5

The Tools

I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once. But I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times.

What’s Your Kung Fu?

In this chapter, we’ll start to get more prescriptive. What are some concrete tools we can use to embody and integrate the principles we’re learning? How do we translate concepts into true skills? The simple answer is: consistent practice. I wish I could tell you there’s a magic spell that would just make you be like water. But as the quote above indicates, we need to practice one kick ten thousand times until it becomes second nature. First, however, let’s identify our own kung fu.

The literal translation of kung fu is skill achieved through hard work and discipline. The exact translation itself has no ties to martial arts, though it has become associated with Chinese martial arts over the centuries, given the amount of hard work and discipline it requires to become a master. That said, it is possible to have good kung fu in anything: mathematics kung fu, mothering kung fu, public speaking kung fu. You get the point. It is also possible to have life kung fu or you kung fu. One simply need put in the practice. So, what’s your kung fu, or what do you want it to be?

If you are interested in trying to cultivate your potential, self-actualization, and flow, then there is part of you that believes in and senses the energy of your spirit (your aliveness) that resides within your body, and the possibilities it holds for you. You wouldn’t be reading this book if that drive weren’t already in you somewhere. There is part of you that is wanting something more for your life. There is part of you that dreams a dream of being fully alive and joyous and impactful in a positive way, no matter how much fear or doubt you have.

No matter what your personal kung fu is, this chapter will present a series of tools and exercises that can get you out of your own way and highlight your path forward. They will help you systematically expand your energy from idea to execution so that you can create the alive and centered version of yourself that you always knew was hiding just below the surface. And as Bruce Lee has shown us, the first step toward growth is action.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

On March 27, 1968, my father did 500 punches with his right hand followed by 250 punches with his left. He then did a series of ab exercises—7 sets each of leg raises, sit-ups, and side bends. He later did some supplemental punch training—another 500 punches with his right hand and 250 with his left. He then cycled 2 miles (in 7 minutes), followed by one more set of 500 punches with his right hand. He followed this up by training with Ted, Herb, and someone named Dave at 7:30 P.M. And the day before that was similar—throwing in a 1-mile run with my mom as well. How do I know this? He tracked it in his daily planner.

Bruce Lee charted his progress. He set goals. He created reminders and exercises and tools for his growth—physically, mentally, and spiritually. If he didn’t have a specific tool, he created it (or had someone create it for him). If he was unsure about what would work, he experimented and tracked the results until he could find the best way forward. He was a creator and an inventor, part artist and part scientist—truly a renaissance man.

When my father first started adding cross-training exercises to his martial arts routine, he got into weight lifting. He had a good friend named Allen Joe, who was a professional bodybuilder. So he went to Allen and asked him to show him some exercises. He started implementing these techniques, and he got results. But what he noticed was that while he was getting stronger, he was getting bulky bodybuilder muscles because of the types of exercise he was doing, and those were slowing him down in his martial arts techniques. He didn’t scrap weight lifting altogether, however. Rather, he made adjustments. He could see the benefits of the weights; he just had to incorporate them into his routine in a way that served his ultimate purpose and worked for him specifically. So he started to play around with lighter weights at higher reps and then moved on to isometric training (bringing the muscle to failure as quickly as possible) until he had a routine that yielded the results he was looking for—a strong, lean body that could react instantly.

But let’s get one thing straight. Bruce Lee was not promised or fated to become phenomenal. Yes, he was extremely physically coordinated and innately driven. But he was also terribly nearsighted, of average height (five foot seven inches), and sickly and thin as a kid. One of his legs was slightly shorter than the other and he was rejected from the military for his eyesight and certain other physical defects they deemed limiting. And as a young man, he had a temper that got him expelled from one school and almost landed him in gangs and jail and worse.

Bruce Lee was phenomenal because he worked relentlessly to be phenomenal. Yes, he had some great raw ingredients, but without the hard work, there would have been no global icon. And we all have some great raw ingredients too. I remind you of this because sometimes people think that Bruce Lee was just talented, i.e., extraordinary in a way that they are not. Well, if that’s true, then one of his extraordinary talents was his work ethic and his attitude. And that, my friends, can be cultivated!

