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Sensei Don Lord

May 09, 2019

Having had the privilege of attaining my first level of Black Belt almost 8 years ago I have had considerable time to reflect on the positives of what this designation means And in this analysis I have found that it s so much than what anyone can assume prior to reaching this difficult pinnacle For this achievement is more than the belt more than the name this achievement is a testament to the commitment made to embracing a lifestyle change and the effort it takes to maintain this transformation There are several words that come to mind when one looks at the foundational values of a Black Belt Focus One of the things that I ve noticed since achieving a Black Belt has been the ability to focus better on what my goals are I m able to assimilate direction easier and am able to parse the time necessary to better achieve goals The great Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh refers to a process in Buddhism called Mindfulness saying that Mindfulness helps you go home to the present To me Mindfulness and focus are part of the same family and thus the first gift of Black Belt StrengthI am beginning to understand the word strength in a whole new way There are many disciplines that incorporate feats of strength into belt levels such as board breaking and full contact sparring I have come to see strength in a much different way As someone whose body is a lot older than my actual mindset I see strength as the ability to accept that your limitations and use your experience to make up the difference And so to me the second gift of Black Belt is strength DisciplineThere are so many things that fall under the heading of Black Belt discipline This is the value that at its minimum allows you the ability to make the right choices This brings to mind the old standbys like No I should not have cookies before dinner or I need to complete my homework before I watch TV But at the Black Belt level this commitment to the right choice goes a lot farther Cookies and homework become No I will not take the easy way around this project to things like I need to spend more time with my kids and less time with football In my life discipline allows me to maintain the commitments I ve made in life regardless of the negative minutia When I get out of work and am tired and my knees aren t working up to specification I still head in to the dojo and train because I ve made the commitment to do so This by far has been the most difficult foundational value to maintain but the more this value is trained into me the easier it is to go forth with This is the third gift to me from Black Belt discipline There are several other gifts that I look at as values that in themselves may be subsets of what I have mentioned above Live by ExampleAs a Black Belt I have the responsibility to be an example of the transformation that I ve embraced There isn t a magic switch that turns on and off as you enter or leave the dojo That Magic Switch was turned on the day I became a Black Belt and has never shut off I have had the privilege of watching fellow Black Belts interact with students and the general public and I can see these core values in action At work home school or the dojo this lifestyle change is present in everything And the simple process maintaining this lifestyle is living by example and to me is my fourth gift that I ve received from Black Belt LeadershipOne of the things that happened after I achieved my first degree of Black Belt was the subtle transformation I went through at my day job Executives with my company started to ask my manager what had happened to me because I had changed I transitioned from one who did as they were told to one who was no longer afraid to voice an opinion make a decision to be a leader I morphed from one of the masses to one who wanted to lead I was able to wade through the minutia instead of being caught in it I went from an employee to a catalyst My fifth gift from Black Belt was Leadership

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