September 26, 2025 • 25 mins
Is it possible to face pressure without losing your peace?
In this episode of That Will Nevr Work, Maurice Chism sits down with Jeff Patterson, high-performance coach and creator of the Yielding Warrior framework, to explore how meditation, awareness, and conscious surrender can help us not just manage stress—but master it. Jeff opens up about the power of “yielding” as a strength, not a weakness, and shares how stillness can sharpen our leadership, creativity, and clarity.
Whether you're burned out, stretched thin, or simply seeking balance in your leadership journey, this conversation offers tools to transform stress into stillness—and resistance into resilience.
🎧 Tune in to discover how to shift from reactive to responsive, and lead with grounded strength.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-patterson-b691819/
https://theyieldingwarrior.com/
Resources:
In this episode of That Will Nevr Work, Maurice Chism sits down with Jeff Patterson, high-performance coach and creator of the Yielding Warrior framework, to explore how meditation, awareness, and conscious surrender can help us not just manage stress—but master it. Jeff opens up about the power of “yielding” as a strength, not a weakness, and shares how stillness can sharpen our leadership, creativity, and clarity.
Whether you're burned out, stretched thin, or simply seeking balance in your leadership journey, this conversation offers tools to transform stress into stillness—and resistance into resilience.
🎧 Tune in to discover how to shift from reactive to responsive, and lead with grounded strength.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-patterson-b691819/
https://theyieldingwarrior.com/
Resources:
- Well Why Not Workbook: https://bit.ly/authormauricechism
- Podmatch: https://bit.ly/joinpodmatchwithmaurice
- *FREE* 5 Bold Shifts to help you silence doubt and start moving: https://bit.ly/5boldshifts
- Maurice Chism: https://bit.ly/CoachMaurice
- Website: https://bit.ly/mauricechism
- To be a guest: https://bit.ly/beaguestonthatwillnevrworkpodcast
- Business Email: mchism@chismgroup.net
- Business Address: PO Box 460, Secane, PA 19018
- Spreaker: https://bit.ly/TWNWSpreaker
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I thank you very much for tuning into that Will
Never Work podcast. So what if your greatest power wasn't
in pushing harding? For learning how to yield? Today Jeff Patterson,
He's going to share how meditative mastery can help us
face stress with strength.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
We'll talk about it right after this.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Educate, empower, enable impact. Thank you for tuning in to
that Will Never Work, an award winning podcast where we
share inspiring information and personal experiences related to business and
the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their
respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Maurice So again, I thank y'all very much for tuning
in today. So of course we want to jump all
the way in. So if you're looking for Jeff's bioh
and his background.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We're going to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But if you want directly, of course, all his links
will be in the show notes below. So let's jump
into it. Like I stated, Jeff, your approach challenges to
the traditional grind mindset of success. So how do you
see yielding, not forcing, as a true path to strength
in both life and leadership?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
You know, oftentimes after teaching for over thirty years, one
of the most common reactions I get when people hear
the term yielding is that it's passive and giving up,
and you know, it couldn't be further from the truth.
Yielding is very strategic and helps us see things in
the shortest path to our success rather than just butting
(01:47):
heads and grinding. We're smart and strategic about how we
move and within yielding, there's three main pillars of the practice.
There's physical yielding, mental yielding, and yielding, and briefly.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
I'll kind of touch on what I mean by that.
So physical yielding.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Is the basic idea that I push you, you push me.
Whoever is the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage
eventually is going to push the other person over, but
with yielding instead of us trying to see who the
bigger meathead is. When you push me, I get out
of the way of that force, and now I can
respond with less effort. So I'm not trying to butt
heads with you and see if I'm bigger and stronger.
(02:31):
I'm being strategic about how do I get to that
advantage position.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
And it's easy to.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
See how this is beneficial in athletics because we're consistently
coming up against other athletes who are bigger, stronger, and
faster than us, and we need to learn how to
be strategic about how we deal with that power and speed.
And so you know, in the martial arts, we've been
(02:59):
studying fielding for generations, and yielding is also used in
military conflict and strategy. So yielding is not at all
something that's weak or giving up. It's an ability to
get where we need to go with the least amount
of resistance. Now, in order to be good at physical yielding,
(03:22):
a lot of things have to come into play. You
need to be well rooted. The lower part of your
body needs to be strong and flexible so you can
change your central equilibrium without getting tight. The body has
to be relaxed, the breath has to be calm, and
the mind has to be present. While it may be
a lifetime journey to really master these skills, once you
(03:44):
start a meditation practice from day one, you'll start becoming
more aware of these things inside of yourself. And this
is where it becomes very interesting. And now we're moving
into the second pillar of which I call mental yielding.
