This week’s guest on the Bruce Lee Podcast is Jo Koy.

This week’s guest on the Bruce Lee Podcast is Brett Chan.

This week’s guest on the Bruce Lee Podcast is Phil Heath.

This week’s guest on the Bruce Lee Podcast is Janet Yang.

This week’s guest on the Bruce Lee Podcast is Kieran Bew.

Shannon’s first guest on this season of the Bruce Lee Podcast is Laird Hamilton.

This week's guest on the last BLF Edition of the Bruce Lee Podcast are Bing Chen and Jeremy Tran of Gold House.

This week’s guest on the special edition Bruce Lee Foundation takeover of the Bruce Lee Podcast for the Month of May is Norman Chen.

This week’s guest on the special edition Bruce Lee Foundation takeover of the Bruce Lee Podcast for the Month of May is Uma Srivastava.

This week’s guest on the special edition Bruce Lee Foundation takeover of the Bruce Lee Podcast for the Month of May is Michelle Li!

This week’s guest on the special edition Bruce Lee Foundation takeover of the Bruce Lee Podcast for the Month of May is Jon Lee Brody!

This week’s guest on the special edition Bruce Lee Foundation takeover of the Bruce Lee Podcast for the Month of May is Dr. Julian Maha!

Shannon’s guest on this week’s episode is Sifu Harinder Singh! Sifu Singh is a Martial Artist, Philosopher, Keynote Speaker, Author and High-Performance Coach.

Shannon’s guest for this week’s episode is Peloton instructor, speaker, ex-monk, and actor Sam Yo!

On this episode, Shannon sits down with Chatri Sityodtong, the Founder, Chairman and CEO of ONE FC.

In this episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon discusses the symbolism of the dragon and how it relates to her father’s philosophies and the Dragon year ahead. Gung Hay Fat Choy! And happy year of the dragon to everyone!

I sat down with our Warrior podcast friends to discuss the 50th anniversary of my father’s legacy with our cast and crew joining in on the fun. July 20 marks the date not just of my father’s passing but of the beginning of his enduring legacy. And so for us this is a time of reflection and celebration.

Landing July 20, 2023 is a special edition of the Bruce Lee Podcast to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s Legacy created by our friends at Max’s Warrior Season 3 Companion Podcast and featuring Shannon and other members of the cast and crew of Warrior! Thank you for celebrating with us, everyone! Enjoy the episode! 

Our guest this week on the special Bruce Lee Foundation edition of the Bruce Lee podcast is Founder and Executive Director of the Ever Forward Club (EFC) Ashanti Branch!

This episode’s guest is Dr Bernadette Lim of Freedom Community Clinic in the Bay Area of CA.

Shannon’s guest on this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast is actor, musician and activist, Perry Yung. You may know him as Father Jun from our show Warrior on Max!

For this new, mini season, the Bruce Lee Foundation is taking over the podcast for the month of May.

May is AAPI Month and also Mental Health Awareness Month so what could be more perfect than to highlight the work of the Bruce Lee Foundation (BLF) and some of our amazing partners!

In the final episode of this season of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon Lee reflects on the theme of family and shares her guests’ reflections on family as well as what might help our whole human family to be more as “one family”. Shannon shares some of her father’s thoughts on family as well as other philosophies tied to Shannon’s exploration on the theme of family, for…

“Under the sky, under the heavens, there is but one family!” - Bruce Lee

This week’s episode has another member of our Warrior family joining Shannon. Hoon Lee plays the wily Chinatown fixer Wang Chao, another of Shannon’s favorite characters on Warrior. Hoon is an award-winning actor with a rapier like wit, a keen intellect and a kind heart. He has played a multi-faceted cast of characters on both stage and screen. Tune in to listen to Hoon and Shannon talk Warrior, acting, and the meaning of family on the Bruce Lee Podcast!

Today’s guest on the Bruce Lee Podcast is another member of Shannon’s immediate family, her Uncle Robert Lee. Robert is her father’s youngest brother by eight years. It was special for Shannon to get to spend time with her uncle on today’s podcast and she hopes you enjoy it as well! Take a listen and get to know Shannon’s uncle, Robert Lee!

Shannon’s guest this week on the Bruce Lee Podcast is another member of the Warrior Family. Dianne Doan plays the cunning and strong tong leader Mai Ling on Warrior. Shannon is so thrilled to share their vulnerable and engrossing conversation with you all about family, acting, Warrior, her first comedy and diving in to the unknown. Listen in and get to know and love Dianne Doan on the Bruce Lee Podcast!

Shannon’s guests today on this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast are her actual family members – Andy, Christie, and Julie. They are Shannon’s first cousins and the children of her father’s sister - her Auntie Agnes Chan! This episode will release at a time when many families are gathering together here in the US, sharing time and good food so it is a happy coincidence that Shannon will share her little family reunion with all of you during this time.

Shannon’s guest this week is another amazing member of the Warrior family, Dean Jagger. Dean studied acting in London, later landing a role on Game of Thrones playing character Smalljon Umber. Shannon came to know and love him as Irish bare-knuckle boxing champion Dylan Leary on Warrior. Join Dean and Shannon as they talk Bruce Lee, Warrior, Family and Life and share some Wisdom on the Bruce Lee Podcast!

