Episode 776 - Mr. Mike Stone

Mr. Mike Stone is a martial arts practitioner, instructor, and actor, currently living in the Philippines.

It’s very simple about life and you’re making it very difficult for yourself. All you have to do is be the very best you can be, ALWAYS. This was the mindset.

Mr. Mike Stone - Episode 776

A native of Hawaii, Mike Stone was born and raised on the island of Maui. He was a star athlete in various sports during his student days and joined the Army after graduating from high school. It was while stationed at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, that he met his karate instructor, Sgt. Herbert Peters, who had just returned from Okinawa. Mike started in Shorin-ryu karate and earned his brown belt in three months. He then accomplished an amazing feet; achieving his black belt rank in only six months from the day he started training.

His legendary rise into karate superstardom came from winning all the major tournaments in his prime – from the Nationals in Virginia to the Internationals in California, the United States Karate Championships in Texas to the World Championships in Chicago. He never lost in any of his individual black belt matches as well as in kata competitions. He is recognized as the only black belt to retire undefeated with 91 consecutive black belt victories. He was inducted into Black Belt’s Hall of Fame twice as Fighter of the Year in 1971 and Instructor of the Year in 1994.

In the 1980s, Mike Stone ventured into writing and movie production. His original screenplay with the title Dance of Death, which was released as Enter the Ninja, started the worldwide ninja craze on the silver screen. He also acted, produced, choreographed, and directed other martial arts movies, including the American Ninja series. He authored a martial arts book, American Eclectic Karate, in 1983.

In this episode, Mr. Mike Stone talks about almost every aspect of his life including what he’s doing presently. Listen to learn more!

Show notes

You may check out Mr. Mike Stone’s website at mikestonemartialarts.com

Show Transcript

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, episode 776 with today's guest, none other than Mr. Mike Stone. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, host here for the show, founder of whistlekick where everything we're doing is in support of the traditional martial arts or traditional martial artists like yourself. If you go to whistlekick.com, you're gonna see all the things that we've got going on because we are much more than this podcast. If you haven't been there in a while, please go check it out. While you're there, visit the store. Maybe you find something in there that you like and you're willing to support us, and you can even save 15% with the code podcast15. This show gets its own website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And our goal here at whistlekick, really with the show and all the other things that we do is to connect, educate, and entertain. Those are the three things that we're doing. And we feel that this podcast does a really good job of that. We're connecting you to people you may not know about. We're giving you some knowledge as they share their wisdom and hopefully, you smile or laugh once in a while as you're listening to the show. And if you do, please consider supporting us in some way, whether it's picking something up or maybe telling a friend about what we do, or even consider joining our Patreon and starts at only $2 a month. There are tiers all the way up to a hundred dollars a month with incredible value, patreon.com/whistlekick is the place to go. There's a link from whistlekick.com. If you're looking for it, it's hard to miss it so please go check that out. Consider supporting us. And if you want the whole entirety of all the things that you could do to support us in our mission of connect, educate, and entertain, please check out the family page, whistlekick.com/family. You gotta type it in. We make that one a little more difficult because we wanna filter out the people who maybe aren't family. But if you're family, you've probably already been there. If you're a new family, go check it out. We update it all the time. Now, today's guest is likely a name that you've at least heard of. Some of you know the legendary accomplishments of Mike Stone. And this episode is one where we were in the best possible way all over the place. We talked about martial arts. We talked about how he got started. We talk about his mindset. We talk about philosophy. We talk about what he's doing now. This is an incredible man, an absolute gift to our community, and I am so honored that we finally got to make this happen. He lives on the other side of the world, but we still made it happen, and I had a blast. I'm sure you will too. Mike Stone, welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.

Mike Stone: 

Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's a pleasure to have you. I've been looking forward to this. I've wanted you on the show for, I don't know, probably since day one you've been on the shortlist. I'm glad we get to make it happen. Of course, you're on the other side of the world, that doesn't make it easy.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah, that's for sure. But at 700 and something episode, I'm very blessed to be here. Thank you.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Thank you. You know, yours is a name that I'm sure a lot of people know. You've been around. You've contributed not only to the martial arts in general but specifically to the careers of quite a few people, some of whom we've had on this show. And I'm gonna ask you to start in kind of the most rudimentary way we can, the beginning. Let's rewind the tape to the beginning. How did you first discover and get involved in martial arts?

Mike Stone: 

Ah, wonderful question. I went to a boarding school for four years. It's called Lahaina Luna on the island of Maui. And the elementary school I had gone to was in Makawao, very small town. It's called Upcountry. It's a lot of kind of western atmosphere is actually, we used to call it a cowboy town. But when I went to high school, I went to a boarding school and I primarily went there because of my athletic skills and abilities when I was quite young. And there was some expectations about my being a super athlete because of what I had accomplished in just elementary school. When I was, I guess 12 or 13 years old, I had played in a basketball tournament in elementary school and became an all-star basketball player for the island. And prior to that, I was always involved because my home was only about 30 feet from the school yard. So this made it bad for me because I had to go to school. I couldn't play hooky. Yeah, I couldn't run and hide because my school...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

They just come over and pull you outta the house and say, "Get to class!"

Mike Stone:

For sure. And the other negative thing about that was every time the windows were broken or the lights were shot out, they came to our home because my brother and I were quite good at our slingshot. But when I went to high school, there was a lot of expectation about me being a good athlete. And there was a guy named Wayne Tanaka and he was a writer for the Maui News, the sports section of the Maui newspaper. And he wrote a wonderful article about me when I was in the eighth grade just graduating. It's called The Curly Hair Kid Grows Up. And this article he wrote about me that was about four years later, just before I got outta high school. And it talked about his expectations four years previously because of my athletic skills. And for some reason, it didn't pan out the way everybody expected, but it did in the long run. So when I went to this boarding school, I boarded for four years, and my junior summer, since I didn't like going home, cause I didn't have a good relationship with my father. So, during my summer breaks, instead of going home, it was about maybe 50, 60 miles away from the boarding school. And I always would work at the boarding department just to make some extra money for summer. But that junior summer, I had gone downtown because my job at the boarding school was to deliver some of the products that we made, produce. We had vegetable gardens, we had eggs, chickens that was part of the boarding department, the borders. We had 112 guys, that boarded in three dormitories. So this is how we repaid our going to school. We'd get up at five o'clock in the morning, work for two hours, and then get ready for school. We had our own executive, legislative and judicial branch of government. We had our own church services. Not really church, but it was a fellowship services every Sunday. We had our own fire department. The borders were responsible for maintaining. We had a dairy, a poultry department. We had a farm. So it was, we were quite active. So anyway, this junior summer, I had met, I had gone downtown when I was making a delivery and I passed by this photography studio. And the guy that was there just came out when I passed by his shop and he said, Hey, Mike, how you doing? I said, oh, good. What's up? Oh, you know, I have a lot of pictures of you. I took pictures of you last year when you were playing football and basketball and stuff, so would you like to have some of them? And I said, yeah, sure. So he took me into his photoshop and showed me something and then he said, you know, are you interested in Aikido, some form of martial art. And I said, no, I don't think I've even heard of it. He said, well you have a unique opportunity because I am taking the two weeks that this guy named Koichi Tohei, who was the right hand man of Professor Ueshiba the founder of Aikido, was on his world tour where he was, you know, promoting Aikido around the world. And he had a six-degree black belt, a guy named Lieutenant Suzuki from the Kauai Police Department that he came there to do two weeks as part of his world tour. So, the first week was held in Lahaina, the town where I had gone to high school. So he said, you know if you have nothing to do in the evenings, why don't you come to one of the sessions? So I said, yeah. And he said, you know, I really would help you with your martial arts ability, you know, with your balance and with things that you're performing in different sports that I was doing. So I said, well, yeah, that would be cool. So I had gone to it and my first evening at this session was with this guy named Koichi Tohei. Are you familiar with his name?

Jeremy Lesniak:

 I've heard the name. I can't say I know anything of him beyond the name. Please continue.

