Emily Kwok: The Art of Peak Performance Part 1

February 10, 2021

This week on Acta Non Verba Emily Kwok shares how she became an early pioneer of Brazilian jujitsu in North America and why we need to challenge ourselves in order to continue growing. Join me and Emily and we discuss how jujitsu can foster a practice of introspection and self-development, as well how you can teach yourself to be self-reliant.

Emily Kwok is a multi-time-international Brazilian jujitsu Federation World Champion, a mixed martial arts veteran and co-owner and co-head instructor of Princeton, Brazilian jujitsu, peak performance consultant, and freelance writer. She is widely regarded as the early pioneer of Brazilian jujitsu in North America, being one of the first females to rise to prominence as the sport extended around the globe. She has spent the better part of the last decade working closely with Josh Waitzkin, training in the field of peak performance, exploring how to manage and induce optimal states in the self.

You can learn more about Emily at: www.emilykwok.com


Episode Transcript:

00:32
Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions and not words. If you wanna know when somebody truly believes, don’t listen to their words instead, observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson and my guest today truly embodies that phrase. Emily Kwok.

01:00
is a multiple times international Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation World Champion, mixed martial arts veteran, and co-owner and co-head instructor of Princeton Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, peak performance consultant, and freelance rider. She is widely regarded as the early pioneer of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Northern America, being one of the first females to rise to prominence as the sport extended around the globe. She has spent the better part of the last decade working closely with Josh Waitzkin.

01:28
And if you guys don’t know who Josh Waitzkin is, listen to his interviews on Tim Ferriss, read his incredible book, The Art of Learning, and we’ll talk more about him as well. She’s learned from him and trained with him in the field of peak performance, exploring how to manage and induce optimal states in the self and coaching world class methods. You can find out more about Emily at emilyquok.com. Emily, thank you so much for being here. I’ve followed you for some time.

01:54
And then we sort of serendipitously, as you said, stumbled upon each other and were able to start a little conversation on Instagram. And all of a sudden, here we are having this great conversation today. So thank you for being here and taking the time. Thank you. I’m super excited to be here. Thank you. I’m excited to have you. And there are so many different directions that we could go with this. But what I would like to just start with is sort of, what is your philosophy by which you sort of live or exist? Is there something that really kind of comes to mind?

02:24
philosophy that you studied specifically, you have a tremendous background between Brazilian jiu-jitsu, peak performance, your pedigree, and that is incredible, even your fine arts background. What would you say is the philosophy that is the ethos by which you live your life? That’s a beautiful question. I’m not sure that I would attribute it to a particular thing. There’s no particular type of religion or way that I’ve chosen to live my life other than that I’ve often felt my way through life.

02:52
And my mother will say when I was born that I was born in a badly breached condition. And I was born in 1980. And she had mentioned that the doctors were considering aborting me because I was putting my mother’s life at risk. And she’s been labor with me for 36 hours. And she’s telling them, no, no, don’t do don’t do that. Like, I know she’s gonna come out. Just, just like, let me, let me do this.

03:19
And she said when I came out, I came out with such force that they had to catch me. I’m sure some people still feel that way. That’s a powerful precursor to your life. But she said that she really felt that I needed to be delivered. And for the first six months of my life, I had a lot of mobility issues. You know, my legs were raised over my head. I had trouble.

03:48
lowering my legs, I had trouble turning my neck and the portacollis. And I think on that experience now, you know, something that I don’t really consciously remember, but something that my mother has told me. And I think it really has kind of set the stage for how I lived my life, feeling my way physically, you know, sometimes maybe at an earlier stage, not as consciously through what makes me feel good and what feels right.

04:15
My parents are both Asian. My father’s Chinese and my mother’s Japanese. It’s not a culture that I would say is known for being very outwardly loving or communicative. And I felt really boxed in and repressed and maybe told what to do for a lot of my upbringing because there were expectations of who I should become. And I had a really traumatic episode with my father when I was 14.

04:43
He was just a miserable person at the time. I think he didn’t enjoy his work. He wasn’t very happy or engaged. And he came home one day and we got into an argument over me not bringing the garbage can in. And he kicked me out of the house. And I remember feeling so betrayed and so alone because I was also a good kid. Like I got good grades. I didn’t really create a lot of drama. And I was so hurt that I left. And

05:12
I really felt at that moment, I just thought, you know what? I can’t rely on anybody else to teach me or tell me how I’m going to live my life. I’ve just really got to feel what’s right for me because if my parents don’t want me or if my parents aren’t going to help me, then all I have is myself. Now, I went back home within 24 hours and we were okay. But it really severed some sort of connection I had at that point to maybe trusting.

05:41
or deeply valuing figures around me to help me navigate my life. And I think at that moment, I just really decided this has really got to be about my mission and what I’m going to do because if they’re going to kick me out or if I can’t rely on this, then all I have is me and what I do. And I think that’s what’s caused me to behave the way I’ve behaved the next, you know.

