Real-Life Daredevils

I talked a lot about zanshin when I taught aikido to a group of intelligence officers and operatives at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The group I was working with included a number of operatives training to become NOC officers—“nonofficial cover.” These CIA officers are living in the murky world of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or any other John le Carré novel. They don't work out of a U.S. embassy in a foreign country. If they get caught, they do not have any backup coming to their rescue. They don't have diplomatic immunity, so getting caught means going away to a foreign prison for a long time—or disappearing forever. The stakes could not be higher when these brave men and women are out in the field serving their country.

These NOC operatives are living a double life. They can't put a toe out of line. It's absolutely crucial that they remain calm and at ease when talking to their targets, or they'll be “made” as spies. But at the same time, they have to be aware of their surroundings. The whole country around them may be hostile territory. Any individual could be a threat. They have to be ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. They have to be constantly assessing every aspect of their environment, scanning for anything unusual, searching for signs of danger.

At first glance, this seems like an impossible task: Be completely relaxed and yet completely alert. Be on your guard but totally at ease at the same time. Know where all the exits are in any room you enter—but never look for them. If we're honest, most of us would have to admit that we'd have no hope of pulling this off.

The Skill That Gives Spies Their Edge

So how do they do it? How do NOC officers conquer their very natural and even sensible fears and project an image of ease while remaining on high alert? Even if they don't know the word, they're practicing zanshin. They're emptying their minds of distractions and living totally in the moment. They're calmly aware of everything that's happening around them. They mark the exits in every room by feel, by instinct, without having to look, because that's how attuned they are to their surroundings.

Aikido masters, spies, and other adept practitioners of zanshin appear to have a special sense—like one of my favorite superheroes, Daredevil. In the comic book, Daredevil is blind, but his other senses are so supernaturally heightened that he possesses a kind of radar sense that works like echolocation. When you're in a state of zanshin, you can see without looking, feel without touching. It's like you've taken that sense of your own energy, or ki, that we talked about in Chapter 2, and extended it to an entire room—like proprioception that extends far beyond your own body. You know exactly where you are in space, and you know where everything else is, too. Your energy is flowing through you freely, and you're fully aware of how that energy is interacting with the energy of everything around you.

It sounds incredible. And, of course, most of us aren't blind superheroes or spies. We aren't living double lives (I hope), and we're not facing death every day. But we all do face high-stakes situations when this kind of heightened awareness would come in pretty handy. If you're negotiating a big deal with a valuable new client, you'll need to be aware of the emotional undercurrents in the room. Is the client happy with the deal? Are you pushing too hard? Do you still need to win over the key decision maker? Whose opinion really matters? The same questions need to be answered when you're interviewing for that new senior VP position—or meeting your prospective in-laws for the first time.

Zanshin can help you answer those kinds of crucial questions. And while you may never have the preternatural abilities of a master spy or a blind superhero, you can develop your ability to deepen your calm awareness of your surroundings.

An Exercise in Zanshin

What would you do if 10 people attacked you at once? If you're like most people, the honest answer is probably scream for help. But I regularly teach ordinary people how to escape unscathed when facing 10 attackers.

Here's how we do it: The defender stands in the middle of a circle of 10 attackers. The attackers are all standing about 7 or 8 feet away from the defender in the middle. Sometimes these attackers have practice weapons—wooden swords or wooden staffs. Sometimes it's just 10 people about to attack you with their hands and feet—plenty threatening enough.

On the count of three, all 10 attackers strike simultaneously. They can choose to use either a downward blow (with their practice weapons or with an empty hand) or a straight thrust (with the practice weapons, or a straight jab or kick).

The defender, standing in the middle of the attacking circle, is asked to not focus exclusively on any one specific person or weapon. They should use their peripheral vision to take in the whole scene at once—practicing zanshin. When the attackers move, the defender must focus only on avoiding one incoming attacker. When that one attacker starts to move, the defender quickly “enters” (practicing irimi from Chapter 6), sliding forward in a shuffle step, their body turned slightly sideways, leading with one shoulder forward. The defender doesn't necessarily have to choose the person directly in front of them—this move will work just as well if the defender slides to the right or left.

The key is that the defender must fully commit to this action. If the defender hesitates, distracted by what's happening around them, they'll have 10 people hitting them in a millisecond. But if the defender embraces and practices zanshin and commits to entering past that one chosen attacker, then all 10 attackers will be left attacking the empty center of the circle. The defender will have quickly and confidently moved forward and past the one attacker, neatly avoiding the entire group. The circle of attackers has now collapsed in on itself, with the defender on the outside, able to flee to safety.

It's possible for anyone to escape a group of attackers this way. But if you fail to be aware, embrace zanshin, and fully commit to sliding past the one attacker, you'll get clobbered by all of them. That's why this exercise is so powerful for teaching zanshin—success depends on the ability to take in the whole scene at once and take relevant action, without getting distracted by the many things happening around you.