Shannon has known today’s guest, Steven Ho, for more than 25 years. Steven is a martial artist, stunt performer, trainer, stunt coordinator, director, a dad and Shannon’s dear friend. Steven is a real deal martial artist as you’ll discover when you listen to this episode. His love of martial arts was first sparked at the age of 4 by none other than Bruce Lee. Come listen in as Shannon catches up and talks family with Steven Ho.

Shannon’s guest on today’s podcast is Dustin Nguyen. Shannon first met Dustin on the set of her brother Brandon’s film, Rapid Fire and now they have become friends through their work together on Warrior. Dustin is a seasoned actor, director and producer. Get to know the Dustin that Shannon knows and loves on this episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast!

Shannon’s guest this week on the Bruce Lee Podcast is long time friend, movement artist and director, Jon Boogz. Jon and Shannon met more than a decade ago at a taping of So You Think You Can Dance, and they have been friends ever since! Listen to Shannon and Boogz get real on the Bruce Lee Podcast!

Shannon announces a new season of the Bruce Lee Podcast on Family.

Shannon shares her thoughts in this solo podcast episode on what it is to be a warrior at the deepest level and discusses the concepts of wu-wei, simplicity, and wholeness.

This is a Special AAPI Edition of the Bruce Lee Podcast Season 3 Wrap Up from Shannon Lee.

You may not have heard of Shannon’s guest for this episode unless you follow badass female martial artists or the ancient Hawaiian martial art of Lua but Michelle Manu is a fierce warrior through and through. Shannon wants to encourage everyone who is listening to head on over to the Youtube video of their conversation where you can see Michelle show us some Lua hawk technique. Please sit back and enjoy this deep and wonderful conversation Shannon had with Michelle Manu.

For this episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast Shannon’s guest is actor Jason Tobin. You may know Jason from his roles as Virgil in indie classic Better Luck Tomorrow or Earl in Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift or, (Shannon’s personal favorite) Young Jun from HBOMax’s Warrior! Jason is a fun, electric, talented actor who Shannon loves working with, and who she is so pleased to be able to call her friend. So we invite you to sit back and get to know Jason Tobin on this episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast!

Shannon’s guest this week on the Bruce Lee Podcast has known Shannon her whole life! Diana Lee Inosanto is a lifelong family friend and Bruce Lee’s goddaughter. She is a martial artist, actress, director, writer, author, and producer. Let’s listen to Diana share her warrior spirit with us as well as some great tips for staying safe on the streets for our AAPI communities and all vulnerable groups. Please welcome to the podcast, part of Shannon’s extended family, Diana Lee Inosanto!

Shannon’s guest this week on the Bruce Lee Podcast has too many accolades, titles and projects to name them all, but we’ll start by describing him as author, historian, music critic, activist, journalist, academic, record label director, and social justice warrior, Jeff Chang! Listen in as Shannon and Jeff talk about his dad, Shannon’s dad, what it means to be a warrior and Jeff’s Hawaiian name on this episode of the Bruce Lee podcast with Jeff Chang!

The first guest of the season is someone who is an amazingly talented and hard working individual who Shannon is so grateful to call colleague, mentor and friend. You may know him as the mega director of such films as the Fast and the Furious, Star Trek Beyond, and Better Luck Tomorrow. Or perhaps you’ve encountered his work as a creative on a little show called Warrior on HBOMax. See (or listen) for yourself as Shannon talks life, Warrior and the warrior spirit with Justin Lin!

We’re kicking off a new season of the Bruce Lee Podcast with a special 2021 AAPI month edition! We have amazing guests all month and a new theme we will be exploring for this season. Check out this teaser for more info! Can’t wait to share these conversations with you! xShannon

Today’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast is a solo Shannon episode. She thought as we head into Lunar New Year she might just take a moment to dive into the philosophy as we head into the year of the metal Ox. Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Shannon’s final interview for this season of the Bruce Lee Podcast is with a deep and generous soul named Mozez Wright. You may know Mozez’s work from his time fronting the musical group Zero7. His smooth and transcendent vocal delivery found him an instant following, and he has gone on to co-write, record and tour with Nightmares On Wax as well as release a number of solo projects on his own record label Numen Records.

Shannon is so happy to introduce you to this week’s guest if you don’t already know him. Cal Fussman is a journalist and New York times bestselling author who has interviewed a variety of leaders from around the world, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Jeff Bezos, Robert DeNiro, Muhammed Ali, Quincy Jones, and the list goes on and on.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast Shannon’s guest is professional beach volleyball player and multiple Olympic gold medalist, Kerri Walsh Jennings.

Welcome to 2021, everyone. Shannon is excited to kick off the new year with a chat with personal trainer, educator, speaker and consultant, Ben Bruno.

This episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast is a treat for Shannon and she hopes it will be a treat for you too. Today Shannon is having a chat with intuitive counselor and one of her closest friends, Tony LeRoy. Tony and Shannon have known each other for about 24 years. She first met Tony when she went to have a session with him way back in her twenties.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon had the absolute pleasure of speaking with actor, writer, director and producer Randall Park.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon engages in conversation with bantamweight UFC mixed martial artist, Dominick Cruz.

This week marks the final episode of Season 2 of our show Warrior on Cinemax, and so it is only fitting that Shannon’s guest this week is actress and one of the stars of Warrior, Olivia Cheng.