So say, for example, you and I are having a
conversation and I say something that unsettles you. And because
(04:08):
of my heightened awareness of seeing those subtleties inside myself
and now I also see those disturbances in other people.
When I see that disturbance, it's a lot easier to
adjust the conversation and keep us on a harmonious path
than if I'm not paying attention to that, and pretty
soon I'm so far off track you want to knock
(04:28):
me upside the head. And so learning how to use
yielding in all of our conversations is extremely powerful. You know, One,
we're being more considerate, which is something that we could
all do more of. And two it allows us to
be strategic, so we can guide the conversation to a
positive outcome with the least amount of resistance. And then
(04:52):
the third and final pillar of yielding is emotional yielding.
And emotional yielding is very much like mental yielding, but
with our own interpersonal conflicts. So you think about when
something happens to us, often we'll respond and we'll go
down this path and we might get an hour a
day week down that road and realize maybe that wasn't
(05:14):
the best choice. But with yielding and our heightened awareness
when these things happen, it gives us the ability to
step back, examine the scenario, not get emotional, stay rooted,
stay connected, and oftentimes make a more educated choice about how.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
To move forward.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You know, and I've been talking about yielding and explaining
this for many years, and one of the most common
things I'll hear people say is, ah, that makes a
lot of sense. In fact, I do yielding all the time.
And while I would agree in that, I think everybody
does some degree of yielding all the time. However, it's
kind of like if you or I were to walk
(05:54):
into a crime scene with a detective who's been on
the job for thirty years, I guarantee you that person
would see things about the series of events and the
timeline that I know at least I would have no
clue of, right, And the meditative arts helps us see
things inside of ourselves and inside of other people that
I truly believe most people will go through life and
(06:15):
never have any clue of unless they have a practice
like this in their life.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And so as I'm listening to you, and I'm gonna
utilize your first example, right, because a lot of times
when people are confronted, I don't care what it is right,
whether it's a physical confrontation or whether it's something at work,
whatever it is, right, we get that confrontation, like you stated,
from especially from a physical perspective, Hey, I don't need
(06:42):
you in my space. That's a trigger, right, you know,
like you said, the emotional side of Hey, you know,
I don't like people close to me, I don't want
to be touched, or whatever the situation is, you know,
like you say, ego, all those type of things.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And a lot of times we have.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
This reaction perspective we have to immediately respond, you know,
to that and not understanding the importance of taking a
deep breath, you know, considering not just the the my response,
but long term consequences in that response.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So even when we think about it from a from
a business perspective as well, sometimes we can't always jump
all the way in, you know, into that that immediate situation.
We need to understand what is our long term consequences
to that decision, and sometimes we're so caught up. We
see it on TV, we see it on social media.
(07:44):
People are just so much in their feelings and all
that type of stuff that that it doesn't allow them
time to really think and understand what and how does
that not just affect me but my community at large.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Yeah, you know, and that's one of the beautiful things
about the meditative arts is that, you know, everybody says
that it improves your mind body connection. Well, it helps
your overall awareness. So when these responses or reactions come
up that you're talking about, we're able to notice from
(08:20):
that first sign of imbalance rather than too far down
the road. Right, So if you get too far into
something and you're already barking back at somebody that maybe
says something unpleasant to you, it's a little harder to
turn around and try to be strategic at that point
because you're already escalating the conversation. But if we're able
(08:41):
to from the beginning, be present, be aware, notice how
maybe our feelings are starting to change, and rather than
just responding to those feelings, being aware and saying that
I'm not those feelings. I see that they're happening, but
how can I step back and be more strategic to
(09:03):
guide this to a positive outcome. And so it's really
a powerful skill and be applied in pretty much any.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Area in life.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And then even with that right, you know, in that
moment of pausing. Sometimes the crowd may not understand from
a leadership perspective what you're processing. So again, the crowd
is in an emotional state and they're pumping you on.
Let's go, let's go, let's go. And now you and
(09:32):
so now that's fueling your fire as well. So how
do we learn how to maybe turn off the crowd
or turn them down a little bit. You can hear them,
but maybe not be so reactive to the outside voices
or the outside forces in.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Addition to whatever you might be dealing with internally.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah, so that comes back to something that I hear
as one of the most common reasons why people feel
like they can't meditate. And I'll often hear people say,
you know, I've tried meditation before, but it didn't work
for me because I couldn't quiet my mind. And somewhere
along the way, people got this misguided idea that in
(10:15):
order to be successful at meditation, you have to reach
this state of nirvana where nothing bothers you and be
in this peaceful, blissful place. But in reality, you know,
I've been very fortunate to train with some amazing practitioners
from all over the world in the last thirty six
years of my training, and I have never once met
anybody who doesn't get distracted when they meditate. Right, everybody does.
