Paul Newman and I

Paul Newman was the first to introduce me to The Impostor Syndrome [photo by Gary Bernstein]In a TV interview I heard Paul Newman say, “I have always had this fear or feeling that one day, someone was going to push through the crowd, grab me by the arm and tell me, ‘It’s over. It was all a mistake. You are coming back to paint houses…’” When he said that, I instantly understood exactly what he meant. It’s an underlying fear that your good fortune is going to end and/or that someone is going to discover that you are unsure of yourself at times.

Psychologists call this the “Imposter Syndrome.” I am not a Psychologist, nor do I play one in this book. This book is about my personal experiences, obstacles and the strategies I’ve used and developed to overcome my self-doubt. I thought that once I built a successful business and was receiving international acclaim for my work in the martial arts, that the self-doubt would evaporate. Instead, my self-doubt returned with a new name, The Imposter Syndrome. The Imposter Syndrome is an anxiety that you feel you like a fraud. Regardless of what is going on around you, there is a nagging feeling people are going to find out that you are not as smart, good, successful, talented or anything else positive, as they think you are.

It’s a perpetual dread that you are to be found out or exposed as being inadequate. This creates an undercurrent of self-doubt that makes it hard to strive because the more you draw attention to yourself, the more you feel you are going to be unmasked.

You could call The Imposter Syndrome “Advanced Self-Doubt.” The imposter syndrome is mostly prevalent in successful, high achieving people.  Most people aren’t terribly concerned about being exposed because they live a life that they perceive as low risk. High achievers risk on many different levels and when that risk pays off and the self-image doesn’t match the rewards of the achievement, the imposter syndrome takes root.

We see this all of the time in entertainers who work to get to the top and then, once they are there, destroy themselves with drugs and alcohol.

For me, a key realization regarding self-doubt and then later the impostor syndrome was that every successful person fakes it until they make it. No one has all of the answers right out of the gate. But, you have to get into the gate to get into the race.

In fact, one of my favorite programs is from the UK is a reality show called, “Faking It.” This show takes someone from one field or background and gives him or her 30-days to learn a new skill and then be able to convince experts in that field that they are legitimate.

For instance they took a classically trained, very conservative young woman and gave her a month to learn how to be a hard rock band’s lead singer. A minister was given the same time to become a used-car salesman and a chess champion was given the task of passing himself off as the coach of a rugby team, though he had never played the game or enjoyed sports at all.

In these shows, regardless of the success of the participant, you can understand how they would have self-doubts about their place and position. They have a fear they will be discovered as a fraud. The famous actor and I had that same feeling but in real life. Regardless of our individual level of success, there was this lingering self-doubt that caste a gray cloud on our clear blue futures.

Self-doubt has affected my patterns of thought since I was a kid. These patterns of thought naturally resulted in patterns of behavior that defined my life, both good and bad. This book is about how I overcame extreme self-doubt and plenty of negative programming.

Just remember, all the strategies I share with you have worked for me. I’m sure they will work for you. Essentially, this is a book that will help you to “train your brain.” That sounds simplistic, but in truth most of us are never taught how to think yet nothing is more important. To be sure, I’m still learning and making mistakes, but I’ve come along way and I’m sure I can help you accelerate your growth.

I know a lot has been written about self-confidence. Here is my perspective on self-doubt and self-confidence. Imagine that self-confidence is a positive number. The more confidence you have the higher the number. Imagine self-doubt as a negative number. The more you have, the further away you are from zero.

Here’s the good news. As your competence grows in any area, the faster you move from the negative numbers of doubt into the positive numbers of confidence. Here’s the reality. Most people stop trying soon after high school or college to “improve their numbers.” I don’t want that to happen to you because it could have happened easily to me.

To say that I was a quiet kid would be understating it to the extreme. I can recall going days without speaking to other kids at school. I was too shy and felt if I didn’t say anything, I wouldn’t be teased for saying something stupid. My parents, bless their hearts because they love me very much and I them, weren’t really teachers, they were screamers. If I did something wrong, more times than not, I would get screamed at. Do not pass go. The pattern was scream first and then ask questions later. After a while, you just learn to be quiet.

On the good side, the fear that I might be judged as being inadequate for the task or endeavor drove me to study, research and develop a true hunger for information and learning. I love to learn and as I entered any new field of endeavor I would invest time and money into learning how the best of the best made a success of it and then I would model those key behaviors and strategies.

There is no doubt that the martial arts has played a key role in me gaining the confidence to give myself a chance. From my first karate class on February 12, 1974, I knew I had found my calling. In that first class at age 13, I knew this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I’m still at it. I began teaching private lessons for $7 per hour in 1976. That was a great for a 16-year old at the time. I was hired on as a staff instructor for $5 per class in 1978 after earning my black belt.

