Getting Knocked Down In Life
It is not only popular opinion but tradition at this point in the world to neglect the number of times one is knocked down and overemphasize the number of times one can get up. I’ve always personally believed the inverse. Every time I’ve been knocked down in life, I’ve made sure to stay down for as long as possible. I do this until I reach introspection, a rational thought process, and a level of accountability from my inner circle that resides in as much independent judgment as I’m able to obtain at that moment. This order of operation in my process has allowed me to focus on my many wrongs, mistakes, and missteps enough to understand the basis of whatever moment by which I’ve been knocked down. This approach has allowed me to see both the positive and negative of myself to identify who I am now (never who I strive to be). There must always be a distinction in life to understand one’s destination with accuracy and pure self-confidence. Pure self-confidence is something I’ve processed since I was a child. This made me excel in many different disciplines including but not limited to hockey, go-carting, BMX riding, piano, skateboarding, football (soccer), and karate. When I was about 3 years old my father took me to a drum teacher for lessons. I had been playing piano at the Yamaha school of music. He encouraged me to learn other instruments as well so I could be musically well-rounded because I wanted to play whatever instruments my dad was playing. His thinking was that doing so would teach me to think and problem solve. With the best intention, I listened and was learning until my teacher gave me the drum sticks to hold. I took them and held them the way I was most comfortable. My dad — a professional musician with a 40-year career as the drummer and bandleader of one of the most historically significant bands of all time — always says that I should do what makes me comfortable when it comes to playing music as it’s always supposed to be fun (which I believe to this day). However, This particular teacher proceeded to aggressively and condescendingly tell me in front of my dad that I would never be a great drummer if I didn’t learn how to hold my sticks properly. The teacher said even though I was left-handed, it was wrong to hold the sticks the way I was holding them. As a result, he said, I would never amount to anything in terms of a good musician because my grip was completely off. I remember to this day feeling very sad, disappointed and confused at this exchange. I turned and looked up at my dad. He gently said that everything was going to be alright and that I can hold my sticks in whatever way makes me comfortable. By the time we got home, I was playing away on all my different instruments and playing my street hockey games with the kids in the neighborhood. The weeks and years passed as if nothing happened. I continued to hold the sticks incorrectly according to tradition, but that didn’t stop me achieving playing drums in a music video and having a billboard of me put up — both before age ten — because of musical ability that surpassed not only my peers but empirically surpassed members of the percussive arts society at the University of Miami with a minimum age of 18. Back then there was no YouTube so no one had seen a kid my age with my ability not only in percussion but musically in multiple genres. What made me different is that my focus has never been people watching me but on me observing people. I was never interested in being a star (I still am not to this day) but rather the stage. In my view being the stage for others to perform is where I feel most comfortable
I believe one competitive advantage of mine is my brain-to-motor skillset and how it connects to my nervous system because of being in high-pressure situations from such a young age. That connectivity between brain and body under pressure is very unique in my case because of the age I started professionally participating in high-pressure situations. On top of that, my talent was aggressively honed from a young age without ever being pushed by my parents. To me, it was always just really fun. So I don’t associate fear, nerves, or stress with performance. Rather, I associate performance with ingenuity and engineering (with the caveat that certain tasks — especially when repetitive — can be stressful). But I’m talking about the overall experience because of my formative years.
To give an idea of what I mean, there is no mercy for the professional performer even if that performer is a child. When participating in a show at any age, your performance affects an entire production and tour. Everyone is intensely looking to perform from the stagehands to the engineers to the performers. There is no leniency at the moment when I sit down to play. To the audience, they just see a young child giving a professional level performance and think, “wow that little kid is really good.” They’re not processing it from my angle, from a performance standpoint, where the pressure is on to not only get it right but to do it well. Even though it was fun for me, the inherent pressure of performing in front of thousands of people is nevertheless present. To be relatable to most people’s experience: think of a work presentation, playing intramural sports, public speaking, or anything where you had only one opportunity to get something right and needed to perform. Think of how nerve-wracking that can be, and that’s not even on a professional scale where it’s required and expected for you to be excellent on the spot in front of a large audience. I explain this because many people think they understand until they’re in that situation. The reason I know this to be true is that as I got older I’d see friends in their 20s, 30s, 40s and older really struggle with performance and nerves. So much so that they were unable to execute on stage because of nervousness or were unable to execute under pressure in their workplace. I saw this even in the casual environment of intramural sports. Every audience member, whether they’re watching a performer, athlete, or public speaker feels that it’s much easier than it actually is. Every audience member is able to critique and feel they can understand and relate until the audience member is placed in that performer’s position. Very rarely can an audience member — especially ones who are critiquing — live up to their level of critique. Both my dad and mom have a strong aversion to critiquing people in general terms. They both believe you never know what that person’s going through. As a general rule, they believe it’s not a good thing to criticize. Their contradiction in critiquing their kids when necessary, however, is derived from them taking on the noble pursuit of critiquing with love, care, and accuracy so their kids can be the best possible performers in life. I believe every parent wants this but most don’t have the tools to execute it. My parents happen to have both the tools and the resources to execute this approach.
