only ever listened to before sparring. My choice of music was focused on lyrics that amped me up Page 27 of 46
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and prepared body for action. (Just ask the guys who roll or spar with me every week, they dread Eminem, but they are even more afraid of Elvis.)
Once I arrived at the gym, I wrapped my hands in the same sequence every time, starting with the left and then moving on to the right. Even putting on my gloves became a ritual. First the left, then the right. Next, my mouthguard went in, followed by a quick warm up and three deep exhales. And then: boom! I was in the ring, focused and ready to go. This ritual was so successful, like magic even, that I started creating rituals for every important thing in my life. I have a ritual before I go on stage to coach, a ritual before I’m interviewed, and the list goes on. You get the point.
Rituals are like full body, mental and physical, inner warm-ups for the fight ahead. Just like you would never exercise or spar without warming up your body, you should never go into a performance, like speaking to people who matter, a business meeting, a presentation etc, without doing some inner warm-ups. Rituals get your head in the game. They focus your mind on what’s about to happen. Much like a pre-workout warm-up for your body, rituals ensure that you don’t injure your mind.
The fact that most people’s minds are all over the place all the time means that it’s really hard for them to just switch on and become Page 28 of 46
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focused. We all know that we do our best work and achieve the most gains when we’re focused. But because it’s so tough to lock into focus, entering into something you know is important without an inner warm up can be disastrous. If you typically second guess yourself in the situation you’re about to face, or your thinking mind usually goes crazy with past or future thoughts, expect things to be even worse if you don’t set your mind for success before you start. This is why a ritual is so essential. It’s about setting your mind for success before you’re called upon to perform.
I know from my own experience that if I set an intention or intentions for the following day and then pop out of bed in the morning, trying to make them all happen right way, things often don’t turn out well. But if I start my day with a success ritual, a ritual I crafted to help me focus for the day on achieving and doing my best, then accomplishing the intentions I’ve set for myself becomes far more manageable. Sometimes, when my day isn't going well, I take 5 minutes out to do what I call a ‘reset ritual.’ Yup, I have one of those too.
I learned the value of a reset ritual from my sparring experiences. If you know anything about boxing or mixed martial arts, or if you’ve ever had to spar a few rounds, you know there are breaks between the rounds. And those one minute breaks can feel like a lifetime. It’s not uncommon for a person to overthink what just happened during the previous Page 29 of 46
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round. As they begin to think about what happened, they may get down on themselves and frustrated with their performance. Not only does this take their focus away from the present moment (See Chapter 1), it also ensures that they will go into the next round thinking about all the wrong stuff and likely second guess themselves. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me, so I decided to do something about it. I created a reset ritual, or between round routine, that allowed me to let go of everything that happened during the previous round, enabling me to become centred and stay present while avoiding steering into thoughts of what might happen in the next round. It’s like having voodoo magic over your opponent. Harnessing this approach can completely derail your opponent. Perhaps he performed really well in the first round and thinks you’ll likely come into the second round feeling slightly defeated, only to find that you’re not. You are there, baby, and 100% ready to go. Boooooooom!
This approach can be applied throughout your life, not just in the boxing ring. Let’s say you’re in a tough meeting, things didn’t go so well, and there’s a break before you have to go back in. Instead of stuffing yourself with pastries or horrible cheap coffee, find a quiet place and walk yourself through your reset ritual. When you have to give your next presentation, don't go in cold. Make sure you do your pre-presentation ritual. Your ritual can include whatever you like, as long as: Page 30 of 46
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• It’s positive. • It’s designed specifically to get you feeling pumped for the experience you’re about to have.
• It's novel. Don’t be boring. Create an experience that will tell your whole being that it’s time to kick ass. Rituals can include music, clothing, food, videos, etc. Feel free to combine them however you like.
• It’s used only for that specific experience you’re preparing for. Don’t use the same ritual for every important event. Doing this trivializes the ritual and dilutes its impact.
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Live For The Booooooom! The boom of life is explosive. It’s unpredictable, and it can change at a moment’s notice. This is exactly why you need to get clear on what you REALLY want and NEED in your life. What will it look like when you’re successful, when you’ve finally arrived? Don't just say it, see it.