(10:40):
But the idea is is, if you're sitting for twenty minutes,
or maybe you're doing a movement meditative practice for twenty
minutes and you get distracted fifty times during that session,
you recognize the imbalance. You use your breath, your posture,
your movement to come back to focus and find that center.
(11:01):
And now you just got fifty repetitions of recognizing the imbalance,
finding a strategy to come back to focus. And if
you do that every day, every month, every year, you
start to develop this power and this ability to find
that center among any of life's distractions. So it doesn't
(11:22):
matter if it's the crowd or your own interpersonal communication
or whatever it is. You're able to be in those
stressful environments and bring yourself back to center and find
that focus. And so part of that comes with that
daily consistent practice.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And I think that's one of the things you just
nailed it for me. It's consistency. No one's going to
be perfect in it. Everybody is human, everybody has flaws.
But sometimes we feel as though, hey, you know, Jeff,
I hear what you're saying, and I see you're practicing,
and you know, you have such a calm, nice, calm demeanor.
But that's I don't know if I could get to
(12:00):
that point, you know. And so sometimes we're looking at
individuals and we just feel like we can't be.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
There, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so some of that is consistency, just believing that
you can eventually get there, but it doesn't take It's
not gonna be within the next five minutes. So what
I'm getting at is is the microwave mentality as well,
you know, because we want the end result that Jeff,
that you're displaying right now. We want it for us
(12:29):
right now. So how do we understand, especially in a
business perspective, corporate America perspective, no matter what it is,
I don't care if it's my birthday and I want
to wake up and have you know, all the gifts
showering me as it as I wake up, you know,
because we want instant gratification. So how do we hone
that part in and understand that all this stuff takes time.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yes, I'm glad you asked that question because it makes
me think of one of the biggest struggles I've had
for the last thirty years and teaching the meditative arts
is getting people to see the value of this practice
and how do I get them to put in the
work so they reap all these benefits for the rest
(13:12):
of their life. And through the years, I've tried numerous
things here and there, and I've come down to at
this point where I have three considerations that I like
anybody new coming to the practice to spend a little
bit of time with, and I find that if they do,
they're much more likely to reap the benefits of a
meditation practice. And the first one is thinking about what
(13:36):
it is that's drawing you to the practice.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Why do you want to do it.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Do you want to stay healthy into your later years
to watch your grandkids grow up, or maybe you're dealing
with a stress disorder, or maybe you're a performance athlete
and you want to learn how to increase the ability
to perform under pressure, whatever that is for you. And
then once you have that, think about maybe ten or
(14:02):
twenty things that will positively change in your life if
you accomplish that goal, because we want to develop a
little bit of depth in this reason. And then I
like them to flip the coin and think about ten
or twenty negative things that won't change in their life.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
If they don't do this.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
And what we're doing by spending a little time here
is we're building that fuel. So on those days that
come when the alarm clock goes off and it's time
to get up and do your practice, you're not tempted
to hit the snooze button and say, oh, I'll do
it tomorrow. You get up and you do it because
you're excited about all of the benefits that you're receiving
(14:41):
from this practice. And now it starts becoming something you
get to do and not something you have to do.
And this is extremely important. And then the second consideration
is we kind of touched on it a little bit,
is understanding the importance of consistency. And there's this old,
old Chinese story that fits this idea really well that
(15:03):
I always love to hear. It's about this old stonecutter
and he's very well known all over the country for
his beautiful pieces that he creates of animals and landscapes,
and his work is so detailed and unique that anytime
somebody sees it anywhere, they just know that it's a
piece of his work, you know. And so because of
(15:26):
this notoriety, he has people from all over the country
coming to stay with him and study and learn the
trade from him. Well, every morning, this old stonecutter, he
begins his day down by the river meditating, and one
day he's walking along the river after his practice, and
(15:46):
he has this profound vision of this big, six foot tall,
mystical Chinese jade dragon. And he's so taken by this
dragon that he just knew it had to be his
next project. Spends the next few months traveling all around
looking for the perfect stone for his new creation. Finally,
when he finds his stone, he brings it back to
(16:09):
his place and he just sits with it for a
period of time, day in and out, just studying the
stone and trying to feel the energy and envision how
this dragon is going to appear. Then, finally, one day,
when he starts working on the stone, he carefully places
his chisel on the backside of the rock and starts
tapping away with his hammer hundreds, if not thousands of
(16:31):
times every single day to the exact same spot. A
few days went by and no change. A few more
days went by and still nothing, and his apprentices started
second guessing him and wondering maybe he should try something else.
