[Podcast] Learn Takeaways from 20+ Years of Ninjutsu Training

Chris Penn has spent 20+ years training in ninjutsu and has focused the majority of his professional life in marketing, machine learning, and AI. Over those years he has learned how to approach life in an unique way mentally, both in his day-to-day life as well as in his professional career. In this first episode of the Built Unstoppable podcast Chris shares those learnings and how you can try implementing them in your life.

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Note: My audio is a bit muffled due to a last-minute issue so apologies for the different levels.

Machine-Generated Transcript

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript likely contains errors and is not a substitute for listening to the podcast.

Welcome to episode number one of the Built Unstoppable podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levy. Today's guest is someone who I've known for over 10 years and is by far to me the smartest person I know. He goes by the name of Christopher S. Penn.

Hey, Chris, do you want to take a few minutes to introduce yourself? God No.

Nope, that's it. I am the chief data scientist at trust insights.ai. And, yeah,that's it. Let's get into the show.

Awesome. So what he's been too humble and he knows this. But what most people don't know about you is that you spent 20 plus years training in Ninja ninja into beyond the obviously physical training that has gone into those two decades have been involved with the martial arts.

How would you say that that has applied to you? You know, mentally and how have you had to use it mentally? You know, I know you've shared with me before what you had to go through with your first degree black belt.

Yeah, you know, there's a bunch of different things that are go in into the training. So this is a bit of background, what we call Ninjutsu is a collection of six different, well, nine different lineages or schools or traditions that are sort of under this umbrella under the current headmaster, Socha, Masaaki katsumi and his teach students throughout the world have you know, as he has been teaching this really since the 1970s.

He had a student named Steven Hayes, who studied with in Japan for a number of years, Mr. Hayes came back to America and taught a bunch of students including my teacher, Mark Davis, here in Boston.

And the art is has its basis in very very old Japanese battlefields and and Ninja tactics and techniques and a lot of people when they think of that they like really cool movies and you know, Batman and all this stuff and.

The reality is, it's really, it's kind of boring and it should be boring because the primary concept is that you should be planning and studying and gathering information that this would ninja where there were spies effectively gathering Intel and information so far in advance that you're not really surprised by anything. 

The 32nd Grandmaster Toshi? Tuco Taka Matsu had an expression after 10,000 changes, no surprises for the Ninja, they will no matter what happens, you shouldn't be surprised by it.

So today in our modern world, you know there's probably not a whole lot of color. There's some for printing. Train professional soldiers to be sneaking into places and stuff.

But for the average person, yeah, it really is not a lot of call to be scaling castle walls with your iron claws. And it's kind of fun and cool to, to study this stuff to see how it was people solved the challenging problems of the day.

But the idea of gathering information and studying and paying attention to your surroundings is never been more important. 

A very practical example of this is back in early January of this year, we're recording this in 2020. I started to seeing a trend on Twitter just a little bit here and there. And I tuned into a few epidemiologists and biologists were talking about this new novel Corona virus that they've been watching emerge in, in China back in December.

And you know, by mid January, it was starting to take off in China and they're like, this is going to be a problem.

You know, some clinical data was starting to come out. And on the on January 20, I posted on my own Facebook feed, you know, it looks like it's time to get ready Right looks like this is gonna be a thing. Let's get our supplies in here. Let's get some, you know, and 95 or better masks with guest protective equipment.

This was long before anybody cared. And I and a few other folks, the folks who followed me did go out and buy like the really intense breathing masks the respirators and things.

And sure enough, two months later, you know, at least in the United States of America, it was a full blown panic reo, real pandemic, which is still going on today. And will be for months if not years to come. And we were ready.

There was no surprise there was no oh my god, this is gonna happen. Now, there were some things that we did not accurately forecast. Like, for example, I had no idea that toilet paper was that. Like, you know, food and water, it always had toilet paper. Who knew? 

So now we know for the next time, there's certainly nothing in the ancient ninja scrolls about you hoard toilet paper but the idea is no surprises.

You know, we're looking now, you read economic reports, you look at programs and public information, public information. It's just a question of putting the pieces together.

And going, huh, August is going to be a sucky month because there's going to be a whole bunch of things like the rent, eviction and Prevention's the mortgage, the unemployment insurance, a bunch of economic programs all terminate at the end of July.

And we're not seeing a whole lot of political appetite to extend these programs indefinitely, even though again, pandemic still occurring, and case numbers and such jumping up rapidly around around the United States of America.

