The NEW Way To Be At Peace in 2025 | SC67 | Jeff Patterson

Peace...

The most sought after term whether it's world peace or peace of mind, it's a global craving we all desire.

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Buy Jeff's Book - https://theyieldingwarrior.com

Jeff Patterson has been designated the nickname "The Yielding Warrior" due to his outstanding ability to use meditation to further mental and physical performance.

Over 26,000 students including CEOs, World Champions, Top Class Athletes and Many More.

Join us to discuss how we can use meditation for just 20 minutes a day can transform your life.

If nothing else you'll hear us fanboy over Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan.

Chapters

• 0:00 Journey into Martial Arts and Meditation
• 8:39 Understanding the Meditative Arts
• 16:40 Keys to Successful Meditation Practice
• 20:51 The Importance of Consistency
• 27:38 Yielding: A New Perspective on Conflict
• 28:37 Living with Consideration

Transcript

0:27

You've taught a beneficial life skill and life lessons to over 25,000 people now. But what's one thing they've taught you? You know, I think one of the biggest things I've learned from teaching and it's something that feeds over into every area of life is the importance of being a good listener because you don't just listen to the words, you listen to the tone, you listen to the body language, you study the energy of somebody that you're talking to and having that focus in really trying to understand and be compassionate and considerate when you're talking to people. it leads to a lot more positive outcomes than when you're all focused on yourself. Using everything you've learned and everything you've learned from other people like you said, what's one thing you notice people do regularly that's destroying their mindset and they don't really know it? It kind of comes back to what we were just talking about, but it's the negative self-talk because when something negative happens to us and it leads to 50 other negative thoughts. even though there are thoughts in your head, you're spending that time over and over again, thinking down those negative rabbit holes. And when you can recognize those imbalances before you get too far down any one of those paths, it can save you a lot of time. You know, there's this, story of these two old monks and they're walking down this dirt road after a huge rainstorm and they come up to this big mud puddle and on the other side of the puddles is beautiful little girl and she's standing there in a white dress and she's crying and the older monkey hollers across the puddle and says is everything okay? Can we help you? And she says I need to be somewhere but if I walk across this puddle I'm gonna get my dress all dirty. So the older monk, rolls up his pant legs. walks across the puddle, picks her up, puts her on his back, takes her to the other side and sets her down and she's off on her way. Well, him and the younger monk are walking a couple miles further down the road. And finally, the younger monk is just furious and he says, you know, we're not supposed to touch girls, but you did back there at the puddle. And the older monk looks down and says, I left that girl back at the puddle. Why are you still holding on to her? How many times in life do we got to get two miles down the muddy road before we realize we got to let that thing go? And the meditative arts helps us see those first couple steps down that path so we don't get too far down and waste too much of our time in that negativity. in today's world, We're filled with distraction, we're filled with chaos. It's so hard to avoid now. Do you have any advice that people could genuinely start now doing that may down the road help them find a little bit of peace? You know, the meditative arts is amazing in that it can transform your life. And I've seen it over hundreds and hundreds of times with other people. And, know, one of the most common things I'll hear people say is that, you know, I've tried meditation before, but it just didn't work for me. couldn't quiet my mind. you know, somewhere along the way, people got this idea that in order to be successful with meditation, that we need to reach this state of nirvana where nothing bothers us. And they couldn't be further from the truth. And, you know, I've been very fortunate through the years to travel around the world many times and train with some amazing meditation practitioners. And I have never once met anybody who doesn't get distracted. We all do. It's just the way of being human. And when you understand this and that that's not the goal with meditation, The idea is that when we do a sitting practice or a movement practice like Tai Chi or Qi Gong, and we're practicing these meditative arts, that we may get distracted 50 times during a 20 minute session. And if you do, every time you get distracted, you use your breath, your posture, your movement to help find that center. And now you just got 50 repetitions of being out of balance. and finding your focus. And if you do that every day, every month, every year, you start to develop this power and this ability to find that center amongst the chaos. And you know, you're right. There's a thousand things going on that we're bombarded with every day. And if you go down any one of those rabbit holes, they can be very distracted and throw you off center. But having a practice like this in your life. helps you find that balance and helps you stay close to that center. And that's one of the, you know, the beautiful things about the meditative arts. Yeah, I idolized Kobe Bryant and I read a lot about how he used meditation throughout his whole career. He said that he used it to hope that it would quiet the noise around him when he wasn't playing. And he talks about how someone asked him, when did you know it was time to retire? And he said, like, I've been trying to meditate for 20 something years and never once successfully did I do it. would almost, every time I sat down to meditate, would turn the man into the station because I couldn't get basketball off my mind. But there was one day I was sitting at home sat down to meditate and I had the greatest meditation session ever. So he got up and he rang the general manager and said, it's time for me to finish it. I for the first time meditated, found peace, that's me done. I've got it now. There's nothing left for me to do. Do you find that people do that whenever they start to quiet their own life? They maybe find meditation to be more beneficial? Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, as you mentioned with distractions that we get so caught up with all of these different distractions throughout the day. Oftentimes we're forced to kind of walk around wearing a mask or, or putting walls up to try to protect ourselves or maybe not be as open or maybe we don't want to say something to hurt somebody's feelings or whatever it is. And we get so used to wearing these masks. that oftentimes what happens is you go to look at yourself in the mirror and you're still wearing the mask because you're just used to living that way. And the meditative arts helps you stay connected to who you are in your heart. And when you do that, it kind of opens up new possibilities and you see things with a wider perspective. And that's one of the benefits here. And that's why so many performers, athletes or performing artists are turning to the meditative arts because it helps them find that different perspective and that deeper focus and helps them get to that level where they can perform at a higher level. And you know, it's much more commonly known these days than it was 30 years ago. But if you go take any pool of athletes and you take a hundred athletes out of that pool, there's a fair amount of them that are turning to the meditative arts to improve that performance. And even somebody like a famous coach like Phil Jackson, when he was coaching the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers, he was having his athletes practice Tai Chi and meditation to help improve their performance. And here's the best athletes in the field of basketball on his teams. And he's working with them to help mold their intuition and their awareness and their ability to kind of stay present in the moment so they can get those areas of performance where they're kind of standing out and shining and doing more than what the average person is doing. And so the meditative arts really has so many different directions, right? So we can do the meditative arts for the performance side. for the therapeutic side to help with our health and longevity, for the medical side, the philosophical side, which is something that I've always been drawn to because it helps open up your perspective and see things from multiple angles. And then you have the spiritual side. And a lot of times when people hear about meditation, they don't realize that there's so many different applications to the practice. And so for somebody new coming to the practice, when you figure out kind of what's drawing you to the practice, you can incorporate different ritual active and philosophical practices that will help you down any one of those paths. can remember whenever I first learned about meditation and I thought the only way to meditate was now put your legs crossed on the floor, hands in the air, humming to yourself. And so I used to always get so distracted like to the point where maybe could do 20, 30 seconds of light meditation. Then I would almost get like the emotion of anger constantly then when I would try because I would be annoyed that I couldn't. is there a way that when people are trying to these techniques, not just meditation, but all the techniques we'll talk about to find a little bit of peace or to quiet their own mind. So a way they can use that emotion of anger in a way that doesn't mean physically releasing it in a way they could use it to maybe help them be better at meditating. Definitely, you the first thing is part of what's making you angry is that you feel like you're failing and you can't do it and the reason why you feel like you're failing and can't do it is because you're looking at the goal of meditation is something you can't accomplish But in reality when you sit down and just focus on the breath whether you're quieting the mind or not you are accomplishing it and you're doing well. know, the idea is, that when you recognize a thought or imbalance, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Because a lot of times we're going through the day and we have a thousand thoughts that we don't even pay any attention to. by having that heightened awareness and having a daily practice like this, it helps us recognize those imbalances so we can start making adjustments. And you know, when you talk about having somebody new come to the practice and what they can do to be successful, this is one of the biggest challenges that I've come up with in my 30 years of teaching the meditative arts is getting people to realize that this is a valuable practice and this is something that is worth your time to stick with and make part of your life. And through doing that, I've tested many different things to try to help people. And what I've found is I've come up with three considerations that if you spend a little bit of time in these three areas, I feel like you're so much more likely to be successful with the practice. And the first one is What is it that's drawing you to the meditative