Ch. Master Greg Moody, Ph.D.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Success Training. We’re with Senior Master Laura Sanborn, who’s going to fix her name on our screen. And Mr. Dwayne Flees in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We’re really excited to be here for another episode in Podcast for Success Training today. It’s a special topic called The Fourth Pillar, and we’re going to explain what that means in a second, but it’s critical to somebody’s development. Thanks a lot for being here Senior Master Sanborn.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Thank you, sir. I’m looking forward to this one.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

All right, and thanks for being here Mr. Flees.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, and I have his book here. Everybody should be looking for his book. Life Stinks When Your Kid’s a Jerk. It’s a guide to developing respectful and happy kids. And you guys should all find that on Amazon. I’m really excited about his book. I thought I had it handy with me, but we’ll have to find it and show it off for the next one. He’s a brand new author. Thanks for being here, sir. We’re really excited about your new book.

A couple of things about me here as well so you can read about all of us and some really great things that we’re going to talk about today. The Fourth Pillar, this is critical to an individual’s development. Let’s talk about what this means. I’m going to draw it not as a pillar, but a little bit as a pyramid right now as we start.

When we think about development of a person, a lot of you have probably heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. And what that starts with is we need safety, we need food, and we need love and companionship and relationships. And then it goes all the way up to something that he called self-actualization.

What that meant was is that you needed to have, if you didn’t have safety, in other words, you didn’t have shelter and you didn’t have a place to sleep and you were in an unsafe environment like it was dangerous with dangerous animals when it was in the olden days and there were people running after you. You didn’t care about food, you didn’t care about being hungry if there were people chasing you. That doesn’t matter. None of that matters.

If you did have a safe environment, then the next thing you probably care about is food. You don’t really care about whether or not you have good relationships and whether people care about you. The idea is that each level up the hierarchy, you need the first one before you care about the next one and you need the next one before you care about the next one and so on. There’s a bunch of different ones in his model.

That’s how we fundamentally operate. And so Abraham Maslow had a really great concept, which I think everybody can relate to. What we’re going to talk about today is how this works in modern times and how it works for our kids and for us as parents. One way we can think about this is probably the most important thing for kids is their parents and how we parent our kids. For kids, that is the safety and the security and it provides the food and the shelter and the basic needs. That’s the most basic part of what kids need. [inaudible 00:03:36] important for them once they become of school ages is school.

School’s going to be the next most important thing. And if they don’t have the basics of how to read and how to do a little bit of math, at least, for those of you who don’t mind math and a little bit of knowing about history and some of those types of things and a little bit of knowing how to write their name and all that, all the computers taking that over, but knowing how to use computers in school. School, at least through high school for most people, is necessary. School would probably be the next, I think most people would agree that would be the next most important thing.

Then next to that would be probably for most people, the next level of activities. What would those be? In the next level of activities here this is going to be things like sports or maybe music or art, something where they have the basics. They’re safe, their parents are taking care of them. We know that if their home life is bad, they’re not going to care about school. If their home life is struggling and they’re having trouble either with their parent relationships or their food or safety, they’re not going to care about school. School’s, okay. And they can do their schoolwork, then they can care about sports music and art and those kinds of things. Sports, music and art is great because it helps them with other developmental things and creativity in their mind.

What’s this last part here and what helps them with their self-actualization? This part here is going to be personal development. Personal development is very much like what Maslow talked about with self-actualization. Now some people think that this stuff, this activity stuff is personal development. Well, those are personal development things because those kinds of activities are things that kids do. They do for a little bit and they stop. They do for a little bit and they quit. That’s fine. In fact, that’s kind of the purpose of those activities. You can’t play football forever. You could do music or art. I mean, you could dedicate to doing that for your whole life. But many of these are just tastes of things so that they can learn to develop their brain in different ways.

Personal development, though is something that they might do for a lifetime. They might do for a long period of time. It takes a lot of time. Now that is a little bit more like what they do in college or if they were learning and dedicated to learning a language. What other things would you guys put in these categories?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Well, I would certainly add the martial arts. I know I’ve done it for 30 years. You’ve done it for longer than I’ve done it. Mr. Flees, you’ve probably done it as long as I have. It’s one of those things that’s an ongoing part of my life. I had my entire family did it, my husband, my kids, and it was not short-term for any of us. It’s a continual learning process. I think part of that is the learning, finding something that you can continually learn about is where it’s going with that.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Other than martial arts, because you cut to what we’re talking about today in terms of martial arts and why it’s a fourth activity, not one of the third activities. But what are some other things besides martial arts you guys would think of?

I would think of things like if somebody is dedicated to maybe a vocation, it’s a long-term developmental thing. It might be somebody loves writing and they’re going to be an author, but loving reading is down here as a hobby. But being a writer would be a personal development thing. There’s a difference there. They have to learn to be able to craft the writing and learn to develop it at a higher level. Anything else come to mind for you guys?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

A career. If you have a career you love, any continual learning in that career so that you get better and better and better at it.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Yeah, yeah. Related to college and a career. Something that they’re going to develop is something that’s personal that they have to do better than the average person. The idea behind self-actualization from what Maslow talked about was that you’re going to excel beyond just the basics.

