#14 Joy & Laughter

10/13/16 • 38 min

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Bruce Lee, was an extremely joyous person who loved to laugh. It’s an often overlooked part of his personality but he loved to joke and play around, and make other people laugh. He also thought of happiness as a synonym for well-being. Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce’s wife, tells us about Bruce’s humor and how much she laughed during their years together. Bruce was also quite a prankster on set and with friends, and he loved a good pun. His playful character also created a fun-loving energy in his home. Brandon Lee, Bruce’s son and Shannon’s brother, seemed to have inherited his father’s jokester personality. Shannon shares how Brandon would pull pranks and how their family was filled with a sense of play, lightness, joy, and laughter. For Shannon, laughter is an integral part of who she is and she considers laughter the best medicine. Bruce Lee distinguished “being happy” with “happiness.” Being happy was just about passing moments while achieving happiness over a lifetime involved being productive towards ones goals, being kind to other people, being grateful for what you have, having a social conscience, surmounting obstacles, and making progress in your life. Happiness was action-oriented for Bruce. He also used humor while teaching martial arts and in his writing and acting projects. Laughter and joy were integral parts of Bruce Lee’s philosophy of living and well-being. Take action: Try to incorporate more laughter and joy “medicine" into your life. Seek light and playful moments that make you smile or creates laughter between people. If you have someone in your life who brings you joy and laughter, let them know you appreciate them. Once a week, try to give the next person you meet a big, warm smile. Bring some joy into the room and see how the energy changes for everyone. We’d love to hear about your experiences with taking action, please reach out via [email protected] or via social media @BruceLee. #AAHA (Awesome Asians and Hapas) This week’s #AAHA shout-out goes to Jeanette Lee aka “The Black Widow”, a world class billiards player. She was ranked as the #1 Women’s Billiards player in the 90’s and took home the gold for the US at the 2001 World Games. She has been featured on ESPN and in numerous other sports magazines. Not only is Jeanette a world champion pool player she is an author, public speaker, and philanthropist. She has served as the National Spokesperson for the Scoliosis Association for almost two decades. Keep on killin’ it Jeanette! #BruceLeeMoment Our #BruceLeeMoment this week comes from Ricky St Claire, and he writes: Hi ladies, I love the podcast! I’ve been craving something positive and uplifting to listen to and this has touched the spot. It goes without saying Bruce Lee has transcended everything he touched. He was so ahead of his time and paved the way for so many people in so many genres. My own Bruce Lee Moment was inspired by the narrative in the movie Dragon, where your father was warned not to teach the “gweilo” (the foreigners.) I was in an apparently failed relationship with another religious background that I was warned by everyone I shouldn’t get back with, as Bruce was warned not to teach. Long story short, I defied what I was told by everyone and got back with her and proposed to her. Ten years on and we are still strong and we have two amazing daughters. Watching Jason as Bruce come back from injury, defy the odds, and do everything he did in the movie, inspired me not to be afraid to fight for what I want. Keep inspiring! Regards, Ricky St Claire Share your #AAHA and #BruceLeeMoment recommendations with us via social media @BruceLee or email us at [email protected]

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#13 Linda Lee Cadwell on Bruce Lee’s Family Life

