#375: Always Show Up. - Life Lessons, & Jiu-Jitsu.

Finding balance is essential for mental health and creativity. My jiu-jitsu practice serves as that escape from overthinking, though my training schedule recently changed.

• Almost skipped a promotion ceremony believing I didn't deserve recognition
• Friend encouraged me to attend, saying others might see progress I couldn't recognize
• Coach's message validated this: "You don't see what we see"
• Received an unexpected stripe promotion
• The difference between a white belt and black belt is simply continuing to show up
• Being just 1% better every day means being 100% better in 100 days
• Connected with someone celebrating 300 days of sobriety through Instagram
• Social media can create meaningful connections with people at all levels

Keep showing up, keep being a good friend, keep working to be the best version of yourself every day.

Transcript

The Balance: Finding Life's Release

Speaker 1 0:01

You know something that I do that I continuously refer to as the balance . It's the thing that gets me out of my mind to help me relax and to live my life and to alleviate stress , and it helps me with my creative writing and my comedy and everything , because I feel like you need something in your life to get you out of your head , to help again relax , you , untangle problems , and for me it's jujitsu . But the point is this my schedule changed and I'm not training jujitsu , unfortunately , as frequently and as often . And there was recently a promotion . Once every six months or so there's a promotion in jiu-jitsu and if you get enough stripes you get a new belt , and there's five

Deserving Recognition in Jiu-Jitsu

Speaker 1 0:50

belts . It goes white , blue , purple , brown , black .

Speaker 1 0:53

Point is , I didn't feel like I deserved it and I wasn't going to go . Interestingly enough , a good friend of mine he told me that I'm paraphrasing , but he basically told me that I should go Because when he heard that I said that I'm not going to go and I wasn't going to because I didn't deserve it , he said you don't know that , because maybe you might make in life a lot of changes in a short amount of time like a lot of advancements , so it's not necessarily what I see or what I think . It's what the coach sees , it's what my training partners feel and experience . And I went and it was so crazy . It's kind of like if you ever go to church , you know like the pastor might say something . It's so specific , it's almost like a friend of yours emailed that pastor , right ? Well , a similar thing happened to when I went to the promotion ceremonies , because when I was there , the coach , hugo , awesome , great guy , along with Vic and Eddie , but Hugo was speaking and he said you know , you might think that you might not deserve this , okay , and he was talking about everybody . He said it's important to come to these either way , and there was very few people that came on that day . He said because you don't see what we

The 1% Better Philosophy

Speaker 1 2:14

see , all right , but we do , all right , we see the improvements that you make . So you might not think that you deserve it , but we see what you don't Right .

Speaker 1 2:26

And uh , sure enough , uh , I got a stripe and I think that's a big part of jujitsu is not just the , not just the um , the scaling of it , how I continue to can , can get better , but the lessons learned , the friendships made , and um , and it's just . I'm really thankful for my team of guys and the coaches and everything and my friends and stuff , but it's just another random life lesson that I thought was important enough that I wanted to document , get out there and let other people hear about , because maybe it'll help you in your life too . You know , maybe you think that you're not losing enough weight . Okay , maybe you think that you're you're not smart enough or not doing good enough , right , but there's an old saying in jujitsu which is the only difference between a white belt and a black belt A black belt is just a white belt . That continue to show up and I feel like , for those important days and those days that you think are less important , just keep showing up , keep going to the gym , keep being a good friend , a great confidant , whatever it is , fill in the blank , whatever you are to somebody else and , most importantly , to you . I think it's always important to be that best version of yourself and , as I always tell everybody and I really do believe this if you're just 1% better every single day , in a hundred days you'll be a hundred percent better . You will literally be a better version of yourself .

Speaker 1 3:48

I had somebody recently reach out to me on Instagram and I told her that and it was just an initial message , because I guess she met me through comedy and she messaged me or something like that , or I messaged , however , it was right , but I told her about that 1% better every single day . You'll be 100%

300 Days Sober: Unexpected Inspiration

Speaker 1 4:08

. And she responded back and it was very inspirational and again I'm paraphrasing . But she said tomorrow I'm going to be 300% better , which I didn't really understand what she said at first until she continued to speak and she said because tomorrow I'm going to be 300 days sober from alcohol and man .

Speaker 1 4:28

If that isn't motivating , like , I don't really know what it is , and that's one of the reasons why I love Instagram so much is because you always meet like the most cool people , beautiful celebrities . I've reached out to tons of celebrities and I've actually had to message me back People that you think you would never reach out to , or vice versa . I reach out to high , low and in between , and you'd be surprised how cool people are if you just give them a chance . So , to that lady in specific , who will remain nameless , I really appreciate you sharing that . That just motivated me .

Speaker 1 5:04

That was the coolest thing that I heard the entire day and maybe if something that I said , will you know , help you get a little bit better in life and if it does , that's

Final Thoughts and Sign-off

Speaker 1 5:13

great . Otherwise , at the very least , as I always mentioned , this is another physical imprint of me taking a life lesson , learning it , making an additional memory of it and noting it , you know , to implement it in my life , taking a moment to stop and just recognize and appreciate , and to not forget and to apply stuff you know over and over again . So , that being mentioned , I hope everybody has a beautiful day . Thank you so much for your time . I'm Ben Joel Dunn . Check me out . Peace .