In the martial arts, the basics are everything. Refining the basics isn’t just a matter of doing them over and over again mindlessly, but looking at how to tweak and improve each basic technique. Last night at the Boston Martial Arts Center, I was learning from one of our master instructors about more basics using…
As part of the 2011 theme at the Boston Martial Arts Center, I was doing some digging around in my brain today about anger, especially after a learning experience this morning at the dojo. (a learning experience, as my college political science teacher once quipped, is what you get when you don’t get what you…
I see what you did there is one of my favorite expressions. I’m not sure where it came from or how it got into my vocabulary (I suspect Chris Brogan), but it encapsulates nearly everything I believe in as a student of marketing, martial arts, and life. You see, most of the lessons I’ve had…
Every year, Chris Brogan has introduced a theme summed up in three words. I enjoy playing along with the theme as it usually does a good job of crystallizing what the year will be about. They’re not goals so much as lenses, ways to focus and make decisions about whether something is worth doing or…
You should be a liar online. No, scratch that, you MUST be a liar online if you have more than 232.86 friends/followers/fans in social media. I lie all the time online. Flat out lies, deception, incorrect information, omission – you name it, I do it. I lie about where I live, about my birthday, about…
Every year at New England Warrior Camp, we have the opportunity to do tameshigiri, or live blade cutting. A bamboo mat is soaked in water, rolled up, and put on a pedestal. Martial practitioners then take a sharp sword and attempt to cut it in half. Learning how to perform a cut with a sword…
I was reading bedtime stories the other night and came across a gem by Richard Scarry in the 365 Bedtime Stories compendium, which I think is incredibly illustrative of the way we dealt with bullies in the past and the way we deal with them now. In the short story The Rudiments, a boy is…
I had the pleasure and privilege to attend New England Warrior Camp again this year (my 11th out of 13) in the woods of Sudbury, Massachusetts this past weekend. Others have done a much better job illuminating the actual goings-on, such as my friend and senior, Jon Merz. One of my huge takeaways from the…
On a team that you know has the potential but needs a little something extra to get cooking? I’ve been in that exact situation many, many times in my professional career, working with people who were incredibly talented but for one reason or another, their potential was staying locked away. Sir Ken Robinson said once…
Ever had a day when you felt off, when you weren’t accomplishing what you needed to accomplish, or worse, felt as though you didn’t have the ability or capability to accomplish? Those days can be the toughest to overcome because you’re effectively working against yourself. Part of you is at war with another part of…