As my competence in the martial arts improved, my confidence in many areas of life improved. If I could learn jump over two people and break three boards certainly, I could learn to drive a car. Again, competence leads to confidence.

In time, I was on my own teaching around the area at various community centers and halls. I even taught an accredited college course for a few years, which was ironic because I never graduated high school. I used to joke that I dropped out of high school so I could teach college.

I didn’t have to work many hours and I had Friday – Sunday off. As a young man, you don’t have many needs nor does anyone expect you to be well off. You could keep expenses low. So, I always had a little cash in my pocket. Being a champion karate instructor in my early 20s had all kinds of social benefits from meeting girls to being treated like a local celebrity.

However, my friends at the time were following a more traditional path. They were going to college and/or working at jobs they hated. They always seemed broke and had to put in horrendous hours to try to make any money. They were miserable at their jobs and I loved mine. They were broke, but I always had some cash to play with. They would tease me about getting a real job while envying my position.

Eventually, the contrast started to get to me. I was starting to feel guilty about this great life I was leading. I started to doubt that I deserved it. One weekend, I was in Gainesville to fight in a tournament and came up a day early to have lunch with a former girlfriend of mine.

Over a nice outdoor lunch, I described to her my situation and my growing feelings of self-doubt and guilt, “I work maybe three hours a day, Monday – Thursday. I make good enough money to get by. On the other hand, my friends are all working 40 or more hours and struggling. How can that be?” She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “John, I know you. You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

There are moments in your life that I call emotional thresholds. These are thresholds that once your break through them, you begin to destroy all self-doubt related to that area of your life. This was one of those moments for me. When she told me that, it was as though I was given permission to design the life that I wanted, rather than follow the path of a fresh rat in the race. While it didn’t entirely erase my self-doubt it gave me a surge of momentum in the right direction. That sense of getting permission to live life on my terms was a huge moment for me so let me share this with you right now. You, like me, have permission to create the life you want.

As a direct result of me crashing through that emotional threshold after that lunch with my friend, I have had a rewarding career in the martial arts. I say this because the martial arts is not an industry that produces a lot of millionaires or high-income earners. Martial arts schools are usually mom and pop labors of love.

One of my other mentors was an acclaimed plastic surgeon. He told me once that he was a millionaire by the age of 37. I made goal to do the same. I beat him by six months.

A key to this transformation was an understanding of the power of programming and self-image.

My friends and I, for the most part, all came from similar financial situations. Most of our families were lower middle class. “We can’t afford that” was a mantra in my home. I didn’t know any of my friends who had a parent who owned their own business.

Wealth building and entrepreneurship was like a foreign language in these families. Not necessarily because the parents were against it as much as they just didn’t know anything about designing a rewarding professional life. Though we were programmed to follow a traditional path of doing well in school in order to get a good job, 74% of millionaires are self-employed.

You rarely build wealth working for someone else. There’s a great line that I heard somewhere. A small business owner, puts his hand on his employees shoulder and points to big house on a hill and says, “You see that big beautiful home? If you work really hard, I can have that one day.”

I had two big problems with the traditional scenario. One, I hate getting up to an alarm clock. To this day, the only time I use an alarm clock is if I have to catch an airplane. The other problem I had with a traditional path is that I also hated the idea that one third of my life would be spent doing something I didn’t like. That didn’t make any sense to me. Ever since I was a little boy reading biographies of my sports heroes I wanted to either be an athlete or a teacher. The martial arts provided me with the perfect platform to combine those two passions.

However, in time the disparity between my life and my friends’ lives continued to grow especially when I started to really focus on creating wealth and success. Like a pot full of crabs in boiling water, if one tries to crawl out, the others will pull him back in. I had to selectively distance myself from my friends at certain times in order to focus on my future. Otherwise, they were going to pull me back into the pot.

While I knew nothing about business when I began teaching, I did know that I wanted to be the best teacher in the area.

A good friend of my instructor Walt Bone was Mike Anderson. Mike is an eccentric genius. Mike used to tell me all the time, “John, you’re a great teacher. You should open a school and make a lot of money.” As flattered as I was, I knew nothing about making money. I was sure I would embarrass myself trying.

Then, in 1984, Mike called to tell me that Joe Lewis was in town and he wanted me to meet him. To help you understand who Joe Lewis was, if you are a golfer, this would be like hearing Jack Nicholas is in town. Lewis and Chuck Norris were the biggest names in sport karate.

