Jiu Jitsu your way to wealth
By: Iskandar Kurbanov
Tags: Mental Health, Jiu Jitsu, Personal Development, Wealth

It took me over 12 years of interest and practice in martial arts and self-development to understand that the two are not that different.

There are many styles of self-development just as there are for martial arts but they all encompass the underlying rules that you must follow and understand to succeed in the long term.

It is thought by the general public that to be a successful fighter or a martial artist, you must be strong, agile, flexible, and quick. It is similar in business and success overall, the most evident characteristics are to be smart, well-read, energetic, persistent, and a great leader. Which not incorrect. However, those are just the tip of the iceberg and don’t always reveal the biggest part: the self-awareness.

In a fight with an opponent, there are many ways to win or lose. Being big and strong gives you an instant edge over your opponent but doesn’t guarantee success. Just as in life, being smart and persistent gives you an instant edge, but doesn’t guarantee success.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness involves knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and overall awareness of your body and mind. Developing self awareness allows you to discover some interesting perspectives on your motivations, angers, pleasures, fears, and many other feelings. Many spiritual teachings also suggest that self-awareness (or consciousness) puts you in touch with your body and allows for self-healing to occur, but that’s a topic for another time. A good way to develop self-awareness is through daily meditation.

Just as in life, during a fight it is very easy to get overwhelmed and not be aware of your surroundings and to act out of instinct instead of technique. For example, during a fight you can easily lose control of your breathing which will cause your heart to work harder, the result is becoming extremely fatigue after only a few seconds. You probably know what I’m talking about if you have ever been in a fight or taken a martial arts class where you had to spar. So to be any good in a fight, you need to learn to control your emotions, breathing, and be aware of yourself and the situation.

Now, let's look at a similar hypothetical example but in a workplace environment. In the morning your manager rushes in to your office and tells you that the project that you planned to be complete next week will now need to be completed by tomorrow because the client just realized their whole infrastructure is not working and they mixed up their launch date and are scheduled to launch tomorrow. Your heart starts racing and you get a mini anxiety attack as hundreds of images about all the things that need to be done flash through your mind. You grab your laptop to work but you are unable to focus on anything because you keep opening different windows trying to multitask. It is now 9pm and you have completed the last few tasks for the client’s launch. You fall asleep exhausted. Only to wake up to repeat this whole process on the next project. You wonder, how long can I keep up like this?

Fast forward 5 years. You have let your boss know that the job is having a negative impact on your mental health, that you are are hard worker but having so much work overload does not align with your goals. You have been meditating daily and working out after work. You even have time in the evenings to read the books that you have been putting off and have even started working on that business idea that you have not had time to pursue before. Working on your side hustle has shown your passions and you are now getting some interesting job offers from other companies. Becoming aware of your work and life situation has even left you some time to meet that special person. Life just seems to be coming together. It seems more planned out now instead of being reactionary.

Audit your life. Is it going how you want it to? What percentage of your life is occupied by activities that you hate? Like boiling a frog, doing activities that you hate can often lead to more activities that you hate, you simply become accustomed to them and start to hardly notice them. What you don’t measure, you can’t improve.