06:07
than all the other phases in my life that have brought me up to here. That’s such a profound lesson and truth to experience at that age though. So many of us people that we coach are in their 30s or 40s that don’t have the capacity to step away from the opinions or the preferences of others because they take those on as their own. They make those other people’s priorities their own priorities and they’re not serving themselves or feeling fulfilled. Yet at 14 you realize quickly you’re like listen

06:36
I have to make this out of myself. I have to do something with this. And you literally use it as a springboard to not just keep you repressed, but it actually accelerated your process of self-discovery, understanding, like you said, what feels true for you. And I love that you use that idea of this palpating your way through the existence of life, because with that knowledge and that sensation, it allows you to better know yourself, which allows you to help more people as they…

07:04
feel their way through their existence as well. Yeah, I don’t know if you’re familiar at all with Robert Keegan’s work. He’s a Harvard psychologist that has studied adult developmental psychology. And I came across his work through an executive coach that I work with, David Zeitler. And what was really profound for me about learning his framework is it basically states that there’s five different stages to adult development. And the majority of adults, college-educated adults,

07:33
hit in what’s called a socialized state. And that’s very, I mean, to simplify it, it’s almost like being in high school, a lot of your choices are not necessarily your own. You know, you look for influence, you want to be part of the group, there’s a little bit of FOMO mixed in there, but you largely lean on external frameworks and social dynamics to help you decide what you want to do with your life. And the next stage above that is called self-authoring. And that is someone who…

08:03
can see and understand what’s going on around them, but they are capable of deciding what their own agenda should be and moving, meandering in between. Part of it is themselves, part of it is engaging with others. And from what I understand, they don’t know what causes people to move through the stages just yet. The fifth stage and one that I’ve…

08:26
steadily been trying to work towards is something called self-transforming. And it’s sort of being able to objectify your existence and move freely and without judgment, you know, moving through all of these different types of frameworks. And a lot of people end up sort of navigating through the first few stages and staying in that socialized state or maybe socialized to self-authoring. And I think back to, you know, what in my life might have triggered me to have

08:55
either stepped forward or have been booted forward. And I think that there are some instances in our lives, commonplace to many, whether it’s an impactful experience you had in a good way, or maybe there was some trauma, and in my case, these types of traumas, that really make you reflect deeply on who you are and what you have in that moment. And it’s sort of a do or die, like, am I going to sink or am I going to swim? And there’s always been something deep inside of me.

09:25
that has said, I’ve got to swim, I’m going to do this, you know. And for that reason, I think I’ve never given myself the excuse of I won’t succeed. I’m going to be the failure that my parents think I will be, you know, like I always think about it as I’m going to prove you wrong and I’m going to show you that I can do the things that you don’t think I can do. And that’s powerful because it seems like it was deep seated within you. Like that was already within an innate component of you.

09:52
And there are so many people that we see, whether it be physical, emotional trauma that they kind of go through. What is it that you thought allowed you to go to that next level, as opposed to staying repressed in this little box of existence that was the opinion of your family? I think early childhood and adolescence, it’s a really impressionable time, right? We might not necessarily see it in that moment, but I remember feeling so deeply how miserable my father was. And my father, when I was a child,

10:21
was an artist, you know, we used to sit down and draw together and I have very fond memories of us spending very quality time together being creative. But as I got older, and as life went on, and maybe responsibilities piled on their heads, my father had to get a job. And my father had to get a job that paid more money to take care of our family. And I really feel for those of us in

10:52
Some of us continue to walk that path of doing things because we think we have to for other people, or we have to fulfill the obligations and expectations of the people around us. And it’s almost like our own agenda or our own purpose and passion in life becomes a dream that we’ll never achieve. And maybe my experiences so early on might have triggered me to not have walked the path that everybody else does.

11:21
You know, at that point, feeling all the misery that my father brought to my youth, I just thought to myself, I never want to be like you. I don’t want to be this sad about my life. If I’m going to come home and take my anger out on my children and teenage daughter, I don’t want to live that life. You know, what can I do to not be that person? And so call it a loop. I was a very good student and

11:49
I had a good track record through high school and the teachers liked me and all that good stuff. But I probably took some steps that people thought were, I don’t know, bold, naive. But I wasn’t afraid to take risks from very early on. And I think it was because I knew that the downside of not doing it, not taking the risk and potentially opening doors was to live a miserable life. And I said, screw that.

12:18
I’m not going to live that life. See, and that’s so beautiful that that was the gift in your adversity at that time. And what you’re describing, we coach people. So we see these executives that whether they’re aware of it or not, they may have that bit of resentment towards their family. The idea that in their mind, they’re justifying these 80 hours, 90 hours at work. And then when they get home, if they don’t feel like they’re being validated, they don’t feel like they’re being appreciated for what they’re doing. Now all of a sudden.