As a teen, Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali and Joe Lewis were my heroes. When my friends and I would play fight, one of us would be Bruce Lee and the other, a snarling Joe Lewis.

Mike wanted me to promote a Joe Lewis seminar, which I did. After the seminar, which was a success by everyone’s standards, I handed Joe $2,000 in cash and then told him he talks too much in his classes. (Sometimes I feel like have “truth turrets.”) The room froze. He looked at me and said, “No one has ever critiqued my teaching before…” I’m not sure if that meant, “thanks for the feedback” or “who the heck are you…” The next week I asked to spar with him. He again, stopped and told me point blank, “I don’t do that light contact stuff. I fight full contact.” I told him I trusted him not to hurt me and he didn’t. We trained hard and often for years following. The pinnacle for me was when he was interviewed by the top martial arts magazine and asked who was going to carry his torch and he named my brother and me.

Joe would meet me to spar wherever I was teaching that night. One night it would be a basketball court the next afternoon a college gym or a boxing club. At the same time, I was developing a strong following of students. Theses were mostly my college class students who became “karate addicts.” They would take my two-hour college class and then follow me to wherever I was teaching to take more classes.

Finally, Joe called me on the phone and told me, “John, you’ve got to give your students a home. A place they can take pride in and call their own. If they go off to college, they can look forward to coming home to their school.” That was my next “emotional threshold.” Despite my lack of business savvy, I understood exactly what he was saying. I literally lived in my instructors’ karate school at times. Most of the time I stayed all night to train, but sometimes I stayed there to escape from my home life. I had a strong emotional connection to the martial arts school as a refuge. The next day I started looking for a location for my school.

My goal with this book is to use my story to help you understand, on a deep level, how self-doubt, just like you and I have it, is common even among successful people. It’s not important whether you have self-doubt, because we all do. What is important is how you handle it. What I’m about to share with you is what I have done to break out of the prison of self-doubt. I realized that self-doubt is self-imposed and self-defeating but it’s as common as a few extra pounds in the waistline. I’m going to help you lose them.

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How to Replace Self Doubt with Self Confidence and Train Your Brain for Success

Getting Permission to Succeed

There is no doubt that martial arts played a pivotal role in my gaining the confidence to give myself a chance. From my first karate class on February 12, 1974, I knew I had found my calling. In that first class at age thirteen, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

As my competence in the martial arts improved, my confidence in many areas of life improved. I knew if I could learn to jump over two people and break three boards in the air with a flying sidekick, certainly I could learn to drive a car. Competence led to confidence.

In time, I was on my own, teaching around the area at various community centers. I taught an accredited college course for a few years, which was ironic because I never graduated high school. I used to joke that I dropped out of high school so I could teach college.

As a young man, I didn’t have many needs nor did anyone expect me to be well off. I could keep expenses low. So I always had a little cash in my pocket. Being a champion karate instructor brought with it all kinds of social benefits, from meeting girls to being treated like a local celebrity.

However, my friends at the time were following a more traditional path. They were going to college and/or working at jobs they hated. They always seemed broke, even though they put in horrendous hours to make any money. They were miserable at their jobs, but I loved mine. They were broke, but I always had some cash to play with. They would tease me about getting a real job, while envying my position.

Eventually, the contrast started to get to me. The Impostor Syndrome began to develop. I began to feel guilty about this great life I was leading. I started to doubt that I deserved it. One weekend, I was in Gainesville, Florida to have lunch with a former girlfriend.

Over a nice outdoor meal, I described to her my situation and my growing feelings of self-doubt and guilt.

“I work maybe three hours a day, Monday through Thursday. I make good enough money to get by. On the other hand, my friends are all working forty or more hours and struggling. How can that be?” She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “John, I know you. You wouldn’t accept anything less.”

There are moments in life that I call “emotional thresholds.” This was one of those moments for me. It was as though I had permission to design the life that I wanted, rather than follow the path of a fresh rat in the race. While it didn’t entirely erase my self-doubt, it gave me a surge of momentum in the right direction.

That sense of getting permission to live life on my terms was a huge moment for me, so let me share this with you right now: You, like me, have permission to create the life you want.

Going Under The Sword

ochai 150x150 Going Under The Sword

Blindfolded Hidy Ochai cuts an apple off my throat with a razor sharp samurai sword in Milan, Italy

As a young karate student, my instructor told me he had held an apple in his mouth while another black belt blasted it out with a nunchaku weapon, which is a wooden flail that creates incredible speed and power on impact. He could have had his jaw broken and his teeth shattered, so I asked him, “Why would you do that?” His response was, “I’m a believer.”