Everything from here down is awesome and critical and important and it’s the basics. It’s all the basics. It’s not that sports activities and art and music are not important, but they’re somewhat of after you get the real fundamentals. Here is fundamentals. We’ll call that fundamentals. I’ll put fun there for space. I can write it. Fundamentals, and then from here down is kind of the basics.

The last area of all these things, people that go take developmental seminars where they have to push themselves. Push themselves beyond what they’d normally do in their life. Those would be the kind of activities. And so for everybody listening, maybe that would be another one to think about. If you guys come up with some other ones, that would be … I am not going to learn another language, particularly in the United States when hardly any of us know other languages. In other countries they need them, but in the United States we don’t need that many languages, so you’re pushing yourself to not necessarily be better than other people, but better than you need to be to survive. Better than you need to be for the basics.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Meditation.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Meditation would be another one. That’s a personal development thing. Very tough to do because nobody makes you do that. Nobody’s going to make you do that. But if you do it, you’re going to be better than you were before. Very developmental exercise that you stayed with for a long time is a personal developmental thing. Okay, so it’s a developmental thing.

This is what we’re naming … Anything else to add guys before I move on?

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

No, sir. I can’t think of anything else.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

We have really minimum, the minimum is our parents supporting us. If we didn’t go to school, I mean, if we didn’t do school, we’d be in pretty bad shape as an adult in today’s world. Fundamentals is at least school. The basics includes some sports, art, music, maybe some travel, reading. They’re temporary things, but we get more experiences.

Then personal development is a fully developed person. That’s going to be a more fully developed person because we’ve got the basics down and now we can do the rest. This is how we name our four pillars. First pillar is our parents. Second is school, third is activities, and fourth is going to be a personal development activity.

I think people get mixed up when … We’re very passionate, obviously about martial arts. I think people get mixed up because they think that this activity or even these activities here are more like these sports, music, art, reading activities. They’re not. It’s not something that is even one and the same. They’re different types of activities. When we think about … Let’s see if I can draw this really well here. Four pillars. If we think about a house, I’m going to try this again. See if we get a good drawing out of this.

And we have four pillars and there’s one back here and one here. Well, this is a pretty bad drawing, but there’s four pillars holding up a house. And if we looked at it from the top down, that means that there’s one here, one here, one here, one here. We need all four to hold up the house or the table or whatever metaphor you want to use.

If we only had three, this wouldn’t be a very stable table, or it wouldn’t be a very stable house. We would be kind of wobbly. We’d have to move that third pillar over here. This personal development one really is what somebody needs to be independent. If they don’t have this fourth pillar, if you didn’t have that personal development part, this personal development part is what allows us to be independent.

We think of martial arts or any of these other personal development activities. We like to talk about what the difference is between parents, school, arts, including sports and personal development and martial arts fits in this last category so much more than it matches the sports category. It’s not something they learn and then it doesn’t fit into the development category. Anything else you guys would like to add for this?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Well, the personal development stuff also often really is a major support because personal development might be your safety that you’re constantly learning how to keep yourself safe in different situations. When you were talking about language, that’s that ability to go out. And when you were talking independence, you can go to a different place, you can be in a different situation. And if you’ve got the language to go with it, again, safety. A lot of safety is personal development because you’re more aware of yourself and what’s around you.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Right. A key point here in the fourth pillar is that there’s independence. There are items that create independence. Most of the time sports, music, art, work, fun activities aren’t for independence. You might be a professional football player, maybe you might be a professional musician, maybe. Nothing is bad about doing that. That’s awesome if you can do that. But it mostly doesn’t create that. That’s sort of an extreme outlying situation.

Personal development activities are ones that you’re going to create. You have a high likelihood of creating independence. And you mentioned safety? The other thing that is going to create independence is ability to handle adversity. If they can handle different adverse situations, if something weird comes up that they can manage it, something strange comes up, they can manage it. Again, that’s what we teach in martial arts all day long is that if somebody is attacking you, obviously that’s one component. But also, eventually in martial arts, people become instructors and then they can teach back to other people. And then you’re having to deal with a wide variety of personalities and people like you guys deal with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and probably thousands by now of people that you’ve dealt with and how they respond and how the parents respond and how everybody responds and being able to communicate them in a positive way.

The other thing that I think personal development is teaching but maybe lacking in these other areas is leadership. Learning to be safe in an independent way. Your parents keep you safe, but your development is about being safe without all those things and being able to be the next person that the next group that creates safety for other people. And then handling adversity and leadership. Anything else to add on there? To me those are three big things.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

One thing I was thinking about it is when you were talking about becoming a professional football player or a professional musician. There’s a limited number of people that can do that, whereas personal development is available to everybody because it is a personal thing. But when you’re talking becoming a professional football player or a professional musician, you’ve got to have a talent to go with that. And then you’re working really hard to develop that talent.