12:47
what they’re doing is in vain. And then it also robs them of that beauty of being present with a family. So when they’re at work, they wish they were with their family. When they’re with their family, they’re worried about work. And now they have this conundrum where there is no resolution, there is no end in sight. Like you said, it’s this dream. And they don’t understand that if they would have make those initial decisions that are sort of difficult at first, but it’s better to make that initial decision now and live a life that you truly want.

13:17
this fulfilling for you and those around you, then to compromise and go down that road where like you said, you go to high school, you go to college, you’re doing what everybody else is doing, just like with the way that we develop as you were alluding to earlier in those stages. And then if we’re around those college people and we get out and we get a job that may not be what we want, but we compromise to do it. And now we get married, now we have kids, now this thing that we thought was going to take us to another place, this thing that was gonna give us fulfillment, which is our career, does not.

13:47
Now what do we have left? Well, what’s in our immediate proximity? Again, and we always hurt the ones that we love, maybe not physically, but again, if there is that resentment, if there’s no outlet, if there’s no way for us to truly cultivate that part of us, it’s always going to come out in some way, shape or form. And it could be in alcohol, it could be in other ways to self-harm. But in the end, that’s what I hope people are listening to is knowing that it’s never going to be easy. There’s never going to be a clear path for us.

14:15
but you knew and you were again, feeling your way around those things to know, this is not what I want. And whatever this is over here, I’m gonna go the opposite direction. And sometimes that’s all that we need because the specifics and the semantics and the focus of the clarity of that direction will eventually reveal themselves as you step towards it. But until you have the courage to do that, you’re gonna remain stuck where you’re at and you’re just gonna be stagnant and never develop in any capacity that you want to. And you know what’s interesting is I think that

14:44
As you were speaking, I was thinking about people who have midlife crises. I really think that what ends up happening is you get to a point in your life where, to some degree, you’re comfortable and you have a lot of the things that you think you’re supposed to have. And then you question if you really wanted them at all. Why do I have this family? Why do I have this car? Why do I have this job? Was it what I really wanted? Or was it what was programmed and what was taught to me?

15:11
And I think when we’re working in the realm of peak performance or self-optimization, it really is about learning how to listen to yourself more clearly and not being afraid to make the decisions, not being afraid to take the steps to empowering yourself the way that you want to. And it’s interesting, you know, because we’re in a time now where we’ve sort of spoken a little bit this in our pre-show.

15:36
social media and a lot of us are leading a very externalized existence. And everybody’s an expert and everybody’s living their best life. You know, everybody’s crushing it guys. Believe what you see on social media. It’s all real. But when you live it, when you are accountable for every step you take, and you’re learning that each step is a different step, and you’re not just reading about other people’s version of this.

16:03
That’s when I think you really tap into what a fulfilled existence is. I would much rather have a smaller solid empire that’s my own than rule over something that’s much bigger and looks much more impressive from a distance, but then being up close and personal with it has no substance. So it’s really identified me to… It’s been a big identifier in my life to have always kind of taken my own path.

16:31
And there’s many times where I turn around and I look at what I’ve done and it doesn’t look like much compared to everybody else. It doesn’t look like much because it feels like, oh, in my 20s, when all of my friends were scaling the corporate ladder and buying condos and cars and getting engaged, I was bouncing between Vancouver and New York and Japan and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And to some people, it looks like I’m lost.

17:01
To some people, it looks like I’m wasting time. My mother was worried that I didn’t have a boyfriend that was serious. And I was like, you know, I have the rest of my life to plant seeds and grow roots. But I got to figure out where I want to do that. And I have to figure out what feels good, you know, and I think so many of us either we we block it out or we disconnect from or we get distracted from listening to ourselves.

17:30
And the only thing that I know for certain is that every step I’ve taken, where I have listened to myself, I usually end up in a better place than I would have had I not. I always think about the other existence I could have had, because it was very easy to think about who I could have been if I never left Vancouver. And if I had just stayed in this one job, and I would have had a happy and secure and you know, very straightforward future.

18:00
In many ways, that’s what my family wants for me. But I chose a path of entrepreneurship and I chose a path of eclecticism and I chose a path of I don’t know what. I don’t know what is beyond that door next year, but I’m so much more fulfilled this way. You have truly that Ronan spirit, which has helped you develop in all these other arenas and you had that resilience. So once you have resilience…

18:27
Pretty much everything else is fine because you’re not afraid to go out and try incredible things and fall down because you know that you can get back up. You can just dust yourself off and you’re like, this is data, I’m just collecting this. This wasn’t a good idea, at least at this time. I’m gonna go this other direction here. And you have that very, as we were talking about before, you and I have a profound life knowledge, which is not something that you can fake or something that you can try to make other people believe.

18:56
So many people are doing things now where they’re regurgitating what they heard from a book or from a quote or from a lesson or from a podcast or whatever it is. And it makes them feel like they know something. But then like you said, if you get even beyond the superficial surface of that, you can see that there’s really not a whole lot. So you’re living this life of quality, you would rather be an inch wide and 20 feet deep than to have this huge.

