Dan Millman – TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone. I’m happy to be here with you at the TEDxBerkeley event today.
I teach something, an approach to living I call “The Peaceful Warrior’s Way.” But I’d like to set a context for what I’m about to share with you, so let me give you a sense of my story in brief.
When I was a young man at Berkeley training in a gym right across the street, and that old gas station – in the story, in the movie, in the book – was about two blocks from here, on Oxford and Hearst, I used to do things like this: But now I’m into my 68th year on Planet Earth, so you won’t see me doing much of that anymore. In fact, they’ve moved my books from the new age section to the middle-age section in the stores. But back then I was focused, almost obsessed, with the idea of talent and understanding what that meant.
I defined talent as the ability to learn something quicker and easier and rise to higher levels – that seemed like a fair estimation of talent. And I asked could it be developed? Is it innate or developed? And it seemed to me intuitively, and since research has confirmed, that talent is about 20% innate – body type and so on for sports – but about 80% could be developed.
And I said, back then when I was training as an athlete, and when I was coaching at another university down the peninsula, I started working with that idea: What constitutes physical talent? What helps people learn faster and easier and rise to higher levels? And what if I trained a foundation, and my athletes developed that before focusing on the skills of gymnastics?
So, it seemed to me that strength and flexibility and coordination and rhythm and timing and reflex speed and balance all contributed to this ability to learn faster and easier.
So my theories did work in practice, and I might still be coaching today, but I was going through some things in my own life, outside the gymnasium, and I realized being able to do handstands and somersaults didn’t help me much when I went out on a date. And those skills really didn’t apply directly when I got married or had children and dealt with financial challenges and career decisions and all the challenges of everyday life we all face.
So that’s when I started asking bigger questions: How can we, as humans beings, develop a talent, not necessarily for sports, but a talent for living, for the actual changes of everyday life? Now, I’ve said a few things about my story, but let me acknowledge your story. You have a story as well, and it’s your treasure because no story on the planet is exactly like yours.
It’s not as if you just have a story – you are a story in the making; you’re a novel being written, and you never know what the next chapter is going to be. So I want to acknowledge that we’ve all overcome adversity and difficulties in our lives.
Now, I could be wrong about that, so maybe I can ask for a show of hands: Would you raise your hand, please, if you’ve experienced physical, emotional or mental pain in your life? Could I see a show of hands out there? Thank you. Okay, we do have that in common.
You know, I think you’d agree, though, that that difficulty, that pain, that adversity you may have dealt with – because of that, you’re a little bit stronger now. Maybe a little bit wiser. And maybe even have a greater sense of compassion and perspective for having gone through that. So, we don’t have to pretend to like difficulties when they come, but we need to keep that thread of attention that there are hidden gifts depending on how we respond to it – that’s what I learned. So, that question of how we can develop talent for living actually led me around the world studying with various mentors over more than a decade, pretty intensively.
And it led to this approach to living I call the peaceful warrior’s way. That’s not my way; it’s not something private to me, it’s not a club one needs to join. It’s our way. Because everyone I’ve seen is striving to live with a more peaceful heart, but there are also times in our lives that we need a warrior’s spirit, everyday challenges that call forth that warrior spirit inside of us. So that is what I do: It’s about peaceful heart, warrior spirit.
It’s a sense of balance – living with our head in the clouds but our feet on the ground. So then you might ask, “What would be a peaceful warrior’s approach to catalyzing change?” Well, let’s be very realistic; when things are going great in our lives, and we’ve all had moments like that, when everything was going great – we don’t want change. At those points, we want everything to stay the same, but it doesn’t. And so life changes; life is full of change. But when things aren’t going well, when we have some challenges in our life coming up, then we’re looking for change.
Some of us, it’s enough to catch a cold, and we start reexamining our life – you know what I mean. So, any time we face some adversity, some challenge, we start to reflect and look at our lives once again and wonder if we can make some changes.