Mike Stone: 

Okay. Well, he was the number one ranked Aikido practitioner under the founder, Professor Ueshiba.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Mike Stone: 

And he's written many, many books. So he was there for the first week and then I followed him the second week when they had gone to Wailuku, which is about 30 miles away. And he was doing it for the lieutenant. But the first evening, I was very skeptical about some of the things I saw him do. And it was about a guy, you know, he's a very short guy. Maybe he's about 5’6, maybe 5’7, but he's quite thick, you know. But not solid. He's very mushy, very soft. So when I saw him do one of the techniques, I was standing in the group around him and I made probably a face that telegraphed that I was doubting what he was doing. And for some reason he picked me out and he said, ah, you. Come, come here. So I went, and this is my first week. I had only a t-shirt and jeans. And I said, me? And he said, yeah, you come, come. So I walked up there and he stuck out his arm and he said, you grab. So, one of the exercises I did as a football player, I was playing the position of an M in American football. So for me to have a better grip on the ball, not to fumble it, and a better grip in catching, I had an exercise that I would do where I'd open up a sheet of newspaper. Quite a large sheet of newspaper and I put my finger at the edge, at the end of it, at a point like this, for example, if this is the sheet of paper. Then put my hand at the end of it and sit down and just crumpled the entire newspaper into my fist. Just keep grabbing it. And then the next sheet of paper I do my left hand, and then my right hand and stuff. So my forearms were developed and my grip was really quite strong. Even my handshakes, when I would do handshakes, I don't do it so much like that anymore, but my grip was quite powerful and it was from that exercise. So when he asked me to grab his hand, I was thinking like, wow, you know, cause the guy he did before me, when the guy grabbed his hand, he simply lifted up his hand to scratch his head. And his hand came right out of the guy's grip. So, I was thinking, well, if I grab a hold of him, I'm sure he's not gonna be able to remove his hand so easily. So I just grabbed with one hand and I really had a hard grip. And the thing unusual about his hand is where his wrist is, where the wrist joins the hand at that connection point, it goes out about a half inch straight out away from the wrist. And it's thick, but very not solid skin. I mean, it's very soft. He's like the Pillsbury Doughboy is what I used to make fun of him. And it goes straight on back. So his, from his wrist to his elbow is pretty much the same circumference of his arm.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Mike Stone: 

Quite big. So when I grabbed the hole, my hands just sunk into his flesh. I mean, I could really made an imprint and grabbed heart. And he said, okay. I said, yeah. So I squeezed hard and he did the same thing. He just lifted his hand and his hand came out of my grip. And I was like, God, I couldn't believe that. So he said, you try again, two hands. So now I grabbed with both of my hands to hang onto his wrist and he did the very same thing, just pulled his hand out. And I looked incredulous, obviously. I was surprised that this guy could do this.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Mike Stone: 

But he said, oh, you do again. So now when he grabbed me this time, he just turned and pointed his hand in the opposite direction, which was where the mat was in the dojo. And I was flying in the air and I was going, and I didn't know how to roll or tumble at all, so I just crashed. And I was like, God! This is amazing! So this is my first exposure to martial arts.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Mm-hmm.

Mike Stone: 

But prior to this, when I was a young boy, I loved watching samurai movies. Japanese movies. They were my favorites. And my hero was not an American for many years up until I was about 22, 23 years old. My hero in movies was a guy named Shintaro Katsu. He played The Blind Swordman and he was my idol. I even created a kata later on in my life called the Blind Man's Form. And I taught it to Tadashi Yamashita and he performed it at one of the events I had in California when I invited to come out there. But the most important thing that really changed my life completely, when I say completely was because up until that point, I was not a good person. I was not. I was a very angry, very aggressive, very hostile, very mean, very violent person. I failed the fourth grade. I flunked the fourth grade. I had to repeat the fourth grade. I did some pretty nasty things I don't wanna share with you, but I did something that I was, by the fifth grade, cause I repeated the fourth grade twice, by the fifth grade, the police department in our local town gave my father an option. And that was either to enroll me in their boxing program called the Police Athletic League Boxing Program or I would go to detention home. So he enrolled me in boxing which was good. Cause my temperament already, it started from my mother's death. When I was 11, my mother died. From that point on, there was a major shift in my mentality. My attitude changed, everything about me changed. And I became very angry, very hostile, very brutal and this continued until the eighth grade until I went to this boarding school. So it was a blessing also for me to go there cause I needed the discipline. So anyway, when I went there and I played for the first three years, I already thought, because there was expectation of my physical abilities, that I would be a good athlete. Cause I was a good athlete all my life. I've never worked. I've only played until I'm 80, I'll be 80 years old and my life has never changed. I've never worked a day in my life.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Wow.

Mike Stone: 

I've participated in all kinds of sports. I couldn't become a professional golfer, tennis player. I mean, whatever I did, it was absolutely effortless. So for me, my mindset was quite different from the people I had met in the martial arts. So let me just regress, let me continue from that junior summer.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Mike Stone: 

So my junior summer, I had also met another guy who was, his name was Jimmy Gray. He was an assistant football coach for our varsity team. And he saw me on the street again and he said, Mike, listen. Are you going to be here for the summer? And I said, yeah. He said, would you think it's okay if I spend the next two and a half months of my summer vacation, three months before spring practice, before the year starts and I can get you ready to play football for your senior year? Cause I really think you have tremendous ability. So my attitude again was, yeah, what the hell? Sure. Yeah, we can do that. So he ended up spending two and a half months, four days a week, his entire summer working with me on preparing me for my senior year. My mind has changed since him. He was a major turning point in my life. And the reason it was, was he created a mindset within me in those two and a half months that I still do today. It's the same mindset. And it has created opportunities, and accomplishments, and awards and things in my life. Remember, I've been here in this island, on this location for 40 years of my life.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Stone: 

So half of my life, I've been on this isolated little island. But that mindset, what it had done for me in only three years of my life after I graduated from high school is unbelievable. I still cannot believe it. I still don't believe that what I had accomplished was anything of value or merit to me. And I was amazed how everybody is so impressed with my accomplishments and what I've done. And for me, I've done absolutely nothing. It was easiest thing I've ever done in my life. There was no hard work, no suffering, no sacrifice, no pain. I haven't experienced...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Can you talk about this mindset? Can you talk about the training that you were doing in preparation for football and maybe where your head was at, at the beginning of the summer and how it changed through the summer?

Mike Stone: 

Well again, I had not changed too much. The reason I did not accomplish a lot of the expectations people had from me my first three years was that because of this hostile, arrogant attitude I had. This prevented me from being my best cause I was not natural. It wasn't who I was really. But it was the persona I took on just to protect myself. So when Jimmy got ahold of me, he started to talk to me quite differently from all the other people. Everybody else was afraid of me. You know, I was always in detention. I had the teachers had me going to the principal's office at elementary. I dug more weeds in the quadrangle in our elementary school. I mean, I was always in trouble. Always. So when Jimmy got ahold of me, he developed an idea. He said, you know, it's very simple about life and you're making it very difficult for yourself. It's really quite easy. All you have to do is be the very best you can be always. This was the mindset to be my very best always. That's all he pushed into my head. Now, we had two and a half months and my position was N. So he's a very, you know, this guy is 6'3, 220 pounds. He was only 31 years old at the time. Incredible shape. He's half Samoan, half Irish. He's a tough guy. And he's a very disciplined guy that takes no crap from anybody. But yet he treated me with respect from the very beginning. The fact that he would take his summer vacation, that summer vacation, and share it with me to make me the best I could be. So I'm gonna just, if I may continue, I wanted to talk about a few things that's going to help explain the mindset and how the application of it...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Mike Stone:

...still applies today. So, he taught me how to run, pass, block, kick, tackle. He taught me everything he could. By the end of that two and a half months, I was ready to play football my senior year, both ways, offense and defense, and in every position. Other than the interior alignment. Other than center guard and tackle. I played halfback, I played quarterback, I played N. Now, not to impress you, but to allow you to understand the magnitude of this philosophy is that my senior year in football, I played eight games. We live on the island of Maui. There's only three, four high schools. We played the other three high schools twice so that's six games, and I played two preseason games on the island of Oahu with schools that are better, stronger, more populated than we are. So my whole football career was eight games. In those eight games, I was second. I was the most outstanding player but lost to a guy that was the most valuable player because he was the best athlete and that's all they had on their team. A guy named Rogers Ishizu, and I just met him couple months ago at a class reunion that he attended.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Oh, fun.