I have heard story after story about how my father was always training, stretching, writing, reading, teaching, working, so I had to ask my mom if he ever just did nothing. And (to my personally selfish dismay) she said, “No.” Even when he was reading a book or watching a boxing match on TV, he was also stretching or doing something active. He would take the stairs instead of the elevator, and if he had to wait for an elevator, he would drop and do push-ups while he waited. Yep—that’s my dad!

You can say he was driven or passionate or obsessed, or maybe he had a sense of his internal clock and knew he had limited time. Call it what you will, but he had an inner fire that he felt and, more important, gave his attention to. And not only did he heed this fire, but he fanned its flames by creating practical methods by which to encourage its growth and intensity. He wasn’t going to be stopped by lack of imagination or lack of effort in the pursuit of the realization of his potential and his dreams. “Knowing is not enough,” he said. “We must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

So yes, if Bruce Lee was born superhuman, then it was his superhuman drive that exceeded that of mere mortals. And though you may think you can’t cultivate drive, you’re wrong. You absolutely can. But it will take effort; it will take consistent practice. As mentioned, this chapter features some of the tools he used to train himself, body and soul. By taking a look at these tools, you will get to see his process and figure out for yourself if any of the same systematic approaches he took can help you cultivate yourself and your drive.

What follows is by no means an exhaustive list. And the tools discussed in this chapter are meant to be utilitarian; the big existential stuff comes later. The one thing you really need to know is this: these tools will not work if the intention for transformation and the commitment to finding your way are not there. So take them or leave them, but the path is yours to walk.

Tool #1—Take Aim

In 1969, my father created a document entitled “My Definite Chief Aim.” It was a single piece of paper written in his handwriting that stated:

I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return, I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.

The document is signed by him and dated January 1969. This is some serious goal-setting. Of course, he died before he was able to attain the ten million dollars, and it was more like 1973 when he achieved world fame, though it can be argued that he started working toward that with great result in 1970, which is when he did his first film in Hong Kong. All told, I’d say he did a pretty good job in the few years he had.

So do you have a big goal or dream? It’s okay if you don’t. You don’t have to. I don’t. Not really. If I do, it’s something totally nebulous and grandiose like “change the world for the better.” I have lots of little concrete goals that maybe one day will amass into one big, definitive one. But if you do have a big goal or dream, write it down clearly and energize it.

What do I mean by energize it? In books about “the law of attraction” like The Secret, you hear over and over that you have to believe in your goal like it’s happening right now. But that can be hard to do, because as practical humans, there’s part of us that may not believe that and may struggle with the logic of it, and then the law of attraction doesn’t seem to work. Rather, I would suggest that you energize your goal by letting it re-excite you every time you think about it. This goal should rev you up. It should make your heart beat a little faster or make your imagination soar. So every time you come back to it, reengage with that feeling of enthusiasm for it. Rejoice in the dream. And then use that ignited feeling to energize you along the path that will get you there. In other words, live into the possibility and the feeling of the ultimate goal.

A big goal like this should feel very clear to you. If the goal is not clear, it will be hard to work toward and therefore hard to achieve. Don’t get stuck in the exact “how” of your goal, meaning the exact steps you will take to get there; that may not unfold the way you expect it to. It may morph and change along the way—so rather than getting caught up in the exactitude of “how,” stay with the clarity and the energy of your ultimate vision and be open to the possibility that your path may take some unseen twists and turns as the journey unfolds. Though the goal may evolve a bit, the clarity and the energy of it should remain.

Even before my father had written down his definite chief aim, he had already established a lot of clarity around what he wanted to accomplish. In 1962, at the age of twenty-one, he wrote a long and insightful letter to a family friend in Hong Kong named Pearl Tso. After spending a few years in the United States, my father noticed that Japanese arts such as karate and judo were fairly prevalent in the United States, but not Chinese kung fu. Recognizing a wide-open opportunity to share the art and culture he loved, my father laid out a vision for the trajectory of his life as a kung fu teacher in this letter to Pearl.

My aim is to establish a first Gung Fu Institute that will later spread all over the U.S. (I have set a time limit of 10 to 15 years to complete the whole project). My reason in doing this is not the sole objective of making money. The motives are many and among them are: I like to let the world know about the greatness of this Chinese art; I enjoy teaching and helping people; I like to have a well-to-do home for my family; I like to originate something; and the last but yet one of the most important is because gung fu is part of myself.