Now, there are two sorts of changes: There’s external changes, brought about by political activism, changing our technologies, institutions, social institutions. So there’s this great tradition of changing the world, improving the world around us. And it’s very important.
There is also a tradition of internal change, psychological, spiritual, personal growth, where people say, “You know, I think the greatest difference I can make is changing myself, and then I can bring more into the world and be more useful.”
Now, for some people there’s a contradiction between those two sorts of change. They say, “Oh, I don’t want to be a navel gazer and just think about myself, and I want to be politically active in the world.” Well, I actually confronted this important question. I was walking down Telegraph Avenue in the late 60s with Socrates. The Vietnam War was raging. I was doing a lot of work on myself at the time: self- reflection, self-observation, self-analysis. I was even doing a form of self-massage from the ancient Mongolian warriors to clear fear-produced tension from the bone surfaces of every bone in the body – took about six hours.
So I was doing a lot of personal processing, and at the same time, as we walk down Tele, I noticed a poster about starving children and oppressed peoples and anti-war activism and organizing and I turn to Soc and said, “You know, Soc, I feel kind of guilty or selfish doing all this work on myself when there’s so many people in need out there.” And he didn’t say anything at first, and suddenly he turned to me and he said, “Take a swing at me.”
I said, “What? Did you hear what I was just saying?”
He said, “Come on, I’ll give you $5 if you can slap me on the cheek. Go ahead.”
Well, I figured it was some kind of test he was giving me, so I bobbed and weaved, and finally I took a swing at him. In the next moment, I found myself on the ground in a rather painful wrist lock, and as he helped me to my feet, he said, “You notice a little leverage can be very effective?”
I said, “Yes, I noticed.”
He said, “Well, if you want to help people, of course do what your heart tells you to do, but don’t neglect the work on yourself because that is what’s going to give you the clarity, the courage, to know how to exert the right leverage, at the right place, at the right time and really make a positive difference in the world”. So, it’s not a question of either/or – this kind of change – it’s a matter of both, outward and inward.
Now, even if we decide we want to work on ourselves, where do we exert the right leverage? What is that comprised of? Some people focus on fixing their insides. This is very popular in the metaphysical spiritual traditions and the self-help movements – how to change your thoughts, think more positively and so on. So some work with the mind and emotions to have just the right emotions, and so on, to make a change in the world. The emphasis I bring to it can best be explained, I think, by describing two fundamental approaches to change, to doing what needs to be done.
And the first approach is very popular. It sounds something like this: First, you need to quiet your mind so you can create empowering beliefs; to raise your self-esteem so you can practice positive self-talk; to find your focus and affirm your power to free your emotions and visualize positive outcomes so that you can find the courage to generate the confidence, to make the determination, to form the commitment, to feel sufficiently motivated to do whatever it is you need to do. Whew! That’s one approach. I recommend the other, which is just do it. Life is always going to come down to that whether it takes us a few minutes or a few months or years.
The question always remains before us: What will you do, now, in response to the circumstances? Because it seems to me that we have to look closely at what we have more or less control over. Can we control the thoughts that arise in our mind and change those? Let me ask you, how many of you have ever read a book about positive thinking, the power of positive psychology, positive thinking, positive mental attitude? Okay, I see quite a few hands.
Now, how many of you have only had positive thoughts after reading those books, for say, the last couple weeks? Anybody? That’s interesting, isn’t it? And we believe, of course, but if I’d read the book twice, if I’d highlighted it and done all the exercises, maybe I, too, would be having more positive thoughts. Well, maybe so. But as far as I’ve looked, we don’t have any direct control over what thoughts arise in our awareness.
We don’t have a spam filter in our heads; a lot of junk mail comes through. And that’s perfectly natural, it’s part of life; sometimes my thoughts are positive, sometimes they’re negative. I’m at peace with my mind now because I’ve recognized that; I’m no longer worried about it. If you want to become obsessed about something, I’ll tell you how. Just try really hard not to think a given thought all day.