I have a vision board in my office. That board features everything I want to achieve: the next house I want to live in; the off-the-grid, selfsufficient farm I dream of owning; and the next audience of entrepreneurs I strive to reach. Seeing that vision board every morning as I walk into my office keeps me motivated. When I tie my vision into feeling the fear and doing it anyway (See Chapter 1), knowing that my intentions for the day will bring me one more step closer to that vision (See Chapter 2), and ensuring that I energize my body and mind to take on the day by completing my rituals (See Chapter 3), I know deep in my heart that success is achievable.
That said, much of what I’ve learned about success is an attitude. My favorite saying in the whole world is:
I live for the boooooooom! Page 32 of 46
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The ‘boooooooom’ means so many things to me. I get a charge from the excitement of working on my aspirations. I love the challenge, especially when I achieve something everyone told me would be impossible, like those miserable teachers who told me I would never amount to anything. I’m completing my PhD, so take that.
‘Living for the Booooooooom’ also means having grit, especially when things get tough and don’t go your way. (Welcome to life.) It’s about holding yourself accountable for your own actions, even when making an excuse and blaming others is far easier. As a martial artist and coach, I know that I can’t ask someone to do something unless I'm prepared to do it myself. When I tell my students what’s required physically, mentally, and emotionally to spar a tough opponent who has the potential to kick their ass, I know from firsthand experience, because I’ve fought some of the toughest people on the planet.
There were tons of times when I was afraid, tons of times when I believed I couldn't take on a particular opponent. But I did. What stood out to me most was that I was never actually afraid of getting hurt, the one thing I should’ve been afraid of. In fact, when my students are really honest with themselves, they realize that they’re not afraid of being physically hurt either. That's not what makes them afraid of sparring an opponent.
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Our fears are almost always created psychologically and are often completely irrational: the fear of looking bad in front of others, of messing up and looking like a failure, of saying we’re going to achieve something and then not doing it. That’s why it’s easier to create an excuse - blaming others, circumstances, lack of resources, or lack of know-how - than to say, ‘I failed myself.’
You can make as many as you like, but no amount of excuses ever helped anyone overcome obstacles or achieve personal success. So, as basic as it sounds, you can either make excuses and live a life of mediocrity or accept life as imperfect and go for what you want. Fearlessness is an attitude. It doesn’t suggest that fear does’t exist but rather accepts fear as always there, like it or not. So, you can either move toward what you want or allow fear to hold you back.
The heart of living the booooooom lies in recognizing that imperfection is just what is needed to achieve success. You need the contrast. As Thomas Carlyle noted, “Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.” In other words, if you want to wait until everything is perfect before you move toward what you want most in your life diet, mindset, resources, knowledge - well, get ready, because you’e going to be waiting for a long time. When you finally wake up and
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realize the fatal flaw of this strategy, life will have passed you by and windows of opportunities closed.
Allow me to let you in on something they never told you in school: perfection is the enemy of success.
Simply put: If we strive for perfection before committing to action, we’re all but guaranteed to never achieve anything worthwhile. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not against perfection. I’m simply trying to draw attention to the fact that waiting for the perfect moment or striving for perfection can keep us stuck where we are: in the mud of life. In other words, the ideal of perfection should never serve as fodder for inaction (remember what we said about setting intentions in Chapter 2).
Rather than waiting for perfection, you're much better served to prepare as best you can - by managing your fears, setting intentions, and utilizing your rituals - and then begin by taking the first step while maintaining your awareness of any errors or missteps along the way. Use your action and interaction with the world around you as a source of feedback and then course correct as you go. Aim for constant improvement rather than striving for the impossible ideal of pure perfection.
