Zen, Timeshare Sales, and the Art of the Samurai Sword
Anyone who claims to walk the righteous path is delusional or a con man. Some people come closer than others, but I can’t be the judge.
For as long as I can remember, I have asked the question: “What is the right thing to do?”
I’m just a dumb ape full of greed and jealousy and anger and fear. But the question has always been there.
As a kid, I wanted to be Batman. I fell down the stairs running through my house blindfolded. I thought it was good training.
I studied philosophy in college, then I spent two years at a Zen monastic community in hopes of answering this question.
Fast forward to November of 2008, at age 31 I moved to Sedona, AZ to study ancient Japanese battlefield martial arts. I know this all sounds hippie, but stay with me.
This tradition, Shinkage, was founded during the latter part of the 1500s by the legendary warrior, Kamiizumi Nobutsuna. It passed down in an unbroken lineage 13 generations to a warrior-monk in Nagoya, Japan. When I met this warrior-monk in September of 2017, he was 86 years old and exactly as you imagine — shaved head just over 5 foot, eyes barely open and wise, relaxed body and aging tissue, but hardened, settled bones, and deadly.
Beginning in the early 80s, this warrior-monk passed the tradition to a California-bred American of Scottish descent. For the purpose of this story, I’ll call him, “Sensei.” Sensei met the warrior-monk after spending the better part of the 70s studying fighting systems with Donn Draeger.
During the financial crash of 2008, I was a first-year attorney in New York City, an easy choice for a budget cutback. Before I was laid off, I started a transition into law enforcement because I saw it as better fit for my emerging persona as a (wannabe) warrior. I took exams and submitted applications to police departments in New York, California, and Arizona, but I never got a response during the Great Recession.
I planned to train with Sensei for a few months in Sedona, where he lives, while I waited for employment.
Behind an old commercial building covered in red-rock dust on a back-road in Sedona, 1 to 6 hours per day, 2 to 5 days per week, we beat each other with every conceivable weapon made from wood, bamboo, polymer, or any other sufficiently durable but non-lethal material.
A few months turned into 10 years.
This was far more than haphazard flailing of sticks. Sensei is a master of a system, which, with sufficient deliberate work, imparts seemingly supernatural power with a close combat weapon.
At the end of his sixties, his joints ache, and he limps on both legs, but he is unbeatable. And he is an exacting and sometimes brutal teacher.
But even more than sharpening the combative capability, the training can cultivate the character. Sensei’s discipline and courage are mythical. The calluses on his hands and feet are harder than the Arizona desert rocks.
Thanks to Sensei’s rigid code of ethics, I slept for free at the dojo for an entire year. With few other job options, I began selling timeshare in November of 2009.
I thought salesmen were beneath me when I started, and many timeshare salesmen deserve the bad reputation. In my training, I was surrounded by warriors with the highest moral standards. I emulated them, and I strived to be an ethical salesman. But it’s difficult to define an ethical salesman if such a thing exists.
The vast majority of sales transactions worldwide have little to do with facts, and almost nothing to do with need. Human beings need air, water, 1200 calories per day, and contact with other humans. Most of our problems are because we have too much, not too little. Everything we purchase above 1200 calories a day moves beyond need and into self-expression.
Facts don’t matter because every person lives in a world of fictional stories. This is why a good salesman is a storyteller. But an ethical salesman doesn’t lie about what matters.
Seth Godin makes this distinction (paraphrasing): a salesman persuades people to purchase things they are glad about. A con man persuades people to purchase things they regret. People are fickle, confused, and easily manipulated so this is simplistic, but it is a good heuristic.
Human beings became the dominant species on earth because of our ability to cooperate in groups. At the foundation, civilization cannot exist without effective communication and persuasion. The only other options are violence, fraud, or social dissolution. This is why the human mind evolved so that it could persuade and be persuaded. Sales are as old as humankind.
Yet, when it matters, transferring the most basic ideas between people requires extraordinary empathy, awareness, and self-control. These are the foundation of sales and of all interpersonal relationships. But they do not come easily.
Each person communicates on his or her own terms.
Most mornings and evenings before and after work, I trained in Shinkage.
“What do you think we’re doing?” Sensei yelled at me one day in 2009 while sparring with 11-foot spears. “Don’t ever drop your damn weapon. Are you trying to tell me you’re hurt?” I was doubled over, wind knocked-out, after he cracked my rib with his spear. “I don’t care, and your enemies definitely don’t care. Stand up straight, and hold your weapon! We are training the mind. Yours is so damn weak.”
I dropped my weapon one other time years later, but only for a few seconds until I could see enough to pick it up. Sensei’s spear broke my orbital during a training drill.
I made the fatal mistake of focusing on my enemy’s weapon. In the chaos of combat, the only way to be effective is to focus awareness on the target, never the threat.
I finished the last hour of that session seeing double and tasting the metallic blood from my eye socket trickling down the back of my throat.
This is how I spent my mornings before work.
Now consider the context of a timeshare sale.
Anyone who regularly travels for vacation should own a timeshare. I do, and I love it.
But every potential buyer is bribed to be there with $200-$500 worth of tourist stuff, and they all promised themselves not to buy the timeshare because that is the game. The concierge who books the presentation guarantees no more than 90 minutes for a process that takes no less than 3 hours. And if they have been on a timeshare presentation before, then they were probably pressured, belittled, and subjected to criminal fraud. It is an understatement to say they are guarded.
