Bad Dancing, Submitting, and Surrendering

What You Will Learn There is a difference between submitting and surrendering – in submitting you act forcefully due to external pressures and in surrendering, you act on your own choice. You need to understand this difference which could change your life and career. You need to do a job or anything that you like very much and that which you have surrendered to.

When I was in college I used to hate going to parties where there was a lot of dancing. In fact, I did everything I could to avoid it. If I took a girl to a party and she insisted on dancing, I would generally have one of my friends dance with her because I disliked it so much. I am not sure what it is about dancing, but it is just not something that gets me all that excited, and it never has.

If I really have to, though, I will dance. I am so bad at dancing that people often imitate my moves on the floor. One of my worst dance moves I have heard several people refer to as “the chicken” and it involves flapping my arms like a chicken, bobbing my head and butterflying my legs. My dancing is so bad that people often form little circles around me and start cheering because they think it is so funny. I have had too many embarrassing and humiliating moments to count. Imagine walking by girls in the school hallway and having them flap their arms and imitate your chicken moves. Or imagine standing around in a group of people, having a serious discussion about this or that, and being asked to demonstrate “the chicken dance”. I also remember another one of my patented moves, “the lasso dance”, wherein I moved my hand over my head for the entire duration of the dance; that one has certainly earned a few remarks over the years.

Several years ago I went to a highly regarded professional coach with all sorts of degrees, to bounce business ideas off of. Although we never talked about my dislike of dancing, or about the humiliating experiences I had had dancing in the past, one piece of advice that he kept giving me blew my mind:

“You should go get dance lessons. Preferably from a sassy black woman with a lot of rhythm. She’ll bring out your groove.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked him.

We were sitting in a very serious sort of office and the bookshelves were lined with all sorts of books by various important figures in business and personal development. There were various statues around the room and a nice oriental rug on the floor. It looked like the sort of room we could be smoking a couple of cigars in and sipping scotch. The coach was well dressed in khakis and a nice pressed shirt. He was also a very serious sort of guy and, in case you are wondering, he was white. Very white.

“Dance lessons from a black woman who knows how to get down will help you loosen up and get more in touch with your body, mind and spirit. You are resisting everything right now, but when you dance you will learn to surrender.”

I never went for dance lessons. I have no idea why he suggested the dance instructor needed to be “black and sassy” but he really meant it.

What he was saying, I think, was that I was an uptight white guy, and that I needed to loosen up and learn to get into the groove, whatever that meant. For the longest time I thought that was some of the crappiest business advice anyone could possibly give someone. I could not believe that this was the sort of professional advice I spent a lot of money on, and took up a lot of my time to get. I was looking for some advice about how to be a better businessman–not how to shake my booty. I had the following sorts of reactions to what he was saying:

• Withdrawn
• Skeptical
• Pessimistic
• Critical
• Judgmental
• Stubborn

These are the sorts of reactions we all have when we are resisting something. I flat-out resisted what the man said because it was not what I wanted to hear. It represented a part of myself I was not interested in. If he had instead said, “I recommend that you spend two weeks at a seminar at UCLA Business School about cross-border transactions in Russia. It is important that you understand the relevance and importance of cross-border trading with Russia to our modern economy,” I would have run right out and signed up for the course–despite the fact that I have never had anything to do with Russia in my business or career. However, when being advised to learn how to shake my booty, I was very resistant.

This Saturday I went to see a rock concert with my wife and, like at all rock concerts, there were people there who had been dragged along half-willingly by others. There were a lot of confused, uptight people like me there because it was a small and private benefit concert being put on by the rock star father of one of the kids in my daughter’s preschool in Malibu.

While the rock star is very well known, the concert was small and numerous parents of the preschool kids all showed up in the little auditorium at Pepperdine University in Malibu, with no idea who the performing rock group was. I am sure they had all heard the band’s songs on the radio throughout the years, but many of the professional white-collar sorts who were at the concert did not know who the group was. It was fun watching various parents stand there all stiffly while they watched the band perform. Most of the other parents got into it, though, and had fun. I was terrified of dancing because I did not want other parents making fun of my dancing. The last thing I wanted was people flapping their wings at me if I were to run into them at the grocery store, or at my daughter’s soccer practice. After all, I am grown-up now.