This episode airs the day before what would have been Bruce Lee’s 80th birthday and so Shannon is thrilled to have as her guest, one of her father’s dear friends, students and co-stars, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon engages in conversation with Vietnamese American filmmaker Bao Nguyen.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon’s guest is musician and wellness activist Khnum Ibomu also known as Stic.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon’s guest is mountaineer and activist and dear friend of hers, Wasfia Nazreen.

On this week’s episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon’s guest is actor and Warrior leading cast member, Andrew Koji. Andrew plays Ah Sahm on the Cinemax series Warrior based on Bruce Lee’s treatment.

On episode 2 of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon engages in conversation with middleweight UFC mixed martial artist Uriah Hall.

On this first episode of the new edition of the Bruce Lee Podcast, Shannon engages in conversation with comedian, actor, dancer, writer, rapper, and music producer Affion Crockett.

FINALLY! A new season of the Bruce Lee Podcast drops OCTOBER 15th! What’s new? Check out this brief teaser for season 2 and thanks for your patience everyone! I can’t wait to share these conversations with you! xShannon

New episode from the Bruce Lee Podcast! This is a special quarantine edition podcast episode from Shannon Lee. Originally a video, it can be found on our Bruce Lee youtube channel. Shannon made this "What Would Bruce Lee Do?" episode as a way to be helpful in this time we find ourselves in during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Join Shannon and Sharon in this special episode where they respond to questions from listeners wondering “What Would Bruce Lee Do?” With a mixture of Bruce Lee philosophy and personal experiences, Shannon and Sharon discuss choosing career paths, clarifying Bruce Lee’s philosophy on goals, how to share spiritual experiences, and seeking validation from those you admire.

“The on-guard position is that position most favorable to the mechanical execution of all the total techniques and skills. It allows complete relaxation, yet, at the same time, gives a muscle the tension most favorable to quick reaction time. The on-guard position must, above all, be a ‘proper spiritual attitude’ stance.”

We return to Bruce Lee’s Library to examine another book that greatly influenced Bruce Lee’s philosophy. Bruce would underline and annotate his books, and would journal about them creating his own version of a book report after reading. In his volume of Zen in Japanese Art, A Spiritual Experience by Toshimitsu Hasumi, Bruce highlighted passages, made notes throughout, and wrote a long note at the beginning of the book.

“Health is an appropriate balance of the coordination of all of what we are. A healthy person has both a good orientation and ability to act. So if there is no balance between sensing and doing, then you are out of gear.”

“Don’t think, FEEL.”

 This line comes from a scene in Enter the Dragon where Bruce Lee is instructing a student. He tells the student to throw a kick, the student kicks, and Bruce says, “What was that? What is this an Exhibition? You need emotional content.”

“Action is a high road to confidence and self-esteem. Its rewards are tangible. The cultivation of the spirit is elusive and difficult and the tendency toward it is rarely spontaneous, whereas, the opportunities for action are many.”

“Using no way as way; having no limitation as limitation.”

The idea of being limitless was a core tenet of Bruce Lee’s approach to his art and his life. He lived the philosophy of being limitless and took action.

Happy New Year! To kick off 2019, Shannon and Sharon wanted to share their goals for the New Year and have a discussion surrounding creating goals, working towards them and maintaining momentum. When creating and pursuing goals it is important to have awareness, intention, clarity, and the will to take action.

Thank you to all of our listeners for a wonderful year! In this episode Shannon and Sharon reflect on the lessons that they have learned in the past year. We want to encourage all of you to look back on the year and notice your progress. It is important to not only look forward, but to reflect on what we have learned. The end of a year is a good marker to reflect back on the progress we have made and we wanted to share the lessons we have learned over the past year with all of you.

This week we share wisdom from our podcast listeners. We’ve selected a few stories to share about how listeners have incorporated Bruce Lee’s philosophy into their everyday lives and the impact that the philosophy has had on them. Thank you to all of our listeners who write to us sharing the impact that Bruce Lee and this podcast has had on their lives! We love reading how you all are living your lives authentically.

“The autonomous individual is only stable so long as he possessed of self-esteem. The maintenance of self-esteem is a continuous task which taxes all of the individual’s power and inner resources. We have to prove our worth and justify our existence anew each day. When, for whatever reason, self-esteem is unattainable, the autonomous individual becomes a highly explosive entity. He turns away from an unpromising self and plunges into the pursuit of pride, the explosive substitute for self-esteem. All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in crises of self-esteem, and the great endeavor in which the masses most readily unite is basically a search for pride.”

In this episode Shannon and Sharon were joined on the podcast by special guest Mike Vallely. Mike Vallely is a professional skateboarder, owner of Street Plant, musician, actor, tv personality, stuntman, professional wrestler, and FHL hockey player. Mike shares with us his philosophy on skating, how he first encountered Bruce Lee at flea markets, what it was like growing up as a skater in 1980s New Jersey, and how he first started his family-run company Street Plant.

Bruce Lee referred to the separateness of all the martial arts styles as a “Fancy Mess” or “Organized Despair.” This included the blind devotion of martial arts students who lacked a real sense of individual and personal investigation and growth.

In this episode Shannon and Sharon sit down with Doug Palmer, a student of and close friend to Bruce Lee. Doug shares with us personal stories and anecdotes about his friendship with Bruce, including how they spent a summer in Hong Kong together and went on double dates when they both still lived in Seattle.

