“There are Any Number of Reasons NOT to Join The One Hundred —-and for some unknown reason, some character flaw in me, I feel compelled to list some of them here.”

—Tom Callos

DO NOT JOIN THE 100 if: 

• You consider yourself too busy to read the posts here, regardless of their number (If you don’t come here to practice, what’s the use of joining the school?).

• You won’t get your own team involved, so you’re the only conduit into your school for ideas/methods explored here (Your staff get to join for free. If you don’t get them involved, your chances of successfully implementing a lot of the ideas here goes down, Oh, I’d guess about 50%).  

• When you read or watch the work here, you don’t understand you are in-training, that this is the equivalent of a master-level of study, that you can’t get these ideas, at the depth they are delivered here, or in the frequency, anywhere else in the martial arts community (If you don’t get how valuable and special the work is here, go join _______ [name your favorite purveyor of yesterdays ideas and methods here]). 

• Furthermore, you don’t realize that this work is creating an entirely new field of practice and purpose in the industry —and for serious teachers of martial arts. 

• You don’t respect me enough to pay attention —and in that case, my e-mails, the coaching, the messages, and the seemingly un-ending stream of material that comes to you through my effort is an annoyance, an intrusion, something you “can’t keep up with” (Don’t sweat it, I’m just not your teacher. My suggestion: Go find someone you DO respect enough to listen to). 

• You aren’t a person of action. You read a lot, you join, you have every intent of improving your lot, but at the end of each week your “action list” doesn’t reflect the level of involvement that brings about the change you are looking for (You can read 1000 posts here, but if you can’t DO, you’re wasting my time and your money). 

• You play on-line video games, but you don’t have the time to go to a Chamber of Commerce Meeting. You buy coffee at Starbucks, but when you see our tuition price you think you’re over-spending. You make posts on Facebook, but you won’t take 10 minutes to post something that might help others here in the association (I want people who do the work here, not people “paying dues”). 

• You don’t keep (or are unwilling to keep) stats for your business (Which means you will almost never get to the core reasons you’re not making enough income in your school). 

• You’re looking for quick money, a quick “fix,” an easier path, or something that’s “cunningly clever.” This work takes work, it takes intelligence, management skills, and foresight. If you lack self-discipline, you’re going to hate me, so don’t join in the first place.

My mind is marvelously full of the work to be done, the work that could be done, and the work that would be fun to do. It seems I’m forever trying to ring the bell of awareness for the little things that need to be done to insure you/we enjoy the process, while keeping our eyes on the “big things” that “up” our value to the world —and make the journey something deeply worthwhile.

It is, in the end (in the now), about “success,” I think. It’s simply not a “success” measured by things, buying power, or accouterments, but by meaning, contribution, compassion, love, kindness, simplicity, and participation.
 
My favorite thing about the work I’m doing today, the work we’re involved in, is that we’re forever focusing on how to go deeper, on simplifying, on giving, on contributing to, on being aware, and on redefining the roles of both the teacher of the martial arts (teacher-citizen) and of the martial arts school, in general (from “business” to backbone).
 
So here again, at 3:46 am in Bangkok, Thailand, where I find myself today, I offer my 2-cents to my friends, peers, and students in the international martial arts community:

My Favorite Lesson This Year
My friend, martial arts master teacher Fariborz Azhakh of Los Angeles, told me that the great Master of the martial arts, Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, told him that one of the things he had to agree to as a student, before Master Benny would teach him, was that when Fariborz went home at the end of the day he was to put his key in the lock of his front door —and then stand there and wait 5 minutes before he went inside. In that 5 minutes he was to clear his head and become fully aware that the day’s business wasn’t a fraction as important as his wife and children who waited inside. He was to remember, in that 5 minutes, how important it is for him to be fully present and appreciative and “there” for them.
 
That lesson so touched me, that I can hardly tell you —or anyone —about it without having my eyes fill with tears. How important. How wise. How perfectly wonderful. I didn’t know Master Benny that well before Fariborz told me that story, but after hearing it I realized I had to pay very, very close attention to the man. Spiritual teachers are good things to find. I have since adopted the practice —and would like so suggest that you might want to as well.

 
My Best Advice for School Owners to Help Them Practice Effective Management
1. Sign up for and attend, then put into practice, the Franklin-Covey time management system. Master Ernie Reyes made me take it in my 20’s —and it’s served me every day since. If you haven’t taken this course —and if you’re not putting the common-sense concepts they teach to work in your life, you’re an 8-cylinder motor running on 2-cylinders.

And how can your staff become efficient and effective in the allotted time they have to engage in the work if they don’t have the focused goals and values skills taught by Stephen Covey and his team? Boy, do I hope you’ll pay attention to this piece of advice —as if you did you would forever be in my debt…and, for sure,  you’d never question the financial support you give the 100.