practice? Why do you want to do it? Do you want to improve your health? Are you dealing with a stress disorder? Are you wanting to improve your performance on the field? Whatever that is for you. And then once you have that, think about 10 or 20 things that are going to be positively influenced by you accomplishing that goal. Maybe it's your interpersonal communication. Maybe it's how you feel when you're in groups of people. Maybe it's how you perform. Maybe it's your relationships, whatever that is for you and put some depth into that why. And once you have that, then I have them flip the coin. And if you don't accomplish that goal, think about 10 or 20 negative things that will happen and will negatively influence you. And what this does is it gives you the fuel. So tomorrow morning when your alarm goes off and you don't want to get up and do your practice, you have a reason to get up. You look forward to it. It's not a chore that you have to do every day. It's something that you get to do because it's bringing so much positive change in your life and changing that mental perception is huge on your success. The second thing is understanding the importance of consistency. And there's this old Chinese story that illustrates this idea very well. And it's about this old stonecutter who's very well known all over China. And he makes these beautiful sculptures of animals and landscapes. And his work is so detailed that anytime somebody sees a piece of his work, they just know that he created it because it's that much better than everybody else's. Well, because his stuff is so special, He has people from all over the country that will come and stay with him for years at a time and learn the trade and study with him. Well, every morning, this old stonecutter, he starts his day off by walking down to the river and meditating. And one day after his meditation session, he's walking along the river and he has this profound vision of this big six foot tall, mystical Chinese Jade dragon. And he's so taken by this dragon, that he just knows it has to be his next project. So he spends the next few months traveling all around the area, looking for the perfect piece of Jade for his new creation. Finally, when he finds it, he brings it back to his place and he spends the next period of time, day in and out, just sitting with the stone and trying to envision how this dragon will appear and feel the energy from the rock. Finally, when he begins working on the stone, He carefully places his chisel on one specific place on the backside of the rock and starts tapping away with his hammer, hundreds, if not thousands of times a day to the exact same spot and nothing changes. Day in and out, a few days go by and still nothing. A few more days went by and some of his apprentices started second guessing him and thinking, why doesn't he try something else? A few more days went by and thousand more taps to the chisel. And finally, he hits the chisel and this big three foot section of the stone breaks off and creates this smooth, slightly curved line that's going to be part of the dragon's back. And one of his apprentices said, how did you know that that strike was going to break the stone? And the stone cutter replied, it wasn't that strike that broke the stone. It was the thousands of strikes before it. And with a bit of a discouraged tone, the apprentice said, But I've been watching you and there was no change. Why keep doing the same thing over and over again? Why didn't you try something different? And the stone cutter got down on one knee and he felt the smooth line that he just created. And he replied, those strikes were not wasted. All of that effort and that time and that foundation that we were laying was creating change, not only beneath the stone, but also in the one who wields the hammer. And the reason why resonates so well with this story is that this is the meditative arts. We're practicing these breathing strategies, these movement practices, studying these philosophical concepts. And we don't always see the change happening day to day, but it's through our effort and our consistency that we're laying the foundation to bear these fruits for the rest of our life. And so approaching this practice with the understanding that consistency is key is very important. And then the third and final consideration is you need to find a guide. You know, the meditative arts is extremely deep. There's a lot of different paths you can follow. And if you don't have somebody in your corner, you can waste a lot of time. And in fact, I've had students that come into the academy that have been self-taught sifted through thousands of YouTube videos and tried this and tried that. And, know, 10, 15 years goes by and they're barely, you know, below the surface. Whereas you get somebody that comes in and follows guided instruction and knows what path to go down in six months, they can do what somebody else can do in 10 or 15 years. so thinking about what the reason is and the why you're drawn to the practice, understanding the idea of consistency and having somebody in your corner. If you do those three things, you're going to be successful with the practice and the meditative arts will be one of the best things you've ever done for yourself. I like we can kind of break these down a little bit more and adjust them a little bit to people that I think common problems people listening might have, which the first one when you were talking about exploring all outcomes, I learned to do that too and honestly I think in terms of mind-set shifts or lessons I've learned in my life, I think that probably is the top one. I don't think there's anyone even coming close to it, but for most of us who are typically chasing something, what people are