In the final episode of this martial arts-specific interview, fellow Black Belt and world-renowned “professional” imparts a wealth of knowledge on a wide variety of significant topics. Addressing The Seven Key Result Areas in selling and in management; the 80/20 Principle; the zero-based thinking, and more; we present to you… Master Brian Tracy.

MABusiness: One of your landmark programs that I’ve listened to many times is the Psychology of Selling . In our line of work, selling is primarily enrolling and renewing students in the school . What advice can you give martial arts school owners that will help them develop the right mindset for selling, but most of all, feel comfortable with the sales process?

Brian Tracy: The most successful people in any business, especially in martial arts, are good sales people . Our business is entrepreneurial . It requires that we find people, talk to them, and convince them that it’s a good idea to train, and then we close the sale . The more confidence you have in your ability to ask people to make a decision to sign up, the better you do it . The more relaxed you are, the more effective you are. What we have found is that, if you’re not good at selling, you feel uncomfortable or clumsy with it and avoid doing it, or they do it poorly or feel clumsy about it.

What I found—and this changed my life when I was a young man—is that selling is a skill . Like riding a bicycle, you can learn the skill of selling . So, here’s the best advice I can give you: Learn how to sell. MABusiness: While we’re on that topic of selling, a lot of school owners are very passionate about what they do, but, as you know, the whole selling aspect is a problem for some people. Can you give us some tips on how to close the sale? Brian Tracy: The first thing is to be positive . You should be very positive yourself, like you cannot imagine a person not doing the martial arts . The second thing is, use “educational selling .” Educational selling is where you don’t try to sell so, instead, try to teach the person what they will get. Here are some examples: “When you get this, you will be fitter. You will be trimmer. You will have more confidence, better balance, and better poise. You will feel more confident in new social situations. You will have higher levels of aerobic fitness. You will be more attractive to members of the opposite sex.”

There seems to be a reciprocal relationship between your level of self-esteem and your level of self-efficacy or how well you do what you’re doing.

These are all the things that go along with the martial arts . Ask the person: “Are these the sort of things that are important to you?” The answer is yes . Now you say one of many things: “When would you like to get started?” “How soon would you like to get started?” “Would you like to start today?” “What is the first day that’s convenient for you?” In other words, ask for the order . Just ask them to make a buying decision . Don’t bring them to the edge and say, “Well, what do you think?” Give them a specific action so they can provide a response.

MABusiness: Recently, I’ve listened to the “Psychology of Achievement,” one of our favorite programs that you’ve ever produced. Could you please give our readers some pointers on how to develop the necessary psychology for achievement as it pertains to growing a martial art school?

Brian Tracy: We say that everything you do on the outside is determined by your self-concept on the inside. The core of your selfconcept is your self-esteem, which is how much you like yourself . The more you like yourself, the bigger goals you set. The more you like yourself, the more persistent you are. The more you like yourself, the more confidence you have.

We teach people to say over and over again, “I like myself, I like myself, I like myself .” In fact, that’s the key to success in your business . The more you like yourself, the better you will do your business—and the better you do your business, the more you’ll like yourself.

There seems to be a reciprocal relationship between your level of self-esteem and your level of self-ef- ficacy or how well you do what you’re doing . People who really feel good about themselves do what they do much better than people who don’t . One of the keys to building your school, by the way, is that people feel really good about themselves as a result of going there . That’s why constantly encouraging people, constantly giving them praise, constantly upgrading them and moving them up, and so on, makes them feel like winners . It makes them have high self-esteem, makes them associate feeling good about themselves with you and your school . That’s how the psychology of selling begins.

MABusiness: A martial arts school is a small business and, if run properly, it, too, can be highly profitable . What universal tips would you give school owners on how to grow rich doing what they love to do?

Brian Tracy: In my book, “Getting Rich Your Own Way,” and in my program, “Getting Rich in America,” we talk about the fact that everybody starts off with nothing. Every successful entrepreneur started off as an unsuccessful entrepreneur. And seventy-nine percent of self-made millionaires in America are people who started with nothing and built their own businesses . Four out of five of your chances of becoming financially independent, which must be a goal, will come from starting and building your business.