In this episode, we continue our discussion of Bruce Lee’s cards he wrote to his friend and first assistant instructor Taky Kimura. In these cards to Taky, Bruce lays out these principles on how to be a Gung Fu man and how to own and operate a school in the best way without Bruce being there himself.

In this episode we discuss some cards that Bruce Lee sent in 1964 to his best friend Taky Kimura. Taky was Bruce’s best friend, he was the best man in Bruce and Linda’s wedding, and Taky was Bruce’s first assistant instructor in Bruce Lee’s first school in Seattle at the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute.

In 1964, Bruce Lee left Seattle and moved to Oakland to open a second school with James Lee. When Bruce moved he wrote these cards and gave them to Taky, who was now going to run the school in Seattle, as a way to prepare Taky to step into the role of teacher and to be a Gung Fu Man.

“The oneness of all life is a truth that can be fully realized only when false notions of a separate self, whose destiny can be considered apart from the whole, are forever annihilated.”

Bruce Lee had a giant library and read voraciously. He would annotate his books, and it’s evident that these books helped influence his philosophies and approach to living life. We think it’s important to share these books because they help illuminate the process of Bruce Lee becoming himself and how he used the insights gained from his reading and molded them to fit himself.

This episode features a letter that Bruce Lee wrote to his good family friend Pearl Tso when he was 21. Pearl was around Bruce’s age, and her mother was Bruce’s favorite auntie who was a mentor and good friend to him. Bruce wrote this letter after he had left Hong Kong and had been living in the United States for around three years.

“Be water, my friend.” This is one of Bruce Lee’s most famous quotes, but how did the idea first come to Bruce? In this episode we share and discuss an essay that Bruce wrote around his epiphany on the nature of water.

This week we have one of our favorite guests back on the show, Shannon’s mom, Linda Lee Cadwell!

Linda joins Shannon and Sharon to talk about the making of Enter the Dragon.

“Thinking is rehearsing in fantasy for the role you have to play to society. And when it comes to the moment of performance, and you’re not sure whether your performance will be well received, then you get stage fright.”

“The ego boundary is the differentiation between the self and the other. It is not a fixed thing. If it is fixed, then is becomes a character or an armor like the shell of a turtle.”

In a special gathering to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s passing, Emmy Award-winning comedian and author W. Kamau Bell, Bruce Lee biographer and cultural critic Jeff Chang, Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee, along with moderator and cultural anthropologist Sharon Ann Lee held a discussion on Bruce Lee’s long-lasting legacy and how he became an unexpected icon for Afro-Asian unity.

This conversation took place at the Library Foundation's ALOUD series on July 17, 2018 at the Los Angeles Public Library.

What would Bruce Lee Do? This is a question that many of our podcast listeners have wondered. In this special episode of the podcast, Shannon and Sharon answer listener questions based on their personal opinions, life experiences, and their knowledge of Bruce Lee, his life and his philosophy.

How did Bruce Lee become a philosopher? This week Shannon and Sharon dive into Bruce’s essay on why he got interested in philosophy and what he hoped to do with it.

This topic comes from an essay that Bruce Lee wrote about how to choose a martial arts instructor, but the advice can be applied in general to mentors, teachers, or guides.

These three faults are the mistakes and obstacles that we make in our search for expanded consciousness.

1. The invention of an empirical self that observes itself

2. Viewing one’s thoughts as a kind of object or possession, situating it in a separate, isolated part of itself – I “have” a mind

3. The striving to wipe the mirror

As we have mentioned before, Bruce Lee was an avid reader and pursuer of knowledge. Bruce had a passionate intensity around his desire to learn. He had an extensive library and would annotate many of his books. This week we share another book from the Bruce Lee Library, Commentaries on Living 1st Series by Jiddu Krishnamurti.

“Gung fu is so extraordinary because it is nothing at all special, it is simply the direct expression of one’s feeling with the minimum of lines and energy. Every movement is being so of itself without the artificiality with which we tend to complicate them. The closer to the true way, the less wastage of expression there is.”

“The true gung fu master aims his blows at himself, and when successful, he may even succeed in knocking himself out. The primary function of one’s tools is really revealed when they are self-directed and used to destroy greed, fear, anger and folly. Manipulative skill is not the goal. After years of training, one hopes to achieve a vital loosening and equability of all powers.”

“In the long history of martial art, the instinct to follow and imitate seems to be inherent in most martial artists – instructors and students alike. This is due partly to being human and partly due to patterns of styles. Ever since the establishment of institutes, academies, schools and their instructors, the need for a “pointer of the Way” is echoed.”

“The void may be said to have two aspects:

It simply is what it is.

It is realized; it is aware of itself. And to speak improperly, this awareness is “in us,” or better, we are “in it.””

This episode is a follow up to episode #87 Becoming a Warrior.

“The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.”

This week we have a special episode where Shannon and Sharon share wisdom from Bruce Lee Podcast listeners. We asked for our listeners to share their #BruceLeeMoments and we’ve gotten emails from around the world!

“Fluidity of mind – the moon in the stream – where it is at once movable and immovable.”

“An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

An intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning, never concluding – styles and patterns have come to conclusion, therefore they have ceased to be intelligent.”

“The conformer seldom learns to depend upon himself for expression; rather he faithfully follows a pattern.

As time passes, he will probably learn some dead routines and be good according to his set patterns, but he has not come to understand himself.”

