A Peaceful Warrior Brings His Zaadz to Life: Brian Johnson Chats with Dan Millman

Thank you.

www.zaadz.com

To hear more of Brian's audio material,

be sure to check out www.learnoutloud.com

slash Brian Johnson.

Dan Millman is a former world champion athlete,

university coach, martial arts instructor,

and college professor.

His books, including The Journey of Socrates,

Way of the Peaceful Warrior,

and The Life You Were Born to Live,

have inspired millions of readers in 29 languages.

A major motion picture adaptation of Way of the Peaceful Warrior

will hit theaters on Friday, June 2,

in select cities.

For more information on screening dates and locations,

and to see a complete selection of Dan's work,

please visit www.danmillman.com.

That's www.danmillman.com.

We hope you enjoy this conversation,

which took place on the eve of Peaceful Warrior's movie premiere.

www.danmillman.com

So now I want to hear where that came from.

You've inspired so many people,

and I'd just love to learn from you

just what experiences and what books

and what teachers have inspired you on the path,

and just what lessons you've learned

that have guided you in the process of becoming who you are.

Just a simple question for you.

Yeah, not too much to start with.

Brian, the whole question of how I ended up where I am

remains a kind of mystery to me.

You know that saying,

we can understand life backwards,

but we have to live it forwards.

Even looking back,

I could make up reasons

and see this connection to that connection,

but maybe it's built into our genetics

or our fate or our karmas, if you will.

My parents were just regular folks.

My dad drove a catering truck to downtown Los Angeles,

got up at four in the morning,

and was a hardworking guy.

I once asked him if his work made him happy,

and he said, gosh, it never occurred to me.

He was in the Depression generation.

They just worked to make a living

and support their families.

It wasn't back then about fulfilling work.

It was about doing the job.

My mother worked as a bookkeeper,

so they both worked.

I came from a pretty stable family.

It doesn't mean it was necessarily always idyllic,

but we didn't have some of the major problems

that people face today.

I think that gave me a pretty solid foundation.

That isn't to say someone who lacks that

can't do great things with their life,

but in my case,

it was a help to me.

I grew up through the 50s and early 60s

in Los Angeles High School.

It was a very interesting time.

I was exposed early on to the martial arts

when I was nine years old.

My dad took me to a judo exhibition,

and I was so thrilled at what they could do.

I began to study judo,

and I was exposed to the Japanese culture.

It just pervaded with the Zen kind of approach

to life, bowing before getting on the mat,

doing everything.

The progression, step-by-step,

all those things formed a part of my foundation.

Later on, I've had a lifelong interest in the martial arts.

Later on, I studied Okinawan-style Karate,

called Okinawa-te,

which is kind of a blend between two worlds,

between the linear styles of Japan

and the circular styles of Kung Fu,

and the Chinese kind of approach.

I guess that's been part of my life

between different cultures.

I found myself a member of nothing but a friend to all.

I'm not a member of a particular religion or a particular approach to exercise or diet.

I've managed to escape being a zealot or extremist in any area.

So I think that sense of balance also is part of my foundation.

Then when I discovered an old trampoline in a backyard once and started jumping, it was kind of a love at first jump.

I found my tool in terms of something I just loved doing.

I had no ambitions, no plans or strategies.

I just jumped and said, let's see what happens.

I didn't think of it as training.

I just loved it, so I practiced.

That's pretty much been my approach to life.

I once told somebody I never thought I'd be a world champion on the trampoline,

but I never thought...

Well, I wouldn't either.

I just kind of said, let's train and see what happens.

As a young gymnast, I found my calling for teaching.

I was very much into self-improvement, but one day,

kind of an image or a vision dawned on me that no matter how much I improved myself,

only one person benefited.

But if I could share what I learned with other people,

that made my life more meaningful.

It made it count for something more, I think.

Many people who...

I remember this.

It was odd to feel the same way.

So I found my calling for teaching and sharing,

and I did it with an enthusiasm.

The way many people tell a friend about a book they loved or a movie they loved,

or a piece of music.

I just wanted to share.

So much of what I learned in my life was actually not just learning for myself,

but more and more learning so I could, in my own way,

once I embodied what I learned, share it with other people.

Wow, that's beautiful.

Well, I think it's not just an aesthetic thing.

