Build a Kū body that is strong and healthy helps you live a stronger life full of meaning and value.
I was born with a partially developed ear drum which caused me to have a hearing impairment. Imagine you are wearing headphones playing music and someone is talking to you. You can barely hear them and can’t really make out any syllables or words.
It’s hard to explain but as I grew up being hard of hearing, I was a prime candidate for speech therapy as my communication skills fell behind my peers. Majority of my sentences were made up of vowels because I couldn’t hear consonants and had the worse time saying words with the letters L, S, F, P.
For example: The elephant and people on the boat fell over
I would say (phonetically as possible), “Uh | eh-o-un | ah | ee-yo | oh | uh | oh | eh-yo | oh-rr
I have a vivid memory in pre-school of a boy coming up to me and asked a question. When I spoke – he stepped back, pointed at me, and laughed.
Over the years as my hearing improved I still had a problem with speaking. Although I did become good at reading lips it had its downfalls. I remember one day going home to my mom and asking, “What does it mean to be a ee-ard (retard)?“
It was a word that I frequently heard and saw kids my age saying.
From being hard of hearing and having a speech problem, I became very timid and unconfident. I never wanted to talk or ask questions in school. I would cry in stores when my mom tried to help me overcome my fear of asking a question to the lady at the register.
I was quiet, felt stupid, and began to believe that what I had to say didn’t matter. There were also moments when adults would look at me weird as if they felt sorry for me.
I remember during summer school, we had an assignment to memorize the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. After I finished my presentation, the teacher stood next to me at the front of the class and mentioned how courageous and confident I was during my presentation. I started to feel really good about myself but then she went off on how my upbringing and where I was from made me have a different way of communicating which many people may not understand.
Ya.
Talk about getting built up only to be knocked down or better yet, kicked in the nuts.
So since I didn’t want to talk much that meant I didn’t want to ask questions or ask for help, especially in school. This behavior led me down a long difficult road of failures, problems, self loathing, frustration, confusion, and the list goes on.
So what changed?
I got over myself.
I stopped focusing so much on what people thought about me or what I thought they did. I started thinking about who I wanted to become as a person, and as the man I am meant to be.
This wasn’t an over night thing where one day I woke up and it was all clear. It continues to be a process today but it’s something that I’m not running away from like I did before. There have been ups and downs during the journey, but that’s part of becoming the hero of your own life.
As I mentioned, I still continue to battle with inner demons today. I’ve gotten stronger in dealing with them. The turning point came when I embraced the lifestyle of “Building a Kū Body and Living a Kū Life” and learning what it means to make strength contagious.
This is how I began my way to becoming Kū:
- Emphasized on gaining control of my body through exercise and nutrition.
- Served others in improving their health, fitness, and overall performance.
- Began a passion of learning what it means to be strong, to be Kū.
- Wrote every day which led me to start The Aipa Project which then grew what you are reading today – The Kū Project.
- Surrounded myself with strength and people who bring value and meaning into my life.
- Decided to start a podcast to force me to reach out to people and improve my communication skills.
I’m still learning and growing.
I wanted to share with you a little personal story of overcoming and continuing to overcome my self limitations and self doubt into becoming Kū; that symbol of strength that empowers, inspires, influences, and strengthens others who come within your reach.