A few more days went by, hundreds, if not thousands,
more taps to the stone, and finally, this big three
(16:54):
foot section comes off the backside of the rock and
creates a smooth, slightly curved line, and that's soon to
be part of the dragon's back. And one of his
apprentices asked, how did you know that that strike was
going to break the stone? And he said, it wasn't
that strike that broke the stone. It was the thousands
of strikes before it that broke the stone. And with
(17:16):
a bit of a discouraged tone, the apprentice said, but
I've been watching you and there was no change, not
even a crack. Why keep doing the same thing over
and over again without any results? And the stonecutter got
down on one knee and he felt the smooth line
that he just created, and he said, each strike was
(17:38):
not wasted. The stone was changing beneath the surface, and
not only was the stone being molded, so was the
one who wields the hammer. And the reason why I
resonate so well with his story is that so closely
related to the meditative arts, and that we're practicing these
breathing strategies, these movement practices, studying these philosophical cons and
(18:01):
we don't always see the change happen day to day,
but through our consistent repetition and effort, we're laying the
groundwork and setting the foundation to reap these benefits and
feed ourselves these.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Fruits for the rest of our life.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
And so consistency is such a powerful piece of the
pie when you're taking on a meditation practice. And then
the third and final consideration is the importance of having.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
A good guide.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
You need to have somebody in your corner to point
you down the right path, because there's thousands, if not
millions of videos out there on YouTube that.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
You could follow and look at.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And if you think that you're going to take this
thing that's been around for thousands of years and figure
it out by yourself, you're going to waste a lot
of time and never get really below the surface. You know,
I've had students come into the academy that have been
self taught, and sometimes they've trained ten even fifteen years,
(19:04):
and they're barely cracking the surface to what.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
They could do.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
And if you have somebody in your corner, you really
understand your purpose and your why, and you understand the
importance and reasons behind why you want to be consistent
every day.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
If you do this, your chances of.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Reaping the benefits with the practice are almost guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
So Jeff, before we go, there's one part that because
everything that you say it resonates with me directly, right,
And I'm saying that because for myself, I found that
I had to look in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
And sometimes a lot of us don't like looking in
the mirror.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We don't like was watching it was looking back at us,
and we don't like to see our past. We don't
like to see I'm forty nine, so I look at
all my laugh lines.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
My rinkles, or you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
But understanding that those things had come because of all
my life experiences, right, everything that that that I've been
through makes me who I am today. And sometimes, you know,
we don't look at those moments as winds. We look
at those moments as losses. We look at those as
negative outcomes or whatever it might have been, not realizing that, hey,
(20:20):
I'm only in this place because of those moments. I'm
only able to talk to somebody else and express to
them how they can pull through because of those moments.
So sometimes a lot of us don't like to look
at those that look in the mirror and see it
what's beneath the surface and what has to change, One
needs to break, you know, what needs to be molded
(20:42):
on the inside, I e. Your stone, right, you know,
because everybody, again it is surface. Everybody looks at the
surface stuff and not realizing what has to happen underneath.
And sometimes that mirror shows you what's underneath. And I
thank you very much for sharing that type of information because,
like I said, it resonated with me.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Nice.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
You know one of my old meditation teachers, he always
talks about the mask, you know. And in today's society,
we're so busy and bombarded with advertisements and scrolling and
you know, trying to maybe not say the wrong thing
or let out who we are, how we really feel
that we're commonly walking around with these masks on and
(21:27):
these barriers, and sometimes we get so caught up and
living this way that when we do go look at
ourselves in the mirror, we're still wearing those masks. And
if you don't have some kind of ritual practice something
that's bringing you back to who you really are and
being able to find that center and stay connected to
(21:48):
your heart.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
You can get lost, you know.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And that's one of the things that I've always resonated
so well with with the meditative arts is that it
really helps you stay connected to who you are and
find a path that's really true for you. Find something
where you can stay focused, where you can lead other
(22:12):
people that can maybe find a little bit of that
root in that foundation, so those around you can benefit
from your practice as well.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Wow, yeah, Jeff, I mean that's that's for those individuals
that are listening today and they need someone to talk to,
and you know, they haven't figured out who what expert
person that really understands these arts because it really is
an art, right you know, and so understand the value
(22:42):
of it and understand the real meaning and the root
and the spirituality of it.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
In addition to that, where can he.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Talk to you and find you and maybe get to
another place in their life through these arts?
Speaker 4 (22:59):
You can reach me at the Yieldingwarrior dot com. I'm
also giving away a copy of my most recent book
right now at the Yieldingwarrior dot com. Forward Slash Book.
You just go there and pay for shipping. We'll send
you out a copy. You can also download a digital
copy and then on my website as well, I've got
a two week trial where you can get into some
(23:20):
of the practices that we're talking about, start learning how
to create an evolving life practice with the meditative arts.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Nice, So, Jeff, you know again, all the information will
be in the show notes, you know. And so, but
I have to ask you my question before we go, bro,
would you rather question?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
So?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Would you rather choose.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Three doors or a fork in the road. There's no
right or wrong answer, use your imagination. Fork in the road, okay?