Even though I appreciate your response,

but I think what happened, because of that commitment to share,

it opened me up to a certain kind of wealth of information

that I might not have found if I was only searching for myself.

So I was exposed to rather unusual teachers over the years that passed,

including, of course, the old fellow I met in the gas station I called Socrates.

For those who don't know, he never told me his real name,

but he reminded me so strongly of that ancient Greek.

I started calling him Sock, a person short for Socrates.

And I met many teachers.

And in fact, there's a future book coming out next year called My Search for Spirit,

which will outline a lot of the classic obstacles, obstructions, and lessons on the spiritual path.

Awesome.

Because I went through some really archetypal teachers,

different kinds of people and experiences.

So I'm going to go into that in that book.

And to catch up quickly, I started teaching what I knew, which was gymnastics.

But eventually I realized being able to do handstands and cartwheels and somersaults

didn't help.

It didn't help me much when I went out on a date

or when I got married or had kids

or dealt with financial issues or career decisions

and all the things we address in everyday life.

That's when I started asking bigger questions

that eventually led to my writing and speaking,

which were the different ways I could share what I had learned with other people.

And so far, I guess many people have found a liking for the way I express myself.

Always modest.

Quite a few people, huh?

Yeah, well, a few people, yeah.

I know you've talked about some of your mentors,

any stories you want to share on that front?

Sure, sure.

I can say this for the time being,

that most people are familiar with the mentor I called Socrates,

an archetypal teacher, much like King Arthur's Merlin

or the Karate Kid's Mr. Miyagi

or Costa Native's Don Juan, you know?

He became the archetypal teacher through my writing.

But between the time I met Socrates in that station in 1966 on a starry December night,

and the time I actually wrote the book, almost 14 years passed.

And during that time, I met other teachers.

And I traveled around the world and I gained my own wisdom as well.

So when I wrote the book, of course, the words he spoke through that book

were words and ideas and concepts and realizations I'd had

through a number of different mentors and life experiences.

And I met other teachers afterward, too.

So, I mean, one of the teachers was a master of practices,

a global heritage of esoteric techniques,

a nonfictionist.

The other was a guru, a classic guru,

where, you know, you surrender to the guru, to God or the divine through the guru.

And that's a whole other way of learning and teaching and living.

And then there was a third teacher later on who was this adventurer.

He used to be a bounty hunter, you know, a very different kind of guy,

but real sensitive, intuitive person.

And he was extraordinarily helpful on my path.

And finally, there was a modest sage who, for me, brought me back down to Earth.

So that's it for the story and everyday reality of this type of activity.

Very zen-like kind of guy.

Just to give you a flavor, I said after 9-11, within 24 hours after 9-11, I called him up

because I was really interested in his sensibility.

I was walking around in a bit of a daze.

And I said, David, you have any comments about what's happened, and he said yes,

He said, I'm going to go mow the lawn cause the grass is still growing.

Which gives just a flavor for his sort of zen approach.

Yep.

Even though he's not even a zen guy.

just has that flavor.

So, you know, I'm giving you little bits and pieces and tastes

of some of the very different kinds of mentors I've had.

And I embrace and I take them all in with great gratitude.

There are reasons I've moved on from each phase of my life,

but all those are parts of what I communicate.

And that's what I've been seeking to do ever since,

is to convey in an effective, practical, down-to-earth, accessible way

reminders for living that people already know but might have forgotten.

Yeah, no, you say it perfectly.

And that's exactly, you know, the experience I had reading your books

was just this amazing blend of different traditions

and then honing it and bringing it into the practical, you know,

and just applying it to our modern lives.

And I just think that it's incredible.

And it's also, I think, a tribute and a reflection of how you live your life,

you know, and really grounded in just bringing these things.

And, again, it's been exciting for me to see.

Well, you know, it's pretty exciting for me to watch.

I mean, we're colleagues in spirit here.

It's exciting to watch you and look what John Bischke is doing with Learn Out Loud.

And it's fantastic.

Yeah.

These are some great things, exciting things happening in the world today.

I'm looking at this and seeing an opportunity for me to interview some of my friends

and people who have done amazing stuff like you've done

and kind of create a series, whether it's a monthly interview with different individuals

and kind of creating a framework that we can use to kind of inspire our members.

