What It Takes To Be A Great Leader! The stuff of Jedi’s

Paradoxically enough to be a great leader, one first of all needs to be a great student. So how does one be a great student? Well it comes down to attitude-and isn’t that the crux of all life success!

The quickest and surest way to success in any area is to model success! Find someone who has already walked the path in which you wish to travel, and who has accomplished and become who you wish to become.

The three most dangerous words any student can say is “I know that”. As soon as we think we already know something then we can no longer learn anything from it and quite often there are many levels of learning in what we think we already know.

When I lived in Japan and trained martial arts with the grandmaster and his top level students, I would see many people travel from all over the world to spend as little as one week to train with these masters of martial arts.

There was one master who had very few students, in fact sometimes it was just me and him, the training was intense and what a blessing that was!

The reason why he had so few students is that he taught the fundamentals, the stuff that many students thought that they already knew. His compliments were few and far between and he had no problem correcting those that had been training for many years, but had neglected the basics. He would take black belts right back to white belt novice training.

He had a sliding door in his dojo that when opened revealed a full length mirror. When the students basics were flawed he would open this sliding door and place the student in front of the mirror and have them position themselves in a basic stance. They would have to stay in this stance until their legs would shake and tremble from the lactic acid build up, then he would put them in another stance.

Many egos walked out of his dojo in tatters, never to return. There were a few diligent and humble students that would return time and time again and I was one of them. When I left Japan, I received a compliment from my sensei that was more than many might think. In our parting words he said “You are a good student!” I realised that, that was probably the best compliment I could have been given. 

A good student realises that they will not understand what is happening half the time or why they are learning something in a certain way. If they already understood then they would not need to learn. There is a process in learning anything from anyone and it is important to trust in the process and trust your mentor or teacher enough not to question them.

The grandmaster would sometimes say that his teacher taught him things that he only started to understand 30 years after the death of his teacher. A great teacher will plant seeds and a great student will understand that they may not understand what the teacher has planted until the seed has taken root and grown. This process can take years and patience and faith is required to stay the course.

One must be able to follow instructions without question. There is a great scene in Star Wars, Episode One, when Qui-Gon Jinn is walking in the desert with Anakin, the boy prodigy. Suddenly the evil sith lord flies at high speed on a hover bike towards the back of Anakins head. Qui-Gon, turns to see this and shouts “ANAKIN DOWN!” and Anakin immediately drops to ground saving his life.

This shows that Anakin is a good student. If he were to question his teacher with “why” he would be dead. If he were to look around to see what was behind him he would be dead. If he were to do nothing at all he would be dead. Because he followed Qui-Gon’s instruction exactly, immediately and without question, he lived!

Todays power question: “Whats great about this that I am not getting?” (Life is our greatest teacher, and so this is a great question to ask when life is giving us a challenging lesson.)

Todays power statement: “I am a great leader because I am a great student!”

With appreciation,

Matthew Armstrong
(The dragon slayer)

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