… Right now, I can project my thoughts into the future. I can see ahead of me. I dream (remember that practical dreamers never quit). I may now own nothing but a little place down in a basement, but once my imagination has got up a full head of steam, I can see painted on a canvas of my mind a picture of a fine, big five or six story Gung Fu Institute with branches all over the States. I am not easily discouraged, readily visualize myself as overcoming obstacles, winning out over setbacks, achieving “impossible” objectives.

Can we pause a minute to admire his crystalline clarity? He says what he wants to do and why he wants to do it, he says what about this resonates and feeds his soul, and he sets a clear timeline for his goals while acknowledging the difficulty of the path ahead. Beautiful. And clear.

Clarity of purpose is important not only because it helps us to move decisively forward with a plan of action, but because when the obstacles come (and they will come), you will need the intensity and clarity of your soul’s purpose to keep you from getting lost in the difficulties you encounter or derailed by the well-intentioned people around you who see things differently than you do along the way. Clarity helps you continue to take aim.

If you do the work to really know yourself, that intimate knowledge of who you are will help you to remain grounded and (as my father liked to say) “function from your root.” And cultivating this clear center will produce in you the feeling of security, assuredness, and assertiveness—in particular when the going gets rough or when you decide it is time to change things up or go to the next level. Knowing who you are, what you want, and what you love will serve you faithfully. And then, having clear objectives and clear dreams will set a direct trajectory from which you will not easily be deterred.

Being clear can sometimes be half the battle. If you can’t feel the dream in your heart and see it in your mind’s eye, then it may not be your dream. It may be someone else’s. Your dream should excite and entice you. It should make all the hard work and potential struggle you are going to have to put into it worth it, because it is all yours.

Tool #2: Take Action

My father had a poster that he kept hanging on the wall of his office. Years later, after he passed, this same poster hung on the wall of my brother’s bedroom as a teen, and now it hangs on the wall in my office, and it makes me smile every time I see it. This poster is a very 1970s, almost-black-light-looking thing that shows two cartoon vultures sitting on the branch of a dead tree overlooking a barren desert landscape. There is a cow skull on the ground and no living thing for miles. In the poster, one vulture is turning to the other one and saying, “Patience, my ass! I’m gonna kill something!”

This poster is so my dad. Although he believed in patience and gentleness and the ability to yield, as we’ll get to soon, he was also not one to tread water or waste time. He was going to do all he could do to move in the direction of his unfolding, and if that meant taking some extra measures, well, then that’s what he was going to do. If whatever action he took didn’t work out, then he wouldn’t spend very long banging his head against a wall or continuing to push for something that wasn’t working. In his mind, why wait for something that may never come if you may be able to manifest it yourself? And how will you know if you could have manifested it yourself if you never even try?

What was remarkable about Bruce Lee was just how much of a man of action he truly was. That doesn’t mean he didn’t dream. In fact, he dreamed big and then worked his ass off. One mantra of his was, “Be a practical dreamer backed by action.” And let’s not get hung up on the word practical. Practical here means you believe that the dream is possible. For Bruce Lee, being an authentic and powerful Chinese leading man in 1970s prejudiced Hollywood was a practical dream.

When we have dreams and goals that we don’t follow through on, we stagnate. Our brains, however, never cease thinking and our bodies never cease feeling, and so we get full up on thoughts and feelings that we aren’t doing anything about—and then enter action paralysis. And because we are in action paralysis, we begin to acquire mounds of evidence that we aren’t capable or deserving of those dreams, and so we start to let go of the dreams. Whereas, when we act, even in a small way, by writing a goal down on paper and taking the first step, for instance, we begin to build energy toward our goals. Action begets more action. Even the laws of inertia back this up. Remember Newton? “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion.” Be the object in motion.

Once we know we want to pursue a goal or cultivate a practice, we must give ourselves over to the actions we choose to take. How do we do that? We can start by getting clear about what it is we want to do, per the first tool. Take aim. And if we aren’t totally clear about the big places we want to go, then we can start by taking smaller actions (aka baby steps) toward the little things we know we want in order to ultimately get clear about the big picture. You want to do something major with your life but you can’t even seem to keep your apartment clean? Then start by cleaning your apartment. Then what else is blocking your path? Go there next. No matter how silly or unrelated it may seem, handle the stuff that is bothering you. Build your confidence up so that you can take care of your business and solve your own problems. Sometimes my day feels like a total success if I manage to make it to the grocery store.

