sinawali this is a very heavily inspired
by the Filipino martial arts which I
love and this is a very very basic baby
drill and the point I’m trying to make
here is today you are going to be
inspired by many many speakers many many
life stories but the reality the reality
of it is most of you will feel really
good about yourselves but then you’ll go
home maybe we bit excited just tell a
few friends and then nothing nothing
happened and the reason why nothing
happened despite that you’ve been you’ve
met many many nice people is that most
of the people in this room with all my
respect to them are here to warm
themselves up in front of a fire a fire
of people that have done something but
until you’re willing to jump into that
fire to temper your blade in that very
very harsh furnace nothing really will
happen the main reason why most people
don’t do anything in their life is that
they haven’t mastered the basics now I
collect a time with all my respect
everybody that’s here the fact that you
are here means that you want to do
something different with your life but
if you want to do something
extraordinary and I believe every human
was born to be extraordinary if you
really want to do that then you have to
master some basics now in my academy
anybody that comes in to train with me
absolutely anyone has to work the
physical and we work many aspects of the
physical obviously being a martial arts
school but we also work the metaphysical
or the life skills component so my time
with you my brief time with you today
will be taking you through what we call
the nine principles that ever all my
students have to go through until you
master these nine principles again like
I said you’ve got quite a lot of work to
do so the first principle that everybody
has to master when I’m in master I mean
do so all the time so you’re doing it
subconsciously
you don’t you don’t think when you walk
you don’t think when you drive a route
that you know and these are the same
things you have to be doing this all the
time all your PhD is all your degrees
mean nothing to me if you haven’t
mastered these very very basic elements
so the first thing about courtesy is for
you to be courteous with your body I’ll
tell you what’s not courteous with your
body you eating junk food every single
day is not courteous to your body you
spending three hours in a shisha Paulo
is not courteous to your body so it’s
very very important to do three aspects
all my students have to focus on three
aspects when it comes to truly being
courteous with yourself one you have to
spend time breathing just focusing on
your breathing whether you call this
meditation whether you call this
anything else I’ll leave the terminology
up to you but it is vitally important
you spend some time breathing just
focusing on breathing very deep breaths
and in in a regular four in a regular
fashion the next thing is very very
important for being courtesy courteous
to yourself is exercise and again no PhD
in the world is going to make you
exercise you have to do it your body is
connected to your brain we have loads of
smart people in the world that lives
dumb lives you all got your smart phones
but you live in lives that are not that
intelligent and the main reason that is
is you’re disconnected from your body if
you’re a non competitive athlete a
normal human being you should have a
minimum approximately of 150 minutes of
exercise a week that’s not a lot per day
looking at 20 minutes 25 minutes of
intense a moderate to intense exercise
the last part about being courteous to
your body is your food your food has to
be very very clean I don’t care what
your Excuse is whether the food is
traditional food full of ghee full of
fat it doesn’t change the fact that
you’re eating very very bad things for
your body so it’s the hardest thing to
do in fact the exercise for me is the
easy part for me it’s the diet that’s
where I have to be very strong for six
days
is a week I’m very very careful with
what ie very very careful but for one
day I go crazy and it starts at midnight
one minute past midnight if there’s a
cupcake in my house it better run
because I eat everything it has to be a
bit of a balance it can’t be it can’t be
so rigid so you do have to enjoy it the
next pass is to be honest with yourself
and honestly is something that relates
to admitting to what you have to do now
to drastically change where you are
whether it’s think smoking stopping
drinking or whatever it is you have to
be so so blatantly honest with yourself
because until you are and until you
admit that these things have to change
now today not tomorrow today you’ll
never get anywhere and once you do find
that thing that you have to be very
honest with yourself about you will be
less stressed many people just live a
stressful life because they don’t admit
certain things have to change and
certain things gonna be very very
painful for you to admit but the fact
that you admit it and you change it will
make your life a lot more stress-free
the third principle is a perseverance
now we are we often use the example of
nature a bamboo tree gets fed water for
five years and you don’t see anything of
this bamboo tree for five years but you
consistently have to give it water after
approximately five years this bamboo
tree will shoot up to about sixty feet
long in six weeks so did this bamboo
tree grow in six weeks or did it grow in
five years plus those six weeks the
point is a lot of people just give up
they don’t see a result and they don’t
visibly see it and they give up and
that’s a big reason why many people
don’t do anything they start it they
don’t see a result very very quickly and
then they give up the plateau is the
highs and those in my field one day I
wake up feeling like Bruce Lee there’s
nothing that can stop me but on other
days I promise you I feel like I’m a
white belt again and it’s the first day
I’ve ever walked into a
martial arts academy whoever walked into
a gym but these highs and lows are
fundamentally part of your journey
there’s a reason why you have a good day
and a bad day the bad days are there for
you to stop burning out because you want
to be doing what you’re doing for the
rest of your life I want to be training
and teaching the martial arts for all my
life and if I haven’t got something that
holds me back out of burnout so these
low days although they feel awful if
they’re absolutely awful
but they’re there for a purpose you get
to reassess you get to reanalyze you get
to try something different it’s
fundamental
so whenever something’s low just
understand there’s a reason behind that
and you need to push through it
after perseverance we have self-control
now self-control is you being in control
of your own thoughts and your own
emotions if you’re walking around all
day thinking of this person told me this
this person told me that all day that’s
going on in your mind well I can assure
you you don’t have control of yourself
they do you’re like a puppet and if you
haven’t got that ability to control
yourself and your mind you’re going
nowhere I know loads of people that