And why a fork.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Because behind the door and you don't know what's there.
But with a fork on the road, you can weigh
your options as to which way you want to go.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Mm okay, okay, Now now I'm sorry I didn't preface
by saying use your imagination. You know, So if you
had a little bit more time, you know, would.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Your answer change?
Speaker 4 (24:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I don't think so, okay, all right, cool. Here's the
reason why I asked. Because I had asked someone to
use their imagination. They said that the doors were all glass, so.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, and so yeah, but you know, I think
very much for coming on the show.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Jeff Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Sure, no problem, and I thank you very much for
listening to that will Never Work podcasts?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Can I'll talk to you just a little bit later.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Thanks for listening. Follow Maurice Chisholm on social media to
stay connected and check back weekly for new episodes until
next time.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
That will never work?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Or will it?
I thank you very much for tuning into that Will
Never Work podcast. So what if your greatest power wasn't
in pushing harding? For learning how to yield? Today Jeff Patterson,
He's going to share how meditative mastery can help us
face stress with strength.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
We'll talk about it right after this.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Educate, empower, enable impact. Thank you for tuning in to
that Will Never Work, an award winning podcast where we
share inspiring information and personal experiences related to business and
the entrepreneurial journey from those who are leaders in their
respective field. Now here's your host, author and business coach.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Maurice So again, I thank y'all very much for tuning
in today. So of course we want to jump all
the way in. So if you're looking for Jeff's bioh
and his background.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We're going to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But if you want directly, of course, all his links
will be in the show notes below. So let's jump
into it. Like I stated, Jeff, your approach challenges to
the traditional grind mindset of success. So how do you
see yielding, not forcing, as a true path to strength
in both life and leadership?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
You know, oftentimes after teaching for over thirty years, one
of the most common reactions I get when people hear
the term yielding is that it's passive and giving up,
and you know, it couldn't be further from the truth.
Yielding is very strategic and helps us see things in
the shortest path to our success rather than just butting
(01:47):
heads and grinding. We're smart and strategic about how we
move and within yielding, there's three main pillars of the practice.
There's physical yielding, mental yielding, and yielding, and briefly.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
I'll kind of touch on what I mean by that.
So physical yielding.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Is the basic idea that I push you, you push me.
Whoever is the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage
eventually is going to push the other person over, but
with yielding instead of us trying to see who the
bigger meathead is. When you push me, I get out
of the way of that force, and now I can
respond with less effort. So I'm not trying to butt
heads with you and see if I'm bigger and stronger.
(02:31):
I'm being strategic about how do I get to that
advantage position.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
And it's easy to.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
See how this is beneficial in athletics because we're consistently
coming up against other athletes who are bigger, stronger, and
faster than us, and we need to learn how to
be strategic about how we deal with that power and speed.
And so you know, in the martial arts, we've been
(02:59):
studying fielding for generations, and yielding is also used in
military conflict and strategy. So yielding is not at all
something that's weak or giving up. It's an ability to
get where we need to go with the least amount
of resistance. Now, in order to be good at physical yielding,
(03:22):
a lot of things have to come into play. You
need to be well rooted. The lower part of your
body needs to be strong and flexible so you can
change your central equilibrium without getting tight. The body has
to be relaxed, the breath has to be calm, and
the mind has to be present. While it may be
a lifetime journey to really master these skills, once you
(03:44):
start a meditation practice from day one, you'll start becoming
more aware of these things inside of yourself. And this
is where it becomes very interesting. And now we're moving
into the second pillar of which I call mental yielding.
So say, for example, you and I are having a
conversation and I say something that unsettles you. And because
(04:08):
of my heightened awareness of seeing those subtleties inside myself
and now I also see those disturbances in other people.
When I see that disturbance, it's a lot easier to
adjust the conversation and keep us on a harmonious path
than if I'm not paying attention to that, and pretty
soon I'm so far off track you want to knock
(04:28):
me upside the head. And so learning how to use
yielding in all of our conversations is extremely powerful. You know, One,
we're being more considerate, which is something that we could
all do more of. And two it allows us to
be strategic, so we can guide the conversation to a
positive outcome with the least amount of resistance. And then
(04:52):
the third and final pillar of yielding is emotional yielding.
And emotional yielding is very much like mental yielding, but
with our own interpersonal conflicts. So you think about when
something happens to us, often we'll respond and we'll go
down this path and we might get an hour a
day week down that road and realize maybe that wasn't
(05:14):
the best choice. But with yielding and our heightened awareness
when these things happen, it gives us the ability to
step back, examine the scenario, not get emotional, stay rooted,
stay connected, and oftentimes make a more educated choice about how.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
To move forward.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You know, and I've been talking about yielding and explaining
this for many years, and one of the most common
things I'll hear people say is, ah, that makes a
lot of sense. In fact, I do yielding all the time.
