November 7, 2024 • 16 mins
Welcome to episode 13, where we talk about the profound impact of mindset on our lives. This episode takes you on a journey through the crucial role attitude and mental strength play in overcoming life's challenges. Jim passionately discusses how having the right mindset can be the deciding factor between success and failure, safety and danger.
With a compelling list of terms like grit, willpower, and indomitable spirit, Jim encourages listeners to reflect on what these words mean to them personally. He shares anecdotes from his martial arts background, emphasizing the importance of never giving up, whether in self-defense or everyday life. The episode highlights a Japanese proverb, "Fall down seven times, get up eight," as a testament to resilience and determination.
Join us as we explores how adopting a strong, unwavering mindset can help you face any adversity head-on. Whether you're tackling personal challenges, navigating professional hurdles, or ensuring your safety, this episode is a powerful reminder of the strength within you. Wake up swinging and embrace the indomitable spirit that leads to certain victory.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:11):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Self-Initiative Project Podcast.
I'm your host, Jim O'Brien. Hello and welcome to episode 13,
where we talk about the importance of mindset.
And so this episode, we're going to be talking about all things,
attitude and mindset and what that means and how it can influence the outcome
(00:33):
of things for you, whether you're successful successful or you're not,
whether you pass or fail or not, whether you make it home or you're injured or you get killed or not.
Mindset is so key. And so I wanted to start out just by reading a list of terms
that are all related to mindset and attitude.
(00:54):
A lot of these terms don't get used a whole lot anymore these days, it seems.
There's some slang terminology in here that you may or may not have heard of,
or you may possibly be familiar with.
But as I read these terms out, as we go through these terms,
I want you to think about for you what they mean and what they should mean to you.
(01:16):
Or if you don't understand them, you, you considering seeking out what they
mean and what, and how that translates to you personally.
Again, some of these aren't used so much anymore and then some you'll be familiar
with grit wherewithal balls spirit go get them this.
(01:39):
Drive fire fury willingness to continue willpower stomach strong mindset mental
strength Stick-to-it-ness,
never-quit, heart,
will, spirit,
(02:00):
metal, resolve,
guts, spunk, determination,
never-give-up, perseverance,
indomitable spirit.
What do those terms mean to you? You know, it's funny when it comes to the male
and us men and male ego, you know, we'll toss around the term testicular fortitude
(02:24):
quite a bit. And I had a friend of mine in Australia.
I made some comment on social media a number of years ago, and I said something
about finding your testicular fortitude. And she commented back and said,
well, I have ovarian fortitude and that's good enough.
And I couldn't agree more with her because I knew where she was going and her
(02:45):
mind was in the right place.
So really what we're talking about in this episode is having the right attitude
and mindset to get through hardships.
And this, you know, whether you're dealing, facing difficult tasks,
hardships, challenges, whatever, having the right attitude and mindset,
(03:06):
again, can make all the difference in the world and can mean the difference
between success and failure for you if you have the right mindset or if you don't.
If you have the right mindset, you're more likely to succeed or at least make it through.
If you don't, you're likely to fail or be more or less likely to succeed.
(03:28):
So for those of you that have been following us on Instagram for a little while
now, you know that we're selling a t-shirt with the philosophy on the back.
It's a Japanese proverb.
And basically that Japanese proverb goes like this. Fall down seven times, get up eight.
Now, some of you are going to try to process the math of that,
(03:49):
and that's all well and fine, and you'll spend a number of minutes,
hours, days trying to figure that one out.
But you're missing the point if you're focused on the seven versus eight.
The point of that Japanese proverb is no matter how many times you fail,
no matter how hard the situation is, no matter how many times you fall down,
(04:09):
you're willing to get up one more time and keep going.
And that's really what we're talking about today.
The never give up attitude, the never quit, the importance of never quitting.
And look, in context of self-defense and personal safety, which is what we're
all about, obviously, the mindset, the attitude of never quitting,
(04:30):
never give up, perseverance,
indomitable spirit are extremely important.
They can mean the difference between you going home safe or you being severely
injured or worse, being killed.
And that's the reality of self-defense.
So I would encourage you all to think about these terms we've mentioned here
(04:53):
this evening and what they mean to you.
And if one resonates more with you than the other, that's great.
Just find it and cultivate it.
I think wherewithal is a term that we would agree that we very seldom hear anymore, as well as grit.
Grit is a term that I like. It's short and sweet. And for me, it's powerful.
(05:14):
It summarizes all of it into one short word, grit, that mental attitude,
the capability to flip a switch inside one's head to say, I'm going to see this
through. I'm going to get through it no matter what.