And also, what is it about our own paths and our own journeys that have informed us?

And then how can we, in the span of a brief,

20-minute video,

talk like this in a non, you know, pedantic or unnatural way,

kind of distill it into a, you know, like, this is something to think about.

This is a way that you can kind of bring in this lesson and be the change type of thing.

And then create kind of a, not formulaic, but kind of a structured, okay, like,

hey, here's a little background on me and this is what I've done.

And, you know, let's boil it down into some exciting things that are going on right now,

like your movie, for example, and then what you have going on in the future.

And then also just a, this is what I would say.

You know, if I had five minutes to talk to someone, this is the advice I would impart.

And I just want to hear your thoughts on that.

Well, sure.

What came up for me as you were describing this,

a number of things popped into my awareness here.

One is I'd like to share a quotation by John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester,

who lived some time ago.

He said, before I was married, I had three theories about raising children.

Now I have three children and no theories.

And you might wonder, well, why in the world would Dan share that in response to what I just said?

Well, it's almost the same way.

I could never...

You know, I think you could probably interview me and a dozen other, you know, teachers

who are successful authors or speakers, and you might actually not find much of a pattern

because I know it's almost like that, you know, three children, no theories.

And I think that's really liberating because someone listening to this will know

I don't have to fit anybody else's book.

Yes, yes.

I don't have to, I can't, but on the other hand, I can't strategize my way to success.

I can't follow some formula.

It's about being ourselves and following our heart.

And that's what I, you know,

Well, there's the formula, right?

Well, that's, yeah, that's in a way the non-Zen formula.

Yeah, I mean...

The formula of no formula.

If I can jump in really quickly, that's what I heard when you were talking about the trampoline.

I mean, you loved jumping on the trampoline, right?

And it's the no formula formula of what is your deepest instinct?

What would you do if you weren't afraid, you know?

And if you're truly being as you're becoming, that's the essence, I think.

And I think that you're absolutely right that we all have our own unique paths and manifestations.

And I know that I struggled trying to pigeonhole myself into being like this person

or like that person.

And the more I realize that, wow, I'm not that, I'm not this.

I need to just get to a place where I can really trust my instincts

and go out and express myself and figure out what it is I love to do.

And I think the theme here and what I'm trying to do is be able to bring that to our awareness,

you know, and be able to even comment on that process,

recognizing that there really is no theory.

There is no formula.

I banged my head against that wall for a while and realized that there isn't a formulaic strategy for success.

If you just do this...

This, this, this, this, and this, you will get where you want to go,

which was a, you know, struggle for me for quite a while.

But then I realized that one question for me that brought me back to it was,

what would I do if I wasn't afraid?

What would I do if I wasn't afraid and how can I serve?

And kind of merging those things and just trying to get back into my purest self, if that makes sense.

Absolutely.

In fact, what would I do if I weren't afraid?

I think it's, I think Tony Robbins uses that too.

And it's a wonderful, wonderful phrase.

Another one I like is, what do I want to look back on when we're at a decision point in our life?

And we don't know.

What part of ourselves we're going to feed or listen to?

And I think that question, what do I want to look back on five years or ten years from now?

What choice would I have wanted to make?

And that can be helpful too.

And also, my little girls, when they were little, and now they're college graduates, as you know,

but when they were little, if they'd said, Daddy, what should I do when I grow up?

I would say, do what you love and get someone to pay you for it.

Now, that sounds idealistic perhaps, but, you know, that's what I've always pursued.

I was unable, I was stubborn, I was unable to pursue.

For very long, what I didn't love, and what didn't match my values, my interests, my talents.

Now, that's not a guarantee.

If you do what you love, you're going to become the world class and retire early.

And in fact, if someone is following a creative art, music, writing, painting, whatever their creative art may be,

the best advice I could give is, make sure you have a day job.

Because the starving artist, they may sound romantic, but it actually doesn't give you the free attention and the stability.

To really pursue your art.

So, I think people, creative art should be a hobby until it takes over.

And it can take years.

But meanwhile, you have a roof over your head, you have stability, you can exercise, you can have an organized life.

So, it frees you to be more creative.

It's interesting, there's a couple things you said right there.