chasing success, validation, maybe attention, maybe respect. A lot of the time we believe the reason we're chasing it is to get to it as quick as possible. It has to be fast motioned, to be as quick as possible. How would you advise someone thinking like that, that's having a rampant mind towards their goals, how would you give them advice to help them slow down and take in the moment for what it is? You know, a lot of people tell me that when I talk to them about meditation, they're like, know, I don't have time. I'm too busy. I'm focused on this or that or the other. you know, the Dalai Lama once said that everybody should meditate for 20 minutes a day unless you're too busy, then you should meditate for an hour. And I like that saying in that every person, you know, and I've been fortunate enough to work with thousands of people through the years. people that are CEOs, people that are as busy as busy can be. And what I've found over and over again is that the ones that are busy, that take time to integrate a practice like this in their life, no matter what their focus is that they start by being more present and more aware of what's going on, they find that they're more productive and they get more done. because they're not so distracted and they're not getting taken down this path and that path that takes them away from their goal. And so having a practice like this where you can expand your awareness and be more present and be more in tune when those imbalances hit you can save you a ton of time and bring you towards your goals a lot quicker. Yeah, I feel like when you address it to anybody, it's like you should meditate every day. It's that every day that seems to flash a red flag in their brain. like, I don't have time every day. But I like listen to a lot of things like Jesse at at Slurrow's say and stuff. And he has this great theory about the rule of 100. They always say it takes 100 hours to become really skilled at something. And whenever you say it to someone, they're like, that's so long done. That I know that could be years, that could be months. And he broke it down to at the just take 18 minutes a day in any practice at all. It doesn't even have to be an incredible. By the end of the year, you'll be better than 95 % of the world. When you break it down like that, then it seems so much easier. And I fit it with meditation, like you said, you tell people that you work with just 20 minutes a day. It then breaks it down to over the long period of time. It makes all the difference, have you found that? for sure. You know, and the people that come here and they go through the program and they listen to that and they do their 20 minutes a day and they integrate some active practices into their day and they keep that up for a year. I bet a high percentage, 95, 97 % of those people will do this practice for the rest of their life because they'll see so many benefits from the practice that they wouldn't even think about stopping. And you know, you think of it a lot of times. It is kind of daunting thinking about doing something every day, but there's all kinds of things that we do every day right now. We don't even think twice about it. You just make it part of your lifestyle. You know, I haven't missed a day of my meditation practice since I had my hip surgery about six years ago. It's just part of who I am. And when you do that, you know, I don't think about, I can't do it today because I've got these six things that I've got to take care of first. It's just. Like I get up and brush my teeth, it's part of who I am and what I do. And when you make it part of your lifestyle, that's where you really start to see all the benefits from it. A lot of people that you work with, they're kind of in the combat sport world. They're trained or at least raised to, for periods of their life, they're going to have to be an attack mode. They're going to have to be a warrior. How do you convince someone with those characteristics to slow down and meditate? The meditative arts helps anybody in any kind of performance scenario, whether it's combat, whether it's basketball, whether it's football, it doesn't matter what it is because that heightened awareness that you get through doing a practice like this can help you perform mentally, physically, and emotionally better at any stage of activity that you're doing. And so when you... teach people to reframe their perception of it in that, you know, a lot of times, you know, we talk about yielding, which is a very important concept in the meditative arts. In fact, my last book, The Yielding Warrior, breaks down yielding into three different pillars. There's physical yielding, mental yielding, and emotional yielding. Physical yielding is the idea that I push you, you push me, whoever's the bigger, stronger person with the most leverage. eventually is going to push the other person over. But with yielding, instead of us trying to see who the bigger meathead is, when you push me, I get out of the way of that force. And now I can respond with less effort. So I'm not trying to butt heads with you and see if I'm bigger and stronger than you. Now, in order to be good at physical yielding, a lot of things have to come into play. You need to be well-rooted. The lower part of your body needs to be strong and flexible so you can change your central equilibrium without getting tight. The body has to be relaxed, the breath has to be calm, and the mind has to be present. While this may take a lifetime to really master these skills, from day one, by integrating a meditation practice into your life, you start to see these things inside yourself with more clarity. And not only do you see these things in yourself, You also start to see these things in other people, which