So, we're seeing again, this confluence of factors, weeks, weeks out in advance going it's time to get ready. You know, if you run a business, you should be thinking, Okay, how much cash do we have on hand if you managed to make it through this far? If you're a person, Okay, what else?

What else can you do to cut back spending a little bit more so that when those things happen You are not surprised. And that I think is probably one of the most important lessons ninja has to teach us is there's so much that is within our observation may not be our control, but we can observe it and go. You know what this looks like it might be a problem. What would it take to prepare for this problem? What would it take to to deal with it?

The idea of in the word ninja that mean character literally means perseverance or endurance. You have to be able to endure something. It's composed of two characters, the the top character is his blade, and the bottom character is heart. And the explanation that our teachers give us, you know, you're enduring somebody holding a blade over your heart.

While it can be a little grim to think about, from a mental perspective, what can you do so that you can endure a situation like a pandemic, a bombing of the local marathon You know, police brutality, whatever the case is, whatever the thing is, is happening. You've got to be able to get through it and help the people that you care about get there. 

That's that really is the central lesson of Ninjutsu, can you can you get what you want, while not making the world any worse off?

Yeah, no, thank you for that. And I think what people don't realize or weren't prepared for when we're talking about this pandemic now, and people will listen to this, you know, years later and look back or tell their kids or their kids will tell their kids is that we were ill prepared for because most of us have never taken the time to prepare, even though we know that we should, you know, we, you know.

I talked with my wife and I and when we were preparing for this, we joke around that that was our apocalypse shop. And you noticed prepare us for what the days, months, potentially years could look like ahead.

So we were planning for that. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't do that and hadn't even prepped ahead of that, you know, we all see the TV shows and the crazy preppers and, you know, but there's a middle ground between that of a being prepared of being ready for what may happen in your life.

Yeah, you know, absolutely. There's, there's preparation and then there's doing the thing too, and that's the other part that is has been very difficult for people and we see this happening now.

With the pandemic of people sort of ignoring a lot of the things that will keep them and the people around them safe, is people seem to be lacking that mental endurance.

It's not a question of physical endurance. You know, it physically endurance is a way to build mental endurance, right? If you run or you row or you do all these things to build that mental fortitude to keep going when things suck.

But what we're seeing now is people lack that mental fortitude to say, yeah, guess what you need to stay mostly at home, probably for the rest of the calendar year, and possibly into 2021.

If you want to protect the people that you care about from getting ill and from yourself getting ill, are you willing to endure what that means? and deal with it so that you can provide that protection to people and we're seeing in many cases people are not willing to do that they're they lack that fortitude.

And when you do, and, you know this Justin from your Spartan training stuff and things after a while, if you're really good at building endurance, you can start to find positives within the discomfort right.

What am I to is very fond of saying, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, right? You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And if you can do that, then a situation like this becomes less of a big deal.

There's a great quote from the old 1970s kung fu TV show, which featured no people, very few people actually practice kung fu. But one of the characters, the quiet chain Kane character says, if I told you that you were not within a prison, but that the prison was within you. 

Could you believe that? And that's something that has stuck with me watching people's reactions to the pandemic. You are, you are not in prison, right? You're home.

If you have a choice between the actual jail and your home, your home looks pretty good. But you've imprisoned yourself in your mind instead of saying, How can I endure? And how can I find joy in the circumstance as it is knowing That you're making choices that benefit the people around you.

Yeah, I mean, and I thought that, you know, when I went through the situation I went through, you know, with my seizures, and then my shoulder surgeries, and then my brain surgery, you know, that was something that I focused on right, more those small wins and how to endure each one of those next steps in having that mental fortitude, to know that there was something on the other end of it, that little bit of physical exercise today will be to a little more tomorrow would be to, you know, a lot more, you know, adds up so a lot more in the future.

And, you know, I'll never forget when I competed in the Spartan World Championships in 2017. 

At that point, I had done a number of a Spartan races at the sprint and super levels and that means That the raid set the sprint levels, you know, around four to five miles and say 15 obstacles or so, the Supers in that six to nine mile range and 20 to 25 obstacles or so.

I had this and for people that don't know, Spartan races, they're held outdoors in mountain ranges. So you know, they're in mud and they're in uphill and downhill and, you know, pretty steep and off terrain, per se.

And but when I was competing for in the world championships, you know, you can do the research online. And, you know, all the research said that they were typically 14 to 16 plus miles and you know, over 35 obstacles And this was happening at Squaw Valley in California. And one of the things that had always been known and every year that had happened there was that it included a short swim in 45 degree water.