Whereas personal development, you may be starting from scratch from I have zero ability to do meditation. Right now I might be able to do a minute of meditation if I work really hard at it. But with personal development, I can take that farther and work on it myself. It doesn’t require an innate talent to do that.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

This requires talent to be successful. Art, sports, the third pillar, but this does not necessarily require talent. It requires …

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Consistency.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

… effort. Effort and consistency. And the nice thing with personal development is it doesn’t have to overwhelm your world. It can be if you’re working on meditation, that can be twice a week or martial arts, it could be twice a week or once a week or three times a week or it doesn’t have to subsume all the other things that you’re doing.

For an adult, this gets reformatted. For an adult, this might be your family and your work, and it might be your hobbies or your free time, and then your personal developments as well. For an adult it’s the same for us. We have other people. If we don’t have this family also finances, probably making sure that we make money and provide for our basic needs and our family. And then that work gives us something that we like doing that gives us some development or gives us some support and then hobbies and free time. It’s the same for us as adults as well.

Our focus here today though is for kids, for parents to understand what the personal development part does. And the question to ask is, when does this get started? Does this get started when a child, for a parent, at least, when a child is 10 years old or does it get started when a kid is three years old? Well, we know from developmental psychology that kids can start learning these things when they’re as young as three. And the earlier that they learn them, the more these skills and independence and developmental abilities will be embedded in them. When they have this type of ability, then this leads to real confidence because now they learn to be independent, they learn to be safe, they learn to deal with adversity, and they learn to be able to be somebody that’s a leader of others.

What’s better confidence? That, or if somebody tells them that they’re good? If they just get the message that they’re good versus them actually being able to handle adversity and safety and all the other things, which is going to be a better message? It’s going to be that they actually have that skill.

And that’s why there’s some confusion about confidence in the world. Confidence is truly built on building yourself so that you’re genuinely more capable. When you’re genuinely more capable, then it’s easier to feel more capable. One component of confidence. Of course, sometimes people feel are very capable, but they don’t feel capable. And that’s a correction that we need to do psychologically. It’s a little bit different conversation, but one piece is this personal development part than people will feel more confident. Anything else to add, guys, before we wrap up today?

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

No.

Mr. Dwayne Flees:

No, that was pretty good.

Dr. Greg Moody, Chief Master Instructor:

Okay, awesome. Well, thank you very much. This was great to do a summary of the fourth pillar. We’re going to be providing more information about this as we go. Parents, as you’re looking at this, you can hopefully now fit in how martial arts and/or very serious activities for personal development can help your kid even as young as three and really throughout their life. Thank you very much everybody, and I appreciate Senior Master Sanborn and Mr. Flees as always for being here.

Sr. Master Laura Sanborn:

Thank you, sir.

KarateBuilt.com and KarateBuilt Martial Arts have been selected the nation’s #1 martial arts schools for EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW!

KarateBuilt L.L.C. was founded in 1995 by Dr. Greg Moody, an 8th degree Black Belt and Chief Master Instructor, KarateBuilt Martial Arts and Karate for Kids offers lessons for pre-school children ages 3-6 and elementary age kids ages 7 and up are designed to develop the critical building blocks kids need – specialized for their age group – for school excellence and later success in life.

KarateBuilt Martial Arts Adult Karate training is a complete adult fitness and conditioning program for adults who want to lose weight, get (and stay in shape), or learn self-defense in a supportive environment.

Instructors can answer questions or be contacted 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week at 866-311-1032 for one of our nationwide locations. You can also visit our website at KarateBuilt.com.

About Dr. Greg Moody:  Dr. Moody is an eighth-degree black belt and chief master instructor.  He has a Ph.D. in Special Education from Arizona State University (along with a Master’s Degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering – he actually is a rocket scientist). He has been teaching martial arts for over 25 years and has owned eight martial arts schools in Arizona and California. Chief Master Moody is a motivational speaker and educator and teaches seminars in bullying, business, and martial arts training, around the world. See more at DrGregMoody.com.

The KarateBuilt Martial Arts Headquarters at KarateBuilt LLC is in Cave Creek, Arizona at 29850 N. Tatum Blvd., Suite 105, Cave Creek AZ 85331. You can locate the Chief Instructor, Master Laura Sanborn there directly at ‭(480) 575-8171‬. KarateBuilt Martial Arts serves Cave Creek, Carefree, Scottsdale, and Paradise Valley Arizona as well as Grand Rapids, MI.

Also, check us out on Go2Karate.com, School Listings, and Local Trust Navigator!

P.S. From a parent:

“My son Herman was shy and nervous before he started. Now he’s the best in his class!!!!” –  Rhonda Johnson