Here’s the other thing: You only learn to do it right by doing it wrong . You only learn to do correct things by making mistakes . So, in the first part of your business, you will make a lot of mistakes . And you’ll be very frustrated . What do most people do when they make mistakes and they’re frustrated? They quit . They just say, “It’s obviously not for me; I’m not really cut out for this; I’m not good at this .” Remember, the reason you say that is because you have not yet learned the skills that you need to learn . Here’s another important point . It’s easy to start your own business, it’s hard to succeed in it . Many people think, “Boy, this is easy to start a business or a studio, so therefore it should always be easy .” No . The only thing that is easy is starting . After that, everything is hard, harder, and even harder . So, what you do is…you learn . Become a learning machine and take in information continually.

It may take seven years for to be successful . Seven years from now, you’ll either be flat-lined, still struggling or an extraordinarily creative, intelligent, experienced entrepreneur with the ability to make an incredible living anywhere you go.

So you say “What? Seven years? That’s a long time!” However, the time is going to pass anyway . So you must constantly be learning . You have the ability to learn anything you need to learn.

Everybody reading this interview can become a millionaire . The very fact that you have your own studio means you have a special instinct that only one percent of the population has . You have the courage, the vision, the daring, the knowledge, and the willingness to take a risk like that, to start a studio . Which means, you’ve got it! You’ve got the core . It’s almost like having a good physical body, now you can just train that body to accomplish anything you want.

MABusiness: Can you explain the Pareto Principle?

Brian Tracy: Wilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist . In 1895, he was studying to be an instructor of health in Italy . He noticed that the top twenty percent of the people controlled eighty percent of the money . He called these people the “vital few” versus the “trivial many .” He began to apply this ratio to other economic events . He found that, in any industry, twenty percent of the companies made eighty percent of the profit . In entrepreneurship, twenty percent of the entrepreneurs make eighty percent of the money . Even with customers, twenty percent of your customers will represent eighty percent of your business, referrals, and so on . He said to focus on the top twenty percent . Identify who they are, what they are, where they are . For example, if you survey the students in your studio, you will find that about eighty percent of them come from twenty percent of the occupations available . You may find that most of your people come from sales . You’ll find that most of your people may come from one school area . You’ll find that most of your young kids come from families where the father does a particular task.

It’s amazing, when you start looking for this concept…you’ll find it . if that’s the case, then the findings is where you focus your efforts on.

MABusiness: Please tell us about key result areas . What are they, and how can school owners use them to create a more efficient and profitable business?

Brian Tracy: This is important. There are “Seven Key Result Areas” in selling. There are also “Seven Key Result Areas” in management and seven in business.

In key result areas, we find that you’re successful to the degree to which you have mastered all seven in each area. All of your problems will come from a weakness in one of the seven areas. Here are the seven in selling:

1. Prospecting.
2. Establishing. So that people will like you and trust you.
3. Identifying their needs . Why would they take lessons in the first place?
4. Presenting. Showing that their needs can best be satisfied by your studio, by your method of training, by your location and so on.
5. Answering objections or concerns. What if I miss a class? What if I’m short on a payment a month?
6. Closing the sale. Asking for the order.
7. Getting re-sales and referrals. Getting the person to upgrade and getting them to bring friends .

MABusiness: Can you give us an example in another area of business?

Brian Tracy: Yes. In managing, there are seven key tasks as well.

1. Planning . Just thinking through and planning . Now here’s a rule from Peter Drucker, who’s considered the founding father of the study of management . The leader, the manager, has to think about the future, has to plan because only he or she is tasked to do it. None of your staff is responsible for planning. None of your staff can plan the future of your studio, only you can do that . If you do it well, you’re going to have a great future . If you do it poorly, you’re going to have a poor future . Therefore, good people think a lot about the future . They plan.
    
2. Organizing is pulling together the resources that you need . Like finding and opening the studio, getting the money that you require, getting the people that you require, getting things set up . Organizing to fulfill the plan.
    
3. Staffing is getting the right people to help you . Your ability to find and hire the right people is very often the hinge upon which your whole business turns . You get one wrong person and it can really hurt your business.
    
4. Delegating is telling people exactly what you need them to do to the extent that they fully understand it and then making sure that they do it the way that you want it done by giving them regular feedback . Teach your people the way that you would teach your students.
    