That mindset, again, can be the difference between success and failure,
getting through a situation or not, regardless of circumstances.
(05:38):
You guys may or may not know my background in history, but I have a short history
in a traditional Korean martial art.
And then more recently, I have a bit of a history in Krav Maga,
which as you know, or may not know, is primarily focused in self-defense.
And so the traditional Korean martial art that I trained in for a number of
(05:59):
years off and on, I started back in the mid 90s, around 96, I think.
I trained for two or three years and then took a chunk, a rather large chunk
of time off and then came back and trained for another two or three years and
finally got my black belt and a tenant in this traditional martial art,
(06:20):
which was a carry over from another traditional Korean martial art.
We all know is Taekwondo.
And one of the tenants of Taekwondo, which was also utilized in the martial
art that I trained in was Pilsung, a Korean term, actually two words, Pilsung.
And I've done some research on this term and opinions vary, our translations vary.
(06:43):
But what I've read more recently is its literal translation is,
I am confident of certain victory.
Now, back in the day, we just used to say, oh yeah, it's actual literal translation is certain victory.
And I think that's still solid, right? It's the ideology,
the attitude the mindset of getting through
(07:04):
and being successful on the other
side and we used to use it in
format of always doing your best and never giving up and that's really what
we're talking about here so Pilsung for me always meant always doing your best
and never giving up And in this traditional Korean art that I trained in,
(07:28):
we were primarily focused on typical martial arts stuff, forms, patterns,
katas, every level had a new, when you started out at a new belt level,
they had you do the form or pattern on one side and then you graduated up and you did it on all four,
which ultimately you were supposed to be doing anyway. Right.
(07:50):
And so the never give up attitude still had a place there because you always
wanted to put your best foot forward when things got tough. You didn't want
to just give up and walk away.
So it had meaning, but it wasn't for me.
It wasn't until I started training in Krav Maga that I really understood the
meaning of that concept and appreciated it and where it really came into play for me.
(08:14):
And so when I got my black belt in the traditional Korean martial art,
I decided I wanted to have a tattoo done of the two Korean characters that stand
for Pilsung, represent Pilsung,
spell out Pilsung, if you will.
And I had those done on my arm to remind me of the philosophy and the concept
(08:36):
because it's so key, vital, especially in self-defense scenarios.
Scenarios, but in that traditional Korean martial art that I studied over time,
they actually removed the self-defense techniques, the concept of self-defense.
It was all obviously for feeling more confident and being more sure of yourself,
(08:57):
all of that good stuff, all the good side benefits of.
Taking martial arts, any martial art for that matter, but they really scaled back the amount
of focus on self-defense and I never understood why
that was in the early days back in the 90s there
was certainly more of it but as time went on it became more of a seminar topic
(09:19):
or even an instructor seminar topic to take just to gain that much more knowledge
it was like a side it was like a sideshow compared to the art itself and doing
the forms and patterns but when I got into Krav.
It became real in a hurry because I learned or I observed quickly that not having the right attitude,
(09:44):
not having the right mindset in a self-defense scenario where you're fighting
for your life or you're just fighting to get out of a very bad situation.
Maybe your life isn't actually being threatened. You're just being attacked.
However, you're being attacked. the importance of having the right attitude and mindset is so key.
(10:05):
And so ironically, the concept, the Korean concept, the Korean martial art tenant
of Pil Sung became more poignant and important to me in Krav Maga than it ever
did in the Korean martial art.
And that was because of context. And that was because of the scenarios that
were being played out in the training that we were going through in Krav Maga,
(10:30):
which, as some of you may know,
is very much self-defense and going home safe scenario based.
And that attitude and mindset became so much more important.
But with all that being said, I want to point out that the concept of Pilsung
(10:50):
is not meant to be threatening.
It's not about you bowing up on your opponent or whatever like that.
It's not about arrogance.
I have to go back to the term. It's really about having the confidence of certain
victory, which has nothing to do with arrogance.
And it also has to do with acknowledging and recognizing your limitations.
(11:13):
You know, as a, as a famous movie character said once, and I kind of paraphrase
this, a man's got to know his limitations.
And that still holds true.
So this doesn't have to do with a threatening posture or arrogance.
It has to do with having the mindset to see things through, to never give up,
(11:33):
not to quit, not to stop, putting your mind to it, making up your mind that
you're going to do something and see it through.
So I always thought of this, that the extreme case of this attitude would be
that if I had ever been knocked out or if I ever was knocked out that when I came to,
(11:55):
when I woke up, I'd wake up swinging because it is deep inside my subconscious
that I'm not going to stop no matter what.
Like if I get knocked out, that's great. I'm going to wake up and still be fighting.