I literally had goosebumps at one point when you were talking about the fact that,

just the idea that, you know, you had a low tolerance for doing something you didn't love,

and it had to be, you know, aligned with your values.

It didn't feel like it was the right thing to be doing, kind of thing.

And that, literally, my whole body vibrated when you said that.

Because there's something so true about that, where we're so conditioned to go out and get the insurance salesman job,

or do the accounting, or do whatever it is, and to, you know, make X dollars, and have X.2 kids,

and just do that thing, that we ignore that sense of what we're here to do and that purpose.

And then, you know, we numb ourselves to any number of different ways.

But how do we...

And I think if there's one thing that...

We have a lot of things in common, I think.

But one thing would be that, is that I say, oftentimes, if there's anything that differentiates me

and why I pinch myself that I'm getting paid to talk to you right now,

it's that I had a very low threshold for doing something that I wasn't passionate about.

And that came with a huge amount of risk and a huge amount of pain and suffering in my own life,

as I didn't fit in, you know.

And I couldn't figure out how to really integrate within society,

but, you know, persevered and had that courage to keep on bumping my head and moving forward.

But...

And what's fascinating, too, is that, you know, your story about your children

and what you would have told them is just brilliant.

And the most powerful question I've probably ever asked myself relates...

Has you in the story, which is pretty neat.

Maybe six years ago, after we sold E-Teams and I had, you know,

decided to take a year or two to kind of figure out what I'm here to do,

I found myself reading as much as I could.

And one of the first books that I read was a book called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.

And just a great book by Michael Gelb.

He's written some other good stuff, which I highly recommend.

And...

Oh, I'm reading his book, More Balls Than Hands, right now.

Are you really?

Yeah.

Oh, cool.

Cool.

I haven't checked that one.

I'll have to check it out.

Yeah.

But he has, you know, he talks about the different aspects of da Vinci's genius

and brings it into the 21st century.

And one of them was, I believe it was in the section on contemplation

and the fact that da Vinci spent, you know, so much time in contemplation

and that we as a society are just so busy all the time, we don't take time to slow down.

And he had an exercise in there, which was a hundred question exercise,

where you sat down and you wrote a hundred questions.

And it could be about anything, from why is this guy blue,

to what do I want to do with my life, to whatever it is that was on your mind.

And you sit down, you do it in one session, and at the end of that,

and just to kind of speak to it a little bit more thoroughly,

just because I think some people will love to do it,

do the hundred questions in one sitting, then you look at it and kind of see the themes,

and you pull out your top ten most powerful questions,

the questions that just really resonate with you the strongest.

Then you rank order them one through ten.

And I did this exercise.

And then he has a series of ten power questions,

and the question that just jumped out at me was,

how can I get paid to do what I love to do?

And he suggests, you know, you take that and you write it down on something,

and you go and you contemplate it, you meditate on that question.

And then I, a little more detailed than people may want,

but I wrote it on a piece of paper, poked a hole in it,

tied some dental floss around it, and put it on my shower head and took a bath,

and imagined, how can I get paid to do what I love to do?

And what was fascinating was, what came into my mind was,

I want to get paid to learn.

I want to get paid to learn about life.

And to learn about universal truths.

And I want to get paid to meet the people who I love,

and whose teachings are inspiring me so much.

And you, at the time, were hands down the most influential teacher in my life.

And I said that I just, I would love to figure out a way to get paid

to hang out with Dan Millman.

Literally, I can see the journal page in my mind right now.

And it's just, to just imagine that, to see that flow is beautiful.

And then to also have the humility to look at that five years between here and now,

and the, you know, the pain and the terror of that process with the beauty of it,

and the lessons learned, and the evolution is just remarkable.

But I just really wanted to kind of take a moment and center in on that question of,

of what is it we love to do?

How can we get paid to do what we love to do?

And then also, the realization of what you said, the pragmatics of it,

of we've got to pay our rent, you know.

And I think, I would offer that for some people, the starving artist is the path.

Where, you know, their path is to go out and do that.

For others.

Because it's going to be, you know, put the roof over your head and kind of find that.

And it's, it's truly going into, you know, our souls and figuring out what our instinct is driving us to do.

And then finding the most authentic expression of that, if that makes sense.

It certainly does.

And we should also, of course, acknowledge that for some people, selling life insurance is their calling.