19:25
parameter that has no substance when it’s all said and done. And that’s what it turns down to. I also, you know, the other thing that I think is important to acknowledge is that when we truly live, when we’re truly taking the steps forward to know ourselves and to stretch ourselves, we learn to push those extremes, push those boundaries wider and deeper. And I think where that serves us.

19:54
is it’s not just being thoughtless and random about the choices you make, but it’s more about like, how do we stretch ourselves in these different ways? How do we know and color the spectrum of who we are? How deeply can we know that? Because when we actually are pushed into a point in our life where we might need to dig our heels in and show our resilience or do something that other people can’t do, we know how far we can actually take it.

20:24
So my life since I’ve acknowledged this has been more and more about how much further can I push myself? How much deeper can I go? Because there might be a time where I need to call upon this. There might be a time where I can help somebody with this. And that means that we have to be okay with being uncomfortable or teach ourselves how to be uncomfortable, right? And maybe that’s deliberate practice, but this is something that I think most of us don’t consider.

20:53
Most of us grow up to believe that we should live a beautiful, comfortable, wonderful life. And it sounds great, but comfort is comfort. And comfort usually means that you don’t want to move from the place that you’re in. And I think if you don’t move from the place that you’re in, you can’t really grow as a person. So, whether people layer in other mediums, things that they practice or places that they go or leaning into things that they’re scared of.

21:23
I think living your life with a little bit of fear or a little bit of strain is just telling yourself, I’ve got to exercise pushing out of my boundaries, pushing out of my comfort zone because I don’t think we can really thrive when we just stay where it’s warm and comfy. That’s exactly it. And there’s so many times that I always talk about micro adversity, these small things that we try to do that, that get us to where we can see that use that as our compass, use that as our litmus test to say, how much more could I be doing?

21:52
And then, okay, we’ll talk about the physical. There’s so many people in jujitsu, maybe a young athletic person that comes in and they pick it up so quickly. But the time that you see them buckle is when you see them against a person like your level, where you can just literally toy with them, put them in these positions of submission where their strength doesn’t matter, their agility, their athleticism doesn’t really matter. It’s been completely muted. And now for the first time in their lives, they’re having to face this wall of

22:20
Wow, I can’t just push through this. I can’t just be stronger than this person. They’re used to pushing the pace and that physical capacity. But when they are facing that adversity from a real adversary, they don’t know what to do. And then you see them crumble and you never see them come back in the school again. They just sort of say, well, I tried it out. And I’ve already been there and done that. When that was their true reality check for them to see, okay, there’s a lot more to this. Where can I go?

22:48
this person’s obviously putting in their time and their reps. Am I willing to do that? What can I cultivate in the process of doing this? Yeah, 100%. And, you know, as a teacher, I teach my students in jujitsu, don’t rest on your assets, you know, if you’re a big dude, don’t make your best game, your top game. Because that’s what comes easy to you. You know, so I’m like, get on your back and make, you know, I know you’re long and slow and big and you don’t know how to move your legs, but figure it out.

23:18
Because when you get somebody like me on top of you, I’m going to run circles. I might not be able to pin you, but I will run circles around you. And I think that we want to always rest our laurels. We always, you know, feels nice to feel good at something. But those of us that are in the game of growing have to get up off the bench and grow sometimes and force ourselves to grow. And there’s a pace and there’s a rhythm to it. You know, like

23:44
I was talking about the book, Grit with Someone recently by Angela Duckworth. And I had redone the grit test, you know, and I said to somebody, Yeah, I don’t know how gritty I am right now. They’re like you. And I said, Well, I have three kids under the age of seven. One of them is only a year old. I don’t feel like competing. I’m just trying to keep my shit together right now.

24:14
Maybe that’s gritty, but it’s not the same level of intensity that I was living my life at, you know, 10 years ago. And, you know, acknowledging and accepting the fact that we need to be kind to ourselves and know that there’s going to be moments where we have to work and we’re going to work hard and we’re going to push. But there’s going to be other moments where it’s necessary for us to sit back and recoup our energy to end to what you were saying before, so that we can live a life of quality.

24:42
I don’t think it serves anybody well to live a life where we’re spread thin. And most of us trying to keep up with everybody else and doing what everybody else is doing, we’re working longer hours, we’re staying away from our family, we’re investing ourselves in projects or things that superficially might seem like they’re adding value, but you do have to question how much value it adds to yourself. And so I turned 40 in October of last year.

25:13
And I’ve looked back and said, wow, like 30 to 40 was such a great decade. Like I feel like I finally started to figure out what the hell’s going on, you know? And I’m super grateful and I’m super thankful that I have not only been shown these lessons or been able to come across these lessons, but at a point in my life where I’ve been receptive enough to understand what they’re about. And I think that these lessons are everywhere for everybody.

