Back in January I returned to Capoeira after many years off. Looking back,  I wasn’t in great shape at the time. I think my metabolism is finally starting to slow down and I had not been exercising much. I wasn’t completely out of shape, but it was enough to make Capoeira difficult. When trying to practice different moves, I was constantly feeling like I didn’t have enough stamina, I wasn’t strong enough, or I wasn’t flexible enough.

Now, almost 1 year later, I’m seeing a drastic difference. There is still much I need to do to increase my stamina, strength and flexibility, but they are vastly improved from January and I am regularly growing in all those areas. Since January I’ve been going to classes at least three times a week and pushing myself when I am there. I am proud of the progress I’ve made so far, but I haven’t done anything extraordinary. The cliche remains true – practice makes perfect.

But, if it’s a cliche, why do so many people seem not to know it? I’ve lost count of the amount of people who have said things like “I’d love to do Capoeira, but I could never move the way you do.” I guess I could take that as a compliment – people assume that I’m somehow so good that I woke up one day knowing the amount of Capoeira I do – but I find it frustrating.

There is so much a person can achieve with time, motivation, focus, and the right teacher. It is silly to look at someone’s achievements and assume they came without at least some of these things. While your mother’s assurance that “you can do anything you set your mind to” is not 100% true, it does still hold some weight. There is a countless number of things you can become good at if you put in the work. It is one thing to decide you can’t do some of these things because you can’t or won’t make the time to learn, but if you decide that they are simply impossible for you, you are selling yourself short.

One of the guys in my class is better than all the rest of us at the acrobatic moves that require strength and flexibility. Some of the things he can do are truly amazing to watch. The other day, he told me that when he started, he couldn’t even do a carttwheel – one of the most basic movements of Capoeira. When he found out that our Mestre was going to be visiting his class, he spent hours a day practicing cartwheels, and learned to do them just in time to not embarress himself in front of our Mestre.

Today I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant with some co-workers. The restaurant we went to is one of my favorite places to eat in Philly. Despite that, I haven’t eaten there in years. I forgot all about the place. There have been a few times recently when my lady and I found ourselves completely uninspired when trying to figure out where to eat, and this place never crossed my mind.

I’m wondering if there are other things from my past that could be enriching my life now, if they hadn’t been forgotten. Even as I write this, some things are coming to mind. We tend to look to memories as ways of reliving what once was, the good times we had but memories can also be the key to the good times to come. Don’t forget that.

Do you remember all the things you learned in elementary school? I doubt many people past their teens do. Once school is done, most people do not have much reason to know basic but useless facts like the capitals of all 50 states and the major components of a living cell. Everything we learned back then isn’t useless now, but people tend to remember the important stuff . . . right?

One of the earliest “life lessons” that was repeatedly imprinted into my memory was “look both ways before you cross the street.” It seems so basic – a four-year-old could tell you what to do before you cross the street. Well, apparently everyone does not know
What a four-year-old knows. Just about every day that I ride my bike through the city, I come across people who step off the curb without looking in any direction that traffic might be coming from. Some keep their eyes fixed straight ahead – maybe they trust their lives to traffic lights, I mean, everyone obeys traffic laws, right? Other people keep there heads down the whole time. I guess they see it as a leap (step?) of faith.

There are times when an observer might not be able to tell that I looked before crossing the street even though I did do it, so I can accept that I’m not always able to tell when someone looked. The thing is, I know these people didn’t look. Why else would they step off the curb, directly into the path of my bike when I’m flying down the street and they have a red light? A lot of times when this happens, I’ll slow down and stop with less than a foot of space between my front tire and the person, and they still won’t know I’m there. Sometimes, I’ll modify my path so that I pass in front of them with ample clearance, but they will still jump in surprise.

If people care so little about their health and well-being, they should at least find neater, more effective means of ending it all. I don’t have any statistics, but I can confidently assure you that jumping in front of a moving bike is not likely to lead to a successful suicide. If you’re not trying to die, why even take that step of faith?