Is what they love to do.

Yeah.

In fact, I did that for two months after I graduated from college.

And it wasn't a fit for me, but it certainly is for some other people.

Yeah.

So we all have our different,

Yeah.

Values and interests.

It's not as if it's, we glorify being an artist.

Yeah.

You know, a creative artist and, and people who do other jobs that on one level may seem more, more conventional.

Yep.

That can be absolutely perfect for them and their true calling.

One of the most spiritual guys I've met sold life insurance and was an insurance broker and financial planner.

And he, but he just used that as an excuse to spend their lives.

Exactly.

And talk to them about life.

Yep.

And meet people.

So all that's true too.

You know, there's a story of Ron Kaufman, was a fellow I knew years ago.

And, and this is a true story.

All Ron liked to do was throw the frisbee.

He just loved frisbees.

So he did have a feeling for world peace too, but he didn't know really what to do about that.

He, you know, like many of us, but he loved to throw the frisbee.

Well, one day his, his dad came in and had a talk with him and said, look, Ron, you're, you're 35 years old.

Let's find you a little job at a house.

And, and he said, you gotta get a job.

You gotta find something.

Well, Ron started contemplating and he said it was in the shower where all of a sudden he got this idea.

And he got out of the shower, toweled off and dialed the, the Wham-O company.

And he said, listen, I was wondering if you could give me 500 free frisbees.

And they said, what?

He said, yeah, put me in touch with someone.

And he started spelling his idea out.

He said, put me in touch with someone in your promotion department.

What he wanted them to do was give him 500 free frisbees.

And he wanted printed on those frisbees, world peace in English and Cyrillic, you know, the Russian alphabet.

And he said, then I'd like you to pay my way to Russia.

Now this was during the Cold War, this was some years ago.

He said, I'd like you to pay my way to Russia.

I'm going to go to Red Square.

I'm going to teach people to throw the frisbee.

I'm going to be an American.

I'm going to be an American goodwill frisbee ambassador.

Well, they thought that was a terrific idea, relatively inexpensive.

They did it.

He was super successful.

He went back numerous times, learned Russian, married a Russian wife, and was leading tours, goodwill tours.

And again, not everybody will necessarily come up with an idea like that in the shower,

but he's one example of somebody who did find out what he loved and got someone to pay him for it.

Yeah.

And, and also I think it's just important to note that it was anything but a pretty process.

If we went into the psychology of,

of him during that time, you know, and this is what I think is just, we're so glorified in the sense of, of, you know,

I just remember when, when we, when I did my last company and, and, you know, we were doing our thing

and someone from a business school came to interview me to learn about entrepreneurship and to write a story on it.

And I told him my story, the ups and downs, and as much as you can tell in an hour and a half lunch or whatever it was.

And he came back and, and, you know, sent me the, the article that he wrote.

And essentially it was, you know, I came up with the idea.

I decided to do this.

I did that and everything went perfectly.

And now look where we are.

And he was like, well, you missed a couple of steps in there.

And I think we have this naive idea that, that there isn't a struggle when you're on your path, you know, and it's, it's so not the case.

And as we look at it from that hero's journey perspective, and it's these trials that, that truly are the end, you know,

and that is what we're here to do is to grow through those experiences and just to continue to get deeper and deeper into who we are

and how we give ourselves to the world,

where we can really embrace that process.

And well, also, also Brian, I mean, you know, when I was about at the top peak of my condition as a gymnast and going back to my senior year in college,

just bought a used Triumph motorcycle, I was, you know, feeling super fit.

They were going to send me, as soon as I got back to school, they were sending me to Yugoslavia to train at the world championships for the best gymnast in the world.

Cause I was a potential Olympian expected.

I'd be trying out about a year later.

And, um, two days, well,

then the last night,

the last night in Los Angeles, before I went back to Berkeley, um, my motorcycle collided with a car, turned it, which turned in front of me and I shattered my leg in 40 pieces.

So these things do happen.

We get these interruptions, these wake up calls of sorts.

Um, also, you know, when I graduated in college, I was at 22 years old.

I was appointed just through serendipity.

I got the coaching job at Stanford university as a coach.

I was there for, for four years.

Then I went off and somebody offered me a professorship at Oberlin college and I thought my life was charmed.