25:42
But how often are we just too busy or too distracted and we’re not really letting these types of lessons sink in? I absolutely agree. I always tell my people that if everything’s a priority, then nothing is a priority. And if we listen to social media or TV or whatever’s on Netflix, then they will have us chasing all these things, literally chasing our tail. And people don’t seem to understand. It’s almost like a New Year’s resolution. If you’re listening to us right now, you have a finite amount of quality.

26:12
tension that you can give anything, like a hundred units of that from the moment you wake up. And as the day goes on and as things kind of chip away at that, your capacity to give that goes away. So are you going to invest that time, that energy into your family, your three kids that mean the world to you? Or are you going to look at the newest bar and bottle variation on whatever it may be? And those things are powerful and it’s great for your game, et cetera. But right now…

26:41
The kids are the most important thing. The people that you’re consulting with, the people that you’re coaching are the most important. Your students that you have, the work that you’ve been doing and this work that you’re continuing to evolve in is much more necessary in this moment. And again, the ability to see pain and discomfort as a teacher to lean into those things and to say, okay, I’ve dominated the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world at this level, what else do I have? And so…

27:06
Can we just talk a little bit about your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu pedigree? Because I don’t want to gloss over it for those that are not familiar with it, but you’ve trained with some incredible people. You’ve have an incredible competitive resume as a champion multiple times, but Marcelo Garcia being experienced in that, being exposed to the chess guy, Josh Wadskin, and then being able to take that and create this tapestry of what is going on now is truly tremendous. So I know I put a lot into that. So.

27:36
Could you just briefly give us a little bit of your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu background and then that lead us into what we’re talking about now. So I’ve been training for over 20 years now. I started in Vancouver under a blue belt and for your listenership that doesn’t understand the hierarchy in Jiu-Jitsu, there’s five belt levels. It’s not like you can pay somebody to teach you everything you need to know in two years or three years. You’re not going to get your black belt by the time you’re 12 years old.

28:02
we’re not there to learn about honor, respect and treating everybody kindly. We’re there to fight. And you know, the sport has become a lot more gentrified, which I think is good. You know, it was a little barbaric when I started. But put it this way, if you don’t have some grit, even if you don’t know what it is, but it’s there. If you don’t have some grit, and if you don’t have some ounce of you that wants to drive deeper at…

28:30
understanding what you’re capable of. You can’t survive doing Jiu-Jitsu. And a lot of people think that training Jiu-Jitsu is about fighting all these other people. But in reality, I really think it’s such a deep exploration of the self. And other people just bring out different dimensions to who you are. When I started Jiu-Jitsu, I started because I thought it was a cool fitness activity, you know, and back in what?

28:59
like 2000 or so, 99-2000, it was just being practiced at a community center where I lived in Vancouver. And so the sport was not very well known. And I just started doing it because I thought it was something different. And I thought it was something fun. And I had no idea that I was sort of catching the right wave, if you will.

29:20
And I started competing not because I wanted to become a world champion. In fact, I didn’t even know there was such a thing, right? At the time, there were a couple of local tournaments that had a number of different martial arts represented. But Jiu-Jitsu was still so young that the world that we know today, you know, the one that most of us are training in today was a far cry from what it was at that time.

29:47
I actually used to compete just to find other people like me, meaning other women who were about 145 to 155 pounds because wherever I trained and even still today, it’s heavily male dominated, the women’s percentage is going up, but it’s still not the most likely activity for a woman to gravitate towards. But at that time, even if I was lucky enough to have one or two females to train with,

30:14
Competing was a whole different scenario. I’d go to a competition and it would be trying to find someone that I looked more like or size-wise was more comparable because when we’re fighting, if I’m fighting someone who’s a male who’s 200 pounds, even if I’m giving him everything I’ve got, he can’t go with me 100% because biologically, a 200 pound man, whether you’re in shape or not,

30:44
is much stronger, you know? And I wanted to know what it would be like to go up against an adversary closer to who I was. And so the competition began, and then it kind of took over my life. I was just really passionate about being able to see what I was doing that was working. And I’ve said this before that I think Jiu-Jitsu was starting to become a tangible physical medium for me to sort of…

31:13
what I could do and what I couldn’t do. And I would use that feedback in other areas of my life. And I just kept fighting. And the Jiu-Jitsu was a hobby. You know, I consider myself one of the last of the hobbyists, but in that stage, you had a job or you could go to school and you could still train and compete and do well. And so Jiu-Jitsu took me from Vancouver to New York, to Tokyo, back to New York, and then to New Jersey. And along the way, because I enjoyed competing,

31:42
I would gain the opportunity to train with some really high level people. And I would say that it’s probably been what has allowed me to touch excellence so early. I was in a niche sport and I happened to excel at it because I put a lot of time into it. And I started to form relationships because I was at the gym all the time with the fighters who were doing it.