And while I would agree in that, I think everybody
does some degree of yielding all the time. However, it's
kind of like if you or I were to walk
(05:54):
into a crime scene with a detective who's been on
the job for thirty years, I guarantee you that person
would see things about the series of events and the
timeline that I know at least I would have no
clue of, right, And the meditative arts helps us see
things inside of ourselves and inside of other people that
I truly believe most people will go through life and
(06:15):
never have any clue of unless they have a practice
like this in their life.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And so as I'm listening to you, and I'm gonna
utilize your first example, right, because a lot of times
when people are confronted, I don't care what it is right,
whether it's a physical confrontation or whether it's something at work,
whatever it is, right, we get that confrontation, like you stated,
from especially from a physical perspective, Hey, I don't need
(06:42):
you in my space. That's a trigger, right, you know,
like you said, the emotional side of Hey, you know,
I don't like people close to me, I don't want
to be touched, or whatever the situation is, you know,
like you say, ego, all those type of things.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And a lot of times we have.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
This reaction perspective we have to immediately respond, you know,
to that and not understanding the importance of taking a
deep breath, you know, considering not just the the my response,
but long term consequences in that response.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So even when we think about it from a from
a business perspective as well, sometimes we can't always jump
all the way in, you know, into that that immediate situation.
We need to understand what is our long term consequences
to that decision, and sometimes we're so caught up. We
see it on TV, we see it on social media.
(07:44):
People are just so much in their feelings and all
that type of stuff that that it doesn't allow them
time to really think and understand what and how does
that not just affect me but my community at large.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Yeah, you know, and that's one of the beautiful things
about the meditative arts is that, you know, everybody says
that it improves your mind body connection. Well, it helps
your overall awareness. So when these responses or reactions come
up that you're talking about, we're able to notice from
(08:20):
that first sign of imbalance rather than too far down
the road. Right, So if you get too far into
something and you're already barking back at somebody that maybe
says something unpleasant to you, it's a little harder to
turn around and try to be strategic at that point
because you're already escalating the conversation. But if we're able
(08:41):
to from the beginning, be present, be aware, notice how
maybe our feelings are starting to change, and rather than
just responding to those feelings, being aware and saying that
I'm not those feelings. I see that they're happening, but
how can I step back and be more strategic to
(09:03):
guide this to a positive outcome. And so it's really
a powerful skill and be applied in pretty much any.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Area in life.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And then even with that right, you know, in that
moment of pausing. Sometimes the crowd may not understand from
a leadership perspective what you're processing. So again, the crowd
is in an emotional state and they're pumping you on.
Let's go, let's go, let's go. And now you and
(09:32):
so now that's fueling your fire as well. So how
do we learn how to maybe turn off the crowd
or turn them down a little bit. You can hear them,
but maybe not be so reactive to the outside voices
or the outside forces in.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Addition to whatever you might be dealing with internally.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah, so that comes back to something that I hear
as one of the most common reasons why people feel
like they can't meditate. And I'll often hear people say,
you know, I've tried meditation before, but it didn't work
for me because I couldn't quiet my mind. And somewhere
along the way, people got this misguided idea that in
(10:15):
order to be successful at meditation, you have to reach
this state of nirvana where nothing bothers you and be
in this peaceful, blissful place. But in reality, you know,
I've been very fortunate to train with some amazing practitioners
from all over the world in the last thirty six
years of my training, and I have never once met
anybody who doesn't get distracted when they meditate. Right, everybody does.
(10:40):
But the idea is is, if you're sitting for twenty minutes,
or maybe you're doing a movement meditative practice for twenty
minutes and you get distracted fifty times during that session,
you recognize the imbalance. You use your breath, your posture,
your movement to come back to focus and find that center.
(11:01):
And now you just got fifty repetitions of recognizing the imbalance,
finding a strategy to come back to focus. And if
you do that every day, every month, every year, you
start to develop this power and this ability to find
that center among any of life's distractions. So it doesn't
(11:22):
matter if it's the crowd or your own interpersonal communication
or whatever it is. You're able to be in those
stressful environments and bring yourself back to center and find
that focus. And so part of that comes with that
daily consistent practice.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And I think that's one of the things you just
nailed it for me. It's consistency. No one's going to
be perfect in it. Everybody is human, everybody has flaws.
But sometimes we feel as though, hey, you know, Jeff,
I hear what you're saying, and I see you're practicing,
and you know, you have such a calm, nice, calm demeanor.