So we all knew that going into it right? If it was your first time, you knew that going into it, and I had also never been part of something that was 18 plus miles.

I've run six miles sure done a bunch of five K's and whatnot, but never that far. And like you said, it took mental fortitude to get through that race. It took us the other two team members that I had eight and a half hours to accomplish that race. And, you know, you saw a lot of people's bodies completely locked up and when I started mean that it's that difference of, you know, taking something that's really hot and putting it in under something really cold, or vice versa.

We saw people do that there were, you know, divers and you know rescue swimmers and all sorts of things like that in that water just because of that and but it was that mental fortitude that's building up the physical endurance, again and strength and a lot went into that.

But that mental fortitude to dig deep when you didn't know if you could put in an extra half mile or when you looked around the corner now saw that there was even more elevation to go up. So I identify with that, wholeheartedly. 

You know, now in a way I want to pivot a bit. One of the things that I've known best about you Besides, you know, being a quote unquote ninja over all these years understanding that it takes in that word as means a lot.

But you have consistently and you talked about this a bit with the pandemic, you kind of touched on it but you consistently and regularly seek to expand your capabilities, whether that's learning new coding languages, being professional in various software platforms. I've just seen it time and time again, as you you've moved through three I think different industries over our friendship and each time you become a true expert in those industries.

How do you how do you approach that mentally? And you know, why do you do it? You know, what tips Could you give other people when they approach these you No wants or areas in life that they want to get to? Or maybe they don't know about. Right. I think when you were in one of your industries early on, you didn't know that, then you get to that next one, but then an opportunity was presented and you didn't move into it.

You know, I don't know, I say, and I say that because I know what motivates me. And I know that that is also a sample of one. And I have had enough experience, you know, coaching and mentoring and all that stuff to know that what motivates me doesn't really motivate anybody else, right? Everyone else has their own reasons for doing things.

I had a dear friend growing up that I tried to give as much encouragement to, to pursue these different things, different aspects, and they were they could not bring themselves to do it because it wasn't what was in their heart. And it wasn't What was in the tapestry of their life to that point. And when you look back at your past, you will see common threads, you will see common themes that keep showing up over and over and over again.

It's like, the universe is knocking on the door saying, Hey, open the door, figure it out. This is what you're supposed to be doing. 

When I was seven years old, right? Well, my family got our first computers an apple two plus horrendous beige and brown creation without, you know, at line green and black screen. But that was from very early on something that I knew.

This is something that I want to be doing is I want to be able to work with these types of machines. When I was in high school, I managed to win the class presidency for senior year because I was really good at taking the computers and software stuff and doing things like speaking on stage and combining it with at the time you know, printed brochures and stuff And now looking back at Oh, I've been using marketing technology and in data and stuff for decades, I didn't even realize it I was doing until you look back after you've done the journey. 

And so I would encourage people if you're trying to figure out what you're supposed to be doing, to look at the tapestry of your own life and say, What are the things that keep coming up over and over again, you know what they are, just like you can be you know, if you've had multiple relationships in your life, you know, you have a type, right?

You there's a sort of other person that you find attractive, and you can try consciously to do something else. But it typically doesn't work out that well. The same with careers like there are certain careers, you are just drawn to those things.

Once you find the thing, then all those things about expanding capabilities and improving proficiencies become second nature because you actually enjoy what you're doing. You want to do more of it. And that's to me is the sign that you're on the right track when you I do a show on YouTube and on Facebook called Saturday night data party.

And it is literally sound is what it sounds like I live stream, whatever data or Mar tech or stuff that I'm working on. And it's not for the benefit of my company. It's not something that my company tells me to do. It's cuz it's fun. It's fun to share and talk about stuff. And like this past week we were doing using natural language processing software to summarize articles, you know that that's stuff that's fun. And so if you think about what types of work or what types of endeavors to you, are so much fun, that you do them when you're not being paid to do them. And you willingly go out and learn more about those things. 

Even if there's no financial benefit or mundane benefits, just the thing that you like, if you can align that with yourself. Career, it gets much easier to pursue these things. If I used to hate statistics and mathematics, I was a terrible mathematics student.

And it turns out, I wasn't bad at math. I just had bad teachers. So I had to retrain myself. But as I've gotten more and more into it over the years, like,

Hmm, this actually isn't that hard. I was just taught really, really badly. And so for a lot of other folks, one of the things you have to overcome is, what are the things that have been obstacles, not of your own doing? And then how do you go around those things are rewrite them rewrite those memories, so that they're no longer obstacles? And you can if you want to do those things, it requires a lot of reflection and a lot of self awareness to to go Hmm.