So we begin. We practice. We experiment. We try things—and with the proper attitude. Attitude is everything. My father said, “If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed.” A bad attitude slows you down and hinders your ability to succeed.

You can always alter your path of action as you try things and receive the results of your experiments. After all, staying present on the journey means we’re aware enough to know when a certain direction isn’t working. But if we are not present and aware and we have a negative attitude, then we will remain confused and scattered along the way. When we don’t act in clarity and when we don’t stay present, we don’t reap the benefits of strength and confidence that we should get from the actions we are choosing to take.

Sometimes the hardest part of taking action is making the first move. Thinking about doing something isn’t the same as actually doing it. It takes some willpower to get up off the couch, and sometimes the action paralysis is so great that you just can’t seem to make yourself go to the gym no matter how badly you want to get in shape. We will talk more about willpower soon, but let’s consider that what may be holding us back is our attachment to the results and what they mean about us if we don’t achieve them. It seems easier perhaps not to try rather than try and fail. There’s no shame in failure if you never tried in the first place, right? Unfortunately, you still have to live with yourself and inside yourself, and that stuck place can feel terrible. So instead let’s talk about a couple of things to help motivate us to take action toward the dreams in our hearts. As my father said, “In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”

In the first tool of this chapter, we talked about staying tapped into the energy of the big goal and letting it reignite you whenever you get stuck. That proves helpful when it comes to igniting action. And in chapter two, we talked about emptying your cup and staying neutral. If there’s no right and wrong or judgment over this and that, then there’s no need to beat yourself up because there’s no win or lose. When you notice you didn’t do what you wanted to do, then just give yourself a little pep talk and start again as if the past is, well, past. Every moment is a new moment to pick it back up and start again. Remember that practice doesn’t make us perfect; it makes us better. So stop attaching yourself to the results and just stay committed to the path. And when you stumble, pick yourself up and begin again.

“Action is a high road to self-confidence,” my father said. Take one small action, and let that action lead to confidence, and let the confidence create energy toward more action—and from snowmelt, a surging river will form.

Tool #3—Affirm

You’ve probably heard of affirmations—positive sayings you repeat every day that you want to ingrain for yourself. My father used affirmations as part of his practice. Among his writings were seven affirmations that worked as an ecosystem of the mental/emotional state that he wanted to cultivate for himself as he moved through his day. He would carry them around with him in his appointment book or on laminated note cards and pull them out from time to time so he could refer to them throughout the day.

These are his seven affirmations:

Memory

Recognizing the value of an alert mind and an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may call to mind frequently.

Subconscious Mind

Reorganizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily!

Imagination

Recognizing the need for sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires, I will develop my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of my plans.

Emotion

Realizing that my emotions are both positive and negative, I will form daily habits which will encourage the development of the positive emotions and aid me in converting the negative emotions into some form of useful action.

Reason

Recognizing that my positive and negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires, aims, and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it in giving expression to these.

Conscience

Recognizing that my emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my conscience to guide me as to what is right and wrong, but I will never set aside the verdicts it renders, no matter what may be the cost of carrying them out.

Willpower

The power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind. I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to action for any purpose, and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.

Yes, Bruce Lee, the seemingly most confident man in the world, worked on his mental and emotional state directly and purposefully. Maybe that’s why he was so confident? He exercised not just his body but his will and his emotions and all the facets of his mind, too. He believed wholeheartedly in the power of autosuggestion and positive framing. He believed that optimism was a kind of faith that one needed to deliberately practice and cultivate within themselves.

Sometimes people struggle with affirmations. Affirmations can feel kind of cheesy or unrealistic, or like you are lying to yourself because you are saying things about yourself that you suspect aren’t true, no matter how much you want them to be. But the most effective element of affirmations (and dare I say most things) is the perspective you hold in the execution of them. Instead of doubting the affirmations because they aren’t true right now, try framing them a different way: that they just aren’t true yet.