It’s the 100th episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast! For this monumental episode Shannon and Sharon discuss freedom.

Freedom, both what it is and how we can work towards it, was very important to Bruce Lee. Within freedom rests peacefulness and harmony, and Bruce wanted to live in harmony.

“Somehow, one day, you will hear, “Hey, now that is quality. That is someone REAL.” I would like that.” – Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was a prolific reader; we have around 1,700 books in the Bruce Lee Archive. In the Bruce Lee Library series we will explore different books from Bruce’s library, sharing his annotations and underlined passages, and discussing how these book’s contributed to Bruce’s philosophy and life.

The first book that we will be sharing from the Bruce Lee Library is the Tao Te King by Lao Tzu Interpreted as Nature and Intelligence by Archie J. Bahm.

This week we have a special guest on the podcast, Shannon’s mom Linda Lee Cadwell!

Five Ways of Flow

1. The highest truth is inexpressible.

2. Spiritual cultivation cannot be cultivated.

3. In the last resort nothing is gained.

4. There is nothing much in the teaching.

5. In throwing punches and moving, therein lies the wonderful Tao.

“A struggle of any nature can never be settled satisfactorily until the absolute fact is touched. Where neither opponent can affect the other – not neutrality, not indifference, but TRANSCENDENCE is the thing needed.”

“Centering is the reconciliation of opposites so that they no longer waste energy in useless struggle with each other but can join in productive combination and interplay.”

“A man is born to achieve great things if he can conquer himself.”

Last episode we talked about the things with which we shackle ourselves, and this episode we discuss the keys that will unlock our fetters and liberate us.

“True mastery stems from mastery of oneself.”

“A man is born to achieve great things if he can conquer himself.”

“Each man binds himself – the fetters are ignorance, laziness, preoccupation with self and fear. You must liberate yourself.“

This is a special episode of the Bruce Lee Podcast honoring Brandon Bruce Lee. We just celebrated Brandon’s birthday February 1st and coming up on March 31st is the 25th anniversary of his passing, so Shannon wanted to share some stories of growing up with Brandon as her big brother and share some excerpts from Brandon’s journals.

“Ordinarily, two people (of more or less equal ability) can follow each other’s movements. They work in rhythm with each other. If the rhythm has been well established, the tendency is to continue in the sequence of the movement. In other words, we are “motorset” to continue a sequence. The person who can break this rhythm can now score an attack with only moderate exertion.”

“Your tools have a dual-purpose, to destroy whatever is in front of you that stands in the way of peace, justice, and humanity, and to destroy your own impulse of self-preservation, to destroy anything bothering your mind, to overcome your own greed, anger, and folly.”

“I am a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, and I am actualizing myself daily to be an Artist of Life.”

Bruce Lee is a true warrior. He’s a fighter, with expertise in combat.
A warrior is often thought of in the physical sense, as a fighter and physically strong.
But Bruce Lee was a true warrior in mind, body, and spirit.

In our final Core Values at Work Episode Shannon and Sharon discuss Relationship, Communication, and Trust.

These Core Values are derived from Bruce Lee’s philosophies and Shannon has adjusted them for her workplace. Shannon has put together these Core Values based on how her workplace functions best, incorporating the philosophy and essence of her father, including what was important to him and what is important to Shannon.

Embrace change. Be open to change. Learn to love change. Change is inevitable. Don’t get paralyzed in the face of change. Be open to pivots, goal shifts, reframes, change of strategy. This is a living organism in constant process.

At the Bruce Lee Family Company, Shannon has created core values for the company based off of her father’s philosophy. With the New Lunar Year fast approaching, Shannon has decided to revisit and refine those core values.

In Part 1, Shannon shares her core values of Best Effort, Personal Responsibility, and Uplift. These values inform how Shannon wants to show-up in the workplace and how she expects her employees to show-up.

For Bruce Lee the notion of compassion extends beyond the common definition that compassion is “allowing ourselves to be moved by suffering and wanting to alleviate or prevent suffering.”

Compassion is acceptance of others for who they are and where they are. It’s freedom from judgment and acceptance of your whole experience.

“It’s not what you give, it’s how you give it.”

Bruce Lee referred to Natural Action in different ways. He would write about “spontaneous action” or “naturalism” or used a Taoist term “wu wei” which means non-action or non-doing.

Shannon met former professional skier, and current Fear Specialist, Kristen Ulmer at the Spartan Race in Lake Tahoe. Kristen is the author of The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won't Work and What to Do Instead. In this episode Kristen shares her journey with fear and discusses how we deal with fear.

“All in all, the goal of my planning and doing is to find the true meaning in life – peace of mind.”

Achieving peace of mind was Bruce Lee’s ultimate goal. Peace of mind is something that we all desire, whether we know it or not. We want to feel peaceful so that we can enjoy life fully.
 

For our end of year episode we asked our listeners to submit questions they wanted us to answer or advice they wished they could receive from Bruce Lee. We had many, many questions submitted and we noticed that many dealt with finding motivation when you’re stuck. People were feeling stuck and unmotivated in a range of topics from their work and jobs, to dealing with injuries and feeling isolated.

“It’s not about what happens; it’s about your reaction to what happens that matters.”

This episode we sit down with another Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge Winner, Mahmoud Hamed! He shares with us his experience with the challenge and how approaching life from a place of love has deepened his daily interactions.

