Why I Nearly Punched A 52 Year Old
Wait, wait, don’t get all bent out of shape. He was asking for it.
No, I mean he ACTUALLY asked me to throw a punch at him, like he does every Wednesday.
His name is Bunkerd, and he’s my kickboxing coach (Muay Thai, actually, which is Thai kickboxing). Every Monday he puts me through the wringer with what has got to be the most intense workout known to man. Or, at least this aging man.
So don’t be afraid for Bunkerd. He may be 4’10″ and long in the tooth, but he’s a three time world champ in the sport and could drop me in 3 seconds flat.
So here’s how it happened.
For the last few weeks we’ve been working on a combination, in a specific order. Jab, cross, hook, jab. Of course, with him calling out each one in his thick Thai accent. So there I go with the combination, again and again.
Brain’s off, and I’m on autopilot.
Every once in a while we take a break and do some bag work on the heavy bag.
But then we’re back to the combination. Jab, cross, hook, jab.
Because a lot of training – for anything – is about muscle memory. You do something again and again until it’s second nature. So when you need it, you don’t need to think. You just do.
And that’s why I nearly popped Bunkerd in the face.
‘Cause he changed it up on me. There we were, jab, cross, hook, jab. And all of a sudden he shouts “block!” and tries to catch me off guard with a cross punch of his own.
(actually, with his awesome accent, he shouts “BWOK!”)
… But I was on autopilot, so I didn’t bwok. Instead, the reflexive jab went out and cleared his nose by a hair before I realized and pulled back.
And that got me thinking about how many other things we work on making reflexive, but don’t.
Like our marketing. We know we’ve got to do it, but it’s just so damn painful. There’s always today’s work to do. And that means the thing that isn’t a crisis gets shorted. So we do today’s work, and short getting tomorrow’s work.
Marketing (like Muay Thai) takes stamina. And creating a habit. So your marketing becomes reflexive.
But how to do that when the time we’ve got is sporadic? When we can’t do manual marketing every day to keep on restocking the pond with new fishies?
Well … we do that by automation. Creating our “client conveyor belt” of automated marketing programs that bring good clients to our front door. Ready to hire us.
It’s one of the things I talk about in my Getting Referrals webinar … how you create your own client conveyor belt. Be sure you’re on my email list to get notified of the next time I’m running one.
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