Mike Stone: 

He was an opponent of mine, but we just met with each other about two months ago. So this mindset of always being my best, he said, you know, everybody creates an idea that they have an opponent or a competitor or somebody that's their enemy. You should never look at anybody you're competing against as an enemy or an opponent. They are simply someone that you have an opportunity to play with for an hour or in karate for however many minutes, and they're just there to allow you to be your best, right? So it's not a personal thing. Don't take it personal. It's nothing against you. Once I started to look at it like that, that it was not another person that I had to deal with, that I'm only dealing with myself, and if myself only believe that everything I'm doing is at the best level that I can in the moment, I am actually doing it. In the moment I am playing, that's who I am. I am. So, he used the word being and I was surprised. So I asked him about it. He said, be the best you can be. Not do your best, which is what I've heard every other coach and every other person I've talked to, even in martial arts after, that's all they're talking about. Do your best, do your best. No, he always said, be your best. And the difference was being is a state of mind. Being is a spiritual essence of who you are. You are a spiritual being before you were ever born a human being. So my beingness is at a spiritual level. So if I thought about myself that way, no matter what I did, no matter what I do, if I do it with the prefix of me already creating a spiritual and mental attitude that I am being my best because of my being. Not because of what I'm choosing to do. I'm going to be doing many things throughout my life, but being is the essence of who you are. Being, actually for me, created my abilities and talents and skills. It was my being, not what I did. That's the reason why you have one Roger Federer, one Tiger Woods, one this guy, one Michael Jordan, and the reason you have one of these is because they are being who they are. They're not trying to do something or be someone they are not. Really in my life, the most problems I've ever had was trying to be someone I was not. I felt uncomfortable, uneasy. I didn't feel I was in a place of peace and calm. When I was trying to be someone I was not, I never felt comfortable and at those times I never did my best. So what Jimmy did for me in that two and a half months created a mindset that when I played the eight games, one game I was not supposed to play cause I injured my ankle. But from the Tuesday that I sprained my ankle to the Sunday that we're going to have games, they put it in the newspaper. I wasn't going to play. And by doing that it was a big mistake cause I went to play, even though they said I would not play on that game. That was the best game. I scored two touchdowns. I threw a pass for another touchdown. I ran for an extra point and I threw for a two point conversion on a touchdown. I scored 19 points, the best game I ever played was an injury.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Mike Stone: 

So these things only solidified my experiences of this mindset being exactly correct. So at the end of the year, I was voted as the most outstanding player in the football league in the island. I was selected as an all-star for the position of N but I also was a punter. I ran halfback and fullback. I had 5.6 average yards rushing. I played quarterback. And at the end of that, I was selected to a decade all-star team. From 1951 to 1961, I was selected as the best end in the state of Hawaii first team.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Wow.

Mike Stone: 

So when you say, what are you capable of being? That's why I have no patience with, that's why I'm here for 40 years. I have no patience with people that make excuses and alibis for their inabilities, not for what they're capable of being. So now, when I ended my high school career, I went immediately, I joined the Army. So this was, I graduated about the 15th of June, by the 4th of July, I was inducted into the Army. I went up with 309 other Hawaiians on a Navy ship to basic training in Four Road, California. I was with the eighth all Hawaiian company. After that, eight weeks, I went to six weeks of finance school at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana. After I graduated there, I was assigned to Fort Chaffee Arkansas. Oddly enough, which is not oddly to me, there's no accidents in the universe. There's no everything, there is an order in the universe. And there is an order in the physical reality. So on earth, there's natural laws. It's the law of relativity on physical planet earth. In the universe, it's called synchronicity. Synchronicity abbreviated would be everything is happening as it should happen but not in a preordained sense. If that makes sense. That means there are no accidents. There's no mistakes. Everything happens for a reason. It may not happen for your particular reason, but you are not the only person that exists on the planet. So this idea, if you understand that, in fact, I just posted a thing on my Facebook post that talked about a synchronistic idea that happened to me about three, four days ago. So this whole idea was when I went to Fort Chaffee Arkansas, I was thinking that I wish I could have gone to Japan. Because up to this point, and even in my elementary school, I always gravitated to Japanese people. Their customs, their women, their food, their language, their tradition, their respect, their honor, their integrity. I never played with my own race. I always ended up playing with the Japanese. Always. Even in elementary school through high school as well.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

So, can I just ask a quick question on that? I would imagine that growing up in Hawaii at the time that you did, that was kind of a big deal.

Mike Stone: 

What was?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Playing with Japanese kids, having an affinity for Japanese culture.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah, I mean, you had...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Pearl Harbor hadn't been that long ago.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah, but there wasn't that many I mean, in the neighborhood I lived in had Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Filipino, Hawaiian, Chinese, Caucasian, and Japanese. So there were communities because of the pineapple and sugar industry. They had a lot of people from Philippines, from all these countries came to Hawaii to work in the plantation. So you had these pockets of different nationalities, but when you went to school, everybody went to the same school. So because of that, you could intermingle. For me, whatever it is, and again, I'm not even going to question. I love it and I accept it that I was this way. That I gravitated to the Japanese people, the culture, everything about them. So even watching movies when I was young, later on in my life, everything, no accidents. My life is not an accident. It's perfect synchronicity. So when I went into the Army just a few weeks after graduating and I went to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, one day I was playing volleyball in the post gymnasium. And the guy that ran the post gymnasium, his name was James Keanu. He was about 5'9, about 205 pounds, and he ran the special services department for sports and athletics at the gymnasium. And since he did that, he had a lot of the officers, the high ranking officers on the military base I was at that played volleyball during their lunch break. Well, I was there one day and he asked me to join them. And volleyball, I played in the fourth army, I played volleyball, flag football, and basketball. I was the only high school student that played on our post teams. Everybody else had college and or had professional experience in these sports. I was the only one that played high school. Volleyball, basketball, and football. So, when we were playing this volleyball game, all of a sudden we heard this thumping sound, a very heavy thumping sound. And the windows of this old gymnasium started to rattle and we're wondering what the hell was going on. And we stopped the game to look and we saw this guy down at the end of the bleachers. These were folding wood bleachers. You're familiar with them?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yes.

Mike Stone: 

Many high schools had them in gym. Well, back at that time, they had these folding bleachers and they were rolled back and he was punching it with his bare knuckles, and shaking the windows because they were attached to the wall.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Mike Stone: 

And everybody was like, who the hell is that? So after the game was over, I went over to talk to him. And here's again, if I made synchronicity. When I walked up to him, I said, he looked like Hawaiian. So I said, Hey brother, you Hawaiian? And he said, yeah. I said, oh, fantastic! Me too. He said, yeah, I noticed you and Gemma, right? The guy named James Keano, the guy that ran the post. I said, yeah, we both from Hawaii. He said, ah, you know, I just came back from Okinawa. I just got reassigned here and I wanna start a karate club on post. Do you want to join? Immediately, I said, oh yeah, I'm in on this. This is great. So what he said was, where you from? I said, Maui. He said, me too. I said, you're kidding. Fantastic. Where on Maui? I said, Makawao. He said, I live just below you. I'm in Kihei, Maui. I said, wow! Fantastic! He said, where did you go to school? I went to Makawao. Where you go to high school? I went to Lahainaluna. He said, Lahainaluna? My younger brother was a football player at Lahailaluna. I said, what? What was your brother's name? He said, Angus Peters. I said Angus Peters is your brother? I said, he was my hero. When I was a freshman, Angus was a senior and he played the end position. And because of him, I wanted to play end when I was a senior. So is it a small world? Is it by accident? Not at all. It's synchronicity. Now, the way synchronicity works, if you have to have an energy that vibrates equal to the universe, make sense?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Mm-hmm.

