The L.O.V.E. Principle

Real listening makes room for another person inside your own attention: what they say, why they say it, and what they cannot yet put into words.

"Listening is not simply hearing sound. It is respecting the possibility that the person speaking may know something you need to understand."

Listening is not simply remaining quiet while another person talks. It is not nodding along and waiting for your turn to speak. Real listening asks you to become interested not only in what someone is saying, but in why they are saying it, where they came from, and what they may be carrying.

Greg first learned it from a father who rarely lectured. Dad would put a decision in front of his sons and let them hear the lesson inside the choice, like saving their turkey-catching money for a 1973 Yamaha 350 instead of spending it that weekend. Years later, Grandmaster George Dillman taught him the harder version: the moment you decide you already know everything is probably the moment you stop learning.

Teaching deepened it. A student may never say he is confused. His shoulders change. His face changes. He starts trying harder instead of moving better. The instructor can repeat the same instruction louder, or recognize that the student is already communicating. That is why, in Greg's words, L.O.V.E. begins with Listen. Listening opens the door for everything that follows.

Observation is paying enough attention to recognize what is actually happening before it becomes obvious to everybody else.

"If you are the smallest person in the room, you cannot rely on size. You have to notice things."

Martial arts trained observation into Greg, athletics sharpened it, and years as a medical first responder gave it a different kind of seriousness. Facing an opponent, he watched for direction, stance, balance, rhythm, and which side a person favored. The better you observe, the earlier you begin understanding what might be coming.

The same skill works far from the tournament floor. A student may be confused and never raise his hand. A friend may say she is fine while her posture, her voice, and her eyes say something else. Observation does not make anyone a mind reader. What it does is give us a reason to care enough to ask.

It also teaches us to watch how people live. Farmers did not need to lecture Greg about hard work while he watched them rise early, care for animals, and work through heat and mud. The best teachers in his life taught through behavior, and their advice was believable because he saw them live it.

A beginner deserves the same basic human dignity as a high-ranking black belt. Worth is not measured by rank, money, or titles.

"Value should be communicated while there is still somebody there to receive it."

We live in a world where worth is often measured by salaries, titles, trophies, and followers. Greg never believed people were supposed to be valued that way. A black belt tells you something about a person, but it does not tell you everything, and a white belt deserves the same basic dignity as the highest rank in the room.

He learned what value feels like on graduation night in 1974, when coach, principal, and church mentor Andy Anderson quietly told him, "Greg, I thought after they made me they broke the mold, but it looks like they made one more." More than fifty years later, Greg still remembers it. One sincere sentence, from the right person at the right time, can be carried for decades.

As an instructor he tried to correct the technique without making the student feel like the problem, starting with what was already right. He calls it leaving a positive fingerprint. And he learned that valuing people means letting them grow beyond the role you first knew them in, the way his longtime student Gil Rhoades became a colleague and a friend.

Real encouragement meets people where they are, and helps them find enough reason to take the next step.

"Encouragement is helping someone find enough reason to take the next step even when the entire road is not visible."

Anybody can say, "You can do it." Real encouragement has to take into account what a person is facing, what they believe about themselves, and what they have already been through before they walked into the room. It is not about promising that everything will be easy.

One phrase stayed with Greg: "Don't give up today. Wait till tomorrow to quit." If you feel like quitting today, postpone the decision. When tomorrow arrives, make the same decision again. He learned the deeper lesson in the hay fields. Motivation did not complete the job. Discipline did. And somebody may be watching how you handle difficulty.

Encouragement is also where all four principles work together. You cannot encourage someone well if you have not listened to them, observed what they need, and valued the person in front of you. Sometimes it is one kind word on a hard night: your kick looked better, your form improved. Sometimes getting through today is enough.