Chapter 78.
Learn the Inner Thing

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Whoever looks outside only dreams, whoever looks inside also awakens.

—Carl Jung

Most managers and leaders in this country subconsciously use a Western model of macho warfare for leadership. It is an ineffective model.

Scott studied kung fu in Taiwan, and his instructor taught him about inner forces in every human being that can be called on to achieve great things. As Scott rose to prominence as an attorney and a consultant, he credited his martial arts training for much of his insight.

Scott recalls: I saw demonstrations when I was in Taiwan and the United States of kung fu masters who, for instance, set up three candles. They had a piece of clear glass in between their face and the candles, so they couldn’t blow on the candles. And they proceeded to, in what looked like slow motion, move their fist toward the flame, and from a distance of at least 12 inches, put out these flames. One of my friends, a black belt in karate, watched the demonstration with me. He turned to me and said, “Scott, you’ve studied kung fu, haven’t you?”

I said, “A little bit.”

And he said, “How do they do that? I’m a black belt in karate and one of our tests is we have to be able to put out a candle flame with our strongest kick. We can come as close to the candle flame as we can, and I had to train hours and hours to do that. It’s physically impossible to do it from 12 inches away with the strongest kick I have. I could never do it with a slow-motion punch. How do those guys do it?”

I replied, “Well, actually it’s based on something called ‘ki.’”

In this conversation, in this moment, now that I think about it, I can now extend ki, and change my body posture slightly and be practicing the advanced martial art of aikido, which I’m just doing as I became aware of it.

So with any activity involving a physical body, you can be practicing a version of this martial art aikido. The basic principles of extending ki include focusing on your one point and thinking about that. In aikido, they teach you that if you focus your attention on your one point, which is a point 2 inches below your navel, you automatically are centered.

That’s all you have to do. You can do it in a team meeting. You can do it during a one-on-one performance review. There’s no great mystery about it.

The aikido instructor does a demonstration where he says, “Okay, focus on your one point,” and while you’re focused on your ki point below the navel, he presses on your chest but you don’t fall over. You’re very centered and strong. Then if he lightly slaps you on the top of your head with one hand (to change your focus) then pushes on your chest with the other, you do immediately fall over backwards.

And he says, “What just happened? You had your awareness on your one point and, when you did, I couldn’t push you over. And then as soon as I slapped you on the top of your head, what happened? Your awareness went up there to your head and I pushed you over without even trying.”

I did this simple demonstration to my father, the doctor—the world’s biggest skeptic—and he said, “There must be a physical explanation for it.” But there was not. He hadn’t moved a muscle in his body! Nothing physical. Just his focus. And that was the difference between his being grounded and centered and strong, and then losing focus.

Most people in the workplace are not centered. They live off the top of their heads where, basically, anything that comes up in life is going to tip them over. Tip them off center.

As their leader, you can model being centered. You can radiate the immovable life force, the ki inside you. In your next managerial challenge, try relaxing and allowing a force greater than yourself to flow through you and then out into the situation. And it won’t be long before you, too, are a legend in your organization, for simply being centered.