One of my martial arts students pulled me aside the other day, with an upcoming tournament on his mind, and told me his main motivation to compete comes from the idea of inspiring his son—who also trains martial arts.
He told me he wanted his son to see him do “good” so that he’d be inspired to do good, too.
I asked him what doing “good” meant to him.
He said, “winning.”
I asked him if winning was what was most important to him when it came to his son’s performance… because I could put him with a group of white belts if that’s what he wanted (he’s a red belt).
He thought about it for a minute and said, “No.”
He then described how he would want his son to show courage, have fun, try his best, demonstrate good sportsmanship, and use the experiences from the tournament as fuel for his future training.
I told him that if that’s what he wanted his son to prioritize… the best thing he can do is prioritize those same things, too.
P.s. If you’d like to read along, I’m going to start uploading quotes from Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty to MoveMe Quotes in the upcoming weeks.