Mike Stone: 

Everything in the universe is energy. Everything, everything, everything vibrates at a particular frequency of energy. My favorite quote from Nicola Tesla, if you want to find the secrets to the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. Albert Einstein, energy is everything. That's] simple from the two greatest scientists we've ever had and people still don't get it. They still live their lives not understanding anything about not only the energy that exists everywhere and in everything, but they vibrate at a particular frequency. Everybody's mind, everybody's thought, the person that you create is your identity is simply vibrating at the frequency you chose to be who you are. I am who I vibrate at. The frequency of my thoughts create who I am. It's as simple as that. It's not any more difficult than that. And if you came up with the idea that the way to channel and focus and concentrate your energy is on a phrase as simple as be the best you can be always. If that's it,] I've used that and now everything that has happened to me in my life is a result of Jimmy Gray and that philosophy. And we know how habits are created, right?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Mm-hmm.

Mike Stone: 

How?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Repetition.

Mike Stone: 

Absolutely. And what do they teach you when you do karate?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

A lot of repetition.

Mike Stone: 

And you become an idiot. Yes. You become an idiot. You become...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You can do those...

Mike Stone: 

Simply doing.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Mm-hmm.

Mike Stone: 

Your repetition is simply doing, you repetitively are doing. This is not the way to be. Being what you reproduce, not doing. The repetition is not in your physical body, it's in your state of mind. If I take the energy of my mind and let it put in my body as I did when I first started karate, I will tell you what happened. Now, there's too many people is bullshit, and I don't care what they think. It's already proven. Okay. My first day with this guy, my instructor, Herbert Peters. My first day, five minutes before our class he says, listen, I don't know what you guys think about martial arts and about karate, but I'm going to tell you this before you start. It's going to take you a minimum of five years to get your black belt. Five years, he said. And at that time, if you know anything about martial arts history in America at that time, that was a standard regardless of what system you took.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Mike Stone: 

Korean, Chinese, any Oriental that came to America to teach, they were instructed don't let a foreigner get a black belt before five years. That's a minimum time. Even if they're good, don't pass them. Let them go through the procedure. Send, send. So I can send you your certificate and make money here in Okinawa, China, Japan, Korea. No, you do it our way. So you're still connected to the Orient. So the first day he said this, "I don't know what you guys think about martial arts, but it's gonna take you five years." The moment he said that, I remember Jimmy Gray. The moment he said that, and I said to myself, who do you think, I said to myself, I didn't wanna be disrespectful. I said, who do you think I am that you are going to give me a time limit and tell me who I am and it'll take me five years? How dare you tell me who I am five years from now? So I said in my mind that night before I started my first class, I'm going to be the very best I can always. And always meant in every technique, I had him directly across from me every evening when we trained. I did everything he could. I could cop physically. I was in the best shape of my life. He was 33 years old. There's nothing he could do physically I could not do. So the physical part was taken out of him. I can do this stuff. It's easy for me. And it was exceptionally easy. But more than that, I had a mindset that every moment I was trained, I said, I am this punch. I am this kick. I am, I am. My body vibrated. When I threw a punch, people said, why you hit so hard? I'm not trying to hit you hard. This is how I hit. My best. I could never if I told you this, I never sparred before any tournament I went to. Never. I'm not joking.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

No practice rounds in the Dojo?

Mike Stone: 

No, no. Dojo was for my students and I couldn't even spar with them. I would hurt them because I looked at them like they were nobody. And if you want to fight, then we're going to fight. This is what we're doing. We're not sparring, we're fighting. So this is the attitude I had. T'was a terrible attitude to be a teacher and be like that. So I couldn't spar with anybody. I never could and I never did. So let's take that fast forward if you will.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Mike Stone: 

So three months later, I don't even have a gi yet and I'm a white belt. So three months later he comes in one night and says, oh listen, I just got an invitation from this guy named Lou Angel, who is right across the border from Arkansas. He's in Oklahoma, Tulsa, and he has a karate tournament coming up. It's called the Southwestern Karate Championships, something like that. Sponsored by Lou Angel, 1963. So he said, who'd like to go? I had the first one to lift my head. I wanna go. Now, I played team sports. But I never enjoyed or appreciated team sports. I wanted everything to be mano a mano. For me to do my best, I don't want to rely on anybody else. I don't wanna either take the credit for them or be punished by their inabilities. I'll do it myself. Win or lose. So this was my attitude. So when he said, we're going to fight in these tournaments, I said, I want to go, but he says, we have a problem. I said, what is it? He said, they have an entry fee. I said, what's an entry fee? Not to that point in my life, I've never paid to play at anything. There was never an entry fee. So I said, what do you mean an entry fee? Oh, you have to pay $5 per division. I said, $5? I'm a private in the Army making $99 and 37 cents a month, my basic pay. So I said, Mike, why do we have to pay? He said that that's, but you know, look at it this way, Mike, they have trophies. Well, remember I told you my first trophy, auntie, can you get it for me? My first trophy I won as a basketball All-Star was in the eighth grade. This is my most prized possession.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Mike Stone: 

his is worth more than any international, any title, any recognition from anybody. This is who I am. So that idea was he said, well, we have a problem. So I said, well, what else? He said, oh, you know, listen, when we get there, I know you've been only training for three months, but I'm going to have you wear a brown belt just to get experience is what he said.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Uhhuh.

Mike Stone: 

And I'm going, but wait a minute, you just told me that the people that are fighting in these tournaments are grown men. They're people that came back from the military. They're people that are teaching karate now and they've been teaching for a while. So I'm gonna go up against these guys? They must have trained at least two and a half years to get their brown belts. So my first thing was fear. I was gonna, oh shit, I'm in trouble now. I gotta fight these guys that are grown men that have probably killed people in Korea, which my instructor did. I have his medals. I took pictures of his medals when I went to interview him one time. But the whole idea was that, wow, this is a reality check. But then, Jimmy is always on my mind. So just be your best. Just get out there and be your best always. So, in three months we went to that tournament and I paid $10 for two divisions, kata and sparing. So when I went up there to pay, I asked the lady who was taking the registration, I said, listen, do you have your trophies here? Because that's all I'm thinking about now. I don't care who's here, how big, how old, how many years experience, that trophy is mine. That's my trophy. So I said, can I look at the trophies that you already have for the end of the day? She said, yeah, they're in the gym. May I go in just for a moment to look at it? So I went in there, I walked, there were these eight, four by eight-foot tables, three of them with all these trophies on. I went down and I went brown belt, brown belt, first place, brown belt. I saw this one. I have it right here on the floor in my house, brown belt, first place kata. I picked it up and said, wow, for 10 bucks, that's a steal. I think I'll take this one. I put it down and went looking for the sparring ones. It looked exactly like that same trophy except for the nameplate. One is sparred and one is kata. So I said, well, I need bookends. I'll take both of 'em. Thank you. So I went and I just saw what I told the lady. I said, oh, nice trophies. I'm gonna take both of them home. Long story short, I ended up winning both. While we were there, Allen Steen was at that tournament. The guy from Texas. Steve said, Mike, next month in November, in fact, I was there during the assassination of President Kennedy. Is that a coincidence?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Mm. Wow.

