What I Learned From Breaking A Board With My Bare Hand

It’s literally 2:19 in the morning and I’m sitting here in my Hotel room in Miami florida writing this blog post before I go to bed BECAUSE – i had a really cool experience that I wanted to document. 

I’m about halfway through attending a leadership retreat for my company, and I’ve had some really cool experiences so far. 

In addition to walking on burning hot coals with my bare feet –

(maybe I’ll share more about that experience too later if you’d like to hear about it) I had the chance to break a pretty thick board with my bare hand.  

There are a couple lessons I learned from this experience that I want to pass along because they might be useful to you as you continue pushing forward in life and business to win more freedom. 

Lesson 1:  The Right Technique Can Change Everything

When I first saw these boards – and was told that we were going to break them with bare hands, honestly – I was a little nervous.  The boards looked pretty thick and I wasn’t sure If I was going to be able to do it. 

I think before you do anything new for the first time – this is a common reaction. 

The guy running the exercise proceeded to tell us that if we held the board in the right direction – and punched into the grain instead of against it, we’d be able to break it without much force.  

Armed with that little bit of knowledge and technique – most of the fear went away and I was able to proceed to break the board with relative ease. 

Had I not had the proper instruction beforehand – the fear probably would have remained and I could have done massive damage to my hand. 

I learned from this experience that even things that look hard and scary – can become easy and effortless with the right instruction from a mentor. 

This reminds of when I first started network marketing back in 2005.  

It was very scary to me and it seemed extremely hard to do.  

I struggled for a long time with fears and limiting doubts. 

After a bit of proper instruction – and better technique  –  thankfully, that all turned around for me – and it became easy to breakthrough.

Speaking of breakthroughs – this leads me to Lesson #2 which really was a major part of this whole exercise.

When I posted the video on my Facebook wall – I got a couple interesting comments.

One guy was like.. “Big deal – those boards aren’t thick at all”

Another guy was like…. “The only reason you were able to break the boards was because you punched with the grain”..

Breaking the board was cool – but it was NOT the main purpose of the exercise.

Lesson 2: The main purpose of the exercise was to help us break through some limiting belief that was holding us back.

Before we broke the board – the instructor asked us – “What is something you need to stop doing?”  

Whatever we came up with – we were to write down in marker on the side of the board we were going to punch.

On other side of the board. the instructor told us to write down what we were going to break through to.  

The idea being, of course, that we punch through and BREAK the thing we need to stop doing – or believing and reach through the other side of the board to the thing we want.

Are you curious to know what I wrote down?

If you’re still reading I’ll take that as a yes but before I tell you mine, I want to ask you a question.

Have you ever known you’ve had something holding you back – and tried different things to change it – but that dang thing still keeps holding you back?

Well – that’s happened to me with this particular thing I’m about to tell you about… And it’s happened for a long – long time.  

What do you do if something you’ve been trying to change – just hasn’t changed?

Well – Trying something different to change it – just might not be a bad idea.

Like – Engaging in some powerful metaphorical exercise or ritual that symbolizes you breaking though to a new thought, feeling, belief or behavior… 

(like breaking a board  😉   ) 

Ok  – time for me to be a bit vulnerable and lay mine out on the table. 

For a LONG time – I’ve had this deeply rooted belief that if I increased my lead flow too much – I’d be sacrificing the quality of service I’d be able to provide to my prospects and team members. 

This BELIEF has kept me stuck at a very low amount of lead flow coming into my business per day – and it’s kept me stuck for a long, LONG – time.  

So – for me, breaking that board represents me STOPPING the belief that quality must be sacrificed as my quantity of lead flow increases. 

The other side of the board -I wrote 50 to 100 leads per day so as my fist broke though the board to the other side – that represents me symbolically breaking through to 50-100 leads per day in my business.  

I will tell you that the whole exercise felt VERY empowering and I believe inside that it worked to really shift that belief. 

Only time and some serious effort will tell.  

I’ll keep you posted.  🙂 

Thanks for reading and I want to challenge you to ask yourself.. 

“What’s holding me back from breaking through to my next level of success? ” 

Once you’ve got it – do something to change it.  

I believe you can.  

4 thoughts on “What I Learned From Breaking A Board With My Bare Hand”

  1. Hey Paul, that was truly awesome and empowering. Yes indeed, with the right mindset, determination and training, all is possible. We all have within us an incredible power that most people never used. Thanks…stay blessed

    Reply
    • Alecia, you’re the best. Thank you so much for always leaving me great comments that lift me up. You’ve done that for a long time and i want you to know that i really appreciate it.

      Can’t wait to see you at the next event. 🙂

      Reply

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