I was told about a news story where it was claimed that on hot days we should spend some time in airconditioning because our bodies don’t get a chance to rest if they stay hot. Air conditionors are convenient, but they are hardly a necessity. We have gotten along without them for ages and many of us (me for example) still don’t own one. Well, this made me think about all the other pseudo necessities that modern technology has given us. Here’s the list in no particular order:

• Air conditioners – making sure to stay hydrated on a hot day will keep you safe from heat related health issues.
• Cell phone – I know this must not be a necessity because I didn’t have one for most of my life and I stil survived somehow. I just can’t figure out how survival was achieved without a cell phone.
• Washing machines and driers – we all either own washing machines or take our dirty clothes to places where we basically rent washing machines. Once upon a time people washed clothes by hand. I’ve heard that it still works for those who care to try.
• Cable – obviously this doesn’t apply to every, but it seems that many people consider cable to be one of the basic and necessary utilities, right up there with water, heat and electricity.
• Microwave – Similar to the cell phone, I know that there has to be someway to exist without a microwave, I just can’t figure out what it is. I’m sure it must somehow involve stoves and ovens.

There are some technologies that weren’t necessities in the past that are now because of the way that society has changed.

• Computer – Our society creates it’s own need for computers. If we, as a society, decided that we didn’t want computers anymore, we could simply turn them off, but if the rest of society is typing away, it’s hard for one individual to get by without some sort of computer and internet access.
• Car (depending on where you live) – The availability of cars has made us design societal infrastructure for cars. Things are further apart now because distance isn’t as much of an inconveniance as it used to be – as long as you have a car.
• Credit/Debit Card – It’s not safe to keep a bunch of cash around, it’s not always possible to get to the bank, and the personal check is dead. The only people that accept checks are landlords and people you pay by mail (utility companies, magazine, etc.)

Did I miss anything?

The other day, I told you about my experience selling electricity door to door. I learned a lot from that experience – a lot about how people operate and a lot about how hustlers operate. Here are some tips and rules of thumb that I picked up. They are applicable in any situation where someone approaches you unsolicited and tries to sell you something or sign you up for something. These are in no particular order.

• Do not buy/join on the spot. If someone approaches you about buying or joining something, ask them for a brochure and tell them you’ll read it over and make a decision later. If they tell you that they don’t have any literature and they try to push you to make a decision on the spot, that’s usually because they are worried that if you take time to think about it, you will refuse what they are offering. That’s a sure sign that you should investigate what they’re offering further and take time to consider it. If it’s worth buying or signing up for, it will be just as worth it tomorrow as it is today, so do it on your own time.
• Be protective of information and answers. If someone is trying to sell you something, they should be the ones giving you information, not the other way around. Do not give them your name or any personal info unless you specifically want them to use that information to sign you up or contact you. If you do give them information, make sure they explicitly tell you what they are going to do with that info. Do not give or show them bills or any other documents just because they asked.
• Control your eyes. Do not give the salesman control of your eyes and attention. If he’s showing you something, look at the whole paper, not just the part he points to. If he tries to move on, ask him to give you some time to look at what’s in front of you. The idea is that if he is pointing at something, you need to figure what he is pointing away from.
• Understand the implications. Understand the implications of signing/buying. Thoroughly question the salesman and read whatever documentation is available. You don’t want to sign up for a lower rate only to find out that you unknowingly changed electric companies.
• Don’t let things slip by. If the salesman quickly mentions an extra cost, condition or disadvantage, don’t let it slip by. Stop him and ask about it. Remember that this changes things. What seemed like a great deal, might be a rip-off now that the extra cost is part of the picture. Any new information of this sort should make you completely reevaluate the proposal.
• Understand the objective. An understanding of what the salesman’s role is can really help you maintain perspective of the situation. The salesman is trying to earn a commision. He is not worried about your best interests. He is not trying to show you his product’s bad side. It is up to you to watch out for your interests and uncover the disadvantages. Those should be your primary obectives. He’ll be sure to let you know all the good things, so you should be playing devil’s advocate.
• Read what you are signing. I know you’re supposed to do that all the time, but no one does. For example when buying a new cell phone, most people don’t read the entire contract, terms, and conditions before you sign. It’s not always practical, but in many cases, you already know the major points and the finer points aren’t that important at the moment. I stress reading what you sign here because this is not the normal situation. You don’t know any of the points unless you really want to trust the word of some random guy who sees you a s apossible commission. Really read it. Pay close attention to any fees, costs, and especially to terms of withdrawal. If you change your mind later, how much is it going to cost you? Also, look out for anything vague like unspecified “variable rates.”
• Set the pace. If at any point you feel rushed to make a decision, or even worse, if you feel like you’re being moved along with no chance to make decisions, stop!
• Know the bottom line. In the end if you decide to buy/sign on the spot (which you shouldnt – see the first tip) you should be able to answer two questions in a simple and clear way. What am I gaining? What am I losing. If you can’t answer these questions, if you’re answers seem like they are missing something, or if your answers seem too good to be true, then you are not ready to buy/sign.