I was one of the ones who stood there stiffly at the concert, at least for the first 45 minutes or so. When you are one of the people who is not dancing at these sorts of events, you are typically looking around at the other people not dancing, making faces to each other that say things like:

• What the heck are all these people thinking dancing!
• We are all far too cool and professional to be dancing.
• Has the world lost its mind? Look at all these silly people dancing!
• I cannot believe that person is moving around like that!
• This band is out of control. What a bunch of freaks!

If you are part of the group of people who are not dancing, you are in good company. I have been at giant concerts inside of stadiums that hold 100,000 people, and if I am not dancing I have always spotted someone a couple of rows away, not dancing; we invariably instantly connect and exchange glances about the absurdity of the situation, clearly sharing an impression that everyone in the audience should be uptight like we are. If you are one of the people not dancing, you will always know who the others are who share your ability to be uptight.

After 45 minutes or so, my wife started poking me, trying to get me to dance. As I do in most of these events, I started to dance but without doing the chicken, or any other number of moves that were sure to bring me certain humiliation. I was half-dancing to the best of my ability, as an act of submission.

There is a difference between surrendering and submitting. The act of submission is more akin to the act of a slave than anything else. When you submit to something, you do so as an act of weakness, in response to pressures around you. You are acting because you are being dominated by outside forces, not really based on your own free will. You are a victim when you submit and are not really in control at all of your life. You are trying to look like something you are not, to someone else. As a victim, or as someone who is submitting, you are not really changing or enjoying what you are doing at all. Instead, you are simply acting a certain way or doing a certain thing because you feel that you should–that it is expected of you.

When you do not act in the way you want to, or a way that is natural to you, there is going to be covert resistance, an inability to put forth your full effort. Fear of action, hostility and all sorts of other negative emotions will overtake you. You become hostile because you are not really acting in a way that you want to. The way you really want to act lies festering beneath the surface, suppressed.

When I am at a wedding and someone tries to get me to get into a conga line, I tend to get a little bit hostile and resistant. As you might guess, I do not enjoy this very much. I might reluctantly motor around the room with the other wedding guests, but I never put my full effort into it. I don’t exactly go for the gusto.

There have been a few times in my life when I have been truly excited and have put my full effort into dancing. I enjoyed those occasions; however, in those instances I was surrounded by people I knew well, so I was not as self-conscious. I have been at seminars, for example, where the seminar leader got everyone to jump up and down and scream about how excited they were, and I have gotten into this and really let go. I love going to seminars and getting pumped up at them, as opposed to engaging in public dancing. I am not sure why this is, but I think a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that I am more inspired by concepts and ideas than music and rhythm.

When I am at seminars where I am jumping up and down and excited, I am doing something far different from when I am dancing at a concert or in a bar. When I am jumping up and down at a seminar, I have surrendered and when I am dancing at a concert I have most often submitted. Understanding this difference could change your life and career. The odds are very good that there are areas of your life where you have surrendered and are doing well, and other areas wherein you have submitted, and are constantly sabotaging your own success.

The act of surrender is something that we choose to do. When you surrender, you are letting go and allowing whatever is to just be. Surrendering is a conscious decision and choice. When you allow what is to be, you open yourself up to whatever may come along. This defines the act of surrender.

• Surrendering could be as simple as, for example, allowing yourself to be close to another person.
• Surrendering could be deciding that you are ready to make the most of yourself and to start applying yourself.
• Surrendering could be allowing yourself to experience what is, instead of resisting what is.

