Hey by the way, I’m doing everything here for free. You should go to my ShaolinInteractive.com website. And sign up for my Kung Fu classes. Yeah. That’s my advertisement.
Okay. This is– I’m reading from the Dao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. Written 2,000 or some years ago. 2,500 years ago. 2,200. And I made my own version of it called– you can see back here over my shoulder: The Tao of Taoism – Using the Dao Te Ching to Improve Your Daily Life.
Here we go. I’m on page 26 and this is NUMBER 15. Now in this case. What we’re talking about, he’s got — I’m looking at it. It says, FOUR LEVELS OF INFLUENCE. And there’s four numbers here and four things.
Number 1: These are “Four Levels of Influence.” Condemnation of Conduct.
In other words, “condemn.” We’re telling someone they’re doing something bad. That’s how you can influence somebody. That’s one. You condemn their conduct.
Number 2: Fear of punishment or denied rewards.
Now he’s saying, “If this is bad–This is gonna happen.”
Number 3: Motivate by loyalty, honor, self-interest, money, rewards and flattery.
That’s a positive, but you’re bribing.
First one is you condemn them. You make them feel bad.
The second one is you actually make them fear something that makes you disliked.
Third one is to be bribed.
And the fourth one is to influence without those being influenced being aware of it.
So, can you just communicate with people and get them to kind of go along with you without effort. So in that way, you’re influencing them without them realizing you are influencing them. So through slogans, and emotions, or– There’s lots of ways you can do that.
I’m watching our President do this– It’s amazing watching politics 2020. I never realized how corrupt and evil and whatever it is–and can so easily be. It’s going to be interesting to see how in the future people can use politics to create good things for the purpose of good. Because we’re really seeing it used for the powers of corruption. Those wheels in power could be changed to where corruption isn’t making all the final decisions. I’m in an interesting world. So the future has some interesting possibilities. See what happens.
So anyway, FOUR LEVELS OF INFLUENCE.
So regarding those now under your influence or that you influence: students, children, your employees: How do you use condemnation of conduct to influence and control them?
So how do you condemn. Like, make a rule: “No spitting on the sidewalk.” You’ve condemned it. How do you condemn their conduct?
Number 2 or next: How do you use fear of punishment or denied reward: “Spit on the sidewalk is a $50 fine.” Okay answer that. Take it up a notch.
How do you use fear of punishment or denied reward?
How do motivate by loyalty, honor, money, rewards and flattery?
Hey! Those who don’t spit on the sidewalk can join my special club and have free pizza. [laughs]
How do use motivate by loyalty, honor, money, rewards or flattery to get people to do what you want?
And fourth: How do you influence without those being influenced being aware of it? So how do you influence people without them being aware of it?
That’s more subtle. Like by good example. Nicest one is set a good example and that influences people’s behavior.
I’ve caused a lot of trouble over the years by picking up trash. When I’d walk my kids to school, I just couldn’t ignore it. So me and my kids started picking up the trash. When we moved to Tujunga there was a lot of trash. So little by little cars started honking at me. As they went by. They’d see what we were doing. And then next thing I know the neighbors of course are talking about it. The whole street all the way up to the school was not one single piece of trash. [laughs] And so we kind of got a reputation. I started to see other people do it.
Similar thing happened at an apartment complex where I was living. Most of the people there– The landlord was getting subsidized by the government for bringing people from South America and Central America. That type for some reason. That’s what he told me. In fact he said he’d previously been getting subsidies for another race, but I won’t get into that. He was just picking any way he could make a profit. So anyway, he had all these immigrants in this part of the building I moved into and, boy: I learned a lot about knife fighting and women fighting I saw. I saw more violent face shredding than I’d ever seen in my life during that time I lived there at the apartments.
Anyway, it turns out that in Central America one of the ways you lower a woman in marriage and families. Really the only business for a woman down there. If you can scar a woman and scratch her face, then not only do you win that fight– but now within the local pool of marriageable women–you’ve now become the better choice than the woman who’s got a scarred face. So I saw that. That was weird. I could have gone my whole life without imagining that kind of thing.
But anyway.
Which of these four techniques do you use most?
So of those four things, which do you use the most? Everybody has a tendency to use one more than the other. So which one of those?
Which of the four techniques are you best at?
Which obviously means you’ve used it the most too. So of all those four techniques–which are you best at? Bribing. Giving honor. Humiliating. Or punishing? Which are you best at?
