KB05 - Finding Your Fudoshin - How To Build an "Immovable Mind"

Read time: 5 minutes.

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Today I’m going to teach you about the ancient Japanese concept called Fudoshin, which means “The Immovable Mind.”

The world can sometimes feel like it’s out to get you, and just when things start to go to plan, life throws you a curveball!

And when it does?

You have every right and every excuse to fall behind and feel a little lost.

Those excuses are completely valid, but they will not help you get closer to your goals.

Truly understanding how to apply Fudoshin can help you not only deal with these curveballs but allow you to respond and react in a way that helps you instead of hinders you.

What Exactly is “Fudoshin”?

For Japanese Samurai Warriors, Fudoshin was the ability to display courage in the face of danger, sickness and even death without any fear.

For us, the application can be a little less extreme…

The martial art of Kendo refers to Fudoshin as “Shikai” - The Four Sicknesses of the Mind.

These four are...

Anger, Doubt, Fear and Surprise

Successfully managing and reducing these in your life will give you an immovable mind, and over the next few minutes, we’ll be delving a little deeper with some real-world examples.

Let’s begin…

Anger

We all face anger from time to time, and according to Melody Standford Martin, there are four types.

Short Anger - The immediate, physical response connected to our flight/fight/freeze System. This anger is part of our body’s ability to protect itself by taking immediate action.

Long Anger - The ongoing sense that the world is not what it should be. This kind of anger is usually experienced with grief or when we are forced to accept the unacceptable. Long anger sucks!

Hot Anger - Is “A Rush of Rage”. We’ve all had that situation when we’ve “Seen Red” and been completely unable to control ourselves with our responses. Hot anger has explosive, destructive qualities and is not something we want to be in for too long.

Cold Anger - Cold Anger is Anger that has been cooled and put to use. Say you’ve had a stressful day, and instead of going home to start an argument with your partner, you head to the gym to put the anger to good use.

Source: Melody Stanford Martin/Brave Talk Project

One thing I remind people about anger is this famous quote.

You cannot see your reflection in boiling water. Similarly, you can’t see truths in your life in a state of anger

 

To Find Your Fudoshin, you need to manage your anger levels better by understanding these three things…

#1 You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it. So when life deals you a shit hand, pause for a second and think, “how do I WANT to respond to this?” rather than “how I SHOULD respond.”

 #2 When you’re in a good place physically, mentally, emotionally and financially, you give zero fucks what anyone else thinks of you. Looking after yourself in these areas will keep your anger levels to a minimum.

#3 You get angry when something that you thought was going to happen does not end up happening. This could be traffic, a delayed flight, or even losing something valuable to you. This refers to my first point about not having control over what happens to you and conditioning yourself to let go of the outcome.

At the End of the Game, the King and the Pawn Go Back in the Same Box - Italian Proverb

 

Doubt

It is said that “doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

If you want to find your Fudoshin, you must learn how to manage and deal with the three different types of doubt you face daily.

#1 - Doubt in your SELF

This type of doubt is the biggest dream killer. When you don’t believe in yourself, others will not believe in you, and the whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I’ve overcome this by truly understanding that

• “no one is special”
• every professional was once an amateur
• you can’t fail if you don’t give up.

#2 - Doubt in OTHERS

This one applies deeply to business and relationships. If you doubt others' abilities in business, you won’t trust them to do a good job.

People learn from mistakes, and when you doubt others, they are so afraid of making them that everything you ask them to do takes much longer.

Learn to trust and allow others to make mistakes if you want to grow your business.

Doubts about others in your close relationships usually say more about your insecurities than it does about your partners. This once again becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because when you place doubt in relationships, you lose all trust, and when trust is gone, the relationship has gone.

#3 - Others doubt in YOU

I’ve had people doubt my abilities since I was in my 20’s.

My Staff Sergeant in the Army told me, “There are no jobs out there for people like you.”

People on the internet told me that “Box Jumping Mount Everest is impossible.”

If you let others tell you what you can and can’t do, then allow that self-doubt to creep in; you’re finished!

Instead, turn that doubt into “spite” and use it as fuel. My response to doubt has always been this…

Ahh, you’re new here! Stick around long enough, and you might learn something.

Fear

When it comes to Fear, many different things can be debilitating.

Phobias are interesting because a lot of phobias are excessive and unreasonable.

I’m not a big fan of heights, but every time I get to go somewhere up high, I jump at the opportunity.

(jump is probably the wrong word, more like grit my teeth and bare it!)

This is because I understand that the solution to fear is not avoidance...

It’s Exposure!

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is time to understand more, so that we may fear less - Marie Curie

A lot of people have a fear of failure, which causes them to avoid doing the thing they want to do.

Which then creates failure.

You have two options when facing your fears: Action or Avoidance, and only one produces an outcome.

You Avoid, and You Fail

You Take Action, and You Might Fail, But You Might Also Succeed.

And remember back to what I said: “You can’t fail if you don’t give up.”

Surprise

Everyone likes “positive” surprises when they get them. Someone gets them a nice gift, or they find a £10 note walking through the park.

The thing that a lot of people hate is negative ones.

Surprise… You Must Stay At Home…

Surprise… Your Car Needs 4 New Tyres and a New Exhaust

People don’t like negative surprises because they were not expecting them.

Be Recommendation to overcome this is to Embrace Murphy’s Law...

Murphy’s law states that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.

The key to embracing Murphy’s law is not to expect that the worst might happen.

It understands that if it does, you’ll be absolutely fine.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When you accept what it will be, there are no more surprises.

If it’s positive, it will make me smile, and I'll be grateful for the day;

If it’s negative, I don’t know if this is bad because I have the rest of my life to find out.

Finding Your Own Fudoshin is a relentless pursuit of managing the Four Sicknesses of the mind and allowing your acceptance and understanding of each of them to help build an “immovable mind.”

TL:DR

👉 Anger - You can’t see your reflection in boiling water, so take time to simmer down before you respond

👉 Doubt - Belief in yourself and others too. Take no notice of others who doubt your abilities

👉 Fear - There are Two Responses to Fear, Avoidance and Action. The only way to overcome a fear is to expose yourself to it more often

👉 Surprise - If something can go wrong, it probably will go wrong, and you'll be fine if it does.

I hope you enjoyed this week's knowledge bomb!

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you for the next one soon.

Jay