And that may or may not happen in reality, but it's important that I have that
mindset because like a lot of things, you need to play scenarios through your
(12:15):
head. You need to understand understand possibilities.
You need to play through those possibilities and scenarios to know how or to
plan for how you would react to them and how you would respond and how you would behave with them.
And again, that mindset isn't about arrogance or cockiness or being overly sure of yourself.
It's about planning for the worst case scenario so that you know that when that
(12:40):
challenge comes up, that you can arise to the occasion and you're going to have
a better chance of going home and going home unscathed to your,
to your family or, you know, your friends and loved ones, whatever the case may be,
then you would, if you were timid and meek about it and weren't exactly sure
(13:01):
of what you're, what you were going to do and how you were going to do it.
That mindset and attitude is so
paramount to your success that you need to learn that it's just a switch.
You just, you just have to think positively, dare I say in your head that you're
going to see this through and do it right from the get go.
(13:22):
And over time, I think that that switch turns on more naturally.
And before you know it, you do have an indomitable spirit and you are thinking
in terms of never quitting and never giving up.
And worst case scenario, yeah, they may take a chunk out of you,
but not before you get a chunk out of them too. And that's really what it's all about.
(13:45):
So I know this podcast was probably going to be one of my shortest.
It probably is my shortest to date, but I thought it was an important topic.
It's just coincidental that it follows our podcast on Krav Maga and what to
expect because having the right attitude and And having that never quit,
(14:05):
never give up attitude is absolutely paramount to taking on Krav Maga and learning
Krav Maga, that this just happened to be great timing for,
So with that, I'm not going to try to draw this out much longer.
I just wanted to emphasize the importance of having that attitude and mindset to see things through,
(14:27):
to get through tough situations and for you to think about, for you to start
thinking about how to incorporate that into your daily lives,
whether it's office, dealing with coworkers,
sports, whatever it is that you're, you're facing challenges,
personal challenges or things that you need to see through.
(14:47):
You know, it was through Krav that a lot of the challenges I faced were both mental and physical.
Of course, anytime you go through extreme physical, your mental faculties are challenged as well.
Your mental attitude, your mental fortitude, if you will, are challenged just
as much as your physical, your body and muscles are challenged.
(15:10):
And so i wanted this to be a topic that i
shared with you so you can start thinking if you
hadn't already about what this meant to you and
how you were going to incorporate it into things that you
took on challenges you faced and and what this mindset would mean and look like
to you so with that we're going to wrap this podcast up again wasn't going to
(15:33):
be a long podcast i know but i I did want to get it out there for you so you
could start thinking about it and start incorporating it into everything you do.
Grit, wherewithal, never quit, perseverance, indomitable spirit.
Thanks so much for listening. Wake up swinging.
Music.
Music.
(00:11):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Self-Initiative Project Podcast.
I'm your host, Jim O'Brien. Hello and welcome to episode 13,
where we talk about the importance of mindset.
And so this episode, we're going to be talking about all things,
attitude and mindset and what that means and how it can influence the outcome
(00:33):
of things for you, whether you're successful successful or you're not,
whether you pass or fail or not, whether you make it home or you're injured or you get killed or not.
Mindset is so key. And so I wanted to start out just by reading a list of terms
that are all related to mindset and attitude.
(00:54):
A lot of these terms don't get used a whole lot anymore these days, it seems.
There's some slang terminology in here that you may or may not have heard of,
or you may possibly be familiar with.
But as I read these terms out, as we go through these terms,
I want you to think about for you what they mean and what they should mean to you.
(01:16):
Or if you don't understand them, you, you considering seeking out what they
mean and what, and how that translates to you personally.
Again, some of these aren't used so much anymore and then some you'll be familiar
with grit wherewithal balls spirit go get them this.
(01:39):
Drive fire fury willingness to continue willpower stomach strong mindset mental
strength Stick-to-it-ness,
never-quit, heart,
will, spirit,
(02:00):
metal, resolve,
guts, spunk, determination,
never-give-up, perseverance,
indomitable spirit.
What do those terms mean to you? You know, it's funny when it comes to the male
and us men and male ego, you know, we'll toss around the term testicular fortitude
(02:24):
quite a bit. And I had a friend of mine in Australia.
I made some comment on social media a number of years ago, and I said something
about finding your testicular fortitude. And she commented back and said,
well, I have ovarian fortitude and that's good enough.
And I couldn't agree more with her because I knew where she was going and her
(02:45):
mind was in the right place.
So really what we're talking about in this episode is having the right attitude
and mindset to get through hardships.