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As both a successful martial artist and entrepreneur, I’ve realized that if you're ever going to reach your goals in the ring, in business, or in life, you must begin by accepting that peak performance—success itself—is a process steeped in imperfection. Perfection is an illusion. Nothing has taught me that more powerfully than my career as a martial artist for over two decades. In martial arts training, for example, we try to get as close to perfection as possible, but in actual application - when faced with a real, uncooperative, resisting opponent - we seek only a satisfactory ‘approximation’ of the perfect ideal. In other words, while perfection is something to strive for, it will never be achieved, at least not in the way we imagine. And when things don’t turn out like we imagined, we return to the same old excuses. Like it or not, we simply do’nt have that degree of control over anything in our lives.
My personal journey to embracing the ‘mess’ (i.e., imperfection) began when I read this quote by philosopher Alan Watts: “To Taoism, that which is absolutely still or absolutely perfect is absolutely dead, for without the possibility of growth and change there can be no Tao [the way]. In reality there is nothing in the universe which is completely perfect or completely still; it is only in the minds of men that such concepts exist.”
I can’t tell you how long it took me to fully grasp this. I’m not even sure I like the uneasy truth of it. But, anyone who’s practiced martial arts and Page 36 of 46
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who’s sparred with great skill knows that however successful you might be in training, all of your training can quickly fall by the wayside the moment you face a real opponent. In a real fight, with all of its unpredictability and chaos, often the best laid plans of fighters instantly evaporate. Sounds a lot like business and life, too, eh?
Knowing this, what can we do about it?
Rather than try to overcome imperfection, one should learn to embrace it, to see its beauty. The Japanese have a wonderful term for this: “wabi-sabi,” an ability to perceive beauty in imperfection. The character Katsumoto in the The Last Samurai captures this understanding. Early in the movie he says, “The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one." But toward the end of the movie, as he gazes upon thousands of cherry blossoms, and with his dying breath, he says, “Perfect . . . they are all . . . perfect.” He has come to understand that perfection is an illusion and that there is great beauty and possibility in imperfection.
In life, we are constantly pushed to achieve perfection. Mistakes are often ridiculed, or worse, punished. Everyone who has suffered through Western schooling will recognize this intense and relentless focus on getting things ‘just right’ and avoiding the scourge of mistakes. As author and motivational consultant, Marcus Buckingham, notes, when a Page 37 of 46
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child comes home with a report card, parents typically focus more on the D’s or F’s than on the B’s or A’s. As a child, you’re sent for extra lessons in the subjects you’re struggling with. Instead of taking this approach, Buckingham advises that parents focus on their child’s strengths: “You grow the most in the area where you already show some natural advantage, some natural area of talent or strength or passion. That's where you start.” And the research agrees. According to a survey of more than two million people, Gallup researchers discovered that while weakness-fixing can prevent failure, it’s strengthbuilding that actually leads to success in the short- and long-term.
The paradox, however, is that in order to find those strengths, you have to be willing and allowed to make mistakes, to embrace imperfection. Through this experience, you can discover what you’re really good at. So, while we strive for perfection in the future, we embrace imperfection in the present, using it as building blocks for growth and development. Research confirms, again and again, that superstars - in any field - did not start out with overwhelming talent. Sure, they might have started with a slight edge, but the real difference in the long run is that they simply worked much, much harder than the rest of us. They embraced their imperfection as well as their slight edge and built on that. To be sure, this principle of building on imperfection applies to all areas of our lives, including our hobbies and professions.
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At it’s heart, wabi-sabi implies not only that perfection is an illusion but that trying to be perfect actually leads to stagnation, as Alan Watts noted. While we may not live in a perfect world, we do live in a world filled with possibilities. But moving from possibilities to real accomplishments requires action, not action tomorrow when you think everything will be perfect but rather action right now, when you know everything isn’t perfect. As bestselling author and personal development trainer, Marie Forleo, noted, so many budding entrepreneurs fail because they never get started. They are constantly waiting for things to be perfect. As I mentioned earlier, perfection is the enemy of action.
First as a martial artist and later as an entrepreneur, I learned the hard way that I will never be 100% ready for anything. This is true for all of us, including you. You have to take some risk, launch yourself into action, and then figure out the rest as you go along. Marc Ecko, American fashion designer, entrepreneur, and artist, in a video interview with Chase Jarvis, said much the same thing when he talked about taking action, telling his team that all they need to do is “…just get in the vicinity . . . like 70 percent,” and then, “because I know I am smart enough, or we are self-aware enough, that we will make up that delta between the 70 and the 100 percent.”
