Pause for thought . . .

When I first started teaching large public seminars in the early 2000’s I quickly discovered that I didn’t like it.  It was interesting.  One would think that it would be great.  There were plenty of people, lots of attention, and much respect and appreciation shared. 

Strangely, I found the whole scene unrewarding and rather lonely.  What I noticed was that there was an invisible barrier between me and most of the people.  I was the “celebrity guest” and they were the “fans.”  There was no expectation, or even desire, to truly get to know one another. 

I recognized the people more or less “assigned” to come over and be charming during the seminar dine-out.  I recognized the expectation that I would share seminar dine-out story (a, b, c, d, etc.). I also recognized that many of the attendees were there to be attendees rather than seeing themselves as being there to really train and/or learn something lasting and significant. 

This gave me an opportunity to learn something about myself.  Here is what I learned:

I value relationships.  If I am invited to give a seminar one of the things that I consider is whether or not I will build a lasting relationship with the host.  I have found that if I naturally become friends with the host, I will also naturally build relationships among the dojo members.  Mostly because the kind of person that values a relationship with a guest, values relationships with their students even more.   

For me, money pays the bills, but personal relationships give my life meaning.  

I value sincerity, and honesty.  I am not interested in admiration or adulation.  I am a normal human being and I want to interact with other people in the same manner.  While training I want to know what others can and cannot do, and I am more than willing to share what I can and cannot do.  No one is perfect or all knowing, so why pretend to be?  

When training, my assumption is that people are there because they wish to learn.  My job is to teach.  It profits no one to teach what is already known, so (because I’m the teacher in this instance) I try to share things unknown, or at least ways to improve.  Personally, I like to have a mental “bench mark” for each individual, so that I can be reasonably certain that by the time we are through I have raised each individual a bit above that “bench mark,” or provided them with adequate means to do so in the future.

In most instances I know that I am going to share a limited amount of time with each individual. That being so, it would be a hopeless endeavor to try to turn them into clones or whatever.  They are going to be who they are.  Therefore, make it a habit to seek out what individuals want from their time with me, and then try to satisfy that desire.  In that way, our time together becomes significant and beneficial.  

Those that have enough interest to contact me via email or Skype I try to benefit as much as possible given the constraints of that form of communication.  And so far, whomever has been able to make it to my personal dojo I have tried to give as much training as they can endure at no cost.   (Happily, so far, only sane people have shown up on my doorstep!)

Finally, while lunch and dinner conversations often naturally center around martial arts, I like to get to know as much as I can about others.  I already know all about myself ad nauseum.  Other people are interesting.  They have interesting careers, lives, families and talents.

So, that is what I found out about myself so far.  I certainly don’t expect to get rich or create some large international organization.  I have friends that are rich relative to me, and friends that have large international organizations.  I care about those things for them, because they enjoy that.  For me, those aren’t as important as getting to really know and care about people, and sincerely trying to share with them what they are interested in and was shared so openly with me.

Well back to family stuff . . . 

 

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