5. Supervising and making sure that people do it . Remember, delegation is not abdication . You still own the task, you’re still responsible . You’re just like a doctor with a patient in intensive care . You keep taking the pulse and watching to make sure everything is okay.
    
6. Measuring. Set measures and standards for every day . How many people are you going to call each day? How many new students do you want to sign up each day? How many tasks is a person expected to do each day and how will you measure his or her success? The rule is, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it . And what gets measured gets done.
    
7. Reporting . Keep accurate records . If you have bank loans, your banks will want to know exactly how you are doing financially . If you have investors, they’ll want to know . Your spouse will want to know, your friends might want to know . Measuring and keeping accurate track of what you’re doing and then reporting that on a regular basis is essential to good business management . Now, if you’re having any problems at all in your business, there’s a weakness in one of those seven areas.

MABusiness: As our industry continues to grow, commercial martial arts schools are in greater need of quality employees than ever before . Can you give us some sound advice on how to build peak performing teams?

Brian Tracy: The two things in building a high-performance team are, number one, everybody feels in the know, and number two, use a very high level of trust . It’s based on years and years of research. The key to peak performing teams is that everybody feels like they’re a part of the team . There are no insiders; no outsiders . I have two or three ethics. Number one, my job is to maintain harmony . So I make sure everybody there gets along with everybody else. If we make a mistake and hire a negative person, we encourage that person to go somewhere else very quickly.

Number two, I have an open door policy . Anybody can ask me anything at any time, so everything is wide open . Everything is printed; everybody can see what’s going on. Everybody feels like they’re part of the team . There’s no need to know
private information.

Number three, everybody is highly responsible. I don’t sit on people’s shoulders and demand that they come or go . I make sure everybody knows their job and is happy with it . Then, if they need to go out for some reason or they come in late or they leave early or something, I expect them to be highly responsible.

Ninety percent of your people, if you give them high levels of responsibility, will honor that . Ten percent will not . You get rid of those ten percent as soon as you find that they’re taking advantage of your system

MABusiness: In your opinion, what constitutes quality leadership? Brian Tracy: A leader is a person who has a very clear idea of where the business is going and someone who is able to convey that to other people . The one who says, “This is what we’re trying accomplish and this is how we’re doing it.” The key in the job of the leaders is to get followers. Your followers feel that they can accomplish more working with and for you than they could accomplish on their own.

Leaders have a vision . They set very clear goals and high standards . And leaders are always optimistic. Being an optimist is one of the most important qualities of entrepreneurship. MABusiness: If a martial arts school owner feels that he or she is in a leadership position, but they are really not very good at leading, where should they get started? Brian Tracy: Every person has the natural qualities of leadership . It’s really quite amazing. If you found yourself in a lifeboat with your
family, you’ll find yourself a leader.

The leader will push to the front. What Peter Drucker said is, “There may be natural born leaders, but there are so few of them, they make no difference in the great scheme of things .” He also said, “Leadership is learned by practice . You learn how to lead by leading and the way that you lead is that you make a decision of where we’re going.”

For example, you say, “Let’s go here. This is what we want to accomplish .” Then you discuss how to achieve it . The more people can discuss the plan of action, the more committed they are to it and the faster they will find ways to change or improve it.

The ability to set goals and make plans to accomplish those goals is the master skill of success. It is the single most important skill that you can learn and perfect. You must absolutely become an expert at goal setting if you wish to fulfill your potential as a human being.

Goals enable you to do the work you want to do, live where you want to live, be with the people you enjoy and become the kind of person you want to become. There is no limit to the financial rewards you can obtain. All you must do is to set a goal for financial success, make a plan, and then work the plan until you succeed.

The payoff for setting goals and making plans is being able to choose the kind of life you want to live, so why do so few people set goals? According to the best research, less than three percent of Americans have written goals, and less than one percent review and rewrite their goals daily.

The rea­sons why people don’t set goals have been of consid­erable interest to me. I think that there are five basic reasons why people don’t set goals.

The first reason is that they are simply not serious. Whenever I speak with a man or woman who has achieved a remarkable goal, I learn that the achievement occurred after that person decided to “be serious.” Until you become completely serious and totally determined about your goals, nothing happens.