Mike Stone: 

It was November 22nd, 1963. I was in Dallas. So, we went to Allen Steen's tournament. That was the Southwest Dallas Karate Championship. I said I'll go. My instructor said, yeah, I'll bring him. So I said, well, do you have trophies? He said, yeah. I said, how big? He said, oh a couple inches bigger than this one. I said, great. I'll take two. Thank you. So when I went there, I want two more. When I was there, I met Jhoon Ree, Allen Steen's instructor from Washington DC. And he was there just getting ready to do the nationals. So he said, listen, I'd like to invite you. You know, my instructor, he invited but to bring me along. So I said, you guys have trophies? Yes. How much is it? So he said, $10. I said, how big are they? He says, oh, quite a lot bigger than this. It's the National. I said, great. I'll go get two more. Thank you. I went there and I won three trophies, not two. I won the most outstanding competitor as a brown belt, and they were going to give it to a black belt, but couldn't find one to give it to. Now, let me explain something if I may. After we finish that tournament and we're flying back, I won all three tournaments, both divisions. We flew back, and while we're flying back, my instructor didn't look very happy. So I said, Sensei, what's the problem? You don't look like you're pleased for me, you know? He said, no, I'm very happy for you. But you know, while you were having fun kicking butt and everything and not go to jail, people came to talk to me and they said, Mr. Peters, is it true that you just came from Okinawa not too long ago and you're stationed at Fort Chaffee? I said, yeah. He said, well, we're kind of like confused about something. And he said, what is it? He said, well, I'm sure if you just came from Okinawa, they do have honor and integrity. And he said, yes, they do, why? He said, well, we're surprised that you would take your best black belt, Mike Stone, let him wear a brown belt so he could win all these tournaments. My instructor said, what? He said, what? You gotta admit that guy is not a brown belt. He said, you know, you're absolutely right. He is only a white belt. He's only been in karate six months. So on the flight back when he told me this story, he says, when we land there, I will have to promote you to first-degree black belt. Otherwise, they say they will not allow you to compete in any tournaments. You're not a brown belt. So in six months for someone to not only do that, but my first tournament was the International that I won the grand champion in the heavyweight division. So how is it possible for someone within a year to accomplish so much when everybody around you is telling you their beliefs about who you are? They're telling me, my instructor by himself said, it's gonna take you five years. And in fact, on the flight when we're coming back, and he said that, so he said, well, remember what I told you the first day you started? And I pretend like I didn't know, but I know what he was getting at. So I said, no. Why? What did you say? Remember your first night at class? I told you guys that it'll take you five years minimum to get your black belt. I said you did? I'm glad I didn't listen to you. Where's your sense of humor? You don't smile at any of my...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I love it. 

Mike Stone: 

So anyway, that's what happened. And after that, I mean, everything was effortless all of the time. Never an issue with this. Martial arts was the easiest thing I've ever done.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

So, I'm curious. I understand this approach. I understand the mindset that you're talking about. But it makes me wonder how many of the things that you've done in your life were things that you set out to do? And how many of them were things that I guess kind of showed up?

Mike Stone: 

Yeah. None of it was planned. None of it from the very beginning. Yeah. From high school, from me winning awards at football, being a decade all-star, being an all-star, all of that. I was captain of the football and basketball team, co-captain. So all of this, it wasn't a surprise to me. It wasn't like, you know, I don't deserve it. I was the best player. In fact, Jimmy was the assistant coach and handled the backs and the ends, and he was the one that told the head coach when we started spring practice, I want to make Mike one of the captains cause I think he'll be inspirational. He's already ready to play both ends of the field. And I played almost every game offense and defense. I'd never went. I was in shape. By that time, everybody was vomiting and throwing up in spring practice, I was ready to play. So no, none of this was planned. Not anything of my life is planned. And the reason why, again, if I may, I'll remind you about synchronicity.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yes, please.

Mike Stone: 

So there's no need me make because expectations only produce two things, unhappiness and disappointment. So don't create any expectations for yourself or anyone else and your life will be a lot easier. Now, I've created a philosophy in the 40 years I've been here. I have a book that I'm presently writing. In fact, right behind you is my computer that I work at every day. But I've written, I'm in the process of writing two more books, a biography and this other book, it says, Mike Stone Lives in Paradise. And it's called a Life-Changing Experience. And what it is is the program I've put together, and I've been doing this for 25, 30 years here, and I've clients that come to me from all over the world that do my program. When you come here, you're not allowed to eat. You have to fast. So if you do a 7, 14, 21 or 30 days, you're not allowed to eat. You're not allowed to leave the property. Obviously there's no drugs, there's nothing like that. But the entire day is consumed with activities both physical, mental, and spiritual. Not religion. I don't, not that I don't believe in religion. Of course, it exists, but that's not my thing. I'm spiritual. I'll just leave it that way. So this program I've put together is, in fact, I have a very good client that I talk with him every day and I just talk with him again today at 12 o'clock noon my time, is a very famous singer called Engelbert Humperdinck. And he has been a friend of mine for over 50 years, and I was his bodyguard at one point. And in the recent three or four months, we've gotten to be very close again. I was up in LA to spend a month with him at his home, and he's starting to do my program. So what we do every day is we do have little chats and we talk about the philosophy cause it's quite extensive. It's not a simple thing. There's volumes of this. There's a lot of things that you need to understand. There is a foundation like everything else, right? You build a house, you need a foundation. You're thinking you did a foundation. But there's so many things I'm writing right now. One of the biggest chapters I'm doing is on this thing called fear. And we were taught to be afraid. The minute we were born, when we came out, especially the first seven years, we were simply taught how to be afraid. Now, of course, there are many parents that are loving, kind, safe, and protect, and they taught that way. But if you look at the population of the world today, and you look the way the world has turned, obviously parents did not do a good job.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Mike Stone: 

You can only teach what you know. My parents taught me the way they were taught by their parents and their parents before. So it's a wash-down series that's not very good. By the time a child is three years old and just starting to get some brain development, they're already 50% programmed for the rest of their life. By the time they're seven, they're really not good for anybody, not even for themselves. They don't even know who they are, let alone they're going to be responsible for anything else in their life. The first thing is, accept responsibility for your choices, cause life is nothing but choices. That's all it is. And you get to choose, that's a gift you had at birth. But there is a distinction. The program I've created is broken down into two different... are you familiar with the five basic questions of mankind?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

No.

Mike Stone: 

I'm sure you are. When I say it, you'll say, oh yes, of course. Who am I? Who am I? That first question?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Mike Stone: 

Where do I come from? Why am I here? What is the meaning to life and what is my purpose?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Hmm. Sure.

Mike Stone: 