The stiff people who are standing in the audience at rock concerts like myself are all resisting. When they start dancing they are generally just submitting. You can always distinguish the movements of people who are dancing in a submissive way; they are awkward. They do not move their body a lot. They are just going through the motions, not really accomplishing much with their dancing. Most of all, the people who submit are not really enjoying themselves all that much when they are dancing, which you can determine by their facial expressions. They are only dancing because they feel they should be doing it, others are doing it, someone is forcing them to do it, or they want to avoid being different….

In contrast, the people who are dancing freely and willfully have allowed themselves to “surrender” to the music. They are not self-conscious; they are simply feeling the music and living the music. They may dance with their eyes closed and move their bodies, totally oblivious to those around them. They are completely “into the music”, having a great time and feeling very good about what they are doing.

• Someone cannot be a good dancer unless he or she surrenders.
• Someone cannot really fully enjoy himself or herself at a concert, unless he or she surrenders.

In fact, unless you can learn to surrender, you will never be good at anything and you will never become anything of significance. If you cannot surrender, you will never have the career you want, or the life you want. Many, many people go through life not surrendering, and instead they continually resist.

For example, some people enter each relationship they are in resisting commitment. Other people enter various jobs and resist committing to the job because they feel they should be doing something else, or something better. Some people resist applying themselves because they feel that if they apply themselves they will have submitted to a certain type of lifestyle, or career.

What are you resisting in your life and your career? The odds are very good that there is something that you are resisting, and whatever it is that you are resisting, it is holding you back. You will never reach your full potential and be all you are capable of unless you pick someone, or something to which you can comfortably surrender.

One of the most exciting things in the world is spending time around people who have achieved great things, or, more simply, people who are incredibly happy. I do not care if the person is a rock star, or an attorney; I absolutely love spending time with very successful and/or happy people. The reason is that in almost every case there is a certain vein that runs through the histories of the most successful and happy people: They have found a profession, a person, a way of life, or a calling to which they have surrendered. They have surrendered their life to something, and have allowed whatever it is to, in a major sense, define how they run their lives.

You can always tell when someone has surrendered to something in their career. They base their life around the profession and are enthusiastic about it. They do not lament how they wish they had another job, wish they were doing something else, wish they lived somewhere else, or wish they were with someone else. Instead, the person who has surrendered has achieved a greater level of focus, commitment and spirit for their way of life than most people ever do.

I love looking at how rock star musicians dress. The rock star I saw on Saturday night looks tough and has long hair, but he also wore a Scottish kilt at one point during the concert. He did not care how he looked. He had surrendered to be the person and the persona that he wanted to be.

The people in the audience who were getting down and having the best time had also surrendered to their experience.

The people who had not surrendered, or who had submitted, were resisting the music and just waiting for the end of the show.

Resisting and thereby not allowing one’s self to surrender is often the reason behind mediocrity or failure, in almost every profession, and in life. When you are resisting, you are never able to apply yourself because your heart is not completely in the game. You are a slave to a job, another person, or the life you are in. You let the life you really want to fester beneath the surface, although you would much prefer to be somewhere other than where you are.

What is the secret to surrendering? I think the secret to surrendering is finding something that you respect and can surrender to. When you respect a profession and hold it in esteem, you can easily surrender to it. You do not need to resist the job because it is something that you want to be part of.

When you are doing something you are interested in and feel comfortable doing, you are doing a job that you have surrendered to. When you are doing a job that you do not feel comfortable doing, which is not in accordance with your values, you are doing a job that you have submitted to. No one can ever do very well in a job they are submitting to, and if you take a job like this you will likely never amount to much in your career.

Are you in a profession to which you have surrendered? If you are not, you need to be.

Change Your Reactions

What You Will Learn React to situations in a positive way. Do not blame others for the things that happen to you. Understand and accept the fact that you do not need to, and often cannot change anyone, anyplace, or anything around you. Learn to change your reaction to what you encounter.

When you see a fight occurring between any two people (or groups of people), it is always the case that one side believes it is right about something and that the other side is therefore wrong. It could be a disagreement over a political or territorial issue, a religious belief, or something else. Countries take sides about one issue or another and entire wars commence and continue for generations–based on one country believing it is right and the other is wrong.

