David Ramos's Blog

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Thanks again to everyone who answered my previous post. Looking ...

👋 Hi, it’s me, David.

I could use your help deciding what Bending Pink Steel (BPS) should look like this year - and to do that, I need to know a little bit more about you (if you’re willing!).

1️⃣ Why did you subscribe to BPS?

2️⃣ What would you love to get/learn/do/change as a result of BPS?

You can answer by replying to the email version of this post, or by adding a comment.

Big thanks,

David

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.”
— Bruce Lee

If adaptation is so clearly an advantage, why don’t we do it more easily? Why is change such a heavy lift?

Because there will always be reasons not to. Many in fact.

In my own life, I think the scales of adaptation and preservation have always, at least at the beginning of any new decision, felt balanced. Like by changing I was giving up as much as I would stand to (maybe) gain.

So then, how do we derisk c...

“The inability to adapt brings destruction.”
– Bruce Lee

In attempting to explain why Bruce Lee won, we have to acknowledge how Bruce Lee changed.

When his career in Hollywood stalled, he took a project in Hong Kong to pay the bills. When it did well and they offered him a bigger contract, he stayed.

His martial arts evolved after every single fight because Jeet Kune Do had one philosophy above all else: “do whatever is necessary to win.”1

When his technique failed to translate on-screen, he adapted...

Let me go ahead and save you a massive amount of time and heartbreak: what worked for them (insert any person’s success you’re trying to emulate) will not work for you.

When understood, this truth frees you. It unshackles you. And in the best cases, it sets you up for a life that is inimitable—unable to be copied.

Here’s where to start.

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We all want to follow a proven pattern.

A recipe for success. For life. For love. For money. It’s why you’re reading this right now — hoping that some secret of Bruce Lee’s model can be adopted to your own. It’s why I’m writing this series.

Well, it doesn’t work like that. Not exactly at least.

What I’m learning, and hope you will too, is that the “greats” (aka our mammoths) have less what to teach us and more how.

The goal of understanding their pattern of thinking isn’t to adopt it (i.e., Bruce Le...

Deference is soft power.

It’s contradictory, which is why so few use this strategy. And why those who do win so disproportionally.

“The more the muscles relaxed,” Bruce Lee writes, “the more power they could generate.” It was a pullback before a push forward. A give before a take. A soft before a hard.

So, how do you leverage your own soft power?

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A near-fatal case of cholera left him “weaker and smaller” than other boys his age. He was scared of water. Unable to ride a bike due to balance issues. “Severely nearsighted,” requiring him to wear “thick, horn-rimmed glasses.” Pair that with the earring he wore because of Chinese superstition along with a stutter, and you can understand why his presence “[invited] much teasing from his classmates.”1

I’m, of course, talking about the one and only Bruce Lee.

If this is different than the picture y...

Since day 1, the goal of Bending Pink Steel has been to help men become mentally fit.

In our first workshop, we answered what becoming “mentally fit” actually meant. In this one, we answer how.

In 17 short minutes, I’ll introduce you to the science of changing your brain, show you why a simple journaling practice can produce monumental results, and hand you the step-by-step process you can begin using today to upgrade your thinking.

Thomas AG, Dennis A, Bandettini PA, Johansen-B...

Before we officially dive into the Hunting Mammoths series next week, I wanted to offer a preliminary challenge to prime the pump.

One that’ll activate the mental machinery you need to start seeing who you are, and what you’re capable of, in a new way.

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