Me personally, if you don't answer those five basic questions, then you can't be living a very happy life. When I say happy, I'm not talking about ha ha ha happy. I'm talking about fulfillment, contentment. I'm talking about inner peace, harmony, balance, discipline. This is a part of your physical reality also. But the two first questions to the five I ask you are spiritual. These questions we don't remember because we were created spiritually first before being born into the physical world of relativity. So let me go back to the first two questions. Who am I? Very simple. I am love and light. That's it. I am love and light. Where do I come from? I have been created, and I'm going to use a biblical phrase only for familiarity with most of the people. I was created in the likeness and image of the creator. I'm not saying God, I said the creator. So that can be whoever you decide the creator is. I was created in the likeness and image, in the realm of the absolute. That means I was not physical yet. I was still in the physical world when I was created by the creator in the physical world. This is before I became physical and being born in the physical world of relativity. So who am I? I am love and light created in the lightness and image of the creator in the realm of the absolute perfection. This is who I was, but I could never know myself as love until I experienced fear and hatred. To do that, I need to become physical. There was a transition that I had to go through between the first two questions and the last three questions. In this transition period, there were agreements made between the higher self or your spiritual self, or your soul and your mind body, which is who you are now. There was an agreement made during this transition period. The agreement made by your soul was simply this, I will never interfere with my soul's intent on what it wishes to experience. A soul will never interfere, not only with its soul but with any other soul it encounters throughout its journey through life. Every human being is a soul. So my soul said to me before I became physical, I will never interfere with any choice you make on your journey through the physical world. I will never interfere with a choice. This is very important. Your mind body during this transition period made several agreements with your soul. The agreement was, I will choose to forget that I was created of love and light. Love and light, I will choose to forget that. And the reason is the creator understood that for you to be physical, for you to experience physicality, you must know the opposite of who you are. If you are love and light, and that's your creation, you must have an opportunity throughout your life to choose every other option other than love and light. Hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, selfishness, cynicism. You must have an opportunity to choose that. In order for you to choose that, you must forget that your love and light, if you remember, that's all you are, you'll have no problem. That's why we have child prodigy. These are kids at four or five and six years old that know who they are already. They will never change. Whatever they have chosen to be at four and five, they will continue that through the rest of their life. They won't have difficulties that other people have trying to figure out. Let me say, I go through puberty. I got this. I got, oh my God, I gotta get a job. Do I get married? Do I work? Oh, none of these things become an issue. And yet these are the issues everybody faces every single day. And they don't have to. There is a better way. There is a simpler way. And this by choosing to forget one of now the other two questions, the other three questions I have about the first one is, who am I loving life? Where do I come from? The realm of the absolute. And now the other said, what is my reason for being? What is my purpose? Why am I here? You're here to simply experience your choices. Whatever they are, whatever you choose, you're here to experience those choices. And from those experience, you decide who you are by having that experience. Whatever it turns out. The outcome, the consequence of that choice will give you an idea, do I want to be this idea or do I want to change my mind? Now, one of the agreements your mind made with your spiritual self is that you have the opportunity during your physical life to change your mind as often as you like. Anytime you make a wrong decision, you can change your mind in the very next moment that you exist. You don't have to beat yourself up for three months. You don't have to get depressed, get on drugs. You don't have to ruin your family. Your job, get depressed and oh my God, pity, poor me. Self-pity, the worst thing you can do. So this idea that people are choosing is for you to decide who you are. That's why you have free will. It's a gift at birth, free will to choose. And you made an agreement, your physical self made an agreement with your spiritual self. I can change my mind anytime. Do you understand this word called hypocrite?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I do.

Mike Stone: 

I am a hypocrite. I was born to be a hypocrite. I was born with the ability that if I chose something, I can change my mind immediately. That's a hypocrite in our daily experience. They think you have to wait three or four months to continually make the same mistake before you change your mind. And oh, you finally realized you came around. No, I could have changed my mind the next moment I realized that choice was not the best choice I could have made. So I am, I even wrote a post on my Facebook page. I am a hypocrite and I explain the mental attitude that goes behind saying, yes, I am a hypocrite. We all are. Some of us take long to become hypocrites. We take three or four months. In the meantime, we ruin our lives and we ruin the lives of people we care about and love. What's the deal about that? We end up taking drugs, smoking, drinking, I mean whatever. That's a decision that you make. There's consequences. But you get to choose who you are after you make a choice. If you haven't experienced you, don't like it, change your mind. When? Now, now. Everything is now. This present reality thing. People don't understand time also. They're living in the past and the future. They don't exist. Do you know that right now is the only place that you and I can die? Right now, we are looking at each other. Right now, we can only die right now. No other time. Not before, not in the future. We can die now. So in if I can die now, why can't I live now? Live the best I can be now in the moment I exist. Be the best me I can be. When I do that., I'm being the best I can be for everybody I'm associated with. I lift everybody up to equal my idea of who I am. I make everybody better. Not because I'm capable of doing that. I am a living example. We talk about martial artists. I don't want to say my next thought about martial artists. About how they think and what they do. The ranks they give themselves. The title they give themselves, the certification. Where's the honor and respect and integrity? Where is that in doing this? Anyway, that's why I left 40 years ago. That was not for me. And yet I am guilty because I started the martial arts thing in America also. I contributed in the tournaments, in the promotions, in the movies, in the teaching, in opening schools. I was a part of every, and I feel not guilty about it. I feel sad.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

But you changed your mind.

Mike Stone: 

Of course. Of course. Yeah. So for 40 years I've been living completely different. Nobody can live like this. If you want, if you say, oh, a martial artists. Come here, come to my house. This is who I am. This is what I do. Very simple. Everybody, when I left, everybody said, you know, Mike, you could have made so much money here in America with your skills, your talents, your reputation. Man, you could have made a fortune. I don't want money. I know. I make money now doing nothing. I've been in 40 years. I haven't had a job. I haven't, I'm not joking. I haven't had a job in 40 years.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I believe you.

Mike Stone: 

I want to give you a little tour of my little humble, where are you? Listen.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I'm in Vermont.

Mike Stone: 

Oh, no, I know, but I mean, there.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Oh, oh.

Mike Stone: 

What? What? How does it work? Oh, if I did it like this, oh, like that.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That works. Yeah.

Mike Stone: 

This is my high school patch for football. Captain for two sports, basketball, track, and football. Bruce Lee. Patches of schools I've done seminars for.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That's a lot of patches.

Mike Stone: 

Awards that I've been given 40 years after I've done what they thought was amazing. I'm still getting awards for something that, I mean, I look at it and I appreciate. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate, but it doesn't mean anything. But I had so much stuff in my storage. When I would go there to clean up the storage every year, I'd lose half of my things. All of my karate uniforms, all of my memorabilia, all my trophies. I don't have any of the big trophies. So I finally had to bring it and I made this living room like a little museum. So these are, and I got maybe I've read every book here. All of these magazines. I have another 200 or 300 more.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Wow.

Mike Stone:

In story. This is my instructor. This is him presenting me with my black belt. This is me doing The Flying Sidekick. That was a Guinness Book of Records I did on tv. The Guinness Game. That's the ninja movie. And these are just some of the stuff. But very simple.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You know, we'll start to fade here. We've talked about the arch of your life and you know, we've talked about martial arts at various points in time. What is your relationship to and with martial arts today?

Mike Stone: 

I don't know. I am on this isolated island, you know, I'm way out here in the middle of the Philippines, literally the middle of the Philippines. I'm posting my philosophy of life. I'm writing about it. I have people come here, like I said, from all over the world that have taken my courses. Am I teaching martial arts? Mm, no. I'm teaching a philosophy of life which is much broader. It is not a particular style or system cause I've done many. No, I'm just interested in sharing information with people that when people say, you know, I've had people come here, they're 70 years old, and they still have childhood fears that they learned at five years old they never got rid of, and they never knew they had it until they came here. They keep covering it over with layers and layers of bullshit. They keep lying to themselves. They're not honest. Honesty starts with you. You gotta be honest with you first. So this people are not willing to do, but this is where it starts. So this, and I know this very well, so I'm going to say it also for your listeners that you have.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Please.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah. What I do is not for everyone. In fact, it's for very few people. It's not for everyone. Now, I know there's millions of martial artists all over the world, and I respect everybody for having an interest in developing themselves as best they can. The question is, are they being the best they can? Have they learned the foundation that will allow them to be their best? Not physically, not technique, not style, not system. Can you imagine Bruce Lee teaches a system that he started off telling everybody that there is no system. You shouldn't have one?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Mike Stone: 

And everybody wants to be like Bruce Lee. What's the deal about that? You create a new system. No system means no system. There is no rank. I have a certificate from Bruce. I don't deserve it. I haven't done anything. Bruce Lee and I only had one session that was physical. The first session after that, no more physical sessions with him. He only wanted to talk to me about my philosophy, my mindset, poetry. That's what he wanted to talk about. It was not physical anymore. Now, when I tell people that, they can't believe it. I said it at the grand opening of the museum in Seattle, Washington that his wife invited me. After 50 years, she invites me to make the opening address to the museum. And I said things that I know a lot of people maybe would not appreciate, but the biggest mistake I think most people made with Bruce Lee is that they made him to be superhuman. They should take out the super and just treat him like a human being. That was the big mistake. So now you have young kids now that don't even know Bruce Lee was a real person cause they're little toys and dummies and little cartoons and everything. Yeah. It's a big mistake. If you want the legacy, his legacy is his humanness. That's what IA was attracted to. I liked him because he was honest. Arrogant, yes but so was I, for sure. So yeah, we have to, well, we don't have to do anything, right?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's true.