32:07
on pride or the fighters that were going to go into the USC or in jujitsu world championships. And engaging with quality on that level. And when I say quality, I mean, somebody who has wholly devoted their existence to doing one thing, and they aren’t distracted by other jobs or other things, because they just want to be good at that one thing, gives you a very different perspective on the way you lead your own life. You know, and anyone

32:35
who practices Jiu-Jitsu or has a similar type of practice, maybe you’re a rock climber or a skier, when you find something that you feel so deeply passionate about, you just think, God, this is the only thing I wanna do for the rest of my life. So through Jiu-Jitsu, I met wonderful people who were able to scale my abilities up. And by building my competitive pedigree, it gave me access to begin teaching and speaking and working with others.

33:05
That is eventually how it kind of brought me back full circle to where we are today, which is that now I have the honor and the privilege of working with others and helping them identify what it is that they want to do to bring their best life out. And that’s what’s so beautiful is that you have truly this white belt mentality. You have this openness, you have the knowledge and experience to where you don’t have to defend your ego. You made that comment in the interview that we were discussing earlier where

33:33
You know, you can’t put your ego at the door many times. You have to bring it in because you have to cultivate that warrior spirit, that grit. And if you put the ego aside, it will fail you in the heat of battle. You absolutely have to have that and be able to dance with that within the confines of what’s going on in the military. It was the same way we were continually just being pushed and you’re in this adrenalized state all the time, not because they’re trying to break you. There is that component. They’re trying to break the weak ones so that they don’t go to combat and get somebody else killed.

34:03
But it’s more about this is what the norm is. You are gonna be sleep deprived. You are gonna be tired. You are gonna be caught off guard. You’re not gonna be in your best position. Now what do you do? Now what do you have? Because adversity doesn’t really build you up. It strips away what you are not and reveals what you truly are at your essence. And if you have never faced that before and you faced it for the first time in combat, you’re probably not gonna do very well. Yeah.

34:29
And you know, what’s concerning to me is I feel like we are, as a culture, so many of us are devolving to a place where we don’t know what that is anymore. And we expect the system or we expect others or we expect something that is not ourselves to save ourselves. And it’s not right. And it doesn’t work.

34:53
And so as a teacher, you know, when I teach Jiu-Jitsu, it’s probably my most accessible means to work hand to hand with people from all walks of life. And my job as a teacher, I feel like is, you know, can I get you to believe that you can actually do more than you think you’re capable of? Can I get you to believe that if you keep working at this, you’ll actually be a lot better than you ever dreamed you would be? Can I get you to believe that when I started Jiu-Jitsu, being a world champion was not…

35:22
on my radar at all was the most unlikely place that I thought I would be. Can you see a reality where you are a much stronger person? Helping people empower themselves and to really understand that they are not useless and that they are not just a cog in the wheel and that they are not just there for the ride, that you actually can make choices and you can actually make actions happen and then start to do the work.

35:52
Don’t just be a bystander. Don’t just be someone sitting on the back of the wagon. Don’t be someone that blames everybody else for why you don’t live or don’t have the things that you want to have in your life. And I see this a lot, you know? And so when it comes to managing the ego, yeah, I really do think that everyone needs to have a healthy ego to make it in this world because that’s what it’s about. It’s about the individual. It’s about what do we all bring as individuals to the table?

36:21
How do we inspire each other? How do we work together to make our existence, the world existence a better place? We don’t come to the table and be complacent. We don’t come to the table and we say, where’s the food? Who farmed it? How come we don’t have more on our plate? You gotta go do that yourself. You know? Absolutely. And that self resilience, that self, you start relying upon yourself. You’re not this person who’s a victim. All these people that I see that…

36:47
whether they realize it or not, they’re embracing this mentality that I wish somebody would come and save me. I wish somebody would do this work for me. And what they don’t understand is, even if somebody did come and save you in your current existence, you would eventually need to be saved all over again, whether it be a week, a month, a year from now, but all you’re doing is a self-fulfilling prophecy to shorten what you’re capable of doing. So like you’re talking about expanding their knowledge, just saying, what if you could be this person? What if you could be a blue belt or a…

37:16
black belt or whatever it is and be performing at this high level, what would that feel like? What is that person doing that you’re not doing right now? Are you willing to do what they would need to be doing to be at that level? And then how else would the rest of your life be? How would your relationships be? How would your business be? Literally, when we take that responsibility upon ourselves, we realize that everything that we do, whether it be a thought, the amount of water, the kind of food or the physical existence that we participate in, influences and creates gravity in those around us. If we take that responsibility,

37:46
It gives us more urgency and it gives us more understanding that maybe I do make a difference. Maybe there is somebody, maybe my three kids are looking at me, maybe this coworker looks at me, maybe this person in traffic saw the way I let that person get in front of me when they were giving me the bird and being an asshole. This is where the beauty of that pragmatic philosophy that we get from martial arts comes into play. It’s very easy to have these flowery one-liners that everybody seems to have, but can you actually put it into play?

38:15
Even if you put it into play yesterday, can you do it now? Can you continue to do it? Are you willing to continue to make that sacrifice? Because if you’re not, then you’re just trying to, like you said, resting on your assets and your laurels of what you’ve already done. But if we have made any sort of impact in the past, then if nothing else, that should give us urgency to understand we have a huge responsibility for that future. And if we’re not trying to get better and grow and learn, then we’re really shortchanging ourselves and frankly the people around us in the world in the meantime.