My father realized what the drum teacher did not, which is exploring and investigating doing things in the way that I felt most comfortable (not merely “how things are done”) may not only result in maximum enjoyment of the activity but maximum performance on an individual level as well.
This kind of confidence was always in me but my mother and father made sure to give me practical support with action — rarely words. Their support reinforced my self-confidence and validated that I could be capable of whatever I chose to do. The thing they never did even in the most challenging situations, toughest conversations, and/or many missteps of unreasonable instructors is tell me I could, “do anything.” The emphasis was never about me being able to do anything because I was some kind of miracle and/or superstar. Rather, there was a clear focus on goals, processes, and the humility to hit the target I aim at.
I feel very fortunate to have this focus developed in me from a young age. I’ve seen many smart, motivated, and well-intentioned people I care about lack this focus and suffer as a result. I liken it to the light waves that comprise a laser beam. When unfocused, the light simply scatters and becomes diluted by the rest of the light in the environment. It has little to no effect. But when focused into a purposeful beam, it can heal and cut and do amazing things. This is the type of focus I’ve referred to as “directionalization”. In my experience, directionalizing one’s focus is what makes one effective. I’ve benefitted from this and, when asked, have been able to help others with it as well. I have found that directionalizing is the only reliable way to hit what one is aiming at. Hence the word I later coined for this process: “Hitz”. I created this word and its meaning 30 years ago when I was making the distinction daily between my current position and where I wanted to be with the utmost confidence and daily dedication to whatever my craft was at the time. This process of distinction always allowed me to be extra humble in approach. It did not matter how good I was because most of the time I was not yet where I wanted to be. This mentality kept me grounded. It also meant that I had too much focus on my goals to be anything but humble in a process that seemed near impossible back then. I channeled my ego daily into focus and consistency. The work was sometimes mind-numbing because neither one of my parents pushed me in any area except the area of critical thinking. Critical thinking was a must in my household at all times.
Both my parents exhibited uncommon sense in all aspects of their parenting and have a level of accountability for their mistakes that I have yet to see elsewhere in real life, much less the movies. It is fascinating to hear them speak to this day about their mistakes. They speak from such a place of accountability that one would never know their level of greatness, consistency, and accomplishment of providing an upper-middle-class life for their children with no requirements but a reasonable amount of critical thinking when it comes to both mind and body. They both believe that the metric to judge oneself against is based on time and one’s decisions made in the short time we all have on this earth. Moving in the rhythm of that time is the only thing my parents respect. The through-line I’ve learned from the story of my instructor at three years old is that when one has the potential/foundation to be excellent people will work as hard as they can like a detective to figure out anything wrong at any time. That is true no matter if you are 3 years old and showing signs of excellence and uniqueness or you’re 20 and have so much global experience that even your closest friends internalize a level of envy that comes out in small ways they don’t even realize in conversation and/or little cut-downs based on nothing but jealousy. I’m not a victim of this circumstance but rather a survivor and conqueror of my many challenges. I have personally experienced that it’s not the greed of friends that causes a lack of support and respectful understanding of difference. Rather this is the result of hidden envy when one sees someone close that has the potential to be so excellent that it irritates the ego.
The timing of making the distinction of who you are in the moment of being knocked down in contrast to where you want to be is the most important step. It removes justifications and allows accountability to be at the forefront. I can empathize with why most individuals feel like the “getting up” part of getting knocked down is so triumphant and powerful. It validates a form of strength, perseverance, and resilience that all people yearn to feel about themselves. Conversely, I’d rather feel the weakness, confusion, embarrassment, and unknown of the unknown because focusing on anything else in this life to me doesn’t yield enough of a result to feel satisfied in self-reliance. While I believe self-reliance is the key, it can also act as a lock without self-understanding.
Is it better to be self-reliant, co-dependent, or reactionary to getting up from being knocked down based on adrenaline, conformity, and a lack of awareness?