As an impressionable teenager, I wanted to be a black belt like him. On a subconscious level, I immediately programmed that mindset into my brain. If he was going to believe, so would I.

Looking back, I think it was insane for both of us. There were times when other “believers” did in fact get their teeth knocked out, but that story works as a great example of how an authority figure can instantly reprogram the belief system of someone who is receptive to their input.

Tabula Rasa
Aristotle is widely considered to be the first to offer the idea that the human intellect “is like a clean tablet on which nothing is written.” He referred to this as “tabula rasa” or “unwritten slate.” The idea is that you are born as an empty slate, and your influences, experiences, and authority figures “program” you in your formative years. While there is little doubt that certain instincts, sexuality, intellect, and genetics play a role in development, programming is more about how you are conditioned to view the world.

Everyday it seems we hear of religious fanatics blowing up themselves and innocent bystanders in the name of their religion and other strongly held beliefs. While religious diversity exists in countries allowing such freedom, the fact remains that one’s religion is strongly influenced (programmed) by parents and other authority figures and location. Not many Christians are being raised in Afghanistan.

Imagine five children born at the same moment but in five different locations: Thailand, Iran, India, Israel, and America. As adults, each one most likely will believe in the teachings of: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, respectively. You could say each was given a different program concerning religion and his eternal future.

Some of these programs are so deeply ingrained and diametrically opposed that their followers have been killing each other for centuries.

It’s important, in my view, that we each discover where our true, authentic values lie. They may be closely aligned with your programming, or they may be way off. Only you can make decision.

Are You, Jodi Foster, Mike Myers, and Kate Winslet Impostors?

3DCover e1263235378241 Are You, Jodi Foster, Mike Myers, and Kate Winslet Impostors?

How to Replace Self Doubt with Self Confidence and Train Your Brain for Success

Some of Hollywood’s biggest names, such as Mike Myers, Jodi Foster, Don Cheadle, Bob Fosse, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kate Winslet have gone on record stating that, despite their success, they feel as though they are frauds. Experts call this The Impostor Syndrome and afflicts over 70% of the population.
 
The Impostor Syndrome is the underlying feeling that you are not as smart, skilled, or talented as people think you are. It’s a dread that people will find out you are faking it.
 
How do you know if you suffer from The Impostor Syndrome? My book, The Impostor Syndrome: How to Replace Self-Doubt with Self-Confidence and Train Your Brain for Success, outlines some possible indicators:
 
1. Do you sometimes not speak up because you feel people will realize you’re not as smart as they think you are?
2. Do you find it hard to accept praise?
3. Is it difficult for you to take credit for your accomplishments?
4. Do you feel like a fake and fear you are going to be found out soon?
5. Are you a perfectionist who is terrified of making a mistake?
 
If any of these statements apply to you, you may suffer from The Impostor Syndrome. This is the big, unspoken issue that holds so many people back. Every time I mention this to someone, the response is always, “Oh my God! That’s me! You mean there’s a name for it?”
 
Experts have different theories on what causes The Impostor Syndrome. Some say it’s psychologically based, while others feel it a cultural phenomenon. My his interest is in helping people to overcome it, just like I did.
 
I was watching TV many years ago, and I heard Paul Newman say, “I always have this feeling that someone is going to push through the crowd, grab my arm and say, ‘It’s over Newman.’ It’s all been a mistake…” I knew right away what he meant because I had the same feeling. It wasn’t until 20-years later, when I told that story at a seminar, someone told me that was The Impostor Syndrome.
 

Where I Lost My Way As a Teacher

Know who you are, and why you are doing martial arts as a living. When I became a billing client of the Educational Funding Company, I attended one of their seminars in Atlanta. I was doing pretty good, but nothing like some of the EFC stars of the day. Still, it seemed the guys in Atlanta knew my name as a fighter, which was nice.

As usual at these events, we shared information about student counts and, when I mentioned I had 245 students, they seemed impressed. They were even more impressed that my student body was mostly adults.

I didn’t know there had been a huge boom in the children’s market at the time due to The Karate Kid. The guys in Atlanta implied that I was missing half the market because I didn’t have a lot of child students. I listened, thought about it, and then made one of my worse decisions as a school owner; I started doing the things they did to attract and keep kids. I started the student creed, message of the week, and had kids screaming, “Yes, Sir!” on cue.

In time, my school had totally changed from an adult school to a school full of kids or, as some like to call them, “a family school.” Mind you, this was more the influence of EFC clients than EFC itself. EFC was a big help in creating business systems, but this was at the core of my passion for the arts. I enjoyed teaching students from about age 12 and up. Kids younger than that were a lot more work. They also had a mom attached which brought a level of stress I didn’t sign on for.