I don't actually suck at that thing. I just don't have the right tools to do it. Well, what would happen, what would happen if I went and got the tools to do it?

Sure. And, you know, one of the things I appreciate about you. And, you know, what you've done so often is and this might not be the case for everyone, when they have their they know what their passion is. But at least in your case, you have use that passion beyond wanting in this example to, you know, explore and analyze data and things like that, but you also use it for as much benefit as you can.

And, you know, just a couple weeks ago, I know that you were having your Saturday Saturday night data party, and you're looking at hate crime statistics. And, you know, to use that to try to provide your audience with true information, not something that you know, potentially the media be Sit up to be or what have you, but to provide people with the information to have the conversations that they need to or align themselves with the folks that they believe are the ones that should be making this impact within their communities. So you're very proficient at taking what you enjoy, but also when the time is right. Or there are opportunities, using that to I think, you know, be helpful to your audience.

It's like from Spider Man, right? Uncle Ben said, Yeah, with great power comes great responsibility. You have an obligation to use your powers to do what in your moral and ethical codes are to make the world a better place.

You know, one of the things that I do for friends we're looking for work is I run software that pulls data out of various API's and generates lists of open positions.

There's No real cost beyond my time and the software to do that. But if there's a friend that is in need, and I don't do that, then I have power that I'm essentially selfishly not using on their behalf. very little cost to me potentially great benefit to the people around me. So what can we do? What could you do or anybody do to take the power that you have, and leverage it? 

One of the things that has come up a lot in discussions, you know, if contemporary discussions about race and privilege and stuff is that if you have privilege, and you care about equality and justice, you've got to be using that privilege on behalf of those who don't have it.

If you have power, use it on behalf of those that that don't have that power. And that too, is part of the martial arts. And part of the spiritual disciplines that come with it is do you have a moral compass? And if so, are you are you using the tools that you have to the best, the greatest impact possible in alignment with where that compass is telling you the world you'd be going if you're not, then you're kind of doing. Yeah, really doing the martial law as well as you could be. 

I mean, the idea of being in Ninjutsu is protection, right? How can you protect the things you care about from harm? Well, harm isn't necessarily just going to be the six foot four, you know, stereotypical bouncer type with a club or, or a gun, it can be a job loss, right?

It can be someone having psychological problems, it can be a terrible loss and tragedy, it can be a pandemic, what power do you have to mitigate that to some degree for the people that you care about?

Sure. And I think that that's very well stated. You know, one of the things that every guest is now going to get asked, and you kind of touched on this throughout the interview so far, but what does being built unstoppable mean to you?

So it's two things right? And that we're going to tackle in reverse order unstoppable means that literally what it sounds like it cannot be stopped. It can be slowed, it could be distracted, it could be diverted, but ultimately gets back on track and goes in the direction that you want to go.

And so being on being unstoppable means you are continuing in that direction that you want to be going again, it harkens back to what we're talking about that Nene character means endurance, can you endure what it takes to keep going?

One of the things that again, the Grandmaster in our tradition often says when he's teaching his keep going, like that's, that's the most important keep going. Even if you're stuck even if you're, you don't get the technique if you have no idea what's being said cuz you don't speak Japanese keep going, and you'll eventually get it. 

The built part is important because being unstoppable is one thing, but using the word built implies that it's not Natural in the sense that it's not an act that you have, you don't have it, if you don't have it, you're screwed. If you build something, it means that you are creating it from something from net new from whole cloth.

And the idea of building yourself or something to be unstoppable means that it was not that way to begin with, and that you have an opportunity to build it, you have the opportunity to create it. And in doing so, that means that everybody else also has that same opportunity is not something that is you're born with or not everybody can. Everybody can keep going if they want to.

Awesome, and I think you're setting setting the bar high for future guests responds to that question. So in, you know, lastly, where can people find you across the web?

Sure. So two places for work stuff. You can find me at trust insights.ai which is my A company that I co founded with Katie robear.

We do have data and analytics and all sorts of weird data detectives. And then personally, you can find my personal blog at Christopher S Pen COMM And from there any both of those sites, all the social networks and YouTubes and all these things that you can find from those places, but those are the be the two spots, trust insights.ai and Christopher s pen.com.

Great. Thank you, Chris, so much for your time. And we'll see everyone next week. Thanks for having me.