is where this starts to become very interesting. And now we're moving into what I call mental yielding. So say, for example, you and I are having a conversation and I say something that unsettles you and I pick up on it right from that first sign of imbalance. So rather than keeping going down that rabbit hole, I adjust the conversation and keep us in a harmonious place. which helps keep everything easier. And noticing this does a couple things. One, we're being more considerate, which is something that we could all do, but also it allows us to drive conversations to a positive outcome with the least amount of resistance. And this is beneficial in relationships and business and sales and negotiations. mean, there's so many ways we can apply this idea. And then the third pillar of yielding is emotional yielding. And this is very much like mental yielding, but it's with your own interpersonal conflicts. So you think about oftentimes things will happen to us and we'll respond and we'll go down this path. And we might get an hour a day, a week down that road and realize maybe that wasn't the best choice. But with yielding, if we could have taken a step back and analyze the scenario, been less emotional and stayed more focused and balanced. A lot of times we can make a more educated decision that saves us a lot of heartache on the other side. so understanding how to do this is very powerful. You know, I I've been explaining this idea of yielding now for many years, running my Academy for 30 years now. And one of the most common things I'll hear people say is, yielding makes a lot of sense. In fact, I do that all the time. Well, I would agree. And I think that everybody does some. degree of yielding all the time, whether they label it that or understand that that's what they're doing or not. However, it's kind of like, you know, if you or I were to walk into a crime scene with a detective who's been on the job for 30 years, I guarantee you that person would see things about the series of events and the timeline that I know at least I would have no clue of. And the meditative arts helps us see things inside of ourselves and inside of other people. that I truly believe without a practice like this, you're gonna miss out on a lot of things that are being presented to you. You doing definitely has its place in the personal development spectrum. I feel like it's always been a part of it. It's just never been branded as you doing. It's almost like the benefits of it has been part and parceled and packaged differently. But the idea of you doing, there's one thing that does come up in my head when I think about it, when I research it is how in those moments of unexpected emotion, it could be, you know, get bad news, something that you've worked hard on falls apart instantly. someone cuts in front of you of traffic, someone takes the last of your auger out of the fridge without telling you, how do you apply your link to those moments to not overreact and blow up all the progress you've made? You know, so that's one of the great things about the meditative arts is that it helps us notice these imbalances when they first happen. Cause when you think about something that unsettled you and you got upset because somebody cut you off or called you a name or said something to you, what happens often is we'll think about something somebody said. And then we'll think about how we want to retaliate. And we'll think about all the reasons why that was unfair. And we'll think about how somebody else said that same thing five years ago or whatever it is. And you'll go down this negative rabbit hole and not one negative instance will lead to 30 other negative thoughts. And every time we do this, it builds that momentum. And it's difficult to turn around once you're building all that negative momentum. Whereas When you're more centered and you're able to approach it from a balanced state and you recognize that first sign of imbalance, it's a lot easier to come back to focus and find a different path. You know, if you walk into a room and you're having the best day of your life and somebody calls you a jerk, you laugh it off and don't think twice about it. But if you just had your, you know, a day where your dog died and your daughter's sick and you're You know, you're running in and somebody cut you off and you're frustrated. And then you walk in the room and somebody calls you a jerk. You're going to blow up on them. And so having that ability to maintain your regular presence in that center and find that balance and not get too far down. Any one of those negative paths can help in any one of those scenarios. One last question before I officially release you from simple conversations, President. But if you had put your entire philosophy into one lesson, what would it be? Your favourite. Live with consideration, not only for others, but also for yourself. Because I find that when you can be considerate to other people and really take to heart where they're at, not only can you bring more positive light to them, but that in turn also brings positivity to yourself. Jeff, where can people find you? What are you working on? What have you got coming up? So my website is theyieldingwarrior.com. There's resources there to check out our online programs. I've got a couple books out there, The Yielding Warrior. Right now, if you go to theyieldingwarrior.com forward slash book, pay for shipping, we'll send you out a copy of the book for free. I'm working on my next book right now, The Yielding Athlete. talking about how to use the meditative arts to build an evolving life practice to improve your athletic performance and mindset. so just always chugging along and looking for different ways to spread the word with the meditative arts.