And punishing can just be denying something too. Just not giving that something. Or not giving them your love. That’s punishment.
How can you improve your–
Oh, Which of these four techniques SHOULD you use more?
Which of these four techniques should you use more?
Maybe your life has changed. So reconsider. You’re dealing with a different type of people. Maybe they’re not kids–they’re adults. So you have to change you have to change your mode of operation here.
How can you improve your ability to motivate others?
Yeah, reconsider. Reconsider which modes to use. And use the right one. I’m not saying what’s right or wrong. I’m just saying, know what you’re doing and make sure you’re using the right one.
— Which of these techniques work best on YOU? And why?
Now there’s a very good question. Are you better if someone threatens you? If they flatter you? Or whether they punish you. Or you’re bribed. Which do you work best under.
What is the basis of your self-discipline and motivation?
So everyone has some amount of self-discipline and motivation. Some people have very little. Bu push youut still, what is the basis of it. How come you have whatever you have? What is it? What are you self-motivated to do? What can you push yourself to do. And if you can push yourself to do something, beyond just wanting to eat or take a shower when you start to smell– How do you do it on a regular basis.
How do you do something that’s disciplined, regulated?
And what is the basis of that training?
How can you be motivated without any external rewards?
So, in other words: what does it take for YOU to be motivated to do something?
If I want you to do something for me–wash my car. [laughs] How could I get you to do it? Without bribing you? How could I get you to do it without bribing you? Might be pretty hard but-
How willingly do you sacrifice your spare time for money? Spare time for money.
So that’s time you don’t have to work. So you’re working and maybe you’ve got extra time. You’re not married and you don’t have kids. You could watch football. Or maybe you could actually take on a part-time job.
So, how willingly do your sacrifice your spare time for money? That’s specific.
Next. Last one: What is the least amount per hour you’ll work for and why? That’s an interesting question of course.
What’s the least amount you’ll work for, per hour, and why that particular amount.
Okay. Daily Daoist here. And that was NUMBER 15: “4 Levels of Influence“
How are you influenced?
So this is yuour relationship with your Tao. The Tao. Remember the Tao includes people with jobs and stuff too. It’s part of the Nature you live in. If it’s a little unnatural it’s still part of your Tao. Your Nature you live in. So all those things affect you .
So your relationship with your job, your money, your work…
Anyway, if you’re HERE, you must be interested in understanding yourself.
Hey. Buddha Zhen back. I’m enjoying being THE DAILY TAOIST. This is totally cool. I’m pumping out a whole bunch of these– Here’s my author copy of this book, TAO OF TAOISM – Using the Dao Te Ching to Improve Your Life. Written by Lao Tzu. I just took a bunch of translations of and said, “I don’t this guy’s got it… And I don’t think this guy’s got it…” Because I don’t translate Chinese. So I had to like take the translations, and what I knew of it, and from being part of the religion and the lifestyle for years and years. And try to see what makes sense. What was he really saying that I would say, “Harmonizes with the truth.” You know, the reality of using it in life.
I’ve been using Taoism since the eighties. Since… yeah… So if anybody could tell you what it is– [laughs] It should be somebody who’s been using it on a daily basis and teaching it to people. Inserting it in people and seeing how it affects them. Same with Buddhism. I called myself a “BUDDHIST SCIENTIST” for about twenty years. Because I considered myself, and all my students, and everything, were–I’m being facetious: I thought “lab rats” you know. But they’re– But they’re my test subjects in a way. They’re my children. And I’m constantly seeing the effects. I’m concerned. I don’t just throw stuff at them. “Hey, here’s some old wisdom.” SPLAT. “Here’s some more wisdom.” SPLAT. No, I like, look at it. Flavor it, and shape it. And say, “Okay. Can you understand that?” Then I come back, “How’s it working?” “How’d you like it?” “How’d it come out?” So anyway, I’ve kind of been able to see the effects of the Taoism and the Buddhism over the years. Confucianism too.
Actually no, the Confucianism– I wish. I didn’t start into that until about 2011. Sorry. Well I couldn’t tell you the affects of that. Because if I did I could’ve saved all kinds of marriages and businesses because that’s what that’s for. Marriages, businesses and politics. That’s what Confucius is for. Teaching. Oh that’s what I heard. I thought somebody was at my front door. Light’s falling down. And uh– I hope it’s going to stay there.
