I’ll do the following, every day, to accomplish this:

• 137 push-ups
•137 crunches
•Approximately four 3-minute rounds of sparring (any style) 5-days a week
•3 repetitions of a form (empty hand, weapons, or grappling routine)
•3 recorded conscious and purposeful acts of kindness
•Walk, run, swim, or bike 3-miles

“To do all of this requires a level of self-discipline few people can muster. The push-ups and crunches (which may be changed to other exercises to compensate for injuries) gives the participant a form of strength-training that he or she can do anywhere. The 1000 rounds of sparring and 1000 reps of a form insures that the participant is a practicing martial artist. The 1000 acts of kindness allows us to demonstrate how easy it is to make kindness a daily practice.

And the 1000 mile walk is to illustrate the power of putting one foot in front of another. All of these things are meant to show, by your example, how the seemingly impossible can become reality with small daily effort.

This is a form of self-defense training for one’s life.”

~Tom Callos

 

3. Record 1000 Projects at PROJABI.com

Projabi is about Building Your Leadership Project Portfolio and developing authentic leadership skills through experience and action.

 

4. Something NEW Every 30 Days.

Each month, I’ll be FOCUSING on something new.

1. January - No Sugar for 30 days
2. February – Buy ‘Nothing New’ for 30 days
3. March – 10,000 Pushups in 30 days
4. April – Use No Disposable Plastics (bottles, bags, utensils, etc…)
5. May - Morning Run – 5k each morning
6. June - A Video A Day (30 Videos in 30 Days)
7. July – No GAS for 30 Days (ride bike, push lawnmower…etc)
8. August – StopEATStop – Intermittent Fasting Method 
9. September – No Gluten
10. October - 30 Community Projects in 30 Days
11. November - Write a Book in 30 days. (300 pages – 10 per day)
12. December -
13. January -
14. February -
15. March -

5. 10 Personal Victories

On top of the 20 ‘personal victories’ above… I’ll be accomplishing 10 ‘Very Important To Me’ Personal Victories this year.

1. Earn My BLUE Belt in Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
2. Publish A Book on ‘Leadership’
3. Record 1000 community based projects on www.Projabi.com
4. Build a New School For Leadership Academy
5. Buy a Home
6. Display Project Portfolio Displayed on School’s Walls of 200 Projects (throw celebration – like an art show)
7. Promote Projabi –  Sign Up 500 Schools to Site (expand beyond martial arts schools – include public, private and charter schools)
8. Receive a Grant to expand work on PBLT
9. Climb  the Sears Tower carrying 170 pounds (the weight of my 3 girls on my back)
10. Ripped Abs are something that I’ve never really had and will show up to my test with.

 

6. 10 Living Heroes – spend time with them…

 

1. Tom Callos

• How could Tom not be the first person on my list?
• Tom has been a friend and role model since I met him in 2005.
• His actions and words (both spoken and written) serve to inspire me in my personal and professional life.
• Not only is he the creator of this Ultimate Black Belt Test that I’m participating in, but his messages (video, written, conversation) about training, about business, about nutrition and about the future of the martial arts serve to make me a better person.
• That’s what heroes do, yes? They set the bar high so that we are forced to reach higher than we ever thought was possible.
• Because of this, Tom is a Living Hero in my book.

2. Emily Pilloton

• Emily is the creator of Studio H.
• As a young designer, Emily Pilloton was frustrated by the design world’s scarcity of meaningful work. Even environmentally conscious design was not enough. “At graduate school, people were starting to talk more about sustainability, but I felt it lacked a human factor,” she said. “Can we really call $5,000 bamboo coffee tables sustainable?” Convinced of the power of design to change the world, at age 26 Pilloton founded Project H to help develop effective design solutions for people who need it most.
• Her book Design Revolution features products like the Hippo Water Roller, a rolling barrel with handle that eases water transport; AdSpecs, adjustable liquid-filled eyeglasses; and Learning Landscapes, low-cost playgrounds that mesh math skills and physical activity.
• In February 2009, Pilloton and her Project H partner Matthew Miller began working in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state, to develop a design-build curriculum for high-school kids, called Studio H. In August 2010 they began teaching their first class of 13 students. Read about their experiences in Design Mind.
  

  “… the work means something, and every day we feel that something positive is happening, whether or not we can put our finger on it. “

  Emily Pilloton in Design Mind

 

3. Brian Williams

ThinkKindness.org

 

4. Dave Kovar

Satori Academy

 

5. Adora Svitak

• This little girl just inspires me.
• A voracious reader from age three, Adora Svitak’s first serious foray into writing — at age five — was limited only by her handwriting and spelling. (Her astonishing verbal abilities already matched that of young adults over twice her age.) As her official bio says, her breakthrough would soon come “in the form of a used Dell laptop her mother bought her.” At age seven, she typed out over 250,000 words — poetry, short stories, observations about the world — in a single year.
• Svitak has since fashioned her beyond-her-years wordsmithing into an inspiring campaign for literacy — speaking across the country to both adults and kids. She is author of Flying Fingers, a book on learning.
  

  “A tiny literary giant.”

  Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America

 

6. Pam Dorr

HERO

 

7. Anthony Robbins

 8. Kiran Bir Sethi

She has done incredible work with inspiring children through her Riverside School. It’s a Lab, to explore education and infecting people with good.

These children have reached, and ‘infected’, millions of people through their actions.

9. _____________

10. _____________

7. Journaling

I’ll be journaling at these 3 locations about my successes, failures, ideas, projects, training, nutrition…and life in general. Join me and comments are appreciated.

www.tomcallos.ning.com

www.garyengels.com

www.LeadershipAcademyMartialArts.com

 

8. Mend 3 Wrongs and Fix 3 Relationships-Gone-Bad

Maturity; compassion; forgiveness; there is no other way.

 

 

9. The Body for Life Program or Equivalent.

 

10. 1 Environmental Clean Up Project

Each team member must plan, execute, and record at least one environmental clean-up project during the course of the program.

 

 

11. 15 Minutes of Daily Meditation

Members must seek out a master of meditation, either in person or thru video or audio, and learn how to meditate properly -then, each participant must meditate 15 minutes a day for one year.

Many martial artists include some form of meditation at the beginning or end of their classes, but very few have ever been taught how to meditate properly.

 

 

12. Reading requirements: 12 books.

 

 

13. Interview a Master outside of the martial arts.

 

 

14. Make My Test PUBLIC.

I want to make my test mean something to other people.

I want others to watch and become inspired.

I want to accomplish BIG things so as to bring somebody else to accomplish something big along side me. I want to lead by example so as to inspire others to greatness.

I’ll be posting a 5 Foot Banner of All Testing Requirements on the wall at Leadership Academy. A Hard Copy of the test that others can watch and take note of what’s happening at the school.

I’ll also be working to get a weekly column in the local newspaper, to share the results of this journey with our entire community.