“Life is about motion, and so you have to keep moving forward and trying something new.” John Davis

Our perception plays a crucial role in how we recover from life-altering events. Being able to focus on the moment can allow us to transcend these experiences and challenges and come out better than we were. Our guest today, John Davis, is a living example of what positive focus and remaining present in the moment can do to turn misfortunes into opportunities to achieve greatness.

At 22 years old, John Davis’ spine broke in half, dashing his dreams of being a Stuntman, Fight Director, and Martial Artist. Doctors told him he might never walk again, and if he did he could never have a physical career. Using what he now calls the “Five F Formula,” John Overcame the limiting beliefs of others and brought himself back. He went on to perform over four thousand live comedy sword fighting stunt shows worldwide, including performing more than one hundred shows on the most remote bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan on six USO tours.

He is now an internationally known Speaker, Comedian, Fight Director, and Action Hero. As an international entertainer, John has traveled extensively throughout the world speaking to audiences of all ages and backgrounds in 30 countries and over four thousand live performances. John encourages his audiences to set and reach their highest potentials and awaken their inner action heroes!

In today’s episode, John will talk about his life journey and the events that led him to who he is today. He will also give insights on how to be positive in life and kick out fear by implementing what he refers to as the five Fs.

Listen in!

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Back when I was a kid, I wanted to be a swashbuckler, and I was fortunate I had 1000s of acres of woods behind my house, which I knew every square inch of it. [3:10]
I ended up getting drugged to a Renaissance Festival and started working on a Renaissance Festival in Maryland. [3:33]
I met two of the top fighters in the country who gave me a great gift: a series of positive reinforcement that I had never gotten from my alcoholic and abusive father. [3:38]
I ended up having these two gentlemen, who were just incredible men, also say to me that they thought I had talent as an actor and a combatant, and they ended up giving me all their training for free. [3:50]
I was feeling really good about myself and was going for my black belt, and at that point, I was strong. I was buff, and I was feeling like a rock-hard, masculine guy. [4:03]
A buddy of mine asked me to go over to his house and help unload his van, and I agreed. [4:23]
He had a van filled with 80-pound boxes of clay. I picked up the very first box, and as I turned to set it outside of the van, my spine broke in half due to the twisting action. [4:34]
At the hospital, the doctor said that I had a condition called spina bifida and would probably never walk again. Even if I did, I definitely would never have a physical career and needed to change my [4:51]
I was lying in that bed in the hospital, and a friend of mine came in, and he brought me a book to read, written by Bruce Lee, the greatest martial artist that ever lived. [5:22]
When Bruce wrote that book, as I came to find out, he was in traction in the hospital and had just been told he’d never do martial arts again. [5:46]
I started reading that book, and it was about his philosophy on martial arts, not about a technique where I found a couple of things that I latched on to quickly. [6:06]
One of them was staying in my present moment, and the other was mental flexibility. Whenever adversity comes up, by staying very flexible in those moments, you can achieve anything. [6:15]
Because I had to stay very present, I could not invest in the future that the doctors were giving me; I couldn’t take their beliefs but my own belief. [6:25]
I started flexing the muscles of my upper neck and slowly over the course of a month, flexed all the muscles down my back until I got to my injury. [6:42]
I started flexing my hips, which was below the injury, and the doctors were blown away since within a month, I was moving the hips that they thought we never move again. [6:51]
A couple of weeks later, I was able to sit up, walk down the hallway, and go to the bathroom on my own, and then at a year, I was back to what I would say was normal physicality. [6:59]
I did not take the doctor’s belief and did what I had to do, and after a year and six months, I was back to my full physical self. [7:33]
I’m fortunate because I was raised as a young Catholic boy, and when I turned 18, my mother told me that spirituality is a personal journey and that I needed to find my [8:37]
I traveled all over India and all through the Middle East, and studied every form of spirituality I could find, and I found the universal truth in all of it. [8:50]