The second reason why people don’t set goals is that they don’t understand the importance of goals. Young men and women who begin set­ting goals very early in life invariably come from families in which the importance of goals is empha­sized.

The discussion that takes place around the family dinner table is one of the most powerful, for­mative influences in your life. If your parents didn’t have goals, didn’t talk about goals, didn’t encourage you to set goals, and didn’t talk about people outside the family circle who had goals and were mov­ing toward a higher level of achievement, then you very likely learned that goals are not even a part of normal existence.

This is the case with most people. For many years, it was the case with me.

The third reason why people don’t set goals is because they don’t know how to do it. One of the greatest tragedies of our educational system is that you can receive 12 to 16 years of education and never once receive a single hour of instruction on how to set goals.

Yet, in certain schools where goal-setting programs have been introduced since first grade, young people become excited about goal setting-even if the goal is only to improve their grades by five or ten percent during the course of the semester or to be on time every day for a month.

Children become so excited about achieving goals that by the third or fourth grade, they love to go to school. They achieve the best grades. They are seldom absent. They are excited about themselves and their lives. This is why your work, teaching goal setting in your martial arts school, is so important. Most of your students would never be exposed to it otherwise!

The fourth reason why people don’t set goals is fear of rejection. The fear of rejection is caused by destructive criticism during early childhood, and it is manifested in adulthood in the fear of criticism from others.

Many people are reluctant to set worth­while goals because they have found that every time they do set a goal, someone tells them they can’t achieve it. The old, negative, military style of teaching can actually be very damaging to a child’s esteem, and create the fear of rejection that restrains so many from setting worthwhile goals.

The fifth reason why people don’t set goals is the fear of failure. The fear of failure is probably the greatest single obstacle to success in an adult’s life. It can stop you more than any other psychologi­cal problem. What’s incredible is that you can’t achieve success without failure. It’s an indispensable prerequisite for success.

All great success is preceded by great failure. Indeed, one maxim for success is, “Double your failure rate.” You must try, fall and learn, and then try again. It’s important to realize that to succeed through goal setting, temporary set­backs and challenges are inevitable parts of the goal-achieving process.

To be financially free, you must have enough money, so you don’t worry about it continually, as most people do. It is not money that lies at the root of all evil; it is lack of money. Money also causes great anxiety among martial artists. Some feel that martial arts should not be taught for money or personal gain. Still, the major martial arts associations, even the most traditional, have memberships that are based on fees.

The reality is that we live in a society that requires financial focus. It is an exercise in self-delusion to operate as though money is not important. Someone who understands money rarely makes this statement. School owners that have not done well and seek an altruistic justification for their lack of success typically suffer from this self-delusion. The reality is that most people are focused on money all the time, especially if they don’t have enough.

You are a martial artist in the new millennium in a Western society. At age 65, 97% of the population will be dead or dead broke. The only way to be a member of the three-percent that are financially independent is to start to focus on building your business and saving now.

Achieving financial freedom is one of the most important goals and responsibilities of your life. It is far too important to be left to chance. More than 80% of the population is preoccupied with money problems. Those people think and worry about money when they wake in the morning, throughout the day and during the evening. This is not a happy, healthy way to live. This is not conducive to being the best you can be.

Money is very important. While I put it as number four on the list of ingredients of success, it is an essential factor in the achievement of the first three. Most worry, stress, anxiety and lost peace of mind are caused by money worries. Many health problems are caused by stress and worry about money. Many relationships problems are caused by money worries, and arguments over money cause many divorces. You owe it to yourself, therefore, to develop your talents and abilities to earn enough money, so you don’t have to worry about it.

A feeling of freedom is essential to the achievement of any other important goal, and you cannot be free, until and unless you have enough money, so that you are no longer preoccupied with it. One of your main aims in life must be to your financial independence, without self-delusion, procrastination or trusting to luck.

Imagine that you had a magic wand and you could wave it to design your financial life in any way you wanted. What would your life look like if you achieved all your financial goals? What difference would it make in your day-to-day activities? What would you do more or less? How much would you like to be earning one year, five years or ten years from today? What kind of lifestyle would you like to be enjoying? How much money would you like to have in the bank? How much would you like to be worth when you retire?