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I realize how scary this can be for many people. But it’s not their fault. They’ve been conditioned to believe that everything has to be ‘just right’ before they can move to the next level. This belief is often created by schooling and reinforced by parenting. As adults, we belong to a society designed to ensure continued conformity. Every single piece of advertising and marketing repeatedly tells us that imperfection is bad and that perfection is not only possible but easily achievable. Just think of the photoshopped models on the covers of magazines. We all know that no one really looks so perfect in real life. Marketing is designed to make us feel inadequate in terms of our own identities and circumstances.
Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher, observed: “One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.” And so they search for more knowledge and hold onto what they already ‘know' in the vain hope of finding answers, even when the ‘answers' are no longer applicable to their current situation. It reminds me of the famous quote attributed to Einstein, something to the effect of ‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
Ironically, the true application of knowledge, whether in the ring, in business, or in life, requires translating, or transforming, knowledge from the thinking mind into embodied action. And here’s the clincher: in Page 40 of 46
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order to translate knowledge into action, we have to move into the unknown. In other words, there’s really no way to hold onto tangible knowledge once you decide to express it through the body in action.
As the late Richard Feynman, a world-renowned physicist, so eloquently put it: “I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain. . . . In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”
A good starting point is to accept the fact that just because something might seem imperfect doesn’t mean it's unworkable. Applying knowledge, therefore, requires action. And action, by its very nature, always takes place in the present moment, where neither answers (past) nor questions (future) exist. The present moment is also precisely where wabi-sabi resides. The beauty of imperfection, then, calls on us to fully embrace the moment. And as anyone who has tried to ‘live in the moment’ realizes, it takes a lot of practice. You can increase your chances of succeeding more in the moment if you follow the 4 ideas presented in this ebook.
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• Learn to manage your fear, not control it. • Set daily intentions. • Build powerful rituals to create success. • See imperfection as an opportunity to excel. Craft a vision board, too, to keep yourself focused on those goals, especially in times of unpredictability.
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Final Thoughts The 4 strategies I’ve shared with you in this short ebook have helped me achieve great success, as a modern martial artist, entrepreneur, and now wannabe author. (Remember, I never finished high school.)
I’ve used these 4 strategies to grab life by the balls and win unconventionally. I say ‘unconventionally’ because most of what’s out there in in terms of ‘success strategies’ doesn't work. The strategies I present in this ebook do, and I’m living proof of that.
Of course, these 4 strategies are not the full story. There are many more principles I share each and every day in my talks and coaching gigs around the world. You can find out more about them here:
www.coachrodneyking.com or www.embodiedgrowthhacks.com
If you think you won’t have the opportunity to train with me, even virtually, then check out my book, Full Contact Living, where I share even more strategies to right hook life:
www.fullcontactliving.org/book
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If you’re into martial arts and using your martial arts game to become a success in life, check out my online 10X Martial Arts Game membership program here:
www.coachrodneyking.com/10-x-your-martial-art-game
Finally, if you have success with anything I’ve shared here, please let me know. I would love to hear from you. Now go out there, right hook life, and nail it between the legs. I know you can.
To Your Success!
Rodney King
[email protected]
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About Coach Rodney King Rodney holds a Master’s Degree in Leading Innovation and Change from York St. John University’s School of Business. He is currently a doctoral student, pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Leicester’s School of Management. His research topic is Embodied Leadership with a specific focus on mindfulness as applied to leadership in action.
Rodney is an internationally renowned martial arts and leadership coach. He has worked with Army Special Forces on developing highperformance mindsets during intense engagement. He has instructed law enforcement officers in the United States, Canada, and Germany on how to protect themselves when all else fails. He has worked closely with corporate executives, emerging leaders, and CEO’s to raise their Inner Game and gain the winning edge, both mentally and emotionally, to enhance their careers.
After starting his first company at age 18, Rodney went on to develop coaching courses for modern martial arts, leadership development, and Page 45 of 46