“Many people are still bound by tradition; when the elder generation says ‘no’ to something, then these other people will strongly disapprove of it as well. If the elders say that something is wrong, then they will believe that it is wrong. They seldom use their mind to find out the truth and seldom express sincerely their real feeling. The simple truth is that these opinions on such things as racism and traditions, which are nothing more than a ‘formula’ laid down by these elder people’s experience. As we progress and time changes, it is necessary to reform this formula.”

“To hell with circumstances, I create opportunities.”

Patience was something that Bruce Lee tried to cultivate. His wife Linda said that he would get very frustrated by other people not being able to match his timeline or if they would say they would do something and then not do it. Bruce was in dynamic motion all of the time. He had follow through so when others did not he would get frustrated.

This episode we sit down with another Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge Winner, Mahmoud Hamed! He shares with us his experience with the challenge and how approaching life from a place of love has deepened his daily interactions.

For this episode we talked with another Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge winner, Mary Cheyne. If you’ve been following the Bruce Lee Challenge, then you know that we couldn’t just pick one winner due to all the wonderful submissions we received. Mary was kind enough to join us and share her experience participating in the challenge.

We had a chance to talk with another Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge winner, Bryce Young, who came all the way from Montana to record with us. Bryce shared with us his experience doing the challenge, how he found the podcast during a difficult time, and how participating in the podcast challenge changed his life.

“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is very defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality. To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary, and its punishment is but an urge for me to exert greater effort to achieve my goal. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.”

Director John Alan Thompson joined us to discuss the film project we worked on together, “One Family,” how Sharon introduced him to Bruce Lee’s philosophy, and his journey working as a filmmaker.

This episode we had a great time talking with Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge winner Michael R. about his experience with the challenge and how practicing Bruce Lee’s philosophy for two weeks changed his life.
 

This episode we had the pleasure of chatting with another Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge winner, Katrina R. from Ohio.

“The times of drastic change are times of passions. We can never be fit and ready for that which is wholly new, we have to adjust ourselves and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. We undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. A population subjected to drastic change is thus a population of misfits and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of passion.”

“Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.”

The idea of True Flow comes directly from Bruce Lee’s physical study of martial arts and specifically from his art of Jeet Kune Do, which literally translated is the Way of the Intercepting Fist.

One of the core tenets behind Jeet Kune Do is that there are not separate movements of offense and defense, they can happen simultaneously and flow quickly together. This is an idea that can be applied to our movements in life, bridging the gap between happenings so that you can flow easier from one thing to the next.

When Bruce talked about confrontation he was talking about it on two levels, physical confrontation and then confrontations between people in everyday life.

Choiceless Awareness is a path to peace of mind. It means having awareness in the moment as things are unfolding but not making a choice or judgment one way or the other about whether it’s good or bad.

Bruce talks about how, “There is an awareness without choice, without demand, an awareness in which there is no anxiety and in that state of mind there is perception and it's perception alone that will resolve our problems.”

Often the immediate association with the word “Faith” is a religious one, but that’s not the type of faith we are talking about in this episode. The definition of faith in the dictionary is: "complete trust or confidence in someone or something." That’s how Bruce Lee interpreted “faith," to have trust and confidence in ones self and abilities. Bruce’s definition of faith is: the spiritual power of man’s will.

We were overwhelmed with the responses for the Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge and found it impossible to pick just one winner, so we’ll be having several winners join us as guests on the podcast.This week we welcome our first Podcast Challenge winner, Kyoko @Jinjabrew! She lives in LA so Kyoko was able to join us in the studio for this special episode.

“All knowledge ultimately means Self-knowledge.”

For all of his adult life, Bruce Lee was on a journey to understand the truest essence of himself. We remember him as the ultra confident movie star with martial arts mastery but even Bruce Lee was a work in progress.

We had our first live taping of the Bruce Lee Podcast last Thursday, July 20th celebrating the podcast’s one-year anniversary and honoring the 44th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s passing.

This episode marks our one-year anniversary for the podcast! We created this podcast to honor and celebrate Bruce Lee's philosophy and share it with the world. Thank your for listening and going on this journey with us.

Gentleness was key to Bruce Lee’s philosophy of life and practice as an artist.

Bruce equated gentleness with his idea of emptiness, non-resistance internally, the place in which the moment can happen and where spontaneous action springs from. Gentleness equals life. Gentleness is strength.

What is the meaning of life?

Bruce Lee said: “The meaning of life is that is to be lived.”

What does it mean to “hack away the unessentials?"

Bruce Lee said this:
“It is not daily increase but daily decrease, hack away the unessential. The closer to the source, the less wastage there is.”

The three stages are of learning, technique, and cultivation, have all been touched upon in previous episodes, but this week we dive deeper into each one.

Intuition is often described as your “gut feeling,” but Bruce Lee defined intuition in many different ways--as body feel, the root, the creative tide in us, natural instinct, guidance, and free movement of spirit.

“What we are after is the root and not the branches. The root is real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds “body feel” and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity.”

Meditation has been around for thousands of years, but it’s recently become popular with a broad audience. Modern people are needing it to create peace from a frenzied world with unrelenting distractions and demands.

The Art of Soul is about living the artist’s life and mastering the art of living as a whole human being.“The ultimate aim of the artist is to lay hold of the art of living. Be a master of living for the soul creates everything.”