How about our emotions? Can we control our emotions? If we could just will ourselves to feel differently from the way we feel in any given moment, then my seminars and talks would be very short. I would just say, “Hi, my name is Dan. I recommend you feel happy the rest of your life.” Somebody came up to me after a seminar or talk or workshop I gave, and said, “Dan, I don’t know I have to tell you. I feel so inspired.”
I said, “Don’t worry. It will pass.”
Because it’s true, isn’t it? Inspiration comes and goes; motivation rises and falls. The question remains, what will we do? What will we do? Now, I’d like to share a bit of a secret with you.
How do we turn what we know into what we actually do? Isn’t this the major challenge of our lives? Let me give you a very specific example, because we all know, for example – raise your hand if you know, if you’re aware – that it’s good to do regular, moderate exercise almost every day. Please. Just raising your hand will help the blood circulate in your bodies.
So, I recommend it. All right, so everybody knows it – I think I see somebody in the back who is going (smack). Maybe not, maybe not. We all know this, but now let me ask you again – please raise your hand if you do regular, moderate exercise almost every day. All right I see quite a few hands go up, but there were fewer hands that time. So, some of you know it’s good for you, but I’m sure for very good reasons – your schedule and so on – you haven’t found time or made time to actually work that into your life. So, this is my little secret to give you: When you get up tomorrow morning, just get up, go about your morning and then do one jumping jack. And then go about your day.
And the next day, do another jumping jack, just one jumping jack. And the day after that, do one jumping jack. At the end of 30 days, if somebody comes up to you and says, “By the way, do you have a regular exercise routine?” Yes! Now we find that amusing, and it is kind of funny, but, of course, you’re more sophisticated than that, you’re saying, “Come on, Dan, that’s not going to give me my aerobic points or change my metabolic set point or give me a training effect,” but it’s significant, and I’ll tell you why: First, you made a resolution you’ve stuck with. You have set aside a time, every day, for your exercise routine.
The second month, you might do two jumping jacks – double your workout. Yes! You might put on some music and just move your body, every joint. You might – you know the hardest part about exercise is getting the clothing on. You might walk half way around the block, breathing deeply. You might even learn the peaceful warrior workout which I’ve done every day for 27 1/2 years – every day.
It’s a four-minute routine, and it’s based on a principle that goes along with what I’ve been sharing: a little of something is better than a lot of. Yes. So in other words, it’s fine to dream big but start small and then connect the dots. Life can feel overwhelming when we’re thinking about the past and future. You know, a writer named Barbara Rasp said, “The lesson is simple; the student is complicated.” By focusing less, actually, on trying to have just the right thoughts, and positive thoughts and quiet mind and just the right feelings, if we focus on what we have more control over – how we move our arms and legs, what we actually do moment to moment – it simplifies our life.
Do you ever wake up in the morning thinking, “Oh, I have 26 things I have to do today”? But actually there’s only one thing you need to do: Open your eyes when you first wake up and then sit up, unless you sleep sitting up, and then put your feet on the floor, one thing at a time. My life is very busy. I’m sure yours is very busy too. But my life has become very simple when I finally realized I can only do one thing at a time.
A young man, a college student, came up to me once and said, “Dan, I know you charge a lot of money for personal consultations, but I’m a poor college student; I just have a dollar. Can you tell me something for a dollar?”
I said, “Sure,” and I told him six words that could change his life if he actually practiced it. Those six words were simply, “Here and now, breath and relax.” Just remembering to do those things more often; remembering where we are, where we are right here, right now. The moment of reality; it’s the only one.
Mark Twain once said,
“I’ve had many troubles in my life, most of which never happened.”
Yeah, we laugh because there’s some truth there; a light bulb goes on. Most of our troubles are self-created about past and future, regrets, anxieties, but right now, we can handle this moment.
Life comes at us in waves of change. We cannot predict or control those waves, but we can become better surfers. So in closing, I’d recommend to you, to us all, that we practice surfing; learn to surf the waves of change here and now, each moment. We can always handle this moment, and the qualities of our moments become the quality of our lives. Thank you very much.
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