In Jiu Jitsu, life is all made pretty clear right on the mat.  You can always tell if a new guy is going to last by the way they handle competition.  Those who thrive on winning, and throw temper tantrums when they lose, never last too long.  Instead of learning the most consistent ways to be effective, they spend the entire time trying to find cheap, lucky ways to win.

The people who last in Jiu Jitsu typically react to winning and losing exactly the same.  If you looked at their face right after a match, you wouldn’t be able to tell the outcome.  They lose, they move on.  They win, they move on.  Either way, they are just happy to be competing.

This past weekend, I was in Cape May, New Jersey for the first time.  What a beautiful, wonderful place pulsating with history.  A little known fact about Cape May is it is the only ‘entire’ town to be declared a historic landmark in all of the USA.

Cape May is also a beautiful beach town and America’s first summer getaway.  Perfectly located where the Delaware Bay feeds into the Atlantic Ocean, it is a town that benefits tremendously from its thriving sea ports. It was at one of these where my wife and I purchased tickets to take a boat out to see dolphins and other animal life.  The tour took us out of the cape and through the nutrient rich waters off the southern tip of NJ, until we finally found a group of dolphins.

It is very rare in life when an athlete who is the absolute best ever to compete in his sport also happens to be one of the most influential human beings of his time as well. There are not many that come to mind, if any.

But that’s probably why they are not referred to as….. ‘the greatest of all time.’

Siddhartha is an extraordinary book written by Herman Hesse. I read it while I was in college after reading an article in the NY Times about a guy on parole who straightened out his life in prison mostly because of this book. I decided to give it a try.

It was incredible. It truly opened my eyes to what life was all about. The best way to describe the feeling is ‘enlightenment’. I would recommend it to anyone. And today, I am going to use one of the central themes of the book as a quote for the day….

“Knowledge can be taught, but wisdom comes from experience“

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing. – Oscar Wilde