"Walking the Talk"

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gmattson
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"Walking the Talk"

Post by gmattson »

I'm sure Stephen Oliver won't mind me giving his program a plug. He sends me a newsletter from time to time that really has some excellent material in it. If you would like to get on his newsletter list, email Stephen: stephenoliver@napmasquared.com
Why don’t we “Walk our Talk?”
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In talking to the many school operators that I interacted with in the last few months – I had a “Blinding Flash of the Obvious”
I’ve always loved that reference (I borrowed it from Tom Peters) What’s the “Blinding Flash of the Obvious?”

Well it’s this. All of us martial artists say that we teach focus, discipline, confidence. Many of us also claim to teach success skills such as goal setting, self esteem, and self image.

Guess what I see as the #1 problem with school owner operators? A total lack of those same attributes – or, a failure to translate lessons learned physically into application for the operation of their martial arts school business.

Really, We show all be a “product of the product” and, NO I’m not talking about a walking talking killing machine. What I’m talking about is becoming goal oriented, focused on results, and having HIGH EXPECTATIONS of ourselves and of our school.

Here’s a few tools that most of us teach – but, I don’t see in application in most school operators:

Tool #1. Positive Self-Talk. You must constantly monitor your dialogue with yourself. Eliminate NEGATIVE or Self Defeating Dialogue. Build AFFIRMATIONS and other levels of POSITIVE Self-Talk to move you constantly TOWARDS What you want.

Tool #2. INTERNAL Locus of Control. “If It’s To Be It’s Up to Me!” There is nothing “Out There” preventing your success. You must take 100% of the responsibility for your RESULTS and Take Action to achieve the results that you desire.

“Winner’s Remember RESULTS – Loser’s Remember Reasons

Tool #3. Positive Goals – And Proper Focus. Remember: You become what you think about most. Think about failure and that’s what you become – think about successful outcomes and you move towards that. Remember the Tony Robbins example of the Race Car & the Wall. Look where you want to go – not where you fear.

Tool #4. You’ll See It When You Believe It. Failures think “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it” and fail to recognize that if they don’t believe it – they’ll never see it. If you expect to see obstacles – they will appear. If you BELIEVE that you’ll see opportunity and abundance it will almost magically appear before you.

Really, So many of the school operators that I talk with suffer from two MAJOR maladies.

First, embarrassingly low expectations of themselves and their school and, Second, Incredibly limited belief systems in their own capability to achieve.

Want to be one of the $1,000,000.00 school operators? Ok. Start with BELIEVING that YOU can be. Sound simple? Well really that’s an incredibly rare starting point in our industry. What’s Really Important? Once you’ve become somewhat successful running your school you may fall into the first “trap of success.” What’s that “trap of success?” Well put simply – it’s growing your business without first designing your life. What happens? Well, you start growing your business. And, suddenly you are really making progress. Suddenly, you look around and say “what’s next?” You look around and see someone like me – and, say to yourself – well, I guess I should open a 2nd location. Or, you look at someone else’s school and decide that the next step is to hire three full-time staff members. What happens next? Well all too often – a school operator making “enough” money and really starting to enjoy the business of the martial arts finds themselves a year later – over their head, stressed out, and totally frustrated. You see, they just started “growing” their business without designing their life. Do you really enjoy teaching and personally interacting with each student? If so, why do you want to do multiple schools? Are you highly profitable where you are at with your school and content with your work style and work hours? If so, why do you really want to add more people to your payroll? Now, there’s no right answer. You must decide what your best approach may be depending upon well thought out financial and personal goals for your life.

But, first really sit down and map out how you really want thing to end up. If you “Begin with the End in Mind” you are much more likely to end up designing your business and your life to be in-sync and achieve your best life-style and income.
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