Myth: Black belt is mastery. Mission accomplished.

Truth: New mission revealed. It never ends.

I hear people say they just want their blue belt, as if that’s going to make them happy. It’s the same with people in business who say, they just want to make some money, and then they’ll be happy. Or single people say they just need a wife or husband, and that’ll be the end. None of that is going to be the end of anything.

All of those are actually the start of something else.

As far as jiu-jitsu mastery goes, black belt is not mastery. This lesson was made clear at my black belt test. I was on the mat with brown belts (candidates) and black belts (evaluators) from around the world.

While I felt I did great against some, and OK against others, there were a few that made me feel I didn’t belong in the room.

A part of the test was having us candidates in a big circle. And then multiple pairs of us would be called to spar in this circle as the evaluators watched. Some funny people called this “the circle of death.” (It turned out not to be as bad as its nickname.)

I completed the weekend, and the next day I was awarded a black belt at the belt ceremony.

I survived, I thrived, and I came out of that weekend both confident and supremely humbled. People often say, “There’s always someone better.”

What they should actually be saying is, “There are a lot of people who are a lot better.”

Once you get to one milestone, another one appears. Once you reach the top of a mountain, you can see the next peak. The hard thing is you didn’t even know there was any further to climb.

And that’s why we have to learn to love the plateau. Enjoy the process.