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Every day we are all likely to experience positive things and people, as well as negative things and people. What we focus on, is a choice we all get to make. You can choose to magnify the negatives and allow yourself to get stressed out by your problems and challenges. When you choose this route, you will attract more negatives. It seems as if you have a black cloud over your head if you choose to focus on the negatives.

Whenever you magnify the negatives in your life, you also shrink the positives. Or as motivational speaker Les Brown once said, “If you argue for your limitations you get to keep them.” Don’t become blind to the good stuff, simply because you are focusing on all the crap! Remember, you can choose to magnify the positives and feed your spirit with great optimism and an energy force that will attract more of the good stuff into your life. It’s a choice we all get to make every moment of everyday.

People that work hard at achieving pre-determined worthwhile goals and objectives, tend to focus on what they want in their lives. And are generally happier because of their excitement toward their goals. They soon begin to attract the people, situations and opportunities that bring the luck they need to become successful achievers. By focusing on positive personal growth, we tend to knock down our life goals accidentally as if by magic. The truth is however is there are no coincidences when it comes to becoming a world class achiever.  

A good exercise for you to improve on in this area for the next seven days is to focus only on the positives in your life. Positive people, events, activities, language and positive actions. This may seem impossible during the Covid-19 situation but anything is possible to the willing mind.

OQP stands for Only Quality People. You will notice that quality people tend to focus on the positives. Negative people focus on the negative.

Like everything…Perfect Practice makes perfect!

This month’s focus is the Habit of Giving your Best Effort and Reaching for Your Full Potential. Whether we are talking about martial arts classes, study habits or work…you will always succeed at a higher level if you develop the habit of giving your best effort and treating others as you yourself would like to be treated. Nobody achieves greatness by being lazy or giving a half-hearted effort. Equally, nobody ever succeeds with a negative attitude toward others.

If you study the training of champions in any sport, you will see them putting in hours of dedicated practice and giving their best effort daily. When you give your best effort and consistently push to exceed your previous best, you will get better and you will improve. Never allow Minimums to become your Maximums & Always Maintain High Character!

In the martial arts, we live The Martial Way. We call this “Living the Art”. “Warriors are special people. Since they understand the concept of honor, they set their ethical standards above most of the rest of society.”   Forrest E. Morgan, Maj USAF

When you push yourself to your current maximum, and then strive for 10% improvement or better, you will constantly raise the bar on your personal best. The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is one word…”extra”! You will take yourself to new levels of excellence if you will decide in advance to give extra effort and especially extra service.  This is especially true if you maintain a high level of character in the process.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you get in the habit of giving a minimal effort and accept less than your best, this can also become habit.  If you’re not careful, before you know it, your minimum will become your maximum. Ultimately, your life will become ordinary or even less. To some this is normal, to peak performers, warriors, and champions this a place they avoid like the plague.   Look at everything you do, on and off the mat, think about how you can give your best effort and do it better. What could you do different today to take it to a whole new level?

In the training hall (Dojo or Dojang)…what can you do to pick up the pace to improve your skills and conditioning? At work or school, what could you do to exceed expected and provide extra-ordinary service? What could you do in your relationships to make a profound and positive impact on those around you? What could you do at your school to ensure to ensure students are fully plugged in! At work…can you arrive a little earlier, stay later, improve your effort and increase your overall contribution?

As the year draws to an end, it is a good time to
reflect on all of our accomplishments and personal victories. We have had many
this year and it is in no small part due to all our collective efforts:

• We welcomed 8 new students and 1 transfer students
• 36 students attended the Black Belt Camp
• 36 students competed at the New England Championships
• We welcomed 4 new Cho-Dans into the Black Belt family
• We promoted 9 students to a new Dan rank
• We took home the Regional Women (7^th time),
  Men (9^th time) and demo team (1st time) cups

I am very grateful for everybody’s contribution and
support as we continue to build Cambridge Tang Soo Do. As a TEAM, we were able
to accomplish some great things. The old saying (TEAM), “together, everyone
achieves more”, is surely true in this case. I look forward to more of the same
in 2020.

The “Warrior” understands that the more they know the more
they know they don’t know. Simply put, there is always more to learn. The best
way to learn is to start with the right mindset. This encompasses the six
fundamental learning principles of Tang Soo Do but starts with humility or what
we call Kyum Son.

You must first empty your cup before you are
able to fully learn. This requires humility and or at least the ability to
suspend the ego long enough to look and listen with the intent to learn. My
first instructor told us that to learn, “we must be like a sponge”. That is, we
must be able to absorb a lot and then be ready to soak up more after we have
rested. There will always be more to learn if you are open to it. To be open,
you must first empty your cup. There is a great story about this very topic in Joe
Hyam’s classic, Zen in the Martial Arts, in which he relates a story of
a potential student seeking knowledge and instruction from a famous martial
arts teacher and Zen Master. The potential student introduced himself and his
many accomplishments while the Zen Master listened intently and poured a cup of
tea for the visitor. As the potential student continued to talk, the Zen Master
continued to pour tea until it was flowing over the top of the cup and all over
the table and the potential student’s lap. The potential student exclaimed,
“what are you doing, you are spilling the tea all over the place.” Upon hearing
this, the Zen Master stopped pouring and said, “just as this cup is full and
can’t hold anymore tea, you are full of yourself and can’t learn what I have to
share”.