Several years ago, during my search for a summer job, I responded to an ad in an employment newspaper. I ended up working for a marketing company, selling electric service from door to door for a week. For seven days, I went from door to door trying to get people to switch from the major electric company in this area to a greener and “cheaper” provider. Without question, that was the absolute shadiest job I have ever had. When I did my own research, I found that for most people, the switch to a “cheaper” company would actually end up increasing their monthly bill, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that we were trained to manipulate people into making the switch. Every cloud has a silver lining – the worst part was also the best part. Long after I left that job, I retained the lessons learned. I don’t aim to be manipulative, but I value everything I learn about how people work and learning the techniques of manipulation has helped me avoid being manipulated. The basic idea was to get people to sign a contract without putting a lot of thought into it. In order to do that, we were supposed to play on their trust, use their reflexes, and encourage rashness.

We approached the door – knock knock/ding dong. “Hi I’m Ahd Child representing Green Mountain. I’m just registering all the PECO customers on this street for the flat rate they can get now.”

Our speech was pre-written and very calculated. As we began by saying who we were representing, we quickly pointed to our Green Mountain name badge in the binder we were holding. We said this part very quickly so that the person wouldn’t really register it. We wanted them to pay attention to the next part. In our binders, next to the Green Mountain badge, was a stack of PECO bills. As we said the word “PECO” we would point to the company name on the bill with our pen. A pen can control a person’s attention. Try this trick that they taught us during training. While you are talking to someone, reference and point to (with your pen) something on a paper. Once the person’s eyes are on the paper and as you continue to talk, move the pen to the four corners of the paper in an X pattern. The person’s eyes should follow your pen. We’d also slow down as we said the word “PECO.” The result was that they would see and hear “PECO” while barely noticing “Green Mountain.” We “plainly” stated that we worked for Green Mountain, but people always inevitably ended up thinking we worked for PECO – a company they knew and trusted.

If we had succeeded in getting electric bills from their neighbors, we’d leave those on top and using our pens and gestures, we’d draw attention to the name. If someone sees that their neighbors signed up, they’d be more inclined to go ahead and sign up. As we said “flat rate” we would hold our hand up and flat, illustrating our words. This brought the person’s eyes back up from our binders and made the words stick in their minds.

“You see what happened now is the government changed the law so everyone can get the new rate now easily.”

I don’t quite remember the speech word for word anymore, but this is pretty close to what it was – including the bad grammar. The bad grammar was purposely included to make sure the speech sounded natural. There was no mention that by getting these new rates they’d be switching electric companies.

“All I need is an old electric bill, if you could just go grab that for me.”

This was one of the most devious parts. At this point we break eye contact, looking past the person and into the house as we ask them to grab the bill. We’d also point into the house and then we immediately looked down into our binders, making sure not to resume eye contact. Our trainers called this “being assumptive.” If we were properly assumptive, even before the person realized what they were doing, they’d turn to grab the bill. Of course some people would think about it and stop, but that was only after they involuntarily started the motion. Try it yourself. Ask someone to get something for you that’s already in easy reach. As you say it, look and point at the object. Then, look away from the person. Your body language should show that you assumed that they are already doing what you asked them to do. Despite the fact that you could easily have grabbed the object yourself, the person will move to grab it. They may stop halfway there and tell you get it yourself, but if you do it right, there will be some sign of a reflexive reaction to your words.

I forget the rest of the speech, but once the bill was retrieved, we’d copy the person’s info (name, address, etc.) to our form as we talked. As we finished, we’d inform them that we just needed their signature to activate this new rate. We never asked them if they wanted to switch companies, we just filled out the form. Once again we were being assumptive. If, after all our efforts at manipulation, the person refused to sign, we’d leave – with their bill if possible. That way, when we went to the next house, we’d have a neighbor’s bill to point at, so even if the neighbor hadn’t signed up, it looked like they had. If they did sign, we informed them that the last thing they had to do was vocally confirm that they had been informed of all the conditions. We let them know that we were going to dial a number on our phones and somebody would ask them questions. We told them what the questions would be and how they should answer.