“Is that going to stay there Bear?” If that thing goes it’s gonna really pop. It’s a 150W bulb. Let me go and move it real quick.
“Bear. Why did that move?” It wants to keep moving. Alright.
Okay. So I’m back. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll edit that out. As much as I’m an iPhoneographer. I’m getting all the software in my phone and everything–I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. But I’m figuring it out. You can actually go to my other channel: Richard Del Connor at YouTube: You can see music videos and things that I’m making. So I’m learning how to use a gimbal. I’m learning how to use my iPhone. I’m learning how to use LumaFusion. I’m shooting in Filmic Pro. And then I’m learning how to actually then– well, just getting it off my phone and then getting it onto a hard drive. And then backing it up is a lot of work. I’m just figuring this out. So anyway.
Here we go. The Daily Taoist.
And we’re on NUMBER 14. What’d I do? I took two minutes and forty-two seconds of your time just getting started here? Sorry about that.
Oh! By the way. Never say you’re sorry unless you’re gonna do it again.
That’s one my slogans. And here I am–an anti-slogan person. But that’s actually something that I want everybody to realize. Look! It’s 100% true.
Everybody I tell people they always come back and go, “Yeah, you’re right about that.”
Never say you’re “sorry” unless you’re gonna do it again.
And if anybody ever says they’re “sorry” you can expect them to do it again.
So don’t say you’re “sorry.”
You can say you won’t do it again though. That’s different.
Here we go. NUMBER 14.
Watch it. Check– Watch yourself. When you say you’re sorry for something. It’ll be something you’ve done before. You’ll catch yourself. I said, “I’m sorry,” for that. And I did it to that guy. You know he’s stubbing his toe or–whatever it is. But yeah. Watch.
So don’t say you’re “sorry” and you’ll stop making mistakes.
The Daily Taoist here. Confusing you. [laughs] The truth is cool.
NUMBER 14. This is written by Lao Tzu supposed– well, originally. And then translated by other people and then me–synthesized into this book to make it more useful. But Lao Tzu’s book, Dao Te Ching is being presented to you in my Tao of Taoism by me, Buddha Zhen. I’m actually Richard Del Connor. If you want to look at my license.
Here we go, NUMBER 14: Nature (and this is with a capital ‘N’ despite it being at the first–start of the paragraph). Nature cannot be measured or controlled. Yet, the operations of Nature (with a capital ‘N’) can be understood.
I’m using ‘Nature’ for ‘The Tao.’ Because there’s different versions. You could just call it, “The Tao.” I’m going to call “Nature” and “Tao” are the same thing. Okay?
Understanding the forces in motion creates an awareness of Nature. (The Tao).
This awareness comes from an inner harmony of each person that mirrors the outer workings of Nature.
Oops. Let’s read it. I’ve got to read it again.
So only by living naturally can one understand or be aware of Nature.
This is where people get all messed up. This is one of the ones that confuses people. They think they all the sudden have to become a plant to understand what a plant is. And you gotta act like a monkey to be a– to understand what a monkey is.
I’m not saying that but– He’s– Let’s just break it down real fast.
I really want to take the mumbo jumbo and the mystical godliness out of this. Cuz this is not a godly thing. Remember, this is science. This is science. It’s not God.
Here we go: Nature cannot be measured or controlled.
The Earth, its rotation, the seasons, the up and down things… The clouds. The moving. Whatever. Or gravity– Cannot be measure or controlled. That’s kind of what it’s saying. Everything. The reality– Okay? Nature… I’ve got that.
It’s beyond our control. We’re popped in here. Splat. We exist in it. I was comparing it to a big bowl of soup we’re in… we’re in the middle of you know. Moving around in this bowl of soup. We’re here for a little while and then we’re gone. The soup’s still here. Still going on. But we just come and go… within the soup. (Nature.)
Okay. So: Yet the = operations of Nature can be understood. So in other words they can’t really be measured or controlled because they change all the time. Even measuring what the temperature is on a certain day is going to be different that the next day. You can measure it, but you can’t really predict that it’s going to be the same. It’s always in flux, or– So anyway, that’s what we’re trying to say.
But you can understand it. You can understand it’s colder in the winter. You may not know exactly what temperature it is. You can’t measure it and predict in the next year in the same day it’s going to be the same temperature. And the same clouds… But you can understand in a broader sense. That’s what he’s trying to say.
Yet the operations of Nature– (The seasons and such. The day versus night.) –Can be understood.