But that's I don't know if I could get to
(12:00):
that point, you know. And so sometimes we're looking at
individuals and we just feel like we can't be.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
There, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so some of that is consistency, just believing that
you can eventually get there, but it doesn't take It's
not gonna be within the next five minutes. So what
I'm getting at is is the microwave mentality as well,
you know, because we want the end result that Jeff,
that you're displaying right now. We want it for us
(12:29):
right now. So how do we understand, especially in a
business perspective, corporate America perspective, no matter what it is,
I don't care if it's my birthday and I want
to wake up and have you know, all the gifts
showering me as it as I wake up, you know,
because we want instant gratification. So how do we hone
that part in and understand that all this stuff takes time.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yes, I'm glad you asked that question because it makes
me think of one of the biggest struggles I've had
for the last thirty years and teaching the meditative arts
is getting people to see the value of this practice
and how do I get them to put in the
work so they reap all these benefits for the rest
(13:12):
of their life. And through the years, I've tried numerous
things here and there, and I've come down to at
this point where I have three considerations that I like
anybody new coming to the practice to spend a little
bit of time with, and I find that if they do,
they're much more likely to reap the benefits of a
meditation practice. And the first one is thinking about what
(13:36):
it is that's drawing you to the practice.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Why do you want to do it.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Do you want to stay healthy into your later years
to watch your grandkids grow up, or maybe you're dealing
with a stress disorder, or maybe you're a performance athlete
and you want to learn how to increase the ability
to perform under pressure, whatever that is for you. And
then once you have that, think about maybe ten or
(14:02):
twenty things that will positively change in your life if
you accomplish that goal, because we want to develop a
little bit of depth in this reason. And then I
like them to flip the coin and think about ten
or twenty negative things that won't change in their life.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
If they don't do this.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
And what we're doing by spending a little time here
is we're building that fuel. So on those days that
come when the alarm clock goes off and it's time
to get up and do your practice, you're not tempted
to hit the snooze button and say, oh, I'll do
it tomorrow. You get up and you do it because
you're excited about all of the benefits that you're receiving
(14:41):
from this practice. And now it starts becoming something you
get to do and not something you have to do.
And this is extremely important. And then the second consideration
is we kind of touched on it a little bit,
is understanding the importance of consistency. And there's this old,
old Chinese story that fits this idea really well that
(15:03):
I always love to hear. It's about this old stonecutter
and he's very well known all over the country for
his beautiful pieces that he creates of animals and landscapes,
and his work is so detailed and unique that anytime
somebody sees it anywhere, they just know that it's a
piece of his work, you know. And so because of
(15:26):
this notoriety, he has people from all over the country
coming to stay with him and study and learn the
trade from him. Well, every morning, this old stonecutter, he
begins his day down by the river meditating, and one
day he's walking along the river after his practice, and
(15:46):
he has this profound vision of this big, six foot tall,
mystical Chinese jade dragon. And he's so taken by this
dragon that he just knew it had to be his
next project. Spends the next few months traveling all around
looking for the perfect stone for his new creation. Finally,
when he finds his stone, he brings it back to
(16:09):
his place and he just sits with it for a
period of time, day in and out, just studying the
stone and trying to feel the energy and envision how
this dragon is going to appear. Then, finally, one day,
when he starts working on the stone, he carefully places
his chisel on the backside of the rock and starts
tapping away with his hammer hundreds, if not thousands of
(16:31):
times every single day to the exact same spot. A
few days went by and no change. A few more
days went by and still nothing, and his apprentices started
second guessing him and wondering maybe he should try something else.