2. Along the lines of Franklin-Covery time management, the YEAR AT A GLANCE calender is the giant, quiet, power friend of the martial arts teacher in the know. There’s only 365 days in most years. There are only one summer in a year, one Christmas, one spring, one winter, one day the kids go back to school, one of these and one of those. There are only 52 weeks, 52 weekends, and 260 working days (give or take).

With a year-at-a-glance calender the smart school owner and teacher/staff member can look into the future and plan…

• Days to clean out the files (you’ll almost always find things you didn’t realize you’d missed).
• The perfect week to start implementing testing procedures or holiday planning or student service issues and/or ANYTHING that needs some work-in-advance.
• Holidays! With a year at a glance you can make sure to plan in down time for everyone on your team. Down time is as important as “up” time.
• A year at a glance calender can give you a tool to take months you know are historically slow —and plan to make them not-slow, months and months in advance. With a good planning calender you can turn slow months into the busiest months (I know, as I’ve done it).

3. Maybe the most important thing a school owner can do to be a better manager is to go inside. To go inside is to look deeply at what I’m reading, to be a better manager, more in-the-moment, more aware of the feelings and conditions of others. To go inside I seek to remove those things I do and think that are incongruous with being an enlightened, wise, compassionate leader. To go inside I look deeply at the things that make me a great problem solver, an active participant, a role model for those around me, a better listener, and someone more fully engaged in the lives of the people I have the privilege to serve.

When I go inside I get to shed some of the selfishness that separates me from others; I get the chance to let go of jealousy, envy, greed, self-righteousness, and any number of delusions that keep me and my loved ones from the pleasures and joy around us. When I go inside I start to realize that martial arts mastery isn’t a fairy tale. When I go inside I want to say “thank you” to the many teachers who kept me in classes, kept encouraging me to train, who showed up for all those 1000’s of classes, day after day, and who today STILL practice the skills that helped bring me to this place, inside, that fuels my work.

4. Like with martial arts practice, it’s engaging in it, it’s doing it, that brings about the change. That’s how I feel about the 100. If you engage in the practice, if you come to class and make XX amount of mistakes, but you actually SHOW UP, eventually the transformation comes. Not showing up for class is a sure-fire way to make nothing of any value happen.

It’s true, yes? 

If you can simply get the people who sign up in your school to come to class, consistantly, something happens. Something of value. If they don’t show up, if they don’t get themselves on the mat, you lose any chance of being a part of their journey. I know you know this —and my goal is to you to show up for class here at the 100, 15  minutes a day, to pick up a lesson, to contribute, to participate, and to sit for 5 minutes, like Master Fariborz standing on the porch of his home, focusing in on some of what’s most important about being a teacher of the martial arts.

On the cover of Black Belt Magazine —and on so many MMA mags, at the seminars and conventions, and in print and image and video, we see the modern “warriors” of the international martial arts community. They grimace; they hold knives; they take stances; they pose for the cameras, cutting the throat, kicking the groin, punching the face, and choking the bad guy; they wear camo and army boots; and their t-shirts sport skulls, tigers, and often violent iconography. 

These are “our” warriors —in our profession.

But not a one of them is a warrior for anything that comes close to anything that matters, anything that actually makes positive change in the world, anything worth ANYTHING in today’s complex, violent, unjust world. Not one of them —or one of us —holds a candle to the likes of Mother Jones. 

Mother Jones was a warrior, fearless, determined, and she stood up for the rights of others —-and against a world that held women in very low regard —against a world dominated by opportunists —and against a political system that fought her just about every step of the way. 

Worker’s rights? Labor laws? The minimum working age? Mother Jones.

I urge you to read about her —and people like her —and start to rethink what a warrior is, what role a warrior in today’s world might/should play. Laugh at the posing, the militarism, and the hyper-masculinity of today’s martial arts warriors ——-and don’t catch yourself playing that game or role. Stand up for the stuff that really matters. Define the ultimate warrior by his or her compassion, her mission, his purpose. 

Do this and you will be a founding member of a new, enlightened, progressive, relevant kind of martial arts instruction. With one small “turn of your wheel” you could be a part of a new kind of leadership delivered thru the things/education martial arts teachers study —and impart to their students (and live). 

This is the kind of warrior-education that I want the 100. identified with. This is what I’m about. How about you?

You make your work important —or trivial —by where your mind is focused. 

This is important to “business” —as things that are trivial generally have much less value than things that are important. Ideally, we want to cultivate a product that has recognizable, great, and long-lasting value. 

Your staff / your team must also be students of recognizable, great, and long-lasting value.

What is recognizable value?

What is great value?

What is long lasting value?

Philosophy has all of the above. Simplicity has all of the above. Love has all of the above. Right action, community involvement, care for the elderly, reading, meditation, the cultivation of clear and compassionate thinking, and conscious consumption, art and literature and music, are all of the above. 