With an affirmation, you are trying to plant seeds in your subconscious or unconscious mind that will take root and grow into your consciousness as you continually affirm them over and over. After all, your subconscious mind is really the driver of your personality and your actions, so we want to suggest to it that it should grow some new ideas to orient you in a better direction.

I trained in kickboxing with Sensei Benny “the Jet” Urquidez, a competitive full-contact kickboxing fighter who was undefeated in his career and held six world titles in varying weight classes (to name only one aspect of his many accomplishments as a human). When we would train, he would ask me to execute some kick or some move, and I would try it and blow it, and then I would say, “I can’t do it.” And he would freeze and look at me with his piercing eyes and say, “Yet! You can’t do it yet.” And he would say this over and over and over again to every complaint and frustration I would spew. It was positive framing and it was firm. If you just keep practicing, then one day you’ll get it.

Another way to access the power of your affirmations is to write them down in a way that frames them as something you are in the process of, so that they feel more possible and more aligned with where you are right now. So instead of “I am strong and fit,” you could write, “I am working every day to be strong and fit.” This way you can still affirm what you want and feel authentically connected to it.

Give it a real try, and see if it works for you. Do it every day for a month. Start to notice if the thoughts you want to affirm begin to pop into your mind unprompted and frequently. Notice if the affirmations are helping you modify any behavior you are trying to change or the way you feel throughout the day or your view on life. Do you find yourself in a better mood? Or smiling more? Or more energetic? Pay close attention. These subtle shifts are all indicators that it is working.

And if a particular affirmation is not really doing anything for you or you feel less and less connected to it over time, then ditch it and try a different one. And if you give this a try and discover this isn’t the tool for you, move on. Maybe you’ll come back to it down the road when you’re in a different place, and you can see if it resonates with you then.

There have been many times in my life when I have tried something out and then stopped only to return to it later when I was more ready to receive what it had for me. For example, for years I hated running. Despised it. Then in my thirties I tried it again and I suddenly found myself settling into a really good meditative rhythm with it and it became one of my favorite exercises. Now, there are people who can walk faster than I run, but so what? Running has become a tool that works for me. So keep affirmations on your tool belt even if you have no use for them right now. They may come in handy one day.

Tool #4—Be Symbolic

In 1999, six years after my brother had been killed, I came out of my house one day and there was a huge red dragonfly splayed out on the sidewalk in front of my car door, perfectly preserved and intact, as if it had been delivered there and then had peacefully passed. I’d been seeing a medicine woman at that time, Sara Urquidez (wife of Benny “the Jet,” my kickboxing sensei from above), and she told me that in many cultures around the world, the dragonfly symbolizes change and rebirth—and because the dragonfly was dead, it was surely a message from the spirit world telling me that it was okay to move on and let go of the grief I had been immersed in for years since my brother’s death on the set of the film The Crow. Whether you believe that or not, it was the right message for me at the right time in my life, and it created a sentiment that I could hold on to because of the prophetic way in which it had all materialized in my path.

Almost ten years later, I decided to take some of the more important symbols of my life and create a tattoo of them, the red dragonfly being one. These symbols, collected together on my body, were a way for me to acknowledge some of the most significant moments of understanding and love in my life. I was almost forty when I got this first and only tattoo—and I’m not recommending you run out and get a tattoo (they’re not for everybody), but for me it was a symbolic way to bring me back to myself and the significant moments that had helped shape and heal me.

My father did not have any tattoos, but he believed in symbolism as well, and he used it in his life at seminal moments to create road markers for his journey. He did so through iconography—visual images or symbols that represented his process. Remember the miniature headstone he created? His reminder to the Bruce of yesterday to die and reemerge fluid and expressive once more: In memory of a once fluid man crammed and distorted by the classical mess. At the pivotal moments of his life, my father created other symbols to act as concrete reminders of his growth and his new perspectives. He created a series of plaques he called the stages of cultivation to represent the path of his growth, which we will discuss in more depth later. He created his personal symbol for JKD and had a gold pendant made of it to wear every day, as well as a plaque, stationery, cards, certificates, etc. He created a stand with the inspirational words Walk on! written on a card to encourage himself to keep moving forward.