Mike Stone: 

We're gonna do what we choose. Yeah. We're going to do what we choose to do. But this is basically it. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to say some of the things, but it's quite an extensive program and this is all I'm interested in. That's why I'm pushing to write this book and get all of this information out.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

If people... please continue.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah, go ahead.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Well, if people wanna learn more, because it sounds like it's available for people to you know, come to your home. I don't know if this is an open thing if it's invitation only, but I suspect you have something out there if people wanna understand more before the book comes out.

Mike Stone: 

Oh, sure. For sure.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Where could they go?

Mike Stone: 

That's why I wanted to write the book cause what I was doing was I was only making it available to people on an individual basis. By the way, you can't bring a friend with you. When you come, it's only you and I for 10, 12 hours a day. There's nobody else involved. No excuses, no alibis, everything I ask you to do, I'll be willing to do it myself, or I do do it in demonstrating the physical thing. But no, it has to be like that. I would be really a hypocrite if I asked you to do something I wouldn't do myself. But yeah, again, I'm on Facebook and I'm a lot of my philosophies and ideas and every once in a while when I have something, I just throw it on there. But it's a part of the whole thing that I'm doing. But it is a very disciplined way of living. But to me, what other way is there to live? If you're not in control, you must be out of control. That's the opposite of in control. If you're in control of your thoughts if you're in control of what you eat when you eat, how much you eat, what everything. I mean, if you are in control if you vibrate with the energy that this is who you are. That's why I said you have to go back to answering the first five questions. Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here? What is the meaning to life and what is the purpose for my existence? If you don't answer those five, I'm not interested. So these is the first things to push out right away. Answer those questions, answer them. And come up with your own answer. It's all right. There's no wrong answer in this. There's your answer, but I will give you an alternative idea and I will explain everything. I'll talk about your body, your mind, your brain, how it functions, how your body functions. I'll talk to you about every aspect of your humanity. There is nothing that's off-limits. There is a thing that we can harness, and it's the universe. So I believe there's a thing called universal intelligence. When I first came here, I tapped into this because I realized I had tapped into it when I was 19 years old. When I started fighting my mindset and all that, I had already tapped into this power that I didn't know I had. That again, I thought it was quite natural and effortless, and it was, but it came from somewhere. So I wrote a, one of the first things I did was I wrote a book on poetry. So in the book of poetry that I wrote, the first poem I ever written in my life was called What's the Problem? And I was here already in the Philippines and I just moved here. And I was sitting on a pavilion I had built that overlooks the ocean area. We have some beachfront property here. So I wanted to do something to prove to myself that anything I want to do, I can do. That I am not limited. So the first thing I did was I reverted back to my childhood days. And when I was in elementary school, everybody told me how stupid I was, but I was a great athlete. So I had the belief that athletes were not smart, but they were good athletes. They're physically talented, but not brainy. When I went to high school, it was my worst subject. I nearly failed English. If it wasn't for my Japanese girlfriend who did my term papers, I never would've graduated from high school. And of course, being an athlete pushed me through the other courses quite easily. So the idea about this was English was my worst subject. So when I sat out there in the pavilion, I said to myself, okay, I said to my wife, I wanna do something that I've never done before. That's completely opposite of what everybody who I went to school with or knew me in elementary school and high school would say, Mike Stone? A poet? Mike Stone writes poetry and philosophy? I mean, no, that's not, is that the same mike Stone, the jock? Is that the same guy? So I said, I prove I can do this. So I sat there and I asked her for a yellow pad like this, or this one is pink, and a pen. She gave it to me. So I just thought for a minute, looking out the ocean, and I said, okay, I'm gonna write a poem. What should I write about? What's the problem? That was my first point. What's the problem? Why? Everybody comes to me and the first thing they say is, Mike, can you help me? I got a problem. Everybody has problem. Can you help me with this problem? Can you help resolve this issue? I have this problem. I have. Can you help me with meditation? Can you help me with my diet? Do you think fasting is good? What about exercise? What's your routine? What is your meta, you know, countless question. So I said, what's the problem? Okay, I'll write about that. So I wrote the poem. After I finished, I gave the paper to my wife and the pen, and three days later she came back to me and she had taken my point and rewritten it word for word, but redid it in her handwriting. So she says, oh honey, I want you to read this poem. I said, poem? I'm not interested in poetry. She said, no, I think you really like it. So I go like, yeah, okay, whatever. So I started to read the poem and after I got through the first two stanzas I went like, holy shit, who wrote this? This guy's a genius. How can someone take such a complicated concept, such a difficult thing to even talk about, and make it so simple on a piece of paper? I mean, who wrote it? She said you did. I said I wrote this? She said, yeah, about three or four days ago. Now no bullshit, right? I wrote that? She said, yeah. I said, my goodness! How did it, I wrote this? Now I found out what happened. I found out that everything is energy, Nicola Tesla. If you want to find the secrets to the universe, well, I don't wanna find the secrets to the universe. I wanna find the secrets to my life. I'm interested in my life. Who am I? What am I here? How can I contribute? How can I be my best? That's really what I'm here to do. And if I can share that so that others can be their best, then I've done my job. This is what I'm here to do. And I was upset that I was doing it only, I was so selfish. I was doing it on a one-to-one basis without making it open to others. So the people I got from all over the world came from referrals from other people that came. They said, oh, Mike, I heard you living in the Philippines. Can I stop by your dojo and take a class? When they came here in the first half hour, I talked about the program. They said, forget the class. I wanna take the program. I'll come back and do 7 days, 14 days, 30 days. So they all, and they referred their family and friends to come and continue. So that's how it started. But I want it to grow. I want people to come here and take it, but at the same time, I wanna write it so that people can have the information when I'm not there. So that's why I wanna be meticulous in writing it because it is a step-by-step process. You have to know who you are. You have to answer these five fundamental basic questions that involve your humanity, which the first two questions involve your spirituality. That means your creation as a human spirit. So that's what it is. Do you have time? Can I read you the poem?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Please. I love that.

Mike Stone: 

Ate, can you bring the poem book please and turn to what's the problem? Thank you. So it'll give you an insight that what I realized was that I control the frequency of my thoughts, the energy, the way I vibrate, and the more focus I focus on my thoughts, I can create the reality I experience. And in truth, I create who I am. My thoughts become who I am. We talked about repetition. The more repetitious the thoughts become, the more I become that vibrational resident. So I'm very consciously aware of energy and how it works universally speaking and naturally in the physical world speaking. And I live according to those laws. I'm not fond of manmade laws. They are not just...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I understand.

Mike Stone: 

For everyone, but universal laws and natural laws don't make any distinction in color, race, height, wealth, nothing. So I'm more inclined to live that way. Thank you. So I'll just read this poem if it's okay for you.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yes, please.

Mike Stone: 

It says, what's the problem? Why is it difficult for us to acquire all those things in life we desire? What's so tough about getting all that? It's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Why is it difficult for us to think beyond the quicksand in which we think? Don't we realize we are the source of great energy, love, power, and force? Why is it difficult for us to accept changed ideas and a new concept? Is it because we are stuck in old ways from bad habits acquired in younger days? Why is it difficult for us to understand that we can conduct our own life's band to sing and dance to the music we play and enjoy happiness each and every day? Why is it difficult for us to realize that real strength is not found the inside? It's in our beliefs about who we are which hold us back or drive us far. Why is it difficult for us to believe that we possess the power to achieve any goal in life we desire to attain? Be it love, happiness, fortune, or fame? Why is it difficult for us to know it's only through love, that we can glow and be a shining beacon to all like a lighthouse standing tall? Why is it difficult for us to comprehend in death? We don't lose loved ones and friends. Only worldly possessions do we leave behind realizing their true value to which we were blind. Why is it difficult for us to think about death and dying being on the brink? Is it the fear of the unknown or what we might learn that once through that door we may never return? Why is it difficult for us to see? Death is not the end for you and me. Just take comfort to know that in death, life doesn't end with your very last breath.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Wow. Is that book available for purchase? I feel like I need to read that again.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah, it's on Amazon. I have several books. I have a book on philosophy. I have a book called Ever Notice, and I have a book called the Poet, the Philosopher, and the Writer. And there's another book I wrote called Living in Paradise. And it's a book that I wrote about interrelationships with foreigners and Filipino women. How they can get readjusted because so many of them, friends of mine, disastrous. Absolutely disastrous their relationships. So, yeah, those four books are on Amazon. And then I want to write, you know, several more. But the one that I'm really interested is Mike Stone Lives in Paradise and it's called The Life's Changing Experience. And it's about the entire...

