- I could spend days
talking about how martial art has influenced my life
and my business
as an entrepreneur, as a human being.
Obviously I am a practitioner of Jeet Kune Do,
Bruce Lee's martial art.
So no doubt that Bruce Lee's philosophy
has a profound impact
in my life, in my thinking
so I'll just share some with you.
One of the key philosophies
that I have learned from Bruce Lee is the water principle.
If you remember, I'll see if I can act it out,
"be formless, shapeless like water,
you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,
you put water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle,
you put a teapot, it becomes the teapot,
water can flow, or it can crash,
be water my friend,"
if you remember that from the last interview that he did
and so very much so I believe now you look at,
especially now during the crisis,
a lot of companies that have been around for a long time,
that in fact, in Vancouver,
a company that's been around over a hundred years
just went bankrupt.
So it's no longer the biggest that survives
or the strongest that survives,
or even the most intelligent,
it is the companies, the businesses
that are the most adaptable to change.
So very much like the water principle
that we need to be able to be adaptable, be flexible,
to be able to change something that it's not working
to something that works,
just because something that works in the past,
doesn't mean it works today,
just because something that works today,
doesn't mean it works tomorrow.
So I believe even in my business career
that many, many times
that I have had to let go of something that's working,
not letting go of something that's not working,
but something that is kind of working
but then to let that go and say no,
we are going to change, we're going to adapt,
we're going to reinvent and go to do something else,
right?
One of the key questions I ask all entrepreneurs,
something that you should ask yourself is this,
what could put you out of business?
What could put you out of business?
And then you want to predict that thing
and then you want to be the one
that put yourself out of business
to break the existing model that you have
and then you innovate and go from there,
versus waiting for someone to disrupt your business
and your industry, you disrupt your own business,
so that would be the first philosophy, be water.
The second one is also from Jeet Kune Do
which is, "using no way as the way,
as the way of having no limitation as limitation."
And in the first one I learned about this,
well, what does Bruce mean, like using no way as the way?
It means that you are not restricted
in terms of your thinking,
you look at most business owners, most people, right,
they operate in a certain industry,
they operate in a certain way,
they have what I call a tunnel vision.
this is how they see it.
Well, that's the way that everybody does it, right?
It's like in martial art,
not everybody does it a certain way, right?
You've karate, you've tucking, you're boxing
but now of course,
a lot of the mixed martial arts philosophies are like that,
that you learn from boxing, that you learn from kickboxing,
you learn from Brazilian jiu-jitsu,
you learn from wrestling,
you take the best from different arts
and then you combine them,
you digest it, internalize it
and I think business is the same way
just because someone is doing business
or conducting business a certain way,
marketing a certain way
doesn't mean you have to do it
because that's the way
that everybody does it in your industry.
And having no limitation in your thinking,
having no limitation as the limitation,
I think that is also tied to thinking bigger,
thinking grander, thinking further
that had a huge impact in my life as well.
And I think the last philosophy
that has the most impact in my life
is the concept of martial art
is a way of expressing yourself, right?
Bruce talks about, it's very hard to do,
how to express yourself
and I think business is the same way.
So in martial art,
you're not actually competing with other people
you're competing with yourself.
One of the key things I've learned
from my martial art instructor, my Sifu is
he said, "Dan martial art, it is a process,
a never ending process of eliminating self defect."
You're not competing with anybody else, but yourself,
you're not trying to say I'm bigger than you,
I'm stronger than you, I could hit harder than you,
it is truly a self discovery process,
so I think business is very much the same way.
I always say that the definition of an entrepreneur is
an entrepreneur is an artist in commerce, right?
We are expressing our ideas, our creativity, our innovations
through a business vehicle, that's all that is.
So you think about where Disney,
it is very much an expression of Walt Disney,
you think about Apple, it is an expression of Steve Jobs,
you think about Tesla, it is expression of Elon Musk, right?
Amazon same thing, right?
An expression of Jeff.
So you think about these things no different than what I do,
my business and extension is an expression of me, right?
So I think using that, Martial Arts philosophies in business,
I think it's the same thing.
That is the business and you,
they're very much interconnected
that you are expressing your ideas, your philosophies,
through building something,
taking an idea, taking a need in the marketplace
and creating something,
a product, a service, a vehicle, a business,
go out there in the marketplace and fulfill that need
that's not being fulfilled by other people.
So those would be the three, I think, big philosophies
that how martial art has influenced my life.
If you have any other questions,
now we are back in Boss in the Bentley,
nice to see businesses slowly opening up
and more people walking down the street and being active,
so it's nice to see that.
Any questions, comment below
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Until then I'll see you in my Bentley.