Sometimes it’s easy to have a revelation and forget to incorporate it into your life. Aha moments are awesome! They feel really good, and while you may think about them often, that doesn’t mean you follow through on them and live them proactively. By creating a physically manifested symbol of your revelation, you are, in a way, making an agreement or a statement to be reminded of your new perspective every time you see it. Like a wedding ring you may wear to symbolize your commitment to your partner, you are acknowledging that you are making a commitment to some new path for yourself. You are creating monuments of active encouragement and remembrance that you can return to again and again to keep you invigorated about whatever you have decided you will now embody.

If creating symbols isn’t your thing, then consider trying out temporary prompts before you go all the way and build a monument in your yard, get a permanent tattoo, or have gold jewelry designed. There was a period several years back when I had Post-it Notes around my house in key places—on the bathroom mirror, in the kitchen, by my bed—that simply said BE. This was my reminder to return to the present moment as often as possible and get out of my own head. It was like a little reset button for me that would bring me back to the here and now, which was usually followed by a sense of calm and clarity (assuming the house wasn’t on fire at the moment—haha).

You can also consider creating a ritual. Rituals can be a physical way to acknowledge the passage from one way of being into another. There are all kinds of rituals that already exist—fire rituals, flower rituals, cleansing rituals, etc.—and you can always create your own. The goal of the ritual is for it to resonate with you, so it doesn’t matter if you make it up yourself or if you follow someone else’s suggestions, as long as it holds meaning for you. I have done burning rituals where I burned items from a past relationship I wanted to let go of, or where I wrote down the patterns that weren’t serving me and then burned that piece of paper. Whatever resonates and feels like it will cement the shift you are wishing to create for yourself, do it! Encourage yourself in the best way you know how and make it fun or beautiful or special so that you have a positive, tangible association with the journey ahead.

Tool #5—Journal

In chapter three, we touched on some of my father’s writing practices. He wrote often and in many forms. And thank god he did—had it not been for this practice, we wouldn’t have been able to understand his process so acutely and clearly. We would not have known about what was important to him, what he was working through, and who he was on a soul level.

When I first started journaling in junior high school, a lot of it was mere gossip. I would write about who I liked and who was bothering me and why what I had done was dumb, but there was almost no information about what my hopes and dreams were. There was no experimentation. I was mostly just recording my moods and my problems. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if we remember that we strengthen whatever we put our attention on, then that might explain why it took me so long to move on from viewing myself as one big train wreck.

One interesting thing about my father’s writings are that there are no negative tirades. That’s not to say my father never wrote about anything that was bothering him, but he wrote about it in a way that came with a key realization for himself of what his preferences were—he wrote through it. And he landed on what he would like himself or his life to be like instead of what was happening that was “wrong.”

For instance, when he was beginning to become very famous in Hong Kong, he started to truly see the adverse effects of fame—people pretending to be his friend for access or favors, the way people glorified famous people but dehumanized everyday people. He wrote in letters to his friends about these trappings, and these insights informed his actions moving forward. He called upon and sought comfort in the voices of old and trusted friends rather than those making lots of promises. He had always considered his move to Hong Kong temporary, and these realizations affirmed the choice to return to Los Angeles as soon as possible, where he could live in more privacy than he was able to in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, he passed away before this could happen.

A journal, or just some loose-leaf papers, can be the place where you discover yourself. I think there is power in handwriting your big thoughts and ideas and processes, but if you prefer to type on the computer, then I would suggest that you read what you write aloud to yourself before filing it away. It can help to connect you to the words in a meaningful way. But regardless of how you write it down, I want to encourage you to do your writing in a way that supports you. Use this time to map out your positive thoughts—what you want, value, believe, wish for, what you’re learning and discovering and dreaming about. Work to understand what matters to you, and create a personal vision for yourself. Ask yourself questions and try to answer them. I have tracked dreams for clues. I have listed and described my values. I have contemplated the nature of the universe on paper. My father made many drafts of an essay called “In My Own Process,” detailing what was important to him, which I will delve into later. And if you can’t think of where to begin, there are many prompts out there in books and online to help get you started.

Now, it can be useful sometimes to do a brain dump. When you are struggling with a lot of toxic thoughts, it can be helpful to rage on the page. So go for it. But rage and then throw that sh*t away. Burn it. Shred it. Don’t hang on to it and revisit it. You may think you need to keep it in order to see “how far you’ve come.” But if you’ve really come far, you will know it. You’ll feel different—more calm, more centered, more grounded. You don’t need to revisit the past only to be able to pat yourself on the back in the present. Move on and release!