The six diseases of the mind are obstacles that you will confront on your path to wholeness and fluidity. These thoughts can keep you from your full expression and growth.

“The mind is a fertile garden – it will grow anything you wish to plant – beautiful flowers or weeds. And it is with successful, healthy thoughts or negative ones that will, like weeds, strangle and crowd the others. Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind, for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.”

Bruce Lee often carried notes to himself or affirmations on notecards in his wallet. One of these read: “Be aware of our conditioning. Drop and dissolve inner blockage.” “Inner to outer – we start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions.”

This week we sit down with journalist Charles Russo, author of Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the Dawn of Martial Arts in America. His book covers Bruce Lee’s early years as a young martial artist in San Francisco and his polarizing effect as a brash upstart in the Bay Area martial arts scene of the 1960’s.
 

Bruce Lee played many characters that were unassuming and didn’t want to get into fights, but then could kick everyone’s butt in 10 seconds when he needed to. As a small Asian man, no one expected that sort of power from him. Because of the characters he played, many people think of Bruce Lee as an Underdog who became a Top Dog through dedicated training. He gave everyone who felt underestimated or undervalued hope and strength.

Bruce Lee lived his life as a human being who was connected to all of humankind—one unified family on this planet. He said, “You know how I like to think of myself? As a human being. Because under then sky, under the heavens, there is but one family.”

Truth was an important concept to Bruce Lee and it shows up often in his journal entries. But the way he used the word “truth” was not to describe a fact or to be the opposite of a lie. He wrote about a deeper, more of a philosophical, spiritual definition of truth—a concept close to the Tao. It’s why we’re calling it The Real Truth.

Taky Kimura once wrote Bruce Lee a letter saying that the students at Bruce’s Gung Fu studio were asking for more techniques. Bruce wrote back that they didn’t need “more” but to go deeper into the practice and expand the students’ imagination

Bruce Lee embodied so much confidence both onscreen and off that you might have assumed that he was born that way. But in fact, self-confidence was a trait he practiced and cultivated with clear intention and a daily ritual.

“Being a real human being” is a concept that comes up often in Bruce’s writings, he didn’t want to be considered just an actor or a martial artist, but as a human being who was growing, evolving and creating.

Gung fu translated means: discipline and training toward the mastery of some skill. It is applied to martial arts but it can be applied to anything. Ultimately, Gung fu is a pathway toward mastery and a deeper understanding of yourself and life.

The idea of Personal Liberation was very important to Bruce Lee. This idea was so important that his wife Linda included the quote “Your inspiration continues to guide us towards our personal liberation,” on Bruce’s headstone in Seattle where he and his son Brandon are buried.

“Life is wide, limitless, there is no border, no frontier.” Bruce Lee believed that there were no limitations or borders in life, and this is reflected in his core tenet of JKD (Jeet Kune Do): “Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.”

This week we talk with Bruce Lee superfan Daniele Bolelli. Shannon first met Bolelli when he was interviewed for the documentary I Am Bruce Lee and later she was a guest on his podcast “The Drunken Taoist.” Bolelli is an Italian born author, college professor, martial artist, and has two podcasts, “The Drunken Taoist” and “History on Fire.”

"Don't think. FEEEEEEEEL! It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all of the heavenly glory!"

The Root was an important concept to Bruce Lee. The Root is where real knowledge and real personal expression can spring from, the starting point and essence of “Who am I?”

Bruce Lee was driven by his own Purpose in life: “All in all, the goal of my planning and doing is to find the true meaning in life: peace of mind.”

During one of the busiest times in his life, Bruce Lee wrote a letter to himself titled “In My Own Process”. When Bruce wrote this, he had just halted production on Game of Death was in mid-prep for Enter the Dragon which included re-writing script pages, creating fight choreography, and being a producer.

This week we discuss a typical day in the life of Bruce Lee, his habits and activities on an average day when he wasn’t filming. 

“I feel I have this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision, it is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand. Whether it is the godhead or not, I feel this great force, this untapped power, this dynamic something within me. This feeling defies description and no experience with which this feeling may be compared. It is something like a strong emotion mixed with faith, but a lot stronger.”

This week we sit down with Bruce Lee superfan, and self-professed Bruce Lee geek, W. Kamau Bell! He’s a comedian and TV host. He hosts CNN's United Shades of America, and podcasts Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period and Politically Reactive.

When Bruce Lee spoke about the Art of Dying, he did not mean dying in the literal sense, but as a metaphor for letting go of the past and things that limit you, so you can be a fluid human in the present moment.

Bruce Lee started writing poetry when he moved from Hong Kong to the U.S. at age 18. He wrote poetry to express his feelings of contemplativeness, love, melancholy, and oneness with nature. The poetry was a way to process and understand his own feelings.

The Yin Yang symbol is circle with two interlocking teardrop shapes in complimentary colors with a dot on each side. It’s used in popular culture, but it is a core Chinese philosophy. The Yang side represents positivity, firmness, masculinity, substantiality, brightness, day, and heat. The Yin side represents negativity, softness, femininity, insubstantiality, darkness, and coldness.

Bruce’s wife and Shannon’s mom Linda Lee Cadwell joins us again and she shares more stories about Bruce, telling of his spirit of generosity and charity. And for the first time she shares stories about their son Brandon Lee.