And then I decided three weeks later,

two years later, it was time to go back to California, pursue other directions and the bottom dropped out.

Yeah, I was doing, I was doing two, working two jobs, starting at five in the morning and working overload, typing a law firm, then data entry at a real estate firm.

This happened after all that I'd already written way of the peaceful warrior, but it's gone out of print.

I figured I'd had a brief career as a writer.

So I'm just underscoring what you said that there are ups and there are downs and we've got to trust the process.

And I like what you said too, about some people, um, in terms of.

Maybe some people, it is their destiny to be a starving artist for a while again.

So I'm not suggesting people should or shouldn't do anything.

I, that's why I often remind people.

I'm not here for people to trust me.

Oh, and that's beautiful.

And I think that's what your work does too.

And the way that you've really positioned yourself is really just being a reflection to someone's highest potential, you know?

And that's, that's what we strive to do at Zod's.

And what I strive to do in my life is it's not, it's not about me, Brian Johnson.

It's not about Zod's and our philosophy, our philosophy is you discover your philosophy.

Yeah.

And you figure out what your highest truths are and we're going to create an environment in which you can connect with other people who are passionate about it, inspire you and empower you to go out and, and to, to be that change, you know, you're capable of being, but it's your own path.

And I think that that's a theme that's certainly why I've resonated with your work so powerfully is that it's a look, you know, here, here I am, you know, and these are the things that I've done and, and we all have that unique process of discovery.

So we're absolutely on the same page on that.

And you know, there have been people who've come up to me and said, yeah,

I'm following your way, your way of the peaceful warrior.

And I'm going, what is that about?

You know, I said, look, I'm not a church.

You know, my, what I usually tell people, if I start a church, I'll call it the born yesterday church of occasional clarity.

So I, you know, it's not, that's not the idea.

Yeah.

You got to blaze your own trail.

Some of us who don't feel like we can fit in are really not here to fit in.

We're here to live in some sense by our example.

Yeah.

You asked me what I might tell people if I just had a brief time.

And, and, uh, there's a story about that.

A young guy came up to me.

He'd heard I did consultations and I charged a pretty decent money to sit down with someone for an hour, an hour and a half.

And he said, look, Dan, I only have five bucks.

I'm a college student.

You know, can you, can you, and he handed it to me and said, look, can you give me some quick advice?

I said, sure.

I said, here and now, breathe and relax.

And that may not sound like much for those, you know, seeking their place in life.

You know, people who are in their twenties, they call it the trying twenties because you're trying this and trying that.

You know, it's an, life's an experiment.

But, so it may not sound like the most practical.

It may not sound like the most practical career advice, but it is very good life advice.

Because whatever we're doing, wherever we are, if we remember where we are is here, the time is now,

and to focus on what's in front of us and to breathe and relax, I'm still learning the benefits.

We don't realize how many times during the day we hold our breath.

Yeah.

When we're concentrating on something, when we're straining or reaching down to pick up something,

and to remember to breathe constantly, sufficiently.

Not, it doesn't have to be super deep, but just whatever.

We need at the time, that and relaxing the body.

We can do that any time.

Profoundly can change the quality of one's body and one's life, whatever we're doing.

Yeah, I just, just feeling that even as I breathe as you describe that is just so grounding.

It was actually one of the key things I took from your work as well was,

I forget how you told the story in Way of the Peaceful Warrior,

but just that idea of breathe is so beautiful.

And then I just had this, this vision of bouncing on your trampoline in your backyard and,

you know, the lessons you were teaching me then of really relaxing and allowing for that flow to kind of take my body.

And if I tried too hard, right, there was just this rigidity to it and I just lost that flow.

So just that, that rhythm and that dance, just I experienced as you were describing that.

It's beautiful.

Well, cool.

You know, and everything we do, every little thing we do is a metaphor of life.

Because when you were on the trampoline, you may recall, I said, when you go up, think up.

When you go down, think down.

And that's, there's a lot about life there too.

Yeah.

Kind of go with the flow.

Yeah.

Because often we're going down thinking up and vice versa.

And so kind of to, to get a feel for that.

Also, we were talking about people and the jobs and careers and all that and, and finding

out what our talents are and so on.

Well, there's a, a story I was picking out.