38:45
Yeah, and we become incredibly reactive to all the things around us, right? It’s worrisome because even thinking about, okay, let’s take a real life example where, you know, you’re training the military and maybe you have to swim one mile with 20 pounds on your back. And if you can’t do it and you’re relying on your teammates to save you, you not only jeopardize your own life, but now you’ve jeopardized multiple other lives. And if we use that as an example of what happens in the world.

39:14
where you’re not capable of doing your role or your job, and you think it’s up to everybody else to save you from whatever you’re doing wrong, the system fails. It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking at a small system within a family, a system of friends, a system of the government, we are not accountable to anyone but ourselves. We have to do it ourselves. And so I think what’s been so powerful for me in having Jiu-Jitsu as a practice,

39:43
and maybe for you and the other physical outlets that you had or been forced to experience is that it is something visual and tactile that we have to see, that we have to engage with that’s not just in our heads. Because I think so many of us have a hard time differentiating the talk that goes in our heads and what’s real versus what’s not. And we can easily talk ourselves into a good place or a bad place.

40:13
What is left when we’re actually left with reality? When we actually have to look at what is there? Does any of your chatter materialize into anything that is actionable and real? And that is where, you know, if I have confidence, it’s because I’ve lived it. I can’t lie to myself about what I’ve done. And I think that we are easily in a space now where people lie to themselves all the time about the things that they wish they’d done or.

40:41
things that they did, but only halfway. And we’re just accustomed to blowing that idea or that story up, but we don’t really know what’s there. You know, and I think that there have been times in my life where I think people have thought that I am too candid or critical or rational. People are scared of me. People have sometimes avoided me. And there’s a running joke at my school, like don’t ask Emily a question unless you really want the truth.

41:10
You know, I feel like we have become afraid of what’s real and nobody is criticizing you and nobody’s making a judgment to make you feel bad about yourself. Only you can make yourself feel bad about yourself. But we can help you, we can give you feedback and help you contextualize where you are and maybe make your feet feel more like they’re on the ground. And then we work and we move from there. But you know,

41:36
We’re not really dealing with, I don’t think our culture as a whole is in a very healthy place because we’ve largely learned to externalize our existence and our worth. And that kind of stuff has to come from the inside. I absolutely agree. And, and Frank, as a coach, you know, it’s not our job to be your friend. It’s our, it’s my job to coach you from a place of love and compassion, but to kick you in the ass and call you on your bullshit. I mean, if you just want to have a conversation with somebody, then go get a cup of coffee, you know, down at the.

42:05
the coffee shop if you want to just do that. But our job is to find that weakness, to point it out to you, to make you acknowledge it, and then say, what do you want to do with this? Because you’re going to continually just stumble over this until you figure it out, or until you change the behavior that got you there. And that’s why, again, Jiu-Jitsu is nice because it’s not some philosophical notion. You don’t have the luxury of being philosophical when a 250 pound guy has got neon belly on you and you’re trying to move and he’s got you to where it feels like it’s going through your soul.

42:34
The goal is to understand, all right, I made a mistake, two moves back. All right. So am I willing to unpack what that was? Am I willing to change the behavior so that I don’t be in this position again, as opposed to, and yes, there’s a place of, you know, late stage defense, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I went to a seminar in 1995, hoist Gracie, the first one he had in Texas. And when people ask him, they’re like, how do you get out of a rear naked choke, he’s like, don’t get there. Yeah. And a lot of people like.

43:01
half of the room laughed and the other half was pissed off. They were like, they’re like, okay, but this guy is better than I am. He’s always going to get the burn naked choke. And so that’s what he did. He just, he kept saying, he said, okay, how are you getting to that place? I mean, you both are starting from the standing position, right? How’s your take down? How’s your take down defense? How’s your capacity to transition? How can you scramble? You know, how’s your cardio? All these are things that we unpack within the existence. So all the knowledge that we seek is hidden in the adversity that we avoid. Yeah.

43:31
So again, you’re the toughest person in the room. The only way I can get better is to roll with you and to have you beat me or to give me a chance to work my technique until you beat me. But in that, that’s where all of that magical kind of space is for our learning. And we have to always embrace that as much as we can and lean in. I used to be one of those angry people that would be like, what the, you know, what kind of an answer is that? Because Marcelo would say that a lot.

43:57
I imagine that. And now I say that a lot. But you know, I think at a really high level, these concepts become really abstract. And you know, to what you’re saying, it’s unpacking things so that people who are just starting out, people who are trying to understand what you do, and why you have to do it that way, giving them the steps so that they can relate to your abstract concept, right?