My aikido students and consulting clients aren't superheroes. But they can confidently do things, like successfully evade 10 attackers at once or produce an unprecedented level of business success that most people not only couldn't do but would never imagine they could do. This is what aikido teaches you: To expand your abilities and broaden your senses to make the seemingly impossible, possible.

Moments of Calm Awareness

At 34 years old, I faced an impossible challenge. From the moment that I found the lump on my right testicle, I entered a bizarre new world. I was young, exercised every day, ate healthy meals—I had never really been sick a day in my life, and yet I was in danger of dying.

When I found that lump, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. Oddly enough, I wasn't afraid. I immediately knew how I had to proceed. I didn't freak out. I didn't ignore it and hope it would go away. I made a doctor's appointment right away, and as soon as I had a diagnosis, I called my parents and let them know what was happening.

Throughout the period when I was going through my cancer treatments, I was in a state of zanshin. As I proceeded through the steps involved in my treatment—the surgery, which was at first pronounced a success; the moment six months later when I thought I'd got it beat, but my doctor told me he'd found a spot on my lung; the chemotherapy, which turned me into a zombie-like shell of myself for months; the second surgery, which left me limping along on one and a half lungs—I remained in this state of calm awareness. It was like being in the midst of a battle. I knew who and what my enemy was, and I was aware of everything I had to do to conquer it. I took one day at a time and focused on the next thing I had to do.

I was confined to a wheelchair for a while postsurgery because I was missing part of a lung and I had lost the ability to walk. My world narrowed for a while. I saw what it would be like to be elderly or disabled. I couldn't go anywhere that didn't have an elevator for me and my wheelchair. As I slowly gained strength, I began to be able to walk for short distances. I remember one day when I walked for 15 minutes, feeling great, just savoring the feeling of stretching my legs and being out in the air—and then I realized I didn't have the strength to walk the 15 minutes back! I had to sit down on a bench and call my mom to come pick me up. My progress was slow, but it was progress. And I was able to focus completely on what I had to do every day to get better.

Prepared for the Unexpected

Of course, in some ways it's easy to maintain this state of calm awareness when you're in a life-or-death situation. You're forced to focus on one thing above all else, and everything else falls away. But I also knew my previous experience and training had prepared me for my fight with cancer.

My time fighting cancer reminded me in many ways of my time in Marine Corps boot camp. For many of my fellow trainees, boot camp was an incredibly stressful time. We were all teenagers, thrown into a situation where we were getting up at 5 AM every morning, pushing our bodies to the limit, handling live grenades, shooting live weapons. You are turning yourself into a weapon of destruction—and a single wrong move could mean death for you or one of your friends. You see people around you freaking out. While I was in boot camp, two of my fellow trainees attempted suicide. They couldn't handle the pressure.

Yet for me, boot camp was one of the least stressful times in my life. I'm not any braver or stronger or tougher than the guys who didn't make it. The only difference between me and them was the deep, gut-level sense that I was doing the right thing, that I was in the right place at the right time. During boot camp, I was in perfect harmony with myself and my surroundings. That helped me achieve the clarity that I needed to find that state of calm awareness.

The esprit de corps I felt with my fellow Marines also helped me find a deep sense of clarity and focus during boot camp. I felt something more than teamwork or camaraderie while I was there. It was as if that feeling of being in the right place and the right time was compounded because I was also with the right team.

All of that harmony put me in the right frame of mind to develop zanshin. Boot camp was stress-free for me because I was in a state of zanshin—calmly aware of my surroundings and focused on the task at hand. And that state of zanshin was exactly what I needed to not only survive in boot camp, but thrive. To viscerally know my life was moving in the right direction and I was fulfilling my purpose.

Because I had developed the ability to move into a state of zanshin through my time in boot camp and my practice of aikido, I had that state available to me when I needed it most—when I was diagnosed with cancer. Whether or not you're facing a life-or-death situation, you will at some point in your life face a situation where the stakes are high and you need to be focused and calm. And you'll handle that situation much better if you've had some practice developing a state of zanshin.

Developing Zanshin

As with any other skill, developing zanshin takes time. But it starts with something very simple that, these days, can be really difficult to find: focus.

Let's start with the easiest—and hardest—part. Your smartphone. Do you think those undercover CIA NOC operatives are out there in the field checking Facebook? You can't be aware of your surroundings when you're focused on the technological dopamine drip in your pocket. Zanshin means calm awareness, and your smartphone makes you agitated and distracted. Put it away. When you're entering into a situation where you need to be aware, turn it off and put it away where you won't be tempted to check it.

The next step is just as simple and, for some people, may be just as challenging: Talk 25 percent less. Listen 25 percent more. Think about this the next time you have a conversation that lasts at least a couple minutes. Anything more substantial than a quick “hi, how are you” will give you a chance to think about how much time you spend talking and how much time you spend listening. Are you dominating the conversation? Then chances are, you're not really focused on what the other person is saying. You're waiting for your turn to speak instead of really listening to what they have to say. Listening to understand is very different—and much more beneficial—than listening to respond.