You can track your progress positively. You can note what’s trying your patience without fueling it with emotion. My father said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Keep your mind on the things you want, and off those you don’t.” Track your experiments and note your findings. Keep a field journal, a dream journal, an insight journal, a creative journal, a goal journal, but don’t keep a bunch of junk that no longer serves you. Let that stuff go.

Tool #6—Get Physical

Bruce Lee was a martial artist. That was his particular physical practice. And whether you think so or not, you need a physical practice too. Not because you need to be an athlete or lose ten pounds. It’s not about that. It’s about being in touch with your body, knowing how your body feels, and keeping the instrument of your spiritual growth strong. After all, the venerable triumvirate is mind, body, spirit.

The art of physical practice is also a way to work on purposefully and literally unbalancing oneself in order to experience some discomfort so that you grow and stretch beyond it. My father said, “To be balanced is to be more or less at rest. Action, then, is the art or method of unbalancing toward keeping oneself moving forward, learning and growing.”

We want to understand balance, not only in the mind but in the body. We want to feel what it is to unbalance and then balance, which is what you experience every time you move. Even if all you do is become physically conscious of how you move through space and focus your attention on moving with more strength and/or ease, you will be sensing your body and engaging in physical practice.

Of course, there are all sorts of added benefits to exercise: endorphins, increased strength, increased flexibility, increased confidence, etc. But despite this being a book about a martial artist, that’s not what we’re focusing on here. We’re interested in how a physical practice can help you get to know yourself better. Your body has information for you. It is an intelligent system, replete with networks firing and signals crossing. Feel into it and listen to what it has to say to you when you move it this way and that. Even if you just go for a walk or stretch in front of the TV, put some music on and dance, or do a physically focused meditation where you tense and release parts of your body, one area at a time, you will gain some insight.

The goal in moving your body is to allow yourself to feel something in a safe way. Through even a modicum of vigorous physical movement you can experience what it is to practice discomfort, to experience calculated suffering, and learn to be okay with it. You can use your physical body to push up against some of the edges within yourself. You can learn what it is to work with yourself and not against yourself. It is an invaluable personal discovery tool.

What does your body like? What does it need? Pay attention to your aches and pains. What are they trying to tell you? Get to know your body and how it feels and you will get to the place where you know immediately if something is off internally. This will strengthen and fine tune your intuition and lead to a better understanding of yourself. And you are likely to keep yourself healthier by tuning in to what your body has to say to you.

Just as I use martial arts examples to illustrate philosophical concepts, there is a direct correlation between pushing your body and pushing your soul, stretching your legs and stretching your potential. Remember, my father said that everything he learned about life he learned through the practice of martial arts.

And I do want to take a quick moment to advocate for the practice of martial arts, even just peripherally. Any martial arts training, qi gong, wushu, self-defense classes, or other related styles will enhance your inner strength and your confidence. That’s what it did for me. So move your body and see what thoughts, solutions, correlations, obstacles, emotions, and revelations come up.

Imagine and create a physical practice for yourself under the guidelines of communing with your body. Work out like Bruce Lee or be more gentle like me. Nowadays I dance, stretch, walk, run, hit the heavy bag, and hike. Whatever you do, ask your body what it wants and needs; don’t be afraid to push it a little and build up your tolerance for discomfort. You’ll be surprised how much intelligence and growth is in there.

Embrace the Process

As you go through this process of stretching beyond your comfort zone and putting your ideas and dreams into action, you’re going to confront fear and self-doubt. But the difference between people who act and accomplish their goals and people who are left with unfulfilled dreams is that the doers act alongside the fear and self-doubt and discomfort.

These tools are not meant to make your life easy—at least not at first. The desire for “easy” often brings out complacency in us. “Easy” can make us lean toward ignorance, laziness, habit, and fear because we don’t want life to be too hard or unpredictable and because we fear the discomfort of the unknown and the potential challenging feelings that might arise out of our dark places.