Some people want to pick a fight, especially when they believe they have the dominant position. In sales, my style was to be painfully direct, and I would not tolerate bullshit, not from me, and not from the people on my presentations.
Sara, a woman in her early fifties came in with Frank, her boyfriend. Sara was belligerent and argumentative from the time we met. At some point, neither she nor I would let go of a dispute over how timeshare works.
I am careful and precise in my statements, and I am an expert on the subject matter. I was objectively correct on the facts, and Sara was wrong. From my martial arts training, I learned to remain poised amidst conflict. Eventually, Sara erupted and stormed out of the salesroom crying.
At that point, Frank turned to me with tears welling in his eyes and said, “I’m sorry. We just found out I’m dying of cancer.”
That may have been their last vacation together. Being right did no good for anyone. My focus was misguided once again. I still regret my behavior, and I wish I could make it up to them.
During my time in sales, I heard hundreds of stories of love, and pain, and strength, and courage, and beauty. I learned so much, and I am so grateful. It paid well and gave me time to train and be a husband and father.
But in March 2018, I resigned from my job in order to enter the emerging legal marijuana industry, a move I had considered for many years.
When I told Sensei my intentions, he gave me an ultimatum: stop pursuing this business, or he would accept my continued pursuit as a resignation from our tradition. He explained in his direct, forceful, and gruff manner that a person who sells intoxication to the public, especially to those who are of a weak mind, cannot represent the Shinkage tradition.
I am not denying my own self-interest. And I am not writing here to argue the case for cannabis. People will disagree on this matter. But every corner of life is morally complex. Marijuana legalization is no different.
My ethical position is simple: it is wrong to impose criminal sanctions for pot-related activities. Marijuana causes far less harm to public health than alcohol or sugar. Almost all of the harm related to marijuana is because it is illegal. It is time to end the unjust prohibition on marijuana. Responsible, professional, entrepreneurs are the best ones to structure this.
But there’s more: the $50-$60 billion of revenue from marijuana could revitalize local, small, ecological farms. (I’ll leave it at that for now.)
Shinkage has been my most important education, and it is soaked into my cells and permeates into everything I do. I love Sensei like a father, and I am indebted. But after almost 14 years of dedication and commitment, my life in Shinkage ended abruptly.
No matter what I do in life, I will always carry some enduring, fundamental lessons handed down in the shadows over 600 years through the currency of sweat and blood.
These apply literally to close combat and metaphorically to all of life:
- Place your mind steadfast on the target, and always assess and adapt to dynamic change without being distracted by any threats obstructing your path to the target.
- Amidst the chaos, control yourself and be aware of your own mind and behavior.
- Give constant effort to become better.
- Move forward with courage and honor.
When I was younger, it was much easier to know what was “right.”
As a kid, I wanted to be Batman.
In my twenties, I worked for six years as a farmer because I was sure that small, local farmers would save the world. But as a farmer, I learned that the problems are more complicated.
Then I went to law school. I was drawn to the law, in part, because of my strong sense of justice. But I quickly learned that the law has little connection to justice.
After a short legal career, I wanted to become a cop because I romanticized the connection to the warrior path. But any critically minded observer should have deep misgivings about the U.S. criminal justice system.
Living in Sedona training in Shinkage and working in sales was an ideal lifestyle, but I became haunted by the dark places that crept through the cognitive dissonance.
This is the human experience.
Life will always be difficult, complicated, uncertain, and morally ambivalent. The warrior and saint exist and wield power within the minds of real people. And devils and monsters lurk in us as well.
But they are not real people, and there is no profession in the real world that aligns along the righteous path nor along the path of darkness.
The mind forces coherence out of the chaos. We cling to labels to make sense of it, and we purify narratives so all the pieces fit. However, no human being is perfect. I sure am not. As our society seems divided, I don’t believe there are good or bad people. There are only moments of possibility.
But this does not mean we should abandon ideals. To the contrary. We must hold them dear and strive to become them with every effort we have. Whatever one’s profession, ideals help us navigate through our lives and bring good into the world.
But ideals are never to measure other people. A human being can only measure himself against his ideals. This is the crucial point.
To be clear, I am not a moral relativist. I believe there are right and wrong actions and ways to order society. However, I cannot judge any person as good or bad.
Innovation and progress come from passionate individuals pursuing their own conceptions of the good, even when those people are wrong (if within the bounds of the “harm principle”). Attempts to control others generally cause more harm than good and should be applied only with extreme caution.
This is why liberty is worth fighting for. (John Stuart Mill explained this durable insight in On Liberty, 1859.)
In June of 2018, my wife and I sold our house in Sedona, packed up two moving trucks, and relocated our family to Massachusetts to join those with the courage to put their skin in the game.
After wrestling many years with the question of what is right, I don’t know if what I am doing is right or how this ends. Like many of life’s most important questions, the point is not to find the answer, but to always ask.
Fear and doubt haunt me.
The only path is to take absolute responsibility and to relentlessly train to become a better, more aware person.
Then, in the face of mystery and uncertainty, move forward with self-control, courage, honor, and compassion.