Okay. So there’s our first two. The simple pragmatic science. Don’t get caught up in mystical mumbo jumbo again.
I don’t mind mystical mumbo jumbo. This isn’t the place for it. It’s not intended.
Ready?
Understanding the forces in motion creates an awareness of Nature.
Forces in motion: the seasons, the winds… The wind that comes before the storm. The kind of clouds that come to bring rain. The clouds that come that don’t bring rain. Understanding all these forces in motion. If you understand–you have an awareness of Nature. See? So you can start to understand–to recognize things. An awareness of Nature.
That’s good. So we’ve got the first three sentences. To be a scientist you’ve just gotta study things. Go take a meteorology class. One of my regrets: I never got one.
Here we go.
This awareness comes from an inner harmony of each person that mirrors the outer workings of Nature.
Aaaaaahhh. This is where it gets more complicated. And this is where people– If you’re really, like President Trump. He’s very out of harmony with Nature. I mean anybody I think–even his fans and supporters agree with that. This guy’s totally out of balance. [laughs] He’s miserable. He’s unhappy. He looks unhappy. He gives off negative energy. Hes an ugly creature. Anyway. Poor guy. You know, he’s just all messed up. His thinking’s wrong. He’s never gonna be happy because he’s working in a system that can never exist. His view of reality doesn’t exist. So he’s just all day long fighting to try to trick everybody to what reality is. And he’s not in any reality at all. He’s just living in this made up world in his brain that can never exist. Because even if it does it’s a crime and he’s gonna get in trouble. He’s gotta– Even if it exists he’s gotta get the money and run. [laughs] He never wants to be anywhere where he’s gonna be stuck. That’s his dilemma. He can never hold still. And if he does hold still he’s gonna get handcuffed. So he’s gotta keep moving. So that’s out of harmony with Nature.
Sorry to use him as a radical example. He just came to mind first. But he doesn’t understand the forces of Nature. He has no concern about Nature. He lives in his big city and…
Here we go.
Okay. So why’d I even point him out? Because his lack of awareness– he’s the opposite of what the next sentence is.
This awareness comes from an inner harmony.
Now, his inner harmony–
Of each person that mirrors the outer workings of Nature.
He does not mirror the outer workings of Nature. That’s why he makes people so unhappy. Nobody would want him for their babysitter. Nobody’d want him for their mother. He does not mirror Nature. If he does he mirrors the kind of Nature you shouldn’t be around like a crocodile. He’s just gonna eat you and drag you underwater. Doesn’t care. So anyway, maybe he does kind of mirror a part of Nature. Wow. Actually. Maybe Lao Tzu’s more right than I think. He’s saying even when you’r wrong–
This awareness–
Well he’s trying to talk in the positive. He’s saying that if you have an understanding that comes from your inner understanding which is in balance. Okay.
So what happens when you have an inner harmony that’s not in balance. That means you can never understand Nature. Or appreciate Nature. Never appreciate the other people in Nature. Keeps you completely separate from everyone. Because you have no balance that anyone should actually be attracted to. Which is the other problem. The people that are attracted to that imbalance are the people with the same imbalance. Kind of creates a– Yeah.
Okay. Now. So, last sentence: Only by living naturally. In other words, ‘naturally’ means in harmony with Nature. Not opposed to it. But comfortably living in harmony with it. Where there’s peace, accord and contentment… Can you understand or be aware of Nature.
See. That’s why he can’t be aware of it. He doesn’t have inner harmony. Doesn’t have that balance. He can’t sense it. He can’t feel it. It’s beyond him.
So I’m using him as an example. Hopefully he doesn’t represent you. Um, my family is…There’s all kinds of people like this. Let’s put it that way… that are not in balance with Nature.
And the ones that are in balance with Nature. That’s a step forward. But that doesn’t make you a complete person. That just means that you– at least physically can be a successful animal. So that’s all this is doing… is helping you to be a better animal…
Okay? That was NUMBER 14. What? I spent eleven minutes just explaining it? [laughs] I got carried away. That’s why I’m doing this. So I can get a lot of this out of my system. When I do the audiobook version of this I hope I won’t talk so much. The book’s gonna be too long for anyone to read or listen to.
Here we go.
But that’s why I like this as The Daily Taoist though. I was thinking of trying to keep this at five or six minutes. I’m already at eleven, thirty-three.