And this, you know, whether you're dealing, facing difficult tasks,
hardships, challenges, whatever, having the right attitude and mindset,
(03:06):
again, can make all the difference in the world and can mean the difference
between success and failure for you if you have the right mindset or if you don't.
If you have the right mindset, you're more likely to succeed or at least make it through.
If you don't, you're likely to fail or be more or less likely to succeed.
(03:28):
So for those of you that have been following us on Instagram for a little while
now, you know that we're selling a t-shirt with the philosophy on the back.
It's a Japanese proverb.
And basically that Japanese proverb goes like this. Fall down seven times, get up eight.
Now, some of you are going to try to process the math of that,
(03:49):
and that's all well and fine, and you'll spend a number of minutes,
hours, days trying to figure that one out.
But you're missing the point if you're focused on the seven versus eight.
The point of that Japanese proverb is no matter how many times you fail,
no matter how hard the situation is, no matter how many times you fall down,
(04:09):
you're willing to get up one more time and keep going.
And that's really what we're talking about today.
The never give up attitude, the never quit, the importance of never quitting.
And look, in context of self-defense and personal safety, which is what we're
all about, obviously, the mindset, the attitude of never quitting,
(04:30):
never give up, perseverance,
indomitable spirit are extremely important.
They can mean the difference between you going home safe or you being severely
injured or worse, being killed.
And that's the reality of self-defense.
So I would encourage you all to think about these terms we've mentioned here
(04:53):
this evening and what they mean to you.
And if one resonates more with you than the other, that's great.
Just find it and cultivate it.
I think wherewithal is a term that we would agree that we very seldom hear anymore, as well as grit.
Grit is a term that I like. It's short and sweet. And for me, it's powerful.
(05:14):
It summarizes all of it into one short word, grit, that mental attitude,
the capability to flip a switch inside one's head to say, I'm going to see this
through. I'm going to get through it no matter what.
That mindset, again, can be the difference between success and failure,
getting through a situation or not, regardless of circumstances.
(05:38):
You guys may or may not know my background in history, but I have a short history
in a traditional Korean martial art.
And then more recently, I have a bit of a history in Krav Maga,
which as you know, or may not know, is primarily focused in self-defense.
And so the traditional Korean martial art that I trained in for a number of
(05:59):
years off and on, I started back in the mid 90s, around 96, I think.
I trained for two or three years and then took a chunk, a rather large chunk
of time off and then came back and trained for another two or three years and
finally got my black belt and a tenant in this traditional martial art,
(06:20):
which was a carry over from another traditional Korean martial art.
We all know is Taekwondo.
And one of the tenants of Taekwondo, which was also utilized in the martial
art that I trained in was Pilsung, a Korean term, actually two words, Pilsung.
And I've done some research on this term and opinions vary, our translations vary.
(06:43):
But what I've read more recently is its literal translation is,
I am confident of certain victory.
Now, back in the day, we just used to say, oh yeah, it's actual literal translation is certain victory.
And I think that's still solid, right? It's the ideology,
the attitude the mindset of getting through
(07:04):
and being successful on the other
side and we used to use it in
format of always doing your best and never giving up and that's really what
we're talking about here so Pilsung for me always meant always doing your best
and never giving up And in this traditional Korean art that I trained in,
(07:28):
we were primarily focused on typical martial arts stuff, forms, patterns,
katas, every level had a new, when you started out at a new belt level,
they had you do the form or pattern on one side and then you graduated up and you did it on all four,
which ultimately you were supposed to be doing anyway. Right.
(07:50):
And so the never give up attitude still had a place there because you always
wanted to put your best foot forward when things got tough. You didn't want
to just give up and walk away.
So it had meaning, but it wasn't for me.
It wasn't until I started training in Krav Maga that I really understood the
meaning of that concept and appreciated it and where it really came into play for me.
(08:14):
And so when I got my black belt in the traditional Korean martial art,
I decided I wanted to have a tattoo done of the two Korean characters that stand
for Pilsung, represent Pilsung,
spell out Pilsung, if you will.
And I had those done on my arm to remind me of the philosophy and the concept
(08:36):
because it's so key, vital, especially in self-defense scenarios.
Scenarios, but in that traditional Korean martial art that I studied over time,
they actually removed the self-defense techniques, the concept of self-defense.
It was all obviously for feeling more confident and being more sure of yourself,
(08:57):
all of that good stuff, all the good side benefits of.
Taking martial arts, any martial art for that matter, but they really scaled back the amount
of focus on self-defense and I never understood why
that was in the early days back in the 90s there
was certainly more of it but as time went on it became more of a seminar topic
(09:19):
or even an instructor seminar topic to take just to gain that much more knowledge
it was like a side it was like a sideshow compared to the art itself and doing
the forms and patterns but when I got into Krav.