When I look back at what I did to get out of that bed right now, I come back to a couple of things. [9:00]
Buddha says, ‘what you think, you become, you create your world,’ Gandhi says, ‘You must be the change you want to see in your world,’ the Bible says, ‘as a man thinketh so is he,’ and Jesus said ‘whatever you ask in God’s name will be granted.’ [9:04]
Moses said God’s name is ‘I Am’, and I am is your present moment, not your ‘I will be’ or ‘I was’ and so you have to sit and get into that present moment and realize that you are the creator of that experience. [9:17]
All this manifested in the rest of my life, where I became a professional stunt man and did everything I have ever wanted to do. [9:47]
What I do now is I go into corporations, and I awaken the interaction heroes in their teams and get them moving. [10:12]
When I was doing my comedy show, I found I was enjoying the time off the stage more than I was on the stage because I was sitting in the audience talking to people awakening their interaction heroes and getting them over their adversity. [10:20]
I go as a corporate action hero, and I bring something so unique, which are whips and dump trucks and comedy, into a program. [10:45]
The final thing I do in my main keynote speech is I pick the timidest person I can find in my audience, I bring them to the stage, and in under five minutes, that person learns to crack a whip and hit targets out of my hand. [10:56]
When you look at your life, you only have one moment that you can do thought, word, and deed, and all your past is memories of present moments, and so many people sit at this moment, and they live in the victim mode those past moments. [12:04]
The problem with negative people is they live in victim mode and are focused on victim mode, and therefore their subconscious mind shows them victim mode, which puts them in this never-ending treadmill of negativity. [13:04]
The only way to break that cycle is to take your present moment and start stacking positive, successful present moments. [13:15]
Going into a new school year, students and teachers are looking at this year coming up, and they think it is daunting, but the successful outcome of this year isn’t going to appear magically in your present moment. [13:26]
Your key is to stay here in this moment and make it as positive and successful as possible, and that outcome will come and surround your present moment experience. [13:47]
I was the overweight, introverted kid who was bullied through entire schools at that time, and so when I look at the kids going back to school right now, I feel for the ones who feel marginalized. [14:33]
Life is about motion, and so you have to keep moving forward and trying something new. [15:30]
Commercial break. [15:50]
I have a hard time with negativity because I’m such a positive person, and I’ve walked in my life with a smile on my face, which is fascinating by life. [17:01]
The number one thing that stops everybody from achieving their goals is how you manage fear. [18:33]
One of the quickest and easiest ways to get out of your way is to realize a couple of things. [18:48]
When you break down fear scientifically, it is an emotional reaction to some future event that may or may not happen. You focus on a negative outcome because you wouldn’t be afraid if you were focused on a positive outcome. [19:20]
When people feel like they’re in fear and feel like they can’t breathe, it is a mental state but not a real state, and once you believe you are in something, you can not control it. [21:36]
When you take the second to exhale and label it, it becomes an external thing and now you can do whatever you want with it, which is important. [21:48]
Apart from releasing fear, you have to focus, and then you have to work on your belief, faith, and [21:58]
Sometimes faith is only developed by results over time where you start stacking present moment successes, and your faith build [22:16]
The last one is flexibility, where when something comes up that seems contrary to what you’re trying to achieve, you have to stay flexible on those moments. [22:33]
When I look at this from the perspective of the conscious and subconscious mind, If I’m focused on a goal, and my subconscious mind shows me something that seems like it’s going to stop me from getting to my goal, I have to keep my mind in play stay focused on the goal so that my subconscious mind shows this to me. I have to clear any obstacle out of the way. [22:48]
If you’re focused positively, you can achieve anything you want in your life, so you have to fearlessly focus with faith and follow through with flexibility. [23:12]
Today’s choices are tomorrow’s outcomes, so take today and make it positive and successful and make good choices. [25:06]
When one of the moments doesn’t go well, don’t beat yourself up because beating yourself up is just wasting the next moment. [25:15]

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