A few more days went by, hundreds, if not thousands,
more taps to the stone, and finally, this big three
(16:54):
foot section comes off the backside of the rock and
creates a smooth, slightly curved line, and that's soon to
be part of the dragon's back. And one of his
apprentices asked, how did you know that that strike was
going to break the stone? And he said, it wasn't
that strike that broke the stone. It was the thousands
of strikes before it that broke the stone. And with
(17:16):
a bit of a discouraged tone, the apprentice said, but
I've been watching you and there was no change, not
even a crack. Why keep doing the same thing over
and over again without any results? And the stonecutter got
down on one knee and he felt the smooth line
that he just created, and he said, each strike was
(17:38):
not wasted. The stone was changing beneath the surface, and
not only was the stone being molded, so was the
one who wields the hammer. And the reason why I
resonate so well with his story is that so closely
related to the meditative arts, and that we're practicing these
breathing strategies, these movement practices, studying these philosophical cons and
(18:01):
we don't always see the change happen day to day,
but through our consistent repetition and effort, we're laying the
groundwork and setting the foundation to reap these benefits and
feed ourselves these.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Fruits for the rest of our life.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
And so consistency is such a powerful piece of the
pie when you're taking on a meditation practice. And then
the third and final consideration is the importance of having.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
A good guide.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
You need to have somebody in your corner to point
you down the right path, because there's thousands, if not
millions of videos out there on YouTube that.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
You could follow and look at.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And if you think that you're going to take this
thing that's been around for thousands of years and figure
it out by yourself, you're going to waste a lot
of time and never get really below the surface. You know,
I've had students come into the academy that have been
self taught, and sometimes they've trained ten even fifteen years,
(19:04):
and they're barely cracking the surface to what.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
They could do.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
And if you have somebody in your corner, you really
understand your purpose and your why, and you understand the
importance and reasons behind why you want to be consistent
every day.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
If you do this, your chances of.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Reaping the benefits with the practice are almost guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
So Jeff, before we go, there's one part that because
everything that you say it resonates with me directly, right,
And I'm saying that because for myself, I found that
I had to look in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
And sometimes a lot of us don't like looking in
the mirror.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We don't like was watching it was looking back at us,
and we don't like to see our past. We don't
like to see I'm forty nine, so I look at
all my laugh lines.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
My rinkles, or you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
But understanding that those things had come because of all
my life experiences, right, everything that that that I've been
through makes me who I am today. And sometimes, you know,
we don't look at those moments as winds. We look
at those moments as losses. We look at those as
negative outcomes or whatever it might have been, not realizing that, hey,
(20:20):
I'm only in this place because of those moments. I'm
only able to talk to somebody else and express to
them how they can pull through because of those moments.
So sometimes a lot of us don't like to look
at those that look in the mirror and see it
what's beneath the surface and what has to change, One
needs to break, you know, what needs to be molded
(20:42):
on the inside, I e. Your stone, right, you know,
because everybody, again it is surface. Everybody looks at the
surface stuff and not realizing what has to happen underneath.
And sometimes that mirror shows you what's underneath. And I
thank you very much for sharing that type of information because,
like I said, it resonated with me.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Nice.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
You know one of my old meditation teachers, he always
talks about the mask, you know. And in today's society,
we're so busy and bombarded with advertisements and scrolling and
you know, trying to maybe not say the wrong thing
or let out who we are, how we really feel
that we're commonly walking around with these masks on and
(21:27):
these barriers, and sometimes we get so caught up and
living this way that when we do go look at
ourselves in the mirror, we're still wearing those masks. And
if you don't have some kind of ritual practice something
that's bringing you back to who you really are and
being able to find that center and stay connected to
(21:48):
your heart.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
You can get lost, you know.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And that's one of the things that I've always resonated
so well with with the meditative arts is that it
really helps you stay connected to who you are and
find a path that's really true for you. Find something
where you can stay focused, where you can lead other
(22:12):
people that can maybe find a little bit of that
root in that foundation, so those around you can benefit
from your practice as well.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Wow, yeah, Jeff, I mean that's that's for those individuals
that are listening today and they need someone to talk to,
and you know, they haven't figured out who what expert
person that really understands these arts because it really is
an art, right you know, and so understand the value
(22:42):
of it and understand the real meaning and the root
and the spirituality of it.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
In addition to that, where can he.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Talk to you and find you and maybe get to
another place in their life through these arts?
Speaker 4 (22:59):
You can reach me at the Yieldingwarrior dot com. I'm
also giving away a copy of my most recent book
right now at the Yieldingwarrior dot com. Forward Slash Book.
You just go there and pay for shipping. We'll send
you out a copy. You can also download a digital
copy and then on my website as well, I've got
a two week trial where you can get into some
(23:20):
of the practices that we're talking about, start learning how
to create an evolving life practice with the meditative arts.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Nice, So, Jeff, you know again, all the information will
be in the show notes, you know. And so, but
I have to ask you my question before we go, bro,
would you rather question?
Speaker 5 (23:39):
So?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Would you rather choose.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Three doors or a fork in the road. There's no
right or wrong answer, use your imagination. Fork in the road, okay?
And why a fork.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Because behind the door and you don't know what's there.
But with a fork on the road, you can weigh
your options as to which way you want to go.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Mm okay, okay, Now now I'm sorry I didn't preface
by saying use your imagination. You know, So if you
had a little bit more time, you know, would.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Your answer change?
Speaker 4 (24:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I don't think so, okay, all right, cool. Here's the
reason why I asked. Because I had asked someone to
use their imagination. They said that the doors were all glass, so.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, and so yeah, but you know, I think
very much for coming on the show.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Jeff Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Sure, no problem, and I thank you very much for
listening to that will Never Work podcasts?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Can I'll talk to you just a little bit later.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Thanks for listening. Follow Maurice Chisholm on social media to
stay connected and check back weekly for new episodes until
next time.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
That will never work?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Or will it?
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