Most people know me now as a Karate School Owner and Sensei, but what most people don’t realize is that my education and work background is in science. My forte is in statistic, research and analysis. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that…I approach my life as a big experiment – a work in progress.
Over the years, I have self-experimented in almost every area in life. I experimented with many different diets and training regimens…. Currently, I am trying a slow carb diet and testing a simple training regimen with dumbbell swings (I’ll explain later in another post)
Our karate school started based on me wanted to experiment with different karate theories and methods. I’ve experimented with different curriculum and teaching methods to find the best one. Currently, I conduct thought experiments on YouTube and use Facebook to test ideas.
It’s life hacking in its purest form. I love having a researcher’s mindset because the outcome pass or fail doesn’t matter. In science, a failed hypothesis is as valuable as a passing hypothesis. When asked about failure, Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Every failure is a success, too!
After years of self-experimentation, I’ve found that most of life is counter-intuitive ~ meaning that the best results stem of doing the exact opposite of what you would think would work and what most people tell you to do. The results speak volumes but the mechanisms behind the results are veiled and aren’t always clearly understood.
Developing your Researcher’s Mindset
1. Test assumptions – Have you ever said something won’t work before trying it? Instead of assuming something won’t work in advance, test it on a small scale. Most people make huge assumptions that hurt them in the most important areas of business/ jobs, money, and health. For example, when my wife and I went to purchase a house a few years ago, we assumed that the real estate agent would advise us on the amount of money we could afford to pay for a house only to find that they tried to sell us a house that would leave us house poor.
2. Look past self-limiting beliefs – Self-limiting beliefs are things we believe are true about ourselves. For example, for years, I thought that I was not a good artist. I challenged this belief and made an effort to learn how to draw. I found I was wrong all these years. Read more about it here… http://timrosanelli.blogspot.com/2010/01/drawing-lesson-in-overcoming-self.html
3. Create a new theory – This is the fun part. Now, attempt to guess what will happen in your life experiment. Then, set up a simple life experiment to see if the results match what you thought.
4. Measurable results – You need an unbiased system of measuring the results of your theory. Determining a measuring system is important not only test results but will keep you focused.
5. Suspension of Disbelief – We have a tendency to form pre-conceived notions about life based on our previous experiences and disbelief anything to the contrary. Suspend this disbelief and disassociate yourself from the outcome. Try and step back from the outcome of your experiment. See the whole picture. I guarantee that you will achieve some results or find some great discovery from your efforts even if it’s not the results you wanted.
6. Pass or fail you win – Remember, knowing what doesn’t work is almost as important as finding out what does. For example, I would have plenty of people try to sell me advertising for our karate school. I decided to try it out, but purchased a separate phone number to track response rates. I found that the responses were almost non-existent. Although I would have loved for it to work well, I save thousand of dollars removing the guesswork and finding out the exact results. It also gives me firm footing for saying “No” to future inquires.
Last thought is to enjoy the process.
Sensei Tim Rosanelli
Maximum Impact Karate
(215) 249-3532
www.maximpactkarate.com
timrosanelli.blogspot.com
60situpschallenge.blogspot.com
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