don’t have this and we often explain it
in our academy by your mind being like a
garden for you to have a nice clean
garden you need to take out all the
weeds all the things that are not nice
whether it’s gossip other people’s
rubbish that they’ve thrown on you you
have to clear that out and that’s hard
work once you clear all the rubbish out
then you maintain it and it’s a
beautiful Japanese garden in your mind
but until you admit that you can change
that nothing’s going to differ
so after self control we have discipline
ladies and gentlemen let me introduce
you to this country’s number one public
enemy a lack of discipline the biggest
threat to this country is not a ideology
a foreign country it’s a lack of
discipline you want to know where your
diabetes race comes from it comes from a
lack of discipline you want to know
where your high divorce rate comes from
it comes from a lack
of discipline discipline is doing the
right thing even though you don’t feel
like it
in my world I don’t care what you feel
like doing you know you have to train
you train and there’s no excuse you’ve
got diabetes and you want to eat
something and drink something that you
know you shouldn’t I don’t care whether
you feel like you should eat it or not
you have to control it you have to be
disciplined and the more you make this a
habit the easier it will be life will
ladies and gentleman okay where you come
from who you are
life will discipline you whether you
like it or not but whether it does so
under your terms now you’re a diabetic
now life will discipline you to eat
proper but after what after what so you
discipline yourself before life does so
discipline is absolutely fundamental for
you to have subconsciously you need to
be working on these things without you
knowing after discipline we have
respects now the best way to get respect
is to give it the thing with with with
many people in my world is that they try
and force people to respect them but the
beautiful thing about it from our
experiences you have to be able to
respect other people that don’t respect
you that’s very very important I can
walk into a room full of phd’s full of
doctors full of lawyers wearing what I’m
wearing and something might have their
own imaginary idea of what I’m about and
that’s perfectly fine I’ll always
respect them I respect their their
backgrounds I respect their areas of
expertise it doesn’t matter if they
don’t respect me and this is something
you have to have to work on you will
always need people who don’t respect you
but if you’ve got that self-control
you’ve got that discipline then it won’t
matter so respect is fundamentally
important after respect we have courage
now whatever it is that you want to do
your courage will be tested along the
path there’s no doubt about that but
when you’re courageous your body
responds and again if you are
disconnected from your body
if you don’t exercise you don’t breathe
you don’t eat good stuff you have a
communication problem with your body
your body is an ingenious mechanism so
when you a meet a family member they
says something that’s bad
they doubt you or you meet somebody that
intimidates you this will boost an
adrenaline release in your body your
heart starts pounding stomach feels
funny your legs start to shake for most
people that aren’t trained you will
think of these as signs to stop when an
actual fact this is your body giving you
the energy to go and until you
understand that it’s always going to be
a very difficult thing courage is not
the absence of fear everybody backstage
will say what are you a bit nervous of
course I’m a bit nervous it’s a natural
thing to have I want to be nervous I
want to have this adrenaline in my body
because it makes me faster stronger
smarter more able to cope with the
situation so until you understand this
ugly feeling what many people call an
ugly feeling is supposed to be there and
you get comfortable with this ugly
feeling you will always have your body
working against you your body was
designed to help you not work against
you after courage we have possibly the
most underrated thing of all
gratitude people most people think about
the things they don’t have I bet you
many people here when you’re driving
you’re looking at the copper oh I wish I
had that car or I wish I had that house
you’re focusing all your energy on
things you don’t have so you’re walking
around thinking you’ve missed out the
bad part about that is that you forget
the very beautiful things that you have
been given you’re able to walk you have
a heart that pumps without you thinking
you have a beautiful country that gives
you the opportunity to express your
ideas I’m grateful for TEDx to give me
this opportunity to meet you I’m
grateful for the Holly for fun to fund
my school I’m grateful to be an Emirati
I’m grateful to have the opportunity to
speak to wonderful people like yourself
it’s the small things and when you have
the small things and you act it I don’t
care whether you say oh yes I am
grateful those are just words in my
world you can keep your words at the
door you show me you’re grateful
and how you act and how you behave
there’s a very important thing to have
that constantly in your system after
gratitude is the last one
and this is argue vehicle commitments
when your committee you decide you want
to do something and nothing nothing or
no one will stop you when I decided to
get this black belt I jumped on planes I
cross continents I literally went into
storms to do my classes in grade there
were people that were living very close
to the school and they never passed
because they missed too many classes and
my instructor found that funny he says
you can’t make it to class and you live
an hour down the road while it jumps on
a plane from dubai to come cross the
continent to do it and he’s passed the
reason I did it and they didn’t was
because I had that commitment nothing
would stop me when I applied for the
funding for my school from the Khalifa
fund they first said no and then I said
why no tell me what was wrong and they
say you didn’t have this you didn’t have
this you didn’t have this so I went back
and I gave him this this and that and if
they had said no I would have come back
I would have asked and asked and asked
it was never a question of will it
happen it was a question of who’s going
to enjoy the victory with me who’s going
to say we really believed in this person
and we helped him make that happen so
ladies and gentlemen whatever is you
decide to do in sha Allah I hope you
first of all master these basics master
them so well that you subconsciously
are doing it without knowing if you
haven’t got all these things then it’s
just not going to work for you I’m
afraid so like I said in the beginning
is a very very basic stick fighting
drills a baby in a Filipino martial arts
will tell you exactly what these look
like and what they mean but until you
you master these basics without thought
like you’re walking it’s going to be a
very difficult journey but I wish you
the best journey of all I know you can
do it you’ve been given everything oh
that’s it for me you