One of my books is called Living on Purpose and I wanted to pick a story, a very, very

brief one, but I think it points out some helpful things that might be useful.

Yeah.

There was a 10-year-old boy, now I don't think this is his real name, but as far as I know,

this is a true story.

His name is, I call him David.

David Henry.

David lost his left arm in an auto accident.

Despite his disability, he decided to study Judo with an old Japanese Judo teacher or sensei.

David progressed well, but he couldn't understand why, after three months of training, his teacher

had taught him only a single Judo move and his teacher explained, this is the only way,

this is the only move you'll ever need to know.

Well, several months later, David attended his first tournament where he definitely used

his one move to win the first three matches.

Amazed by his own success.

He found himself in the finals.

This time, he was outmatched.

His opponent was larger, stronger and more experienced.

But when his opponent made a critical mistake, David stepped in and used his one move to

pin the other boy and he won the tournament.

Now, later, his teacher explained, you won for two reasons.

First, you've nearly mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of Judo.

Second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm.

Third, you've been able to control your opponent's strength.

So, David's weakness has become his strength.

I love that because we never know how things are going to turn out.

I approach life like that.

You know, you sow your seeds.

We can't, you know this, we can control our efforts in life.

We can do that.

But we cannot control the outcome.

And anybody who tells us, I'll guarantee you success, happiness, million dollars, nonsense.

Nobody can guarantee that.

But by making the effort, we vastly increase the odds of getting what we want over not

making the effort.

Yeah.

And as Michael Jordan said it best, you make zero percent of the shots you don't take.

Amazing.

I love that story and I just want to put in a strong recommendation for that book.

That and Way of the Peaceful Warrior are my two favorite books.

Just to repeat that, Living on Purpose, I love the questions, you know, and it's just

Socrates' rule book is kind of how I read that.

That story in particular reminds me of a lesson I actually just was sharing with, I received

from one of the guys on our side, a guy named Obi, who I think you, have you met Obi or

you just saw him online?

Oh, yeah.

It's the Obi-Wan Kenobi.

That's the one.

Yeah.

Obi's just got an amazing energy and a big fan of Bruce Lee and he told me a story of

Bruce Lee, you know, and something along the lines of, you know, Bruce Lee saying that

I'm not afraid of the guy who's practiced 10,000 kicks one time, but I am a little nervous

about the guy who's practiced one kick 10,000 times and just that focus and I used the story

the other day with the guy we just brought on who's doing some great work with our business

development.

That importance of focus and being able to say no and just being able to kind of, what

is it that, what is our unique gift?

And I'll just kind of take this tangent because the idea as I lead our company, I'm really

striving to understand what is it that we, Zods.com and Zods Incorporated, what is it

that we and only we can do in this world and how do we really focus on our gifts and give

them to the world?

And then also, you know, personally, one of my biggest, you know, I contemplated getting

a PhD in psychology for a while.

I just loved this study, this scientific study of human potential and one of my favorite

teachers in that domain is Martin Seligman who wrote the book Authentic Happiness and,

you know, his premise being, you know, if you want happiness, it's actually rather simple.

Understand yourself.

Know thyself.

Socrates is, you know, fundamental truth and know your strengths.

Know what you're good at, which tend to be correlated to what you love to do and use

them often.

That's oversimplification, but pretty much the science of happiness.

Know your strengths and use them often.

You will tend to be happier.

And then if you want a truly meaningful life, use those strengths in something, for something

bigger than yourself.

Give back to the world, which is really circling on, I think, a lot of the themes that we're

talking about right now.

That is such an important key, Brian.

The idea of giving back.

Some people think of that as some huge contribution, but I mean, it can be just saying a kind word

to somebody at the grocery store.

It can be picking up a piece of litter on the ground and depositing it in a local can.

You know, I tell people, I don't know the impact of my words, but when I leave a city,

it's going to be a little cleaner.

Yeah.

It's going to be a little cleaner.

I love that.

You know, it's funny, too.

Again, just a vision of us walking into Westwood that one day, right?

And literally picking up a piece of trash and throwing it away, because right there,

it's just little things that make the hugest difference.

In another one of your books, I don't know if this was the title, was it, There Are No

Ordinary Moments?