When you pick up any newspaper you will see endless stories of conflict. I see so many stories about

• suicide bombers,
• sniper attacks in the Middle East,
• drug wars in Mexico,
• hotel bombings throughout the world

and so forth that I do not even read these articles anymore. The entire first section of almost every newspaper out there is usually about one conflict or another: Conflict between people, conflict between governments, conflict within governments and so forth. There is so much conflict going on that I simply cannot keep track of it and it has become boring for me to read. It is basically the same tired story over and over again.

There is so much conflict in the modern world, and so many countries are dedicated to taking sides that one country has forged a real reputation for itself. Out of the hundreds of countries in the world, we are all aware of a single country that refuses to participate in any external conflict: Switzerland.

I used to be a litigation attorney and this entire job involved two sides fighting it out to prove in court that one side was right and the other was wrong. Conflict is huge business and many lawyers make millions of dollars a year helping various people fight conflicts:

• The companies that sue other companies believe they are right.
• The people who sue the companies believe they are right.
• The companies that sue the people believe they are right.
• The people who sue the other people believe they are right.

In addition to lawyers, some of the biggest companies in the United States and in other countries have become rich and powerful by making weapons that assist countries and others with conflict.

Conflict is about ego. It is about saying that I am right and the other person is wrong. When people get divorced, it is usually because one person is wrong and the other person is right about something. I can remember that when I was going through a break up with a live-in girlfriend several years ago a fundamental issue was that I was not organized and neat enough. I was “wrong” because I did not organize my closet in a certain way (shirts of a certain color did not always go together), and I was “wrong” because I was not organized enough. There were also some crazy things that I thought my ex-girlfriend was wrong about as well. Nonetheless she would certainly tell you that I was wrong about more things than she was. Even in deciding who is wrong there is a balance, which kind of functions like a points system:

I may have done some bad stuff but you have done more bad stuff…therefore, I am more right than you are.

This is the nature of conflict. We are always blaming another person for something. People disagree all the time. Life is about disagreement. Everyone is in disagreement about something–more often than not, although you may notice that some people disagree more than others.

If you meet a man on the street who is down on his luck and sitting in a gutter, and you ask him why he is there, he will always have an explanation. His explanation will almost always involve someone else and something someone else did to put him in his current situation.

When you speak to someone who got fired from a job his or her explanation will almost always involve someone else and something that someone else did.

When I am out and about the town in Las Vegas, I always see couples fighting and disagreeing about this or that. In the table next to us at Lawry’s The Prime Rib the other night there was a huge disagreement going on between a couple in the seat next to us:

“I only had two drinks.”

“It is too much. You had a drink before we left too.”

“I did not, and if I want to relax it is my business ….”

“I am very upset that you will not listen to me. You need to change.”

And so it goes. During the dinner I got mad at the waitress because we waited over 45 minutes for our Prime Rib to arrive. Our waitress was wrong, of course and I was right.

When I am walking down the Strip I can always spot a couple disagreeing about this or that. Disagreement is pervasive and something that occurs on a consistent basis between people. People become angry over disagreements and this anger is something that is always there.

• People leave and walk out of marriages because one person is wrong.
• People leave jobs because they believe their employer is wrong about something.
• People get angry at others because the other is wrong about something.
• People become alienated from friends and loved ones because they believe the other person is wrong about something.

“You need to change …”

One of the most popular sports right now is Ultimate Fighting. This involves one side “winning” and the other side being right. Sports, in my opinion, is a civilized form of war between two people or groups of people. One city can fight another city. In the Olympics, one country can annihilate another country–without endangering the welfare of its own people.

Many people spend a good portion of their time angry and blaming others for this or that. They may be angry with another driver. They may be angry with a relative. They may be angry at a boss. Everyone wants to blame another for their own unhappiness, their own shortcomings.

