A PUNCH IS JUST A PUNCH, THEN A PUNCH BECOMES MORE THAN A PUNCH, THEN A PUNCH BECOMES JUST A PUNCH…

By Chris Record – this post originally appeared on Facebook here.

I remember back in the early 2000’s I heard a cassette tape of a motivational speaker who talked with charisma and healthy doses of positivity, and in his most enthusiastic voice he said “A punch is just a punch, then a punch becomes more than a punch, then a punch becomes just a punch again…”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was quoting Bruce Lee. And I also didn’t realize how profound those words really were.

Now years later as I look back and reflect on that quote, I’m amazed at how exact that process is with almost everything that we do on the journey towards success in our lives, and how powerful the meaning behind it truly is.

To help put this in perspective, let’s talk about what this quote actually means.

A PUNCH IS JUST A PUNCH…

When you first start learning martial arts, you inevitably find yourself throwing hundreds, no scratch that, thousands, no scratch that, tens of thousands of punches.

It’s all about learning the proper dynamics of a punch, and then practicing with as much repetition as possible right?

Over and over, every day if possible, throwing hundreds of punches, sometimes thousands of punches.

Let’s face it, this kind of daily repetition is extremely BORING!

At first it starts out fun and exciting because you are learning something new, but then it just turns into a crapload of work that you have to do every single day.

Not just any work, but super repetitive work. Repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again, and again, and again, and again…

The vast majority of people never make it past this phase, because of it’s boring and repetitive nature, plus you don’t see a lot of results in this phase.

THEN A PUNCH BECOMES MORE THAN A PUNCH…

One day, out of nowhere, you have an epiphany. You have a breakthrough. It’s hard to explain exactly when it will happen, or how it will happen, but it always happens.

That same punch that you have thrown tends of thousands of times, suddenly becomes Magical.

You begin to look at it a different way. You begin to realize how amazing the punch is. You go through the motion again, this time in slow motion, and you are blown away by how perfect the “art of the punch” truly is.

You fall in love with the beauty of the punch, and it no longer feels like a punch at all.

Your punch feels like water, formless and shapeless. When you put water into a cup, it BECOMES the cup. When you put water into a bottle, it BECOMES the bottle.

In the same way your punch has grown into something so much more than a punch. You find yourself thinking about it, and admiring the simplicity, yet in awe at the complexity of it all.

THEN A PUNCH BECOMES JUST A PUNCH…

Some time passes and you practice tens of thousands of additional punches, truly refining your skills and mastering your craft.

At this point you have thrown so many punches, and have gone through a full spectrum of emotion around them, that you find yourself realizing that a punch has just become a punch again.

It’s no longer about the beauty of the punch, but rather the perfection of the repetition.

It’s about knowing with full confidence that your punch is on point, and that you have put in the hours, the long days, the months of grueling effort, the years of practice, and you have now mastered the art of the punch.

And while one might think that their punch would become even more glorious than it had previously been, you come to find out that it actually returns full circle.

You now come to your final epiphany, that can only come as the result of a long journey and a crapload of repetition to get you there.

And that is…

A punch is now just a punch.

It’s now on a subconscious level. You know longer even have to think about it. You can have your mind completely focused on a million other things, and still throw that beautiful punch.

A SALE IS JUST A SALE, THEN A SALE BECOMES MORE THAN A SALE, THEN A SALE BECOMES JUST A SALE.

For some perspective on the power of this quote, let’s replace the word “punch” with the word “sale”.

My entrepreneur friends will be able to relate to this example, as I’m sure most of you have been through this experience in your journey as well.

When you first start in sales, it seems so hard to make your first dollar. All you want to do is close your first sale. All you want to do succeed.

You find yourself a mentor, and that mentor most often teaches you the principle of repetition, which is to find an income producing activity, and repeat that activity every day to start seeing results.

So you begin your boring, and repetitious journey of income producing activities that eventually lead to sales.

Common examples of this might be phone sales, or door to door sales, or handing out flyers, or writing blog posts, or making youtube videos, etc.

Regardless of the activity, you will often find that it’s the repetition of the income producing activity that actually gets the results.

But repetition is BORING, so this is where most people fail. They fail to endure the repetitive learning curve. They fail to last long enough to get through this painful phase.

For the small percentage that trust in the process, and create repetitive habits of daily income producing activities, they find themselves graduating to the next phase.

Suddenly, a sales becomes more than a sale.

They fall in love with the sales process! When they aren’t selling, they are passionate about learning everything they can about sales. Even if they weren’t making an income from sales, they would still want to sell because suddenly it’s engrained within them, and they see the beauty of it all.

They begin to see the simplicity and complexity of it all and they grow a deep passion for it.

They spend their nights reading sales training books, and they seek out some of the most influential sales people they can find, constantly amazed by the wisdom and knowledge being passed along with every word that they read.

The art of selling becomes so profound that they begin to see things in a completely different light, where everything around them is sales.

They had to sell their spouse on going out on their first date with them. They had to sell their parents on letting them go to a party. They had to sell their kids on making a compromise on something. They got sold an upgrade to the large popcorn at the movie theatre, and on and on and on…

The epiphany is so massive that they begin to realize that in almost every form of communication throughout they day they are either being sold, or they are making a sale.

They are in awe at the beauty of the entire process of the “art of selling”.

Then, a sale just becomes a sale.

Some time passes and they have now graduated on from the repetition phase, to the point where they are selling without even thinking about it.

When they write an email, they phrase it in a naturally persuasive way, without even making an effort to do so.

In daily conversations they find their friends and associates listening in with their eyes focused, as if they didn’t want to miss a single word that was being shared.

When they sit down in a sales presentation, they actually try NOT to sell, just for more enjoyment, they back off the sale, but it’s too late because they customer buys anyways.

They literally tell the customer not to buy, and the customer still buys, because they have come full circle to the point where selling is just selling.

It’s something that can be mastered. And it has been mastered.

Now, every day, they sharpen their skills, they continue to experiment, and they push the boundaries of what they thought was ever possible.

REPLACE THE WORD “SALES” WITH ANYTHING

What are you currently in the process of learning? What skills? What passions? What hobbies?

Maybe you are learning how to surf? Or learning how to raise kids? Or maybe you are looking to make money online.

Regardless of what you are looking to learn, treat it like the Bruce Lee Quote.

Get help from someone to get the proper foundation and learn the right way to do that thing you are passionate about.

Then focus on taking repetitive daily actions to learn that skill. For many things this may require thousands of hours of practice and training during this phase.

One day you will realize that action has become more than that action, it has become something amazing, something pure, something beautiful.

You will fall in love with the process. You will become convicted about it, to a point where nothing will stop you from your vision.

Then, you will find yourself in the subconscious phase, just doing it, without even thinking about it.

And this phase is where you can truly live in your power and your potential.

We ALL deserve to live in our true power and our true potential…

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below. Did you enjoy this post? Did you you gain value from it? Do you have something to add to this? Let me know.

I was inspired to write this tonight, because one of the biggest fights of the century will be watched by millions, so every time you see a punch during that fight, see if you can envision that they had to throw that same exact punch hundreds of thousands of times to get where they are.

Are YOU willing to put that type of commitment towards YOUR dreams and goals?

When we do, we can play at a high level like that in our own lives…

‪#‎FightOfTheCentury‬ ‪#‎DreamChasers‬ ‪#‎TakeMassiveAction‬