Let me just blast down. Let’s see how far we get. Maybe it’s gonna be a 20-minute thing today.
Ready? You on board? Because I’m gonna need a few minutes to unpack all this. There’s a bunch of questions here.
Explain your–
In fact, I’ll go fast. Because these are so vague and I’m not gonna elaborate on them. If I do it’ll take a long time. So let’s just see how fast I can go. It’s twelve minutes now. See how fast I can go.
Explain your understanding of Nature.
Explain your understanding of Nature.
Right now. I’ve changed. I was a Native American for some years. Following those traditions. I was a pipe carrier. Doing smudge… Anyway.
How do the forces of Nature influence your life?
They used to influence mine alot.
And again. I’m in a different situation now.
You. How do the forces of Nature influence your life?
Okay? Explain your inner harmony?
Remember that inner harmony we were talking. Here it says, “The awareness comes from an inner harmony of each person that mirrors the outer workings of Nature.”
So let’s look at your inner harmony and see how thatnat’s somehow a mirror of Nature.
So in other words if you live in a very cold igloo then you’re gonna mirror– your harmony of Nature is gonna be a little different than some guy one who lives next to the beach. So you’ll have a different inner harmony maybe. I don’t know. That would be intersting to find out. I’d like to talk to both you guys: Igloo and the guy on the beach. Compare your perspectives of reality.
Here we go.
Oh. How does your inner harmony mirror the forces of Nature?
See? Once agin. The igloo versus the beach. How are you mirroring Nature?
Once again: How does your inner harmony mirror the forces of Nature?
Explain how your life is natural.
So somebody in Arizona might have a different natural life than somebody in Washington state.
Explain how your life is natural.
Explain why your life is natural.
You know obviously like some people we know in presidential positions you can be very unnatural. So explain why you decided to make your life natural. How it came to be natural. Maybe somebody just trained you that way.
Explain how your life is mechanical or unnatural.
Ooh. Mechanical and unnatural. So you’re a machine. You’re doing something that’s contrary to Nature. But it’s your job. Maybe youre chopping down trees. That would be kind of unnatural.
Okay… What do you do out of obligation or necessity rather than by desire.
That’s probably 50% of the people on the planet there.
They just have a job. There just happy to get the paycheck. They don’t have any interst in that business or product line.
So what do you do out of obligation or necessity rather than by desire.
Own up to it. If you can’t be honest with yourself–You’ll never be smart.
Here we go: What do you do to satisfy others that does not satisfy you?
Ooh. That’s a good question. I’m quite the giver. But– Anyway.
One more time: What do you do to satisfy others that does not satisfy you?
What expectations of others are you currently satisfying?
Hey. Each of us is going to have a very different answer to that one.
What expectations of others are you currently satisfying?
How much time do you spend each day doing nothing?
Once again: How much time do you spend each day doing nothing?
If you had all the money you could need or spend–what would you do with your time?
If you had all the money you could need or spend–what would you do with your time?
Why aren’t you doing these things now anyway?
When I was homeless that was a question I was asking all the time.
Sorry to interject. See! I said I’m sorry. I’m gonna do it again. [laughs]
Why arent you doing these things now anyway?
Do you believe that to not work or to not have a job is wrong?
Do you beleive that to not work or to not have a job is wrong?
Do you believe that you should have children and a family?
Do you believe that you should have a children– have a children–a bunch– anyway. Have children and a family?
How many kids do you intend to have? And why?
How many kids do you intend to have? And why?
When you don’t have to go to work– there’s actually a typo here. Sheesh. Second one I’ve found. What time do you wake up and go to bed?
When you don’t have time to go to work–what time do you wake up and go to bed?
Interesting question.
How is this different than when you are working?
Okay. So when you don’t have a job. That’s why I didn’t– That’s why that was one of things I did.
So when you don’t have job–what time do you wake up and go to bed. Okay. So that changes your schedule. You don’t have to get up at any time.
How is this different than when you’re working?
So does it change? When you’re working in your normal occupation.
Welcome back to another episode of The Daily Taoist. Yeah. I like that. I just put that name on here. I decided, “Hey. These are so much fun… Maybe I should make a show out of this. The Daily Taoist.
Anyway, let’s go. Let’s continue on.