These are very important questions! Most people never ask and answer them during their entire lives. If you can be perfectly clear about where you want to go financially, then you can learn what you should know to achieve that goal. Many graduates of my seminar have changed their lives from rags to riches. They have become presidents of large corporations. Some have become millionaires. They have started and built successful businesses, but only after they decided what they wanted.

When you decide exactly what you want your financial picture to look like, then there are many resources available to achieve your goals faster than you might have imagined possible. Martial Arts Professional magazine and its Web site are a good start. It all begins with defining your financial future clearly, and then making a plan to realize it. Second, find a good system of operation and savings and put it into action. Everything will follow from that.

Brian Tracy is a Karate Black Belt and a world-renowned expert in the field of human development and motivation. Much of his success is a result of the discipline he learned through martial arts training.

The second ingredient of success is health and energy. Just as peace of mind is your normal and nat­ural mental state, health and energy is your normal and natural physical state. As martial arts profession­als, your success and image will be in direct propor­tion to your level of high energy and health.

This month, I present the third ingredient of success-your rela­tionships, which is not often discussed in martial arts circles, though it is as critical as all the others. These are relationships with the people you love and for whom you care, and the people who love and care for you. Relationships are the real measure of how well you are succeeding as a human being. Most of your happiness and unhappiness in life are results of your relationships, and what makes you truly human.

A key quality of the fully functioning person is that he or she has the ability to enter into and main­tain long-term friendships and intimate relation­ships. The very essence of your personality is demonstrated in the way you relate to others, and the way they relate to you. At almost any time, you can measure your relationships by one simple test: laughter.

How much two people, or a family, laugh together is the surest measure of the quality of their relationships. When a relationship is truly happy, people laugh often when they’re together. When a rela­tionship turns sour, an absence of laughter quickly follows.

This is true for martial arts schools as well. High-performance schools are those in which people laugh and joke together. They enjoy one another and their training. They function smoothly and happily during classes. They are more optimistic, open to new ideas, creative and flexible. I thought that peo­ple were an important part of any school. Then, I learned a great truth: people are the school. The bags and mirrors can be replaced. The classes, curriculum and program will change during time; but if you employ the right instructors and establish solid relationships with your stu­dents, then your school will continue to prosper.

The most important responsibility of the school owner is to ensure harmony and happiness among his staff and to create a climate of optimism, enthusiasm and high morale. This “esprit de corps” is the distinguishing quality of all world-class orga­nizations. What is your ideal relationship? With whom would it be and how would you describe it? If you could design your important relationships in every detail, then of what would you want more or less? What could you do, starting today, to create those conditions in your own life?

Without a clear idea of what you want in a relationship, you will probably find yourself in situations not of your choosing. Problems in life are almost invariably “people prob­lems.” They come with hair on top, and talk back.

People problems do more to disrupt your peace of mind and undermine your health than perhaps any other factor. One of your chief aims in life must be, therefore, to create a human environment in which you can be happy, contented and fulfilled. You must examine the quality of your relationships with your loved ones, staff and students. Study each relationship and develop a plan to make each of them enjoyable and satisfying.

Only when you have control of your relationships and they are functioning harmoniously and in a healthy manner can you turn your thoughts toward the self-expression and self-actualization that enable you to fulfill your true potential as a martial arts leader.

Brian Tracy is a Karate Black Belt and a world-renowned expert in the field of human development and motivation. Much of his success is a result of  the discipline he learned through martial arts training.

During many of my columns, I’ve described how you can reach your full potential, which is the primary goal of martial arts. I’ve described how, as when you are learning intricate steps of a complex kata or form, success is simply a matter of applying the right techniques everyday. All esteem is built on a foundation of excellence and when you execute your “techniques of success” correctly everyday, then your esteem will grow as a result.

In my last column, I presented the first of the seven ingre­dients for success: peace of mind, which is achieved by creating a vision of your perfect future. You begin unlocking your potential by envisioning your life exactly as you would want it to be. Then, you work backwards from that vision to make it a reality. Not only is peace of mind the most important ­ingredient of success, but also it is your birthright. Everyone is born deserving to have peace of mind.

