EL105: Full Contact Living: Preparing you for the Martial Arts of Everyday Life, with Rodney King
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“The inner game tools and the discipline that I achieved through my martial arts training helped me transfer that over into my everyday life and helped me become a success”– Rodney King
Life didn’t start off easy for Rodney King, having grown up in a poor part of Johannesburg, not knowing his Dad and having an alcoholic mother. But it was when he was sleeping on a park bench that he managed to tap into what he had learned in martial arts that he started to turn his life around. Now Rodney uses the lessons which martial arts teach us, to help other people with their inner management allow them to build success in their lives. In today’s show, Jacob and Rodey talk about his seven principles to full contact living – the principles which Rodney owes his success to, how to achieve them and his new book – Full Contact Living.
“The reality is that perfection is an illusion and if you’re waiting for an illusion you’ll be waiting for a very long time”– Rodney King
Being successful is almost entirely down to mindset. And Rodney King knows this very well. From humble beginnings, he has used the skills that he learned in martial arts to build success for himself and is now passing on those lessons to other people and entrepreneurs. In today’s show, Rodney talks to Jacob about his new book – Full Contact Living, and the seven principles to inner management.
If you prefer to watch my interview with Rodney King (please refresh your browser a few times if it isn’t loaded properly the first time):
In this interview you’ll learn
- 01’50” – Rodney’s story
- 07’30” – Principles of Full Contact Living – the Wabi Sabi Principle
- 11’43” – The idea of working from your strengths
- 12’34” – The Zen Mind Principle
- 14’30” – Tips on how to practise being in the moment
- 19’40” – How your show up matters more than you think
- 24’18” – Surfing the edges of chaos
- 29’55” – The importance of breathing
- 33’00” – Focussing on the mundane
Written Podcast Transcript:
Jacob: Hello everybody and welcome to the Enchanting Lawyer podcast. This is a show where we interview the most inspiring entrepreneurs and business people and creators from all over the world who share with us great ideas and inspire us to do our job better and [unclear 00:00:39]. Today, I have an interesting guest all the way from South Africa, we have Rodney King here.
What is interesting about Rodney’s story — we’ll dive in to it more — is we all have struggles, we all have fears, and we all have things that we want to try to accomplish and I think this is a remarkable story of a human being that accomplish something that nobody believe he could.
Rodney introduces the best aspects of performance psychology to help people achieve their own goals. He’s a martial arts specialist and he combines the art of martial arts and psychology and also techniques that we can use in business and he does in very amazing way. He also has a book we’re going to talk about.
Rodney, I’m excited to have you here on the show. How are you doing today?
Rodney: I’m doing great, Jacob. Thanks for having me.
Jacob: Excellent. Excellent. Thanks for making the time.
Rodney: Sure.
Jacob: We have so many things to talk about and I know that, you know, one thing that — my listeners were typically professionals, people that work hard, and they kind of focus on the nine-to-five and trying to get their businesses up and running whether they’re attorneys or other professionals. But I know that you have an interesting story where — you pretty much are sitting in a park, in a bench, and most people thought that you’re not going to end up doing anything worth in your life and you kind of have an amazing story. Why don’t you kind of take us a little bit. Tell us what you do now and then take us back to the beginning.
Rodney: Yeah. Well, I think you summed it up. I kind of consider myself a inner management guru, we can call it that. I really work with inspiring entrepreneurs to help them achieve inner excellence.
My story really began on the south side of Johannesburg. It’s really a rough area in South Africa. It’s government housing; very similar to the projects of the United States. So I grew up really poor. Typically, those kinds of environments in those neighborhoods, gangs were rife. I had to deal with that kind of situation and the bullying at school.
My mom was an alcoholic. I was brought up only by my mom and I grew up never knowing my father. At about the age of 17, drunken rage, she kicked me out of the house and I found myself sleeping on a park bench; the very same park bench and the park that I played in as a kid. There I was with less than $20 on my pocket.
To read the complete transcript from this podcast, click here.
- Rodney’s website
- Email Rodney
- Amy Cuddy Ted Talk
- Book – After the Ecstasy, There’s Laundry, Jack Cornfield
Is there any question you have regarding the podcast guest that is not addressed in this blog post? Please leave me a comment below or send me your thoughts at jacob@enchantinglawyer.com. I would really appreciate your feedback, your suggestion on future guests, or just an opportunity to chat with you!
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