 Until the age of 30 Geoff Thompson worked through a plethora of menial jobs, from glass collector to floor sweeper; he even spent a decade working as a nightclub bouncer. Convinced that there must be more to life than this, Geoff decided to become a martial arts instructor (polled as the number one self defence instructor in the world by Black Belt magazine USA) then followed this by living out his dream of becoming a writer. He is now the author of over thirty books, a stage play, a BAFTA winning short film and two feature films. The lad that was visiting my master class was young, maybe twenty two, and very fit and he knew his way around the mat as far as the ground work was concerned, but, he was getting tapped out again and again by a succession of my instructors. Not only was he getting tapped out, he was completely out of his depth. I could tell by his face (dispirited) his gait (shoulders hunched, defeated walk) and his eyes (they hit the ground like dropped marbles) that he’d expected a little more of himself. He knew (he later confided) that my class was tough and that the fighters were top drawer, but he thought he might at least be able to hold his own. After the session he asked me where he had gone wrong. To be frank I wasn’t sure. I watched him fight three or four times and all I could see was that he was out gunned by better players than himself. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on why there was such a disparity between his ability to scrimmage and that of my people. I was confused so I decided to do a bit of probing: ‘How often do you train?’ I asked, hoping that his training routine my shed some light on the issue. ‘Oh,’ he replied (a little too keenly) ‘I train twice a week. Without fail.’
I remember thinking twice a week! Without fail!
I smiled. ‘Well that’s your problem.’ I told him, ‘You are training twice a week, these guys are training twice a day. By Monday night they’ve already done your week’s quota of training.’ My visiting martial artist was making the same mistake as many. He was training recreationally and expecting professional results. This is a bit like planting cabbage in your garden and expecting Roses in the summer. And this problem does not just confine its self in the martial arts, I see the same attitude in all walks of life. Fair weather golfers who get their clubs out every summer and then wonder why their handicap remains a handicap. Footballers who train on a Wednesday and play on a Sunday but dream of kicking a premiership ball in front of 50,000 screaming fans on a Saturday afternoon. Painters who imagine that three hours at the easel is going to turn them into the next David Hockney. The writing world (similarly) is full of part time hacks that throw out a weekend script and then bitch because Hollywood does not recognise their genius.
This (I have found) is a universe that gives out what it gets in. The returns are entirely reciprocal. This is good news and bad. Good because it means that anyone who invests their time diligently can expect great returns, bad news because those that want to change what they are getting without changing what they are giving have a lot of stepping up to do. I am amazed actually by the amount of people I see who are treading water, banging in the minimal investment and then sitting on a laurel waiting for the flood gates of great returns to open up for them. People want gain without pain, profit without investment and reward without risk. And when it doesn’t materialise they look outside of themselves for the blame.
The law of reciprocal returns is very exciting, it means that you can have anything if you are prepared to do the work and handle the pressure. But it’s press statement is also very blunt: ‘step up, or shut up!’
Thanks for listening in.
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