Jeremy Lesniak: 

When do you think that'll be finished?

Mike Stone: 

Well actually, we have already a working draft. I have a writer working with me outta Los Angeles.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Ok.

Mike Stone: 

And we have 35 chapters of the biography which includes everybody and everything about my martial arts career, you know, all of the celebrities and people I've known and worked with through the years, the movie industry, my teaching, all of that kind of stuff. But this book, I'm more interested in that than I am on the biography. So I want to focus my attention on completing this book. I don't know when it'll be finished cause it continually involves. Something happens to me. I see something on tv, I'm writing right now about the Covid Fear, the Covid Pandemic. About, cuz I was writing about fear anyway, about how we are introduced to fear by our parents at a very early age and how they perpetuate that idea. And again, through habit, repetition. We don't realize how much fear we have in us. Our whole life is fear. We are afraid of everything.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Mike Stone: 

And it's turned out to be true with the pandemic. It shows you how prevalent fear is much more than love.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Mike Stone: 

So, but in the poem book, there's some very interesting points. I think you'll enjoy it. They're are on all different topics, so.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I look forward to it.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Mike Stone: 

Maybe one last thing in closing. I know I've overextended.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Please, please. No, no. We have time. You close however you would like to close, sir.

Mike Stone: 

I wanted to answer the question about me writing the poems. And the idea was I knew that if everything if I believe as Einstein did and as Nicola Tesla did, that everything in the university's energy and that energy simply vibrates at a particular frequency that the energy of thought can never be destroyed. So when you have a thought, it is released into the ether or the space, and that energy is like birds of a feather that flock together. That means the vibrational resonance of that frequency of thought will get released into the ether and it'll attach itself into what I call clouds of similar vibration. So, for example, when I made, there's another thing that you must declare to the universe who you are. So I wrote another poem I'd like to read for you at some point. It's an extended poem but it's about a poem called I Am. And it's about a declaration we have to make to the universe. We simply tell the universe, we order, command the universe as to who we are. It simply is a duplicating machine and gives us back the exact vibrational resonance as our faith, belief, and trust in what we say we are. So when we say that, whatever we say I am, when we say with trust, faith, and belief, and believe that at that level, then we become equal to that vibration. That morning, when I said to myself I am a poet, I'm gonna write poetry, so I am a poet. I said to the universe. Immediately, when I said that, and I believed in it. I had trust, faith, and belief. I am a poet in that moment. I instantly vibrated at the frequency that allowed me to connect with all the points who have ever existed. And all of their vibrational energy is into clumps of clouds and my access into that vault of information, into that computer to get access into that information I must be equal to it. That means my thought must be equal to the vibration I am acquiring. When I said that, that's exactly what happened. I wrote that poem not as Mike Stone as who I was before. I wrote it with the knowledge acquired from all the other poets that have written, but I still must write according to my knowledge and my limitation of language. I'm not going to write above that. I'm going to write within the context of my definition of words. So I will seek to find the words that can explain complex ideas and make them come together in such a simple way that everybody who reads my poem cannot say, oh my God, he's writing some esoteric thing. No, everybody can understand it. It's in simple words that everybody knows and have used. So the idea was, I vibrated equal to that and that allowed me the password or the access into that volume of information, that vibration. I simply became that and simply wrote effortless. I didn't have to go to school, didn't have to write poetry, never written poetry before, never went to English literature, nothing. Instantaneously I became that idea. I had access to that information. I just put my particular spin and touch according to my education and my definition and vocabulary, and that's all it is. And I did that with an artist. I could never draw. Nothing, not even stick drawing, but I put up pictures that I've drawn because I can't believe I use it as a reminder of how powerful I am because I can't believe I drew those things. Instantly after saying I am an artist and sit down and drew stuff that I may, did you draw this? I said, don't be surprised. I am too. Because I can shift between two different energies. I can shift to myself created idea and definition of who I am now as a living human being. And I can transcend this by vibrating at a frequency beyond mortality or beyond physicality. It's another vibration. It's another energy. It's non-physical energy. So we all have disability. We're all capable of doing it as effortlessly as I have done. So people marvel about six months to get your black belt. I expected it. I mean, this is who I am. Of course. Well, did you have any difficulty? Wasn't it hard for you? No. No. Very easy. So my whole life has been effortless. So there's two, three phrases to create abundance in life. Find out who you are. Be the natural you. When you are the natural you, you will do everything in your life effortlessly easy. Why? Because it is in harmony with who you. The basic foundation of you can be expressed in the effortlessness of how you attain things. And third, you create abundance in all of its forms. Not only material wealth or possessions, not money, not fame, not fortune, but in peace. Peace of mind, in honesty, in integrity, this is much more valuable than anything I have. Without this I am truly nothing. So, this is what I'm interested in sharing. And I can go on for eight days straight. Do you doubt me?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I believe it. I believe. No. No, I do not. Not even a little.

Mike Stone: 

So I was curious, I was smiling inside when you said, well, you know, some people we talk to they get a little stutter and they're like, you know, they don't know. Should I retract? No, no, no, no. I'm laughing to myself. I said, no. He's gonna say, Mike, can we stop, please?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Well, this has been awesome. And I thank you for giving us the episode that only you could do. So thank you.

Mike Stone: 

Yeah, it's my pleasure.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I was honored to get to talk to Mike Stone. Absolutely thrilled that I got to talk to this legend of a man. The stuff that he's done and the way he made it happen. Like he went deep in this episode talking about his mindset, and it's the type of stuff that I think I have to go back and listen to a few more times because there's so much power in there and you really can't deny the results of that mindset. Look at what he's been able to accomplish. So for someone to come on and to share really the secret sauce of what has made their life great, this is a pretty cool gift. I'm glad you're here for it. I was glad I got to help bring it out to the world. Mike, thank you. Really appreciate you and I hope we get to talk again. Audience, thanks for coming by. Thanks for supporting this episode. The other episodes. Remember, you can go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for all the stuff. Yeah, we put as much as we can in the show notes in your podcast app, but there is more. There's stuff that doesn't fit into that format. It's a technical thing that we can't do. So there's a website dedicated to the show and a page dedicated to each and every episode, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com While you're over there, you can search for other episodes by topic. There are transcripts, so if you're like, oh, who said this thing? You can probably find it. We keep every episode out there for you to check out. Now, do you have martial arts school? You probably know someone who does if you don't. We offer martial arts consulting. It's something that we do that I think really lines up with everything that we stand for helping martial arts schools achieve the success that they're looking for in terms of money or student count or anything like that, because why does whistlekick do what we do? To get people in and keep them in the martial arts. So this lines up absolutely. We have a wonderful team of people led by me who do that consulting work, and there's no obligation. If you wanna make an inquiry, go to whistlekick.com. Under the school heading at the top, you'll find a page explaining more and no obligation inquiry. So go check that out or share it with folks that you think might want more from their martial arts school being really successful with what we've done. You wanna have me come to your school or a school nearby? Let's do a seminar. Let's get something together. The work that I do with individuals, with schools is a ton of fun. It's incredibly educational. I learn as I keep doing it, so it's awesome stuff. There's a reason I keep going back to the same places. They love having me back. There's a reason for that, shouldn't you find out why? Get in touch with us. We can put you in touch with the tour director and see if we can make it happen. Our social media is @whistlekick everywhere you can think of. My personal email address, jeremy@whistlekick.com. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.