Editor's Note: This week, we will be publishing excerpts from The Bruce Lee Code (Career Press), a new book from TheStreet writer/editor Thomas Lee. The book examines how Lee's life and words can inspire entrepreneurs and career-minded professionals. The Bruce Lee Code, which launches April 3, is available to purchase here.
Bruce Lee hated patterns. He believed static systems stifled human potential, because they discouraged adaptation, creativity, and critical self-examination. Worse yet, blind adherence to patterns and tradition reinforced humanity’s worst impulses, including racism, bigotry, and violence.
Lee firmly believed that people should constantly challenge previously held beliefs and assumptions:
“By an error repeated throughout the ages, truth, becoming a law or a faith, places obstacles in the way of knowledge,” he wrote. “Method, which is in its very substance ignorance, encloses truth within a vicious circle. We should break such a circle, not by seeking knowledge, but by discovering the cause of ignorance.”
“People should not fear to be wrong. Otherwise, how can people improve themselves if they cling to outdated ideas and flawed ‘truth’? In fact, tradition is nothing, but a formula laid down by experience. As we progress and time changes, it is necessary to reform this formula.”
Breaking the rhythm
In combat, Lee said, two opponents engage in a sort of a dance in which they mirror each other. The key, he argued, is to find the “broken rhythm,” a moment when you can disrupt an opponent’s pat- tern of movement by striking when and where it is least expected.
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.
To effectively innovate, Lee believed, a person needs to disrupt patterns and find an opening in the status quo in which to “break the rhythm.”
Bruce Lee and Steve Jobs
Bruce Lee also believed deeply in simplicity. He initially trained in wing chun, a form of kung fu, and then familiarlized himself with all forms of martial arts, including karate, tae kwon do, and judo.
But he eventually concluded that all of these martial arts were overcomplicated and showy— long on presentation and aesthetics, but short on efficiency and effectiveness. The goal of martial arts, he believed, was to inflict maximum damage on an opponent with the least amount of energy.
As an innovator, Lee shared a crucial trait with Apple (AAPL) founder Steve Jobs. They both took existing things and combined them in ways that created something unique.
Apple didn’t just sell individual computers, smartphones, and tablets. Instead, the company sold an integrated ecosystem of products and services in which consumers could seamlessly purchase, access, and share their data and content across the various devices, whether a Macbook or an iPod. The system encouraged consumers to stay loyal to the Apple brand, because they were so invested in this ecosystem.
Bruce Lee’s greatest innovation was integrating the two sides of his identity—East and West—into an art that appealed to both cultures. Specifically, he fused the kinetic, dynamic action of Hong Kong kung fu movies with the characters and story-driven nature of Hollywood films in ways that elevated mass entertainment to a new level of ambition and excellence.