In this week’s episode we have a special guest Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce Lee’s wife and Shannon’s mom. Linda shares stories of her life with Bruce, how they first met and what it was like to be married to and in a partnership with him. She said that Bruce considered his greatest accomplishment was being a father. She describes what kind of father he was to Brandon and Shannon, and how his unusual schedule allowed him to spend more time with his kids than other fathers at the time. Every day was different for Bruce with teaching, traveling, training or filming. Linda shares some daily rituals that grounded Bruce—he drank tea with honey and ginseng every morning, and throughout the day to maintain his energy. We also discuss the unique path Bruce decided to take in his film career. After facing discrimination in Hollywood, he chose to go to Hong Kong to create his own production company and make the films he wanted to make. “You need to know yourself, you need to believe in yourself, you have to have faith in yourself.” This was a mantra that Bruce put into action in his career and in his life. Linda shares that Bruce used to say, “All knowledge is self-knowledge.” He was always in the process of learning about himself and becoming himself. Linda and Bruce were married in 1964, 3 years before the US Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage. #AAHA (Awesome Asians and Hapas) This week we give a shout out to DJ Qbert, Filipino American turntablist and composer. Suggested to us by a write in from a podcast listener, we want to recognize the awesomeness that is DJ Qbert. He’s been in the DJ game for a long time and started his career with group FM20 with Mix Master Mike and DJ Apollo in 1990. He innovated DJ turntable and scratching products and launched Qbert Skratch University. Keep on innovating DJ Qbert! #BruceLeeMoment We have an email from Michael H.: Hi, I just wanted to drop you a line to say how much I appreciate your podcast. I always knew Bruce was an amazing action star and person, but I didn’t realize until now what a deep thinker he was. In particular, I thought it was really interesting that a guy as manly as Bruce was happy to try hairdressing, I wish more men were that comfortable in their masculinity. My Bruce Lee Moment involved a bully at work. The bully always made me feel small and angry. And I constantly felt like in order to compete at work I would have to get down at the bully’s level and become like them. But then I thought about Bruce saying “Be like water, my friend.” And I realized I could go further by flowing past the bully, and finding more innovative ways to succeed that didn’t put me in the bully’s path. I really really appreciate that now. Share your #AAHA and #BruceLeeMoment recommendations with us via social media @BruceLee or email us at [email protected]

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#15 Affirmations Part 1: Memory, Subconscious Mind, Imagination

This week we discuss Bruce Lee’s affirmations. These are 7 ideas he wrote on small note cards and carried with him always: Memory, Subconscious Mind, Imagination, Reason, Emotion, Conscience and Will Power. These 7 ideas are part of a whole system of well being and self-cultivation Bruce developed. And they work together as a harmonious ecosystem. Today we discuss the first three ideas: Memory, Subconscious Mind, and Imagination. 1st Affirmation: Memory “Recognizing the value of an alert mind, and an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may recall to mind frequently.” Bruce Lee on memory: “Not memory for memory’s sake, not accumulation of knowledge, but synthesis and application.” 2nd Affirmation: Subconscious Mind “Reorganizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily.” 3rd Affirmation: Imagination “Recognizing the need for sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires. I will develop my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of my plans.” “Creative intuition opens the wellsprings within man, activates the inner light, and is free and limitless.” Take Action: Create your own affirmations and write them down on a 3x5 card. They can be your own ideas or quotes you find inspiring. Carry them around with you for a week or a month and read them out loud to yourself each day. We would love to hear about your affirmations! Email us at [email protected] or share via social media @BruceLee. #AAHA (Awesome Asians and Hapas) This week we want to give a shout out to Jimmy Chin, a professional climber, mountaineer, skier, photographer, and filmmaker. For a long time he was with the Northface team, taking photos and having awe-inspiring adventures. His documentary film Meru follows the harrowing first ascent of the "Shark's Fin" route on Meru Peak in the Indian Himalayas. Jimmy follows his true heart’s mission and we think that’s awesome! #BruceLeeMoment This week our BruceLeeMoment comes from Germany, Martin Priebe: Dear Shannon, Dear BruceLee.com team, My name is Martin and I live in Germany. I just want to share my #BruceLeeMoment with you (as you mentioned in your podcast) I ́m a huge fan of bruce lee. Not only the films, I like the philosophy as well. And I ́m working as a software developer and I ́m doing wing chun since a while. So what happened was that I was reading "Tao of JKD" and working for my job simultaneously. Then I was stunned for a few seconds. I recognized that JKD and Bruce Lee ́s philosophy matched exactly the style of agile software developing. The next days Í was thinking about it. This idea was like a hammer that was banging my head. And few weeks ago I did a presentation about "Was Bruce Lee the first agile coach? And what can we learn about it for our daily business" on a convention for software development. "Be water, my friend", "sophisticated style stripped to it ́s essentials", all the wing chun principles, the way he developed his style, "individuals more important than any style." And what can I say... It was great. It was a lot of fun. And it was not easy to teach nerds :) But I had to do it. Every time I was thinking "oh, should I do that" I remembered the words "Expressing yourself honestly". I want so say thank you. Thanks for the power and energy! Thanks for your words too and keep on going. You are doing a great job! Mit freundlichen Grüßen/best regards, Martin Share your #AAHA and #BruceLeeMoment recommendations with us via social media @BruceLee or email us at [email protected]