11/27/16 is Bruce Lee’s birthday and he would have been 76 years old today.  In honor of his birthday we are reposting the Be Water, My Friend episode (#2) with a special birthday message from Shannon Lee. 

At the request of fans, this week we discuss Bruce Lee’s approach to nutrition and fitness! Nutrition and fitness were ongoing obsessions for Bruce during his life, and Bruce Lee was constantly experimenting on himself and seeing what worked for his body.

This week we talk with Bruce Lee Superfan Steve Aoki. Steve is a Grammy nominated Electro house musician, DJ and record producer. Steve’s unique musical life is the subject of a new Netflix documentary called “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead."

“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.” From a very young age Bruce Lee was a rebellious thinker with a keen awareness that established systems could restrict the full development of a human being.

In this week’s episode we are finishing up our 3-part discussion of Bruce Lee’s affirmations with the 7th and final affirmation: Willpower.

Affirmation 7: “Recognizing that the power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind, I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to act for any purpose, and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.”

This week we continue our discussion of Bruce Lee’s Affirmations with three more concepts: Emotions, Reason, and Conscience. Even though we are discussing each affirmation individually, Bruce Lee used all 7 together to help achieve wellbeing.

This week we discuss Bruce Lee’s affirmations. These are 7 ideas he wrote on small note cards and carried with him always: Memory, Subconscious Mind, Imagination, Reason, Emotion, Conscience and Will Power. These 7 ideas are part of a whole system of well being and self-cultivation Bruce developed. And they work together as a harmonious ecosystem. Today we discuss the first three ideas: Memory, Subconscious Mind, and Imagination.

Bruce Lee, was an extremely joyous person who loved to laugh.  It’s an often overlooked part of his personality but he loved to joke and play around, and make other people laugh. He also thought of happiness as a synonym for well-being. 

In this week’s episode we have a special guest Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce Lee’s wife and Shannon’s mom. Linda shares stories of her life with Bruce, how they first met and what it was like to be married to and in a partnership with him. She said that Bruce considered his greatest accomplishment was being a father. She describes what kind of father he was to Brandon and Shannon, and how his unusual schedule allowed him to spend more time with his kids than other fathers at the time.

“The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it until this moment. Now I see I will never find the light unless, like a candle, I am my own fuel.”

“Walk on.” There’s a story behind this famous quote. In 1969, Bruce severely injured his back during a routine training session because he didn’t warm up properly. He was told he could never practice martial arts again and may never walk normally. Devastated by this news, Bruce became a researcher of his injury, his body and ultimately created his own path to healing.

In this week’s episode we talk about the three core tenets of Jeet Kune Do: Simplicity, Directness, Freedom. Bruce Lee applied these tenets to martial arts, but also to everyday life. Shannon shares the story of the pivotal fight that led Bruce Lee to develop his own martial arts philosophy and way: Jeet Kune Do.

“Under the sky, under the heavens, we are but one family.”

This week we discuss harmony. Harmony was an important part of Bruce Lee’s philosophy and the way he lived his life. He was always seeking connection over opposition and never needed to compare himself with anyone else. He truly believed that we are one family—black, white, brown, yellow, red—we are all one.

“To change with change is the changeless state.”
Change often brings fear, and many times we resist.
But if you can flow and be adaptable, you can move through all of the things that life throws at you, with much ease you will remain in a place where you wont freak out and you will remain in a changeless state.

“What was that? An Exhibition? We need emotional content. Now try again!”

What did Bruce Lee mean by “Emotional Content?”
He was describing the feeling of being totally present in your body and connected to your own life force. A spiritual life force that is the energy of creation. This force helps you become a human being from moment to moment. When you are creating emotional content, you are creating in awareness, openness and receptivity to everything around you. You are in a state of relating to your surroundings. You are not in isolation—you are connected.

This week we talk about how Bruce Lee documented his goals, valued mistakes and created a personal definition of success. A dedicated journal writer, Lee consistently wrote down his big and small goals. He believed that all goals did not have to be achieved, they were a way to orient yourself towards a big dream with meaning. They were also an opportunity to make mistakes along the way, learn and adapt as necessary—being in flow, using no way as way.

How did Bruce Lee interpret the ideas of Originating and Innovating? This week we discuss Bruce’s unique take on these ideas. His definition of these words have nothing to do with the buzzwords of business. Originating is the process of self-actualizing and becoming your true self and innovating is what gets created in the world when you are connected to your authentic energy.

"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate him.”

This week’s show covers Bruce Lee’s thoughts on self actualization vs. "self-image" actualization. He did not look to imitate others, he was committed to going deeply within himself to find the truth about his own unique essence and how to express it honestly in the world. He was constantly working on understanding his true self through active observation, questioning, researching and journaling.

In this episode we discuss one of Bruce Lee's most important philosophies—Take Action! Bruce Lee was known around the world as an action star but his philosophy about taking action goes much deeper.

We discuss Bruce Lee’s most famous philosophical quote. What does it mean and what inspired him to come up with it? Shannon shares personal stories about her dad and unpacks the quote to help us understand its depth and meaning.

The Bruce Lee family company is a tiny family startup in a very unique situation. Millions of fans around the world but they didn’t control the rights to Bruce Lee’s name and likeness due to a bad deal that left a giant media conglomerate in charge. Learn how Shannon Lee tapped into her dad’s philosophy and wisdom to reclaim the rights and create a new company to serve her dad’s mission of personal freedom.