When you're with someone who has this ability to truly focus, you can feel the difference. You feel validated and acknowledged. The next time you're around someone who has this ability, take some time to observe them. How do they sit or stand? What is their body language like? How exactly do you know that they're listening? How do you respond to that focused attention?

If you feel that focus is a problem for you, try to work on listening more over the next couple of weeks. Make talk 25 percent less, listen 25 percent more your new mantra. You'll be amazed at how much you learn about the people around you when you take the time to really listen to what they have to say. You'll find not only are you hearing more of the actual words they say, you're also noticing more about their body language, their mood, their state of mind. You'll pick up so much more information from every conversation, simply by making a small adjustment like this. And along the way, you'll develop your zanshin “muscle” more and more.

Listening is an incredibly powerful discipline because it forces you to slow down. It forces you to stay in the moment instead of letting your thoughts rush ahead to what you're going to say next. It forces you to extend your awareness beyond the inside of your own head, to take in more information from the person who's talking. When you are truly focused on listening to another person, you can move into a state that's almost meditative. It's a form of deep focus that is all too rare in our distracted modern world.

A Moment of Truth

I lived in Japan for 10 years. I arrived as a young Marine who was completely enamored of the country and its culture. Returning to Japan to study abroad during college and then staying there to work had given me the amazing opportunity to immerse myself in this foreign culture and learn as much as I could about it, while also learning about the corporate world. I'd found my aikido master, mentor, and lifelong friend, and I'd been challenged and enriched by my study of both aikido and Zen meditation.

During those 10 years in Japan, I accomplished much of what I'd planned to do, and I accomplished it much faster than I ever expected. I successfully tested for my black belt, became fluent in Japanese, and was extremely successful at the boutique U.S. consulting firm I worked for.

Then something happened that shocked me out of the comfortable routine I had settled into: My American boss told me he wanted to retire, and he wanted me to take over his company. It was a moment of truth—do I stay or go?

The offer to acquire the firm was tempting, of course. I was only 29 years old. Running a prestigious, highly sought-after consulting firm could have been seen as a huge step forward in my career. And I still loved living in Japan. The excitement that I'd felt when I first arrived had never really diminished. Not to mention, there were plenty of other reasons to accept this generous and flattering offer: I would be handsomely compensated while also continuing to grow and extend my professional network.

And yet I decided to turn down the opportunity and leave the country I loved so much to return to America. I am certain that turning this offer down and leaving was the right choice, and I know I couldn't have made that choice without the wisdom and focus offered by the discipline of zanshin.

Looking at this situation with calm awareness the way a warrior would survey a battlefield, I was able to see all the pros and cons of making either choice, to stay or to go. I could see why my boss wanted out—he was starting to feel trapped. All his money was in yen, and he owned real estate in Japan. Like many other expats at the time, he was stuck waiting around for the yen to bounce back. His success in Japan had become a trap. What started out as a joy for my boss—creating and growing this successful consulting firm—had now become a burden. My boss was successfully miserable.

I also knew by this point that I loved aikido and hoped to teach it someday, and a calm assessment of the situation told me there was no way I'd be able to teach aikido in Japan as a foreigner. I loved Japan, but when I took stock of my own feelings, I realized I was starting to really miss my family and celebrating the American holidays I'd grown up with—Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas. I looked around at the other successful expats I knew and saw how they never fully integrated into Japanese society. I saw their kids going to college back in the States. I realized that if I stayed in Japan, I'd end up like them, with a foot in two worlds, not fully belonging anywhere. Successfully miserable.

If I took over the company and stayed in Japan, I would have fallen into the same success trap my boss was trying to escape. It would have been like staying stuck in a bad relationship. Eventually, I would have come to resent running the company and living in Japan.

The Power of Zanshin

Without the calm awareness to see that potential trap lurking up ahead, I might have made a huge mistake. Zanshin helped me see my situation clearly and assess all the potential opportunities and threats lurking in the dark corners. That assessment process started with mushin, with the clear mind we talked about in Chapter 5. I had to let go of my attachment to my boss's desires and my worries about what he would think. I had to let go of the ego boost I got from being the one person my boss trusted to take over his business. I had to let go of the romantic dreams that had brought me to Japan in the first place. Only by letting go of all those emotions that were clouding my judgment could I extend my attention to the whole landscape around me and see the situation clearly.

This is the power of zanshin. Without a clear mind, it's impossible to make a good decision. When your mind is full of things like guilt, ego, and fear, you're stuck inside your own head. You're not actually looking at the options in front of you—you're looking at projections of your own fear and ego. When you let go of your emotional attachment and any need to please or placate certain people, you can then clearly survey the situation around you with calm awareness. Then and only then can you see the true nature of your choice.

With zanshin, I was able to clearly see my options in their true light, as a choice between growth and stagnation, between moving on to the next phase of my life at the right time, or getting stuck in a situation that was no longer pushing me to grow in the directions I truly wanted to grow. Taking over that company would have been a temporary fix for the restlessness I was starting to feel. In the end, I chose the path that led to balance, growth, transformation, and true success.