We already heard Bruce say, “The enemy of development is pain phobia—the unwillingness to do a tiny bit of suffering.” In order to grow and change, we have to experience discomfort. Your muscles don’t get stronger without being broken down first (that’s what soreness is—tiny tears in the muscle before it rebuilds). The first few days in the gym are always the most challenging, and then there are the plateaus. But let’s not frame life as “easy” or “hard” but rather as alive, always growing, always changing. Approach this growth and change with enthusiasm rather than anxiety. And remember to tap into the energy of the big dreams to keep you going when the going gets tough, and to learn from your setbacks.

As I mentioned before, people grow by skillful frustrations. If you were never frustrated by something, you would never seek a solution to your frustration. And in our water practice, the goal is to create skillful, intentional frustrations. It’s much better to choose your frustrations rather than get blindsided by them. And you don’t become good at running marathons without first suffering through running a mile and then three miles and then five miles and then ten and so on and so on. That’s what we want—a skillful plan. Don’t go out and try to run 26.2 miles all in one go never having run before. We want to set up a training plan that builds us up toward growth, step by step, so we have the space to be resilient when mistakes happen.

Over time, as we practice and nourish our best growth, the journey itself becomes joyful because of how alive we feel in the midst of it. And then we become accepting of the lessons that will come from any difficulties we experience, and we stop living so much for the outcomes. Yes, we may need to process some hard stuff and make some tough choices in our lives, but learning to love the process and appreciate the possibilities as we move forward will allow us to let go of our doubt and fear and worry and begin to see the limitlessness of our potential.

My father was a person who had goals. Goals are important. Knowing what our goals are gives us something to work toward. They shape our forward motion and create the framework for our training. It’s important to remember, though, that goals are not the be-all and end-all. In fact, when we tend to get fixated on accomplishing our goals, we often miss the journey entirely—only to find that when we reach our goal, there’s now yet another goal we want to go for. At that point, it’s hard to acknowledge our progress, and we start to feel like we are never going to get there (wherever “there” is). It’s like holding the next bite of food in your hand while you’re still chewing the first one—you’re so anxious for what’s next, you end up missing the meal altogether.

But goals are still incredibly useful as long as we don’t forget to be present and fluid with them. My father would, in fact, encourage you to set goals and to make at least one definite move daily toward them. He would suggest that to strive actively to achieve some goal will, in fact, give your life meaning and substance. But he would also caution that a goal is not always meant to be reached. Rather it simply serves as something to lean into, a future to live toward. The point, really, is in the doing and not in the outcomes. The maximizing of one’s potential is not the tallying of accomplishments, but the continual engagement in life as a process of unlimited growth.

All goals apart from the means are an illusion. There will never be means to ends, only means. And I am means. I am what I started with, and when it is all over, I will be all that is left of me. You can employ a systematic approach to training and practicing but never employ a method to living. Life is a process, not a goal; a means but not an end; a constant movement rather than an established pattern.

I love this: “I am means.” I am the process. I am the life that will one day come to its end. My life is happening right now and there’s no “someday” or “if then” or “but when.” I am the method of my life. I am the creator of my life. I am the tool for my living. My body, my mind, my spirit are all at my disposal toward whatever I want to do, to believe, and to expand upon. So live your life like this is your life to live. Because it is.

Start Right Now

The tools we touched on—goal-setting, taking action, affirmations, symbolism, journaling, physical practice, and meditation (chapter two)—are just a few of the tangible ways my father cultivated his potential. I’m sure you can devise even more tools that will work especially well for you and you alone as you gain confidence and begin to really know yourself and what your potential holds. My father did that—if he didn’t have the equipment he wanted, he made it.

So just begin. You don’t have to have all the answers to begin. Sometimes you have to begin in order to find the answers you are looking for. And you may have to get really creative in the cultivation of your tools, or you may need to lean into something you thought you’d never give any credence to, like energy work or dharma practices or herbalism. Some of us have some serious stuff to unpack and deal with and the task may feel daunting. Now is the time to act, learn, create, and align your words with your deeds. Or stop talking and get busy doing.

In this world there are a lot of people who talk intellectually about how they would do this or do that. They talk about it but nothing is ever actualized or accomplished.

Remember, you are means. And you are in a process of discovery and growth. As my father believed:

When you drop a pebble into a pool of water, the pebble starts a series of ripples that expand until they encompass the whole pool. This is exactly what will happen when I give my ideas a definite plan of action.

Trust yourself. Trust the process. And begin.