The second ingredient of success is health and energy. Just as peace of mind is your normal and nat­ural mental state, health and energy is your normal and natural physical state. Your body has a natural bias toward health. It produces energy easily and in abundance, in the absence of mental or physical interference. Radiant health exists in the absence of any pain, illness or disease. If you achieve in the material world, but you lose your health or peace of mind, then you receive little or no pleasure from your other accomplishments.

As a martial arts professional, you must maintain a healthy, energetic state to present a congruent mes­sage to your students. If you are not in shape and have low energy, then the message you are conveying to your stu­dents is that, by studying martial arts, you are a person not in shape and with low energy.

Many of you are in great shape, but, sadly, many of your peers let themselves go after years of rigorous training. As they advance in rank, many of them seem to add a belt size as well. Not only does this damage your image as a martial arts leader, but also your success is also compromised.

Imagine enjoying perfect health. Think of what you could be if you were your ideal image of physical fitness. How would you look? How would you feel? How much would you weigh? What foods would you eat and what exercises would you do?

After he had thought about this “ideal image,” a businessman at one of my seminars told me that, if he were in perfect health, then he would be able to run a marathon. His problem was that he was 40 years old, 20 pounds overweight and not particu­larly fit. He doubted that it was possible for him, but the thought process had begun.

The more he thought about himself, as he could be, rather than as he was, the more excited he became about the idea of training for a marathon. He began to see himself as lean and fit. He became more convinced that he could do it. He bought a couple of books on running and started running a little each day. He bought the right clothes and running shoes. He increased his distance each week and soon began doing “fun runs” and mini-marathons.

Within one year, he ran his first marathon, 26.4 miles. He fulfilled his vision and became the person he had imagined he could be. Most important, he felt fitter, thinner, stronger and more energetic than he had for many years.

His work improved because he had more energy and generally felt better each day. His confidence soared as he became fitter and felt younger and stronger. His relationship with his wife improved, since his mood and energy was higher; and, frankly, he became more attractive physically.

Now, this was a 40-year-old businessman. You are a professional Black Belt martial arts instructor. Many of your students come to you seeking the same benefits as the man I just described; however, your ability to help your students will be in direct pro­portion to how well you are keeping in shape yourself.

Health and energy are critical to all success. Nothing is more important than your health. While professionals in all fields benefit from good health and high energy, in the final analysis, for profession­al martial arts instructors, it is an absolute require­ment for success.

The first of these seven ingredients of success, and easily the most important, is peace of mind. As martial artists, inner peace is a phrase we’ve heard often. Inner peace is the highest human good. Without it, nothing has much value. You usually evaluate how well you are doing at any given time by how much inner peace you enjoy.

Peace of mind is your internal gyroscope. You experience peace of mind when you are living in harmony with your values and convictions. If, for any reason, you compromise your values, then your peace of mind is the first to suffer. Peace of mind, or harmony, is essential to your relationships with your students, friends and family members.

The wonderful truth about peace of mind is that it is your birthright. It belongs to you. It is not just for the lucky. Peace of mind is central to your very existence. Achieving inner peace must be a central organizing principle of your life. It must become the primary goal to which all your other goals are subservient. In fact, you are only successful as a person to the degree to which you can achieve your peace of mind.

The very idea of achieving my happiness caused me a good deal of anxiety at one time. My religious background had drummed into me the idea that my happiness was not a consideration for my behaviors. I was told that hap­piness was merely a by-product of living my life to make others happy. If I experienced any happiness, then I was just lucky. If I didn’t, then that was my lot in life.

The very idea of setting happiness as a specific goal was described as selfish and uncaring. A major turning point came for me when I learned two concepts. First, if I didn’t commit to achieving my happiness, then others wouldn’t. If my aim in life were only to make others happy, then I would always be at the mercy of the feelings of others, whoever they might be.

Second, I discovered that I couldn’t give what I didn’t have. I couldn’t make others happy if I was miserable. I couldn’t make others happy unless I could be happy first.

You experience peace of mind when you are free from the destructive emotions of fear, anger, doubt, guilt, resentment and worry. In the absence of nega­tive emotions, you enjoy peace of mind. The key to happiness, then, is to eliminate systematically the negative people, situations and emotions that make you unhappy.