44:24
because it does seem like kind of a flippant answer to say, well, don’t get there. But really it’s speaking towards so many layers of, okay, you need to learn how to anticipate why, like how you’re gonna end up there. You need to build the skillset so that you don’t end up there. You need to read your partner’s body movements so that you can avoid the setup. And once you start to take the, unpack the box, people go, wow, that’s a lot of stuff I have to learn to not get there.

44:54
And so I think that’s why, you know, a lot, I think a lot of working adults today don’t have any other medium to unpack their intangibles. Yes. My kids recently, my two daughters, they wanted to start skateboarding. And I don’t know anything about skateboarding. And so we take them to the skate park and my husband falls on his butt. And I’m slowly trying to figure things out. But they’re getting better at skateboarding much faster than I am.

45:23
And I had to find, I found a girl that was skating around the park and she looked really good and she looked very nice. And I said, do you give lessons? She goes, actually, I do. And I said, I need to hire you to work with my kids. And it was an interesting moment for me because I thought to myself, wow, like, I’m hitting a moment as a parent where I don’t know better than my kids in this situation. I don’t have what it takes to help them determine how they’re going to get better at this.

45:52
And so I need to be more resourceful and I need to go outside myself and say, let me bring you into my world, let me bring you into my circle so that you can make my children better. And I think of nothing more as a parent or as a leader or as a teacher than I want to help equip you with this knowledge so that you can do it for yourself. I want to give you experiences so that you can learn to do this yourself. And when I fail as a parent or a teacher to know myself,

46:20
I want to have the confidence and the ability to go to an educator or someone else that knows better to be resourceful so that we can all learn how to do this. But so many of us fear that, right? Like I think that as adults, especially in the middle of your life, you feel like you’re living your best life and you should be capable and you have all the answers. And I think one of the things that I’ve always leaned on is I don’t have all the answers and I really don’t have a problem telling you I don’t have all the answers. I know what I know.

46:49
And I’m very comfortable with what I know. And I know that what I know is solid. But if I’m out of my power zone, if I’m in a territory where I’m not sure, I am confident and secure enough in myself to be vulnerable enough to say, someone else please teach me or someone else please teach them because I don’t wanna wade into murky waters. That’s it. And you have the ability to understand you’re like, listen, if I get this coach, they’re gonna compress time.

47:20
They’re going to compress pain. They’re going to help them get to a level in three months that would take me maybe two or three years of falling down, breaking an arm or something like that in the process. And it just makes a lot more sense. So again, if we’re, if we are a student, we understand the value of a teacher. As opposed to how many people do we know that, you know, they would love to coach with us for free, but because of that, the human nature is that they don’t respect what they don’t pay for. So there’s no investment. There’s no skin in the game.

47:49
person to the fire, they’re going to just quit like they’ve done before. So they have to have that buy-in, so to speak, and you’re smart enough to have that. So much of this is tactical, right? Just because you’re out of your realm of expertise doesn’t mean that you’re a fraud. It doesn’t mean that you don’t know. It actually means that you see a framework that nobody else can see. And you say, okay, in order to tactically train up in this area, we need reinforcements. We need more knowledge. We have something.

48:19
that we need to go out and seek. In life, whether we’re building ourselves or we’re building something bigger than ourselves, we can’t just project what that thing is going to be. Ultimately, you need to have the workers and the people come in and do that. And so I think the more we can deconstruct and not be fearful of the feedback and not be fearful of what the blueprint is and saying, I don’t have everything that we need. I don’t have all these pieces.

48:45
I think it makes it much easier for us to all actually level up ourselves and level up whatever it is that we’re working towards, because then we’re able to fill that need with what needs to actually be there. And I think that that is a really difficult place for a lot of us in leadership positions or positions of respect is we feel that by showing that we don’t know, does that make us look like less of a leader? No, I actually think the opposite. I think the better of a leader you are.

49:14
the more willing you can be to be vulnerable in front of the people that follow you because it’s a skill to teach, like teaching people how to be vulnerable and to embrace the unknown is really impactful. And I think that’s the only way that we can continue to grow who we are. I absolutely agree. And to your point, that’s what’s so important is because if I don’t foster a culture that allows us to be human, that allows us to fall down, that encourages that sort of free thinking or that ability to have

49:43
empathy for somebody else, knowing that they’re going through the same thing. How am I going to empower that employee to give us these other things, to step into these areas of learning that we wouldn’t normally have? We talk at all these high level people, a CEO’s job is not to be able to do everything. That’s not their job. They don’t have the bandwidth or the time. For those of you that, if you’re a solopreneur and you’re just getting started, I understand, but take your hourly wage, so to speak, for what you’re doing for your company compared to somebody else.

50:11
and then understand it’s like, so where’s your time best allocated? Where are you gonna use the most from that? And so you have to build that team. That was part one of my interview with Emily Kwok, a multi-time international Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Federation Champion, co-owner of Princeton Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, peak performance consultant and author.

Episode Details

Emily Kwok: The Art of Peak Performance Part 1
Episode Number: 30

About the Host

Marcus Aurelius Anderson

Mindset Coach, Author, International Keynote Speaker