My income increased. I paid off my house and socked the money away, but I hated it. I didn’t want to be at the school anymore. It was no fun explaining to a mom why her Miss Perfect daughter who gets straight As in school failed her blue belt exam. I had strayed big time from who I was as a martial artist and as a teacher.

Quality of life is a big issue with me and, for the first time in my martial arts career I had a job I didn’t like. Most of the kids were fine, and many were great. But some kids just drove me nuts mostly because of the control factor. Controlling kids and their parents is not a fun way for a control freak to spend time. A lot of instructors like to teach kids, but I don’t.

I had lost my way because I subscribed to someone else’s voice. But I learned something important. Since then, I’ve tried to make it clear that you need to know yourself and what you want to do. This is especially true today, when so many programs are available.

The Crazy Roles Martial Artists Play

I have written several articles about choosing a career as a martial arts professional. I’d like this article to focus on some typical martial artist characters. When you meet these guys you’ll know that martial arts simply became a new personality rather than an extension of the authentic person.

The Tough Guy
Once I saw the Tough Guy as a corner judge in a point match. He refused to move. When a fighter complained, this guy threatened to “pound him.” Martial arts has not made these guys better people, as much as it has given them additional weapons to bully and intimidate. They need to be extra tough and aggressive to make sure no one thinks they aren’t. This is someone my grandmother would call a very small man.

Travis Bickle
Travis is the character played by Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver. Bickle doesn’t do martial arts per se but transforms himself into a militant vigilante. His was the classic scene in front of the mirror as he pretends to confront someone with the line, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then, who you talkin’ to?”
In high school, I wore karate pants, my karate school T-shirt, and wooden Japanese sandals. I was like Travis in adopting a new identity. I was “Karate Jock.” I grew out of it. Some guys never do.

Typically, these people are more fringe martial artists than hard core. They play-act like they are martial artists more than they actually engage in structured training. I knew one who seemed to learn everything from books. Somehow he got a black belt and taught students in his garage. His living room was a weight gym/dojo. Travis Bickles are fascinated by the martial arts but never seem to undergo extended training under one instructor or system. Mind you, that won’t stop them from getting a black belt.

At best, they are lifelong dabblers in the martial arts. At the worst, well, they may not be far off from Travis Bickle.

Mr. Negative
Mr. Negative has seen everything and tried everything, but nothing works for his school. He blames his area, his economy, the belt factory down the street, or the current president for his school’s struggles. He is critical of everyone and everybody. He starts sentences with, “The problem with ______ is . . .” Insert a name, style, system, idea, tournament, or business idea in the blank, and you have Mr. Negative. Not a fun guy.

Crusty the Clown
With the movement toward personal development in the classroom, some instructors work hard to look like perfect role models. They talk like a rehashed motivational speaker: “What are you passionate about now?” They try to come off as a hybrid Mr. Rogers and Robin Williams. Truthfully, they remind me more of a character from The Simpsons named Crusty the Clown.
Crusty is a favorite of the kids, who idolize him and watch every episode of his children’s TV show. But as soon as the camera is off, he pops a beer, lights a cigarette, and starts complaining about the kids. Watch out for Crusty the Clowns wearing black belts and making you laugh. Hold onto your wallet, and hide your female students.

The Enlightened One
Did you ever speak with a high ranking black belt who seemed to turn everything you say into a metaphor for nature or world peace? He doesn’t speak as much as give speeches.

Master Po
I know a guy who makes his wife call him Master. Another man calls himself Grand Master. That’s nothing new, but one day his non-martial arts wife said, “All these people call you Grand Master, what title can I have?” Not exactly what I’d call an authentic person.

The Retro-Warrior
Every conversation ends up a war story from the blood-and-guts days. This guy’s dream is for it to be 1975 again. When the only thing you have going for you currently is an event that happened decades ago, you have stopped trying. The Retro-Warrior peaked a long time ago and does his best to relive those times year after year, even as his school crumbles around him. These guys are fun to spend time with because they often have great stories. In fact, this reminds me of the time I was fighting in London and…

The Asian Wannabe
This is the freakiest of all martial arts characters. This is a Caucasian who is so enamored of the Asian roots of the martial arts and, even more so, of his Asian master that he actually begins to speak with an Asian accent. Some people call it pigeon talk. I call it weird.

The Martial Arts Millionaire
Conversations with this guy start as an interrogation about how many students you have and what you are grossing and end as a bragging session all about money, money, money. Boring, boring, boring.

If I ever do this to you, you have my permission to choke me out.