NUMBER 13 by Lao Tzu. But we’re working from my book. There’s a better picture of the cover back there. My book, The Tao of Taoism – Using the Dao Te Ching to Improve Your Life. Otherwise, why use it all? Seriously. [laughs]
Okay. Here we go. I’m on page 24 and this is #13b of what Lao Tzu wrote. Now there’s 80 paragraphs. I’ve got 40 in this book. Okay, #13b is what I’m numbering this one.
Self-esteem is the appreciation of one’s own subconscious identity. This self-love creates a pride that is dependent upon the opinion of others.
Hmmm. Okay. Let’s read that again. Maybe break it down a little bit.
Self-esteem— (Confidence. What you think of yourself. Self-esteem is supposed to be a positive thing. Esteem.) —Is the appreciation of one’s own subconscious identity.
Ah. Subconscious. Most of the self-esteem we think of is things we consciously do in our life. But according to Lao Tzu, if I’m getting this right, he’s saying that your real self-esteem is what your subconscious really–appreciates. Okay. So. It’s not the way you act as an actor. An actor might enjoy playing murderers. Okay? And everybody knows this person as a murderer. That’s all they ever see is this guy shooting guns and killing people all the time. So is his self esteem to be appreciated as a murderer? He’s a great murderer. He murders people so good on camera. He looks so cool doing it. And everybody enjoys watching you kill people. So he’s a professional murderer? Well, is his self-esteem supposed to be based on that? His ability to murder? Okay?
Or is it still his own subconscious identity that hopefully is not a murderer. It’s his conscious identity that’s a murderer. He’s consciously out there killing people and getting paid for it. But his subconscious identity may have nothing to do with that at all. It may just be that he wants to be an actor. He wants to be loved and appreciated. Or he wants to be able to pull off some sort of impersonation. It impresses people and he feels proud of that.
So subconsciously he may have a totally different goal than going out there and being the best murderer on the planet–in the movies. [laughs] Just an example.
Here we go. Continuing.
The second sentence: This self-love. (Okay. Which in this case we’ll say is the love of being an actor. You know, being able to flexible at changing your identity to make other people happy. Kind of like wearing costumes.) This self-love creates a pride. (So you practice at it. You get good at it. You must’ve done it a whole bunch of times successfully. So now you can be proud of yourself. You have pride.) That is not dependent upon the opinion of others.
Ahhhh. I didn’t get that ‘NOT’ the last time quite as clearly. Okay. The idea here is you know that you’ve done a good job. In fact, maybe a whole bunch of other people know you did a good job. But right now, you’re in a movie and you do really crappy. And everybody thinks you’re a crappy actor. But you know you’re a good actor because you’ve done good before. You’re just maybe in a role you can’t fathom. You can’t understand this person. You can’t pull it off.
So you’re not a bad actor. You’re just in the wrong place. And so your self-esteem should pull you through that. Otherwise, if you didn’t believe in yourself–you’d be heartbroken and you’d give up acting and that’d be foolish because you’ve already proven you’re a great actor. You just made a mistake. Got the wrong role perhaps.
Okay? So anyway. I’ll read the whole thing again. And then we’ll blast down the page and see how towork it into our life.
Self-esteem is the appreciation of one’s own subconscious identity. This self-love creates a pride that is NOT dependent upon the opinion of others.
I like that.
Okay. NUMBER ONE: Are you angered by insults?
Okay. So I’ll read each question twice. And you read them. I’m not going to expand on this.
Okay. Here we go. Are you angered by insults?
Do you ever want revenge?
Do you ever want revenge?
What are kinds of revenge that you consider?
If you said you’ve never thought of being vengeful–you’re lying. [laughs] Even me. Nicest person on the planet. It’s not that the thoughts don’t go through my head. I just never get to where I’d think I’d ever even consider them being realistic. But the thoughts– You’ve got to acknoledge the thought going through your head.
Um. What are the kinds of revenge that you consider?
You know, if I was to vengeful, you know… My revenge is like saying, “Hey, I’m not gonna put you in my movie. [laughs] Ooops. I said it. See, but that’d be like– that would be to be– That would be vengeful.
I’d probably wouldn’t want to– Hopefully, without knowing they were unappreciative of me. Hopefully their talent wouldn’t have garnered them having that role anyway. Because I would not want to actually deny anyone a worthy thing just because of my personal attitude. So I do try to keep that in check. My prejudice. My attitude.
Even if I don’t like someone– Some of those people turned out be really good friends. Oh God. During the homeless life I avoided people for years. And then after a couple of years you start running into this person– I have a conversation. Aaaah. A couple of people turned out to be decent friends. I mean I got along with them real fine. It’s like, yeah. It’s not that I regretted avoiding them. But it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought.