Staff Training has less to do with what you cover in meetings —and far more to do with what is read, what is listened to, who is listened to, what is done, and a clear definition of mission and intent.

Some Suggestions for Action

• Throw your TV away. If it must be on, let it be on for no more than 1 hour a day (1 hour too long). I encourage you to eliminate TV from your life —for at least a year.

• Cut your use of disposable plastics by 50 to 90 percent.

• Limit your cell phone use to 1/2 the day —then put it away. 

• Double your book and magazine reading time.

• Write 1 blog entry very day —and always make it a chapter in the book of how aware you are.

Why This is Important for Sales and Business

• You don’t “sell” lessons, you serve others by striving to be an evolved and high functioning human being.

• If you wake up every day seeking clarity of thinking and purity of intent/spirit/purpose, you increase your value as a teacher by 99.9%.

• What you’re doing when you’re not teaching —teaches more than what you impart in your classes. 

OK, Chase Jarvis is a martial arts business genius who, I don’t think, knows anything about owning or operating a martial arts school —or anything in particular about “the martial arts industry.” Chase is a pro photographer and creative. Nevertheless, I am a student of his work, as I have found more instructions, directions, and wisdom in his writing and work in the year I’ve been following him that I have in the “martial arts industry” in the last decade. 

Take, for example, the article, below, that I have completely and blatantly ripped off from Chase’s blog. The original piece, aimed at photographers is here. It speaks so clearly to what I’m doing in The 100., for martial arts business professionals, that I had to repost the piece below, substituting “martial arts” for “photography.”

Chase, please send me a note if you disapprove, but know that I am paying close attention —and despite being in the martial arts world, what YOU do in the world is a lot like what I am doing in the world (and am seeking to do better) —and your piece transcends the boundaries of photography. 

Here’s my adaptation: 

THE STATUS QUO WILL DO JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU

 TUESDAY - 21ST OF JUNE, 2011

As a matter of opinion, it’s time to get some cojones. Or whatever clever slang you’ve cooked up for the female equivalent, or whatever will help you understand the following point. Sure there’s plenty of good things to honor about the past of our martial arts industry. A lot of the trails have been intelligently blazed by those before us, a lot of ditches have been dug. But…ahem…generally speaking status quo in the martial arts industry doesn’t know which way is up. Surely you’ve noticed.

So I ask.
What is your martial arts teaching vision?
What is your brand vision?
What is your business?
What is your marketing?
What are your effing goals?

This is not a fluff piece. This is truth: there ere are a bazillion martial arts teachers / school owners in the safe little ‘status quo’ bubble that will keep the status quo quietly marching along. So many that, in fact, it will be just fine without you.

Which is precisely why you should leave it behind.

What does that mean? It means take a chance. Or Three. Charge away from convention. Break shit. You can always go back to the status quo if you get scared or get knocked around a bit, because the reality is that it’s not going anywhere. You’ll be told that they won’t take you back if you leave, but that’s a scare tactic. In reality, they’ll take you back in a second, because…  the SQ voice depends on numbers. If you don’t have what it takes, it will always be there waiting with open arms saying, “We knew you’d be back” or “I told you so.”

But the funny thing is this: I’m banking that when you push it, when you leave the status quo behind, and make some new in-roads, some new habits, that you might just get comfortable with the new you, and lo and behold you’ll be ready to push it again. That’s when the magic happens. That’s what we need. That’s what–I’m guessing–you need. —Chase Jarvis (original piece here). 

The IDEA of “financial transparency” is a bold one —and a sign of respect for your community.

There has, in the martial arts world, been a practice —-given to us by dance studio owners and health club sales-people —of hiding our prices “so as not to scare away potential customers.” We have, as an industry, taught our people to avoid the subject —and in some cases, school owners/employees simply refuse to discuss them over the phone ——or, God forbid, actually post them on their website.

To add to that, there is a school-of-thought-and-practice in the martial arts community that purposely engages in a hidden pricing agenda where teachers are taught to “hold back” aspect of practice as tools to “upgrade” members to higher priced programs (and other manipulations). 

An upgrade is actually an OK thing to do, but not when the process is purposely hidden from the consumer. If the school is up-front about their pricing, and people go into the relationship knowing what to expect, then all is good. It’s hiding, manipulating, baiting, and otherwise misleading students that is doing its part to destroy (and/or damage) the reputation of the martial arts school, in general.

Fusion Martial Arts (screen shot above) http://www.fusionmma.com/tuition/tuition-transparency/ and this site: http://flavors.me/transparency (which you can link to or copy from) represent a VERY positive and constructive approach to the dishonesty and manipulation embraced by unsophisticated school operators who treat others as they themselves would not want to be treated. 

I believe transparent pricing is a strong sales benefit for the martial arts school owner of today ——and SHAME on the schools that still purposely hide their pricing from the public.