Yeah, No Ordinary Moments, yeah.

And again, for those who don't know who the heck I am, I have written 12 books.

Two of them are for children, which I think are pretty cool little books.

One called Secret of the Peaceful Warrior actually won an award, a Benjamin Franklin

Award, and it was rated one of the best books in the world.

One of the best books, a conflict resolution for kids called Secret of the Peaceful Warrior.

And anybody can obviously drop by my website, peacefulwarrior.com.

Right now, at the website, there's a cool link to a movie trailer, the Peaceful Warrior

movie.

Again, as we speak, the movie is coming out on the whole West Coast this weekend.

At the time we're speaking, and it's going to be moving across the country soon after.

And they did a wonderful job, as you saw, they did a wonderful job on the film, adapting

the book.

And adapting a book is like turning a painting into a sculpture.

Or a cabinet.

Changes have to be made.

I thought they really got a lot of the key elements and message and spirit of the book

onto the screen.

So we hope Nick Nolte and company, Scott Mecklewood lays me and Amy Smart in it too.

She's just joyous.

So that's kind of the exciting thing going on right now.

Oh, I didn't mention, I actually have a book coming out called Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior.

And the subtitle is a companion to the book that changes lives.

I don't know why I waited 20 minutes.

25 years.

So many people had questions after reading Peaceful Warrior.

You know, they found a lot of perspectives, but they said, what about this part you wrote?

What about this part?

And how come he said that?

And so what I did was I took excerpts from Peaceful Warrior, all the substantive parts

of the story narrative, but the parts that might confuse people or were controversial.

And I then go off and explain it almost as Socrates might explain it.

And further shed further light on it.

And so it finally occurred to me that not everybody's going to read all.

My other books to get the whole story.

So this will help them to understand way the Peaceful Warrior far better and get a refresher

course, so to speak.

I think it's brilliant.

What's it called again?

It's going to be called Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior.

And was there a subtitle subtitle of that?

That a companion to the book that changes lives.

Oh, that's great.

And it's coming out as an e-book even sooner, like within the next few weeks, it'll be

available online through my website and the movie website.

And it's the e-book version of it is called The Peaceful Warrior.

It's an e-experience.

It's going to have audio clips, video clips.

It's going to be quite a neat online type of learning experience.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Well, we'll definitely do our part to help get the word out.

Well, thanks.

I appreciate it.

I don't, you know, I kind of ride with life.

If this will all pass like a wave, then I'll be back to my writing and doing whatever I

do.

But it's been quite an adventure.

Yeah.

And it's, again, thanking you on behalf of our entire community for everything that you've

done and the work you've done to be mindful and to be in the moment and to strive to give

back to the world.

It's an inspiration for me.

And I know it's an inspiration for everyone who'll be listening to this and can't wait

to do everything we can to support you in the process of continuing to share your wisdom

with more and more people, sir.

Well, it's always a pleasure speaking with you, Brian.

Yeah, likewise.

Gosh.

Okay.

It's going to be an exciting time.

And I know you're with me in spirit.

It's a movie worth seeing.

And especially in our era right now, we need more films like this.

So I'll throw in a little comment on what we got going on on our site.

If you go to Zodds.com, which is Z-A-D-D.

Zodds.com.

You'll find a link to Pods, P-O-D-S.

There's a link there on the top.

And you'll find Peaceful Warrior as one of the most popular groups going on there.

And what that is is an opportunity for people to meet other people who want to go watch

the movie.

So via Zodds, we're kind of gathering people so they can maybe go out to dinner beforehand

and go watch the movie and be able to discuss it afterwards.

That's so cool about Zodds because they can go to the movie website, they can go to Peaceful

Warrior, they can go to the movie website, they can go to the movie website, they can go

to the movie website, they can go to the movie website, they can go to the movie website,

but to actually link up with people and go together, what a wonderful idea.

Yeah, and this is, you know, what we've been talking about for the last few years about

how we can help really build a thriving community around you and your teaching and your work

and your movie and future books.

It's exactly this.

So, you know, it's something that we'll be talking about a lot more over the next, you

know, weeks and months ahead.

And we're finally at a place where we can start building that out.

And we're really excited about it and cannot wait to chat with you more.

All right.

Take care, man.

All right.

Have a great day.

You too.

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