Okay. Anyway.
What are your identity weaknesses? Weight problems? Big Nose?
Seriously. I’ve got problems. Me, I’ve got a crooked nose. I got beat up when I was a teenager. Beat up really bad and they didn’t straighten my nose when they broke it. I’ll always have a crooked nose. For what that’s worth. [laughs] But I just accept it. In fact, sometimes when I’m shooting a bunch of videos I’ll actually take a minute and look at the lighting. And say, “Yeah–which angle do I look best at?” Cuz they’re totally different. Cuz it’s like bent this way. So maybe this way it looks smaller. And over here it looks bigger. Because of the way it’s bent. So anyway.
If I was a professional actor I’d have that memorized and probably always know how to always cheat the camera. But I’ll always still look. But I don’t think of it actually. But close–almost. Am I a professional actor?
What do you hide from people?
What do you hide from people?
What do you want to be that you doubt you will be?
Is that doubt based on your realistic understanding of yourself? Or is it based on the fact that other people couldn’t do it, or they doubted you. Or they couldn’t envision it and they just made you doubt it. Even though it could be real easy for you.
What do you want to be that you doubt you will be?
So put them all into that category and you can separate them out later.
When you lose or make a serious mistake do you scold yourself?
I’m gonna read that once again and then I’ve got to interject.
When you lose or make a serious mistake do you scold yourself?
Okay. I’ve got to give credit to somebody else. Dan Millman. I think that’s his name. Shout out! Great guy. Great author. Great books. I don’t know much about him personally but I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen and read. I’ve given away his books as presents and a couple of my students have been impressed by him and given books to my kids that were written by him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he wrote that book.” You know. Anyway. Great guy. Dan Millman
But he’s the one who hammered this into me. It was one of his first–the WARRIOR ATHLETE maybe. That book. I got that when I was at UCLA. And he said something. He was an Olympic trainer. And he said something that’s always stuck with me. “Thank you Dan.”
He said– And I kind of already knew this. But it resonated and I want to give him credit for it. He said that when he was training people, if they got angry or you know mad at themselves for making a mistake– he would always say, “Don’t do that. Don’t do that.” And his philosophy was, and I agree with him 100%. I’ve been a physical trainer ever since. I just started teaching Kung Fu about that same time. So for what? 35 years I’ve been proving him right.
And he said that, “When you make a mistake and then you punish yourself–you’ve balanced the field.” You’ve evened everything out. Now nothing’s going to change. You’ll make the same mistake. You’ll punish yourself again. It’ll just be the same. That’s your balance.
He said, “Create an imbalance.” He said, “Make a mistake–Ah–But don’t punish yourself.” Now you’ve gotta figure out to fix it.
Okay. Next. Do you ever say–(and pardon me for cussing)–“Damn it.” Okay? I never say that. [laughs] I had to apologize before I even said it. But here we go again.
Do you ever say, “Dammit.”
I’m going to interject something. This is a little whacky. This is going a little far for most people but, I’m gonna throw it out there anyway. I think that when you use that– I take it very literally. I’m kind of like that. I’m not like that guy in –that Avengers movie where one of the heroes he’s all tattooed with red tattoos. And he takes everything really literally. They don’t give him good lines unfortunately. The people who write for him don’t really grasp his character completely. I do. I kind of like him. Anyway, when you say, “Damn it,” you’re damning it. You are sending it to Hell. You are saying, “You are damned to Hell.” And that’s what you’re saying every time you say, “Damn it.” You’re sending that thing to Hell–as if you had the power. But still, that means you have the will, the desire… do whatever it takes. “I’ll bribe someone… I’ll talk to the Devil… I’ll…” You’re doing evil. That’s very evil to damn something. To make it go to Hell. Not your job.
So sorry. [laughs] I’m totally against that expression.
Here we go. Next, last one for this page.
Do you ever call yourself names or say, “I’m so stupid.” Or, “I’m a klutz.” Or, “I’m clumsy…” Any of those negatives? Do you ever say things like that?
Go back to Dan Millman. Dan Millman’s going to be your guide on that one. Let him tell you what to do on that.
One more time: Do you ever call yourself names? Like say you’re stupid or any negative names.
Obviously, I think you can tell where I’m going. [laughs]
