This is an excerpt from grandmaster Lee’s writing, “it’s not so much where you are, but where you’re going”. This is a great one as we all think about our goals for 2011!

“I think the most important thing to me as your teacher is not so much where you are but in what direction you’re going. To become a black belt and a world champion requires a commitment to excellence of the highest order. No one, as i’m sure you realize, is going to achieve anything worth achieving by simply doing what is required of them. It is really what you do above and beyond the required effort that will always really determine your true level of greatness in anything you do.

I think true black belts are really only ordinary people with extraordinary determination. I think the only time you can’t afford to fail is the last time you try. Hope in a man or woman sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible. Really truly hope to be a world champion and watch what happens. Your mind as a great black belt is always ready not only to take opportunities but to make them. the man, it seems to me, who goes furthest in this life is generally the one who is willing to, i would have to say, almost dare to be great.

It’s a funny thing about life – if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get it. The key work here is refuse.

Desire, i think, is the key to being the absolute best – a desire not just to win, but to gain all of the necessary tools in the process to win in everything you do. Here is how i really see it. To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the really true beauty of the black belt mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the true strength of the black belt will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the true courage you must have to succeed as a powerful black belt.

The ultimate victory in this subject to me is derived from the inner satisfaction and knowing that you have done your absolute best and you have gotten the most out of what you have given. Many of life’s failures are men and women who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up or stopped training for some reason. I am a great believer in the mirror test. All that matters is if you can look in the mirror and honestly tell the person that you see there that you’ve done your best.”