We are all struggling to be perfect, and to be something. Most of us are doing what we can to move towards some sort of ideal that we have for ourselves, and for our place in the world. This ideal could involve a better job, a better car or house, a different mate, getting our children into certain schools, winning a competition, or more. We are all trying to move towards this ideal, and we will never reach it. Even if we reach aspects of this ideal for a short time, the chances are great that we will soon decide that another ideal exists, and we will then redirect ourselves towards it.

The problem with this struggle to attain our perfect life is that we are never, ever going to find the perfection we are seeking. There is always going to be someone more successful, happier, better off, faster, stronger, better looking and so forth than us. We could reach one ideal of what we are seeking for ourselves; however, there are other goal posts that we will never reach. This struggle consumes most of our lives.

In Orthodox Judaism, the Sabbath (also known as Shabbat) is supposed to be a time during which people do no work. Cooking is not allowed. Commerce and spending money is not allowed. Not even writing with a pen, or working on a computer are allowed. Driving a car is not allowed (this involves work because the pistons move up and down). Carrying objects a certain distance is not allowed because it involves work. Electricity is not allowed to be turned on and off under the more literal interpretations of Shabbat because this involves the movement of electrons and setting them to work.

Beyond doing no work, the Shabbat is a disconnection from the material world and from the act of “becoming” that most people constantly struggle with. Our days are generally filled with work and changing and trying to become something–we want to earn money; we want to improve in our careers; we want to get better at whatever we are doing; we do not want another person to get the upper hand on us in business. On Shabbat, people are supposed to do no work, to just be happy with who they are and contemplate the spiritual aspects of life. People are supposed to enjoy their families and lives, rather than worry about racing around from place to place, as we all do during the week.

What is interesting about this time is that it is a time when people can just be themselves, unencumbered by trying the change and become someone or something new. More importantly, commerce and work in some respects almost always involve a form of conflict:

Is the person doing his/her work correctly?

Did I get a good enough deal?

Is this person cheating me?

Can I make this piece of work better?

Hardly anyone follows Shabbat. In fact, most Jews do not follow it. The pressure of becoming, of commerce and so forth is so strong that this spiritual aspect of life often goes ignored. We prefer to work and to be in conflict. It is what we are used to. In fact, most people’s lives are spent within the conflicted struggles of business and commerce, working desperately to become something new. Even this one simple day of rest on Shabbat is a gift and a right that most people in the working world do not seem to give themselves.

What I find so profound about the simple idea of taking a day off from everything, is that this is something that most of us never allow ourselves to experience. It is largely for this reason, I believe, that most of our world is continually in conflict, as we are also continually in conflict with ourselves and others.

We are always looking outside of ourselves for peace. We believe that our peace will come when we are able to change others. We blame others as the cause of our frustrations, failures and disappointments. We feel angry with others. We are always trying to prove the other person wrong, and trying to be right ourselves.

We spend our entire lives with an opponent, angry at others and the world. We go into depression about others and find ourselves angry, hurt and torn up inside. We constantly try to move towards some destination in business, in our careers and our lives, and we feel tensed that we are not arriving there. Our lives are spent in this tension, hoping to be or become someone else.

The best piece of advice I can give you is instead of looking outside of yourself for fulfillment, look within. Your reaction to the world is what is controlling how you feel. When you feel tension, or react to the world in a negative way, you are creating that state within yourself that is characterized by frustration, anger, tension, depression and all sorts of other negative emotions. The wonderful truth is that you are in charge of how you react, and when you choose not to react in a negative way then your life will begin to change.

Most people spend their lives in a negative reaction and trying to change others or change their place in the world. We are always moving towards something. When we stop trying to move towards something and we stop reacting negatively, our lives become much more fulfilling.

My advice to you is to try changing from a position of reaction to one of acceptance of the world. When you accept you can go much further along your way towards whatever goal you have, and you will have less conflict with the people you meet along the way. You do not need to, and often cannot change anyone, anyplace, or anything around you: What you can change is your reaction to what you encounter.