“. . . and they’ll ask you if you are aware that there will be a one-time charge of $5, and you say yes . . . “

(I think the charge was somewhere around $5, but I’m not sure.) This was the first time during the conversation that a start up charge would mentioned. At this point, we’d be wrapping things up, the person already signed the form, and they should be distracted by the phone call. They should feel too rushed to voice an objection to this small additional fee.

A few times, after freestyling in cyphers, I’ve had people ask me “how do you do that?” I’ve also been asked that when I was out dancing to house music. (house music all night long – say what!) I’ve never really known how to answer that question, because the answer seems so complex and so simple at the same time. You just do it. You don’t need classes or lessons to learn how to rap or how to dance when you go out. You learn by doing it. That’s how I learned. When I first started dancing, I was a master of exactly one move – the two-step. When I look back at the first rap verses I wrote, I find them laughable. I’m glad my first freestyles were never recorded.

Of course you can learn by watching other people or sometimes there may be tips that can help you, but in the end, there is only one way to start – just do it.

I’m not sure which is more dangerous – confidence or its lack. The dangers of lack of confidence are pretty obvious. Without confidence we underestimate and undervalue ourselves. We second guess our choices and this often results in self-sabotage. But too much confidence can be just as dangerous to ourselves and the people we interact with. A large number of ignorant, incorrect, or inconsiderate assertions and statements that I’ve heard seem to come directly from too much confidence. Too often, that same confidence translates to charisma, making these statements more acceptable to listeners.

Sometimes we can gain much by second-guessing ourselves. Sometimes a little undervaluation (the fact that “undervaluation” is a real word just boosted my confidence) is equivalent to a healthy amount of humility. Sometimes underestimating is a good thing, especially if overestimating is the alternative. How much is too much? As with many things in life, it seems that the challenge is not to gain confidence, the challenge is to find balance between confidence and humility. We must be confident enough so that we do not accept less than we deserve and constantly doubt our choices, but we must not be too confident to see our own flaws, empathize with our fellow men, and question our beliefs.

In my search for balance, I’ve found a few situations that should always set off alarm bells when it comes to confidence:

• If I find myself thinking of another person or group of people as being stupider, weaker or lesser than me in some other way, I question myself and take a second look. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not living in some fairy tale land where I think there are no stupid people. Sometimes after questioning myself, I find that I was right in the first place. However, sometimes, I find that the same stupidity, weakness, or whatever else that I am accusing someone of, is something I am guilty of. Other times I find that while I may not suffer from the particular fault I am seeing in the other person, I can easily understand why such a fault would arise in the situation.
• If a new of thinking about something or new idea comes to my attention and my immediate reaction is to discount it, I ask myself why I am discounting it. Is it because there is something wrong with the idea or is it because I am too confident in my beliefs to change them?
• If I find myself doubting my ability to accomplish a particular task or doubting the quality of my work, I do my best to take a second, more objective look. Perhaps my doubt is caused by lack of confidence rather than lack of ability.
• It’s not just our own confidence we need to watch out for. If someone makes an extra-confident assertion, I do my best to look past their confidence to the reasons and justification behind the assertion.
• If I ever find myself believing that I deserved something that happened to me, whether good or bad, I take a second look. If it’s something bad, there’s not much to consider. I don’t believe anyone deserves bad things ever. At times we might need bad things to result from our actions to teach us lessons, but punishment for its own sake serves no purpose. If you feel that you deserve punishment, that means that you are aware of mistakes you may have made. Once you are aware, wallowing in guilt is no substitute for doing what you can to right the wrong and learn from the experience. If I feel like I deserve something good that happened, I ask myself why. Was whatever I supposedly did to deserve the good thing that came really something above and beyond? Maybe I need to work to deserve that good thing after the fact – you know, pay off some of the debt on my karma card.

Balance never comes easy. I believe that achieving balance is the essential challenge of human life. These are just a few tips to help achieve balance, but this is far from comprehensive. Every situation where we should check our confidence is not easily generalized broken down into neat bullet points. Most aren’t. However, the way I see it, if we think about the simpler, easy to generalize cases ahead of time, that leaves us more time and energy to deal with the complicated cases as they occur.