deciding
Airport Kung Fu
Dear future or present coaching student,
Yes, this one’s for you.
Early morning flights are one of my favourite times to practice.
Nothing like 5am airport Kung Fu.
Why?
Yes, because I enjoy releasing embarrassment and learning to stay centred under the eyes of bewildered passers by.
Yes, it’s partly because I am a dreadful attention seeker.
But primarily to destroy the excuse-seeking mind.
Early morning flights are the easiest way to excuse not practising.
My teaching style is to lead by example.
It started a few years ago when my 100-day Qi Gong practice commitment was threatened by a flight home from Mexico, which, due to time differences and layovers, meant my only window for practice was during a two-hour layover in Paris airport.
I recorded my practice and shared it with my students.
They were inspired.
It started a craze.
My students, like me, tend to have eclectic lives. Plenty of variety and travel. Plenty of opportunities for excuses.
So, whenever they were in an airport, they too would record and share their airport practice.
It cultivated solidarity within the group and — a rarity in today’s lofty spiritual world — laughter.
The effect of airport practice is this. You create a precedent for honouring your commitments in circumstances when it is easiest to excuse falling off-track. This means that next time a lesser excuse crops up, you’re less likely to succumb. But when you start to make excuses, you set a precedent and are liable to being pulled back into the swamp of habitual behaviour in which 95% of humans reside.
Precedents are very persuasive. As an ex-lawyer, I of all people should know.
My mastery at tumbling down slippery slopes that I acquired in my years of practising hedonism and addiction acquainted me with the very bottom of the swamp. Not fun. It helped me develop a healthy terror that inspired my movement in the other direction.
Compassionate Discipline
‘The disciplined mind leads to happiness, and the undisciplined mind leads to suffering.’ – Buddha
Discipline gets a bad rep. It’s too-often conflated with self-punishment. But the opposite is true.
The normal human way of thinking is deluded.
It equates ‘being kind’ to oneself with destroying one’s body and living out of harmony with nature. Drinking poison, eating chemicals, staring at screens late at night and sleeping out of synch with one’s biology are viewed as ‘treats’, despite the terrible disturbance they cause to mind, body and emotions.
A more evolved thinking is to view these behaviours as self-punishment.
When you taste the inner nectar brewed when external pollutants are subtracted and soulful practices are added, one realises: ‘Ah yes, this the real stuff.’ No hangovers or sugar crashes.
Something fundamental switches in your mind.
Your internal dialogue changes.
You sensitise to the subtle negativity and self-defeat that accompanies indulgence in instant gratification.
But you also acquire sensitivity to the internal excitement that goes every stand for being a so-called ‘boring person’. Every quick hit you would otherwise drain on external attractions gets stored in your system as an inner light grows.
This inner glow becomes precious. So it is with an attitude of love, treasuring this delicate internal energy, that you use discipline to pull yourself from the swamp.
Peer Pressure
‘What I like about you is that you make it cool to be boring.’ — Chase, former student
Most of the time, those around us tempt us into the swamp. There is usually no malice; they know no better.
‘Oh go on, be kind to yourself. Don’t be so boring.’
I believe that the deepest part of our souls longs not for conventional fun but being ‘boring’. We wish that the people around us would give us permission to NOT indulge and would rather inspire us to nourish the state of inner balance.
This is where I come in.
I hold an unapologetically boring energy inside myself and my coaching group. This is a place where going to bed early and saying no to all social events that you don’t actually want to go to is not only accepted but cool.
Making Decisions
‘Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger.’ — Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Many people want the clarity and conviction to make courageous decisions.
To do so is an expression of yang energy.
But the solution is usually, particularly in today’s society, not to strive harder but to drop into stillness.
We need Yin and Yang.
Yin to remember the beauty of the space inside and the stillness to see what action to take.
Yang to vitalise the energy to make it happen.
No yin and we spend our lives on the hamster wheel.
No yang and we are locked in inertia.
All of the most important decisions in my life have come when I dropped into deep stillness. I plunge into the extremity of Yin energy, dropping all activity. And out of the void, true Yang energy emerges.
A quiet whisper:
‘That way’.
Without doing any work, the real work is done. After crystallising this intention, effort flows effortlessly.
A bowman can only make the perfect shot if they are totally still. Most people spend their lives blindly shooting arrows.
This is the meaning of Sun Tzu’s quote above. To make clear decisions, we must first draw our bow by gathering energy in and becoming still. There comes a natural point at which we lock in. At this juncture, hitting the target is as easy as letting go.
‘How’, Not ‘Can I?’
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” ― W.H. Murray
Examples of seemingly impossible decisions that have arisen in me in recent years::
I am going to give three hours per weekday to each of my Qi Gong practice and my private coaching... While working at Goldman Sachs.
I will spend a year in China, practising martial and meditative arts for seven hours per day while learning Chinese and running my online business.
I will run my online business without using any social media.
Next question: How do I make it happen?
The question is ‘How?’, not ‘Can I?’
No attitude question of possibility. No waiting to save up time or money. No listening to people telling you to be ‘realistic’ (this was the dealbreaker that caused me to say goodbye to one mentor).
I decide I will do the practice. I have a flight. OK, that means I will practice at the airport.
I decide I will give three hours to each of my Qi Gong practice and business while working at Goldman Sachs. Knowing that once I open Pandora’s Inbox, I am likely to fall off-track, I wake up ridiculously early to pour myself into these life-generating activities. The clarity and consistency that this commitments demands means I must sacrifice mindless distractions and indulgences, but in the big picture of my life, it’s worth it.
‘There is always a way. If you can’t see a way, it means you don’t want it enough.’ - Shi Heng Yi
When confronted with challenge, is your reaction to look for excuses or for opportunities to adapt? The latter is the signature of someone who truly cares.
I have had a student wake at 5am while on a yoga retreat to do our extra Qi Gong practice. All of his own accord. I didn’t ask him to — in fact, if he’d consulted me I would have told him to relax and enjoy the yoga retreat. But this is an excellent example of the strength of internal commitment.
Yes, this is a bold approach requiring unshakeable inner confidence. This is something that must be cultivated. In my experience, martial and Qi Gong practices such as Ma Bu and standing meditation are central. And very importantly, surrounding yourself with people who move you in the same direction and letting go of those who pull you into the swamp.
Practice
Identify the commitment or decision you’ve been putting off — starting this, stopping that
Write down the excuses you’ve been entertaining
Laugh at them
Write a list of systems you can put in place to ensure you do the thing. Include, as you see fitting, a commitment to another human being (me at ben@benlucas.co, if you like)