It became real in a hurry because I learned or I observed quickly that not having the right attitude,
(09:44):
not having the right mindset in a self-defense scenario where you're fighting
for your life or you're just fighting to get out of a very bad situation.
Maybe your life isn't actually being threatened. You're just being attacked.
However, you're being attacked. the importance of having the right attitude and mindset is so key.
(10:05):
And so ironically, the concept, the Korean concept, the Korean martial art tenant
of Pil Sung became more poignant and important to me in Krav Maga than it ever
did in the Korean martial art.
And that was because of context. And that was because of the scenarios that
were being played out in the training that we were going through in Krav Maga,
(10:30):
which, as some of you may know,
is very much self-defense and going home safe scenario based.
And that attitude and mindset became so much more important.
But with all that being said, I want to point out that the concept of Pilsung
(10:50):
is not meant to be threatening.
It's not about you bowing up on your opponent or whatever like that.
It's not about arrogance.
I have to go back to the term. It's really about having the confidence of certain
victory, which has nothing to do with arrogance.
And it also has to do with acknowledging and recognizing your limitations.
(11:13):
You know, as a, as a famous movie character said once, and I kind of paraphrase
this, a man's got to know his limitations.
And that still holds true.
So this doesn't have to do with a threatening posture or arrogance.
It has to do with having the mindset to see things through, to never give up,
(11:33):
not to quit, not to stop, putting your mind to it, making up your mind that
you're going to do something and see it through.
So I always thought of this, that the extreme case of this attitude would be
that if I had ever been knocked out or if I ever was knocked out that when I came to,
(11:55):
when I woke up, I'd wake up swinging because it is deep inside my subconscious
that I'm not going to stop no matter what.
Like if I get knocked out, that's great. I'm going to wake up and still be fighting.
And that may or may not happen in reality, but it's important that I have that
mindset because like a lot of things, you need to play scenarios through your
(12:15):
head. You need to understand understand possibilities.
You need to play through those possibilities and scenarios to know how or to
plan for how you would react to them and how you would respond and how you would behave with them.
And again, that mindset isn't about arrogance or cockiness or being overly sure of yourself.
It's about planning for the worst case scenario so that you know that when that
(12:40):
challenge comes up, that you can arise to the occasion and you're going to have
a better chance of going home and going home unscathed to your,
to your family or, you know, your friends and loved ones, whatever the case may be,
then you would, if you were timid and meek about it and weren't exactly sure
(13:01):
of what you're, what you were going to do and how you were going to do it.
That mindset and attitude is so
paramount to your success that you need to learn that it's just a switch.
You just, you just have to think positively, dare I say in your head that you're
going to see this through and do it right from the get go.
(13:22):
And over time, I think that that switch turns on more naturally.
And before you know it, you do have an indomitable spirit and you are thinking
in terms of never quitting and never giving up.
And worst case scenario, yeah, they may take a chunk out of you,
but not before you get a chunk out of them too. And that's really what it's all about.
(13:45):
So I know this podcast was probably going to be one of my shortest.
It probably is my shortest to date, but I thought it was an important topic.
It's just coincidental that it follows our podcast on Krav Maga and what to
expect because having the right attitude and And having that never quit,
(14:05):
never give up attitude is absolutely paramount to taking on Krav Maga and learning
Krav Maga, that this just happened to be great timing for,
So with that, I'm not going to try to draw this out much longer.
I just wanted to emphasize the importance of having that attitude and mindset to see things through,
(14:27):
to get through tough situations and for you to think about, for you to start
thinking about how to incorporate that into your daily lives,
whether it's office, dealing with coworkers,
sports, whatever it is that you're, you're facing challenges,
personal challenges or things that you need to see through.
(14:47):
You know, it was through Krav that a lot of the challenges I faced were both mental and physical.
Of course, anytime you go through extreme physical, your mental faculties are challenged as well.
Your mental attitude, your mental fortitude, if you will, are challenged just
as much as your physical, your body and muscles are challenged.
(15:10):
And so i wanted this to be a topic that i
shared with you so you can start thinking if you
hadn't already about what this meant to you and
how you were going to incorporate it into things that you
took on challenges you faced and and what this mindset would mean and look like
to you so with that we're going to wrap this podcast up again wasn't going to
(15:33):
be a long podcast i know but i I did want to get it out there for you so you
could start thinking about it and start incorporating it into everything you do.
Grit, wherewithal, never quit, perseverance, indomitable spirit.
Thanks so much for listening. Wake up swinging.
Music.
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