Self Confidence
| https://youtu.be/ocdZDh4z4PE |
Hi, this is Bill Chan again with The 5 Elements of a Fulfilling Life at 5 Element5.com.
Tonight I just wanted to talk to you about my background and how I got to where I am.
A lot of it has to do with self-confidence now.
How do you develop self-confidence? I remember when I was in elementary, junior high school, and part of my high school years, at least I was more of an introvert, and I lacked self-confidence because I was a minority in my small town USA.
I was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, when I went to high school and Junior High School.
In those years, I was the only Asian in the whole school; there were few Asians in my town.
When I was going to high school, I wasn't good at sports, and I was small; I wasn't the athletic type, and I wasn't that great at academics either.
So when I was going to school, I was always the one to get picked on; as an Asian boy, I would get bullied by the more prominent football players types.
Right, I remembered in physics class, I think it was ninth grade, and I had two big football players sitting next to my left and right; I don't know what happened; I wasn't doing anything to them, but when the teacher's writing on the board one of the guys would jak me on my ribs with his elbow. I go, ouch, the teacher would turn around and say, hey, who's that? I replied nobody, so I didn't want to get myself in further trouble and them.
When the teacher turned around again, the other guy would jak me on my other ribs, so I was getting picked on like this all the time; I was being called all types of Asian names, you know the story, right? Charlie Chan, they're constantly making fun of me like this.
I wouldn't say I liked school; I didn't like school, I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and at that time, I didn't feel like I could among to anything because my dad was from the restaurant business; I thought man most likely maybe I'll be a waiter for the rest of my life.
I could own my restaurant, and after I finish 10th grade during the summer, I will get my driver's license, so back then, my biggest hero was Bruce Lee; right, he is like the ultimate fighting machine.
I immediately joined a Korean martial School; I went in and started learning Tang Soo Do.
Before that, I joined track one season and could have done better; I went around with the other guys in practice. Still, when it came to the meets, I would lose like crazy because I wouldn't be able to outrun these tall, you know, I was five, and these guys were six one, you know, their legs were longer than my whole body, so you know I couldn't outrun them at all.
Whether it was long distance or short distance, I wasn't going anywhere. Therefore I quit the next year and joined the martial arts school.
Something clicked with me, I don't know what it is, but I was always interested in martial arts when I was younger.
I would beat the trees with my fist, get bloody fists, and try to imitate these kung fu movies. Still, I only had formal training because my parents were always busy at the restaurant when I met Tony, who taught me a few techniques while working in our restaurant for the summer.
My parents didn't want me to get involved in all that because, to them, that would be like gangster activity.
They didn't want me to get into further trouble, so I went right after getting my license; now I have Mobility, I'm independent, drove to the martial School, signed up, and started working out.
Before you knew it, I was doing all these splits and kicking to the Head. I was a natural; I had to work at it, but I was finding my Niche.
I was doing well, so after that summer, I went to one of the tournaments with the martial arts school, and I won. Yeah, I won; I won my first trophy. I was so proud, so happy.
When I went back to school, I had confidence, I wasn't picking on flights, but I wasn't backing out of any from anybody.
After two years of training, I have all the confidence in the world, and I remember these two guys that used to pick on me all the time; they graduated already, and one day, they came back to the school for some reason, and I was talking to the bigger guy, I said well you guys used to pick on me all the time.
By that time, I got my black bear already. I said now that I have my black belt, I'm not taking any more shit from you guys, so the guy said oh no, it wasn't me. It was the other guy; he was the one picking on you.
I felt good about myself, and then I was like transferring that Confluence into my studies, and my grades started picking up, and I was admitted to the local University.
Afterward, I never thought I would go to university, but then I got into the university.
My first semester was horrible because I was studying engineering and had to take physics, calculus, and chemistry; those were the weakest subjects in my academic studies.
So I almost fail out of school, oh my god! My confidence dropped again to the bottom of the earth, and then I went to talk to my counselor, and he said, " Look, maybe you could try some electives first, try to take some other classes, and if you do well in those, perhaps you could consider changing majors.
I took all these electives and, for some reason, picked psychology 101; well! That's one of the elective classes, so I got my first A.
I got my first A in psychology and fell in love with it; I changed Majors to psychology during my sophomore year.
I switched majors and got straight A's; I can't believe it, so that built up my confidence tremendously; I wanted to finish at least college and then maybe go on to master.
That gave me the confidence to pursue my academics and, after that, to start my business and move to China, move to Hong Kong, starting my business from scratch in a land I know nothing about.
From there, I worked worldwide, so building self-confidence is critical.
Now we are bio-individuals, and we have different ways of building that self-confidence; you need to find your avenue, but one of the best ways, for me at least, is Sports.
If you can get your kids engaged in sports, maybe one sport better fits them than the others, but if they can find accomplishment in sports or arts, it could be music, dance, whichever one lets them pursue their interest.
If they're good at it and put their efforts into it, they could achieve tremendous results, which could transfer to other fields.
As they grow up, for all parents, you know martial arts is one choice, but there are other options as well, depending on where your kids are interested in, and for yourself as well, that's one way to build your self-confidence.
I went from being an introvert after I built my self-confidence to being an extrovert.
I'm an extrovert now; for 28 years, I needed to get in front of large groups of audiences and present and engage them in my training.
So if you have self-confidence, you can achieve anything in life. Thank you!