Herein lies the rub. The obstacle to eliminating the negativity that interferes with your happiness is your attachment to the negative people and situa­tions that cause it. Your rational mind provides several clever reasons why you must continue your existing situation.

In future columns, I’ll show you ways to control and eliminate your negative emotions. For the moment, though, project forward in thought and imagine your ideal life. What combination of ingre­dients would be required to be perfectly happy? Don’t worry about what’s possible or not possible for you at the moment. Free your mind from all limitations and be perfectly selfish.

Define your life exactly as it must be to enjoy the peace of mind you desire. What would you be doing? Where would you be? Who would be there with you? How would you spend your time? What would your school look like if it were absolutely excellent in every respect? What would you do more (or less)?

When you set peace of mind as your goal and plan your steps toward that goal, according to whether it helps or hinders your attainment of that goal, you’ll do and say the right things. You’ll find yourself operating from a higher set of principles. You’ll feel wonderful about yourself. Peace of mind is the key.

Your age, gender and culture don’t matter, as it relates to nature, which is neutral. It plays no favorites. Nature returns to you equal to what you contribute, no more and no less. Only you can determine your contribution.

This is the Age of Achievement for the martial arts. Never have more students, instructors and school owners accomplished so much as they do today. There has never been a better time than now for you to achieve success, happiness and financial independence, as a martial arts professional. All you need to do is to learn how, and then put what you learn into action.

Everything I will teach you has been tested and proven in the crucible of real life. My experiences have made me sort of a guinea pig for these ideas. I started so far behind that no one could have blamed me if I hadn’t amounted to anything.

I was as born in Canada in 1944. My parents were people and hardworking, but we never seemed to have enough money. I still remember my parents saying again and again, “We can’t afford it.” Not matter what it was; we couldn’t afford it. They had lived through the Great Depression and they had fully recovered from the experience of worrying about money all the time.

As a kid, I was what was called a “loser.” I fooled around in class. I was always shooting my mouth off. When I was 16, it first dawned on me that if I ever wanted things to change for me, then it was up to me to change. If I didn’t like being unhappy and unpopular, and in trouble all the time, then it was up to me to do something about it. Thus, began my lifelong search to answer the question, “Why are some people more successful than others?”

After dropping from high school and working as a laborer, I went off to see the world. I have since traveled to more than 80 countries on six continents. I have had experiences that most people could not imagine. I have been dirt poor, hungry and sleeping on the ground countless times in foreign lands. I have also stayed in beautiful hotels in the great cities of the world. In time, I became a senior executive of a $265-million development company. I’ve met four presidents and three prime ministers. My wife and I even had dinner with the President of the United States less than six months after setting it as a goal.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is this: You can’t hit a target you can’t see. You can’t accomplish wonderful things with your life if you have no idea of what they are. You must first become absolutely clear about what you want.

To make this system work, it is essential that you decide exactly what “success’ means to you. This is your first assignment. Using zero-based thinking, imagine you could return to the beginning in every situation in your life and start again. Ask this question, “If I had this decision to make today, knowing what I now know, then what would I do?”

Refuse to compromise your answers. Be perfectly honest with yourself. Define your ideal in each situation before you allow yourself to be bogged down with all the reasons it isn’t possible for you. All great achievement begins with your deciding what it is you really want and then dedicating yourself wholeheartedly to attaining it.

It has been said that men and women start to become great when they begin to listen to their inner voices. Your intuition is your direct connection with infinite intelligence. Intuition is so powerful that the greatest men and women of history have written and studied it for thousands of years. When you begin to use it regularly and systematically, there is virtually nothing that you can’t accomplish.

Intuition has often been called the “still small voice” within your mind. You may experience intuition as a gut feeling, as an inner sense of what is right or wrong for you. Sometimes, intuition manifests itself as a hunch or an inspiration. Often, it comes as a flash of insight. Intuition leads you to new ideas, concepts and breakthroughs. Sometimes, an intuitive flash will enable you to see a situation completely different, and solve it on a completely different level. Einstein was referring to intuition when he said, “No problem can be solved on the same level at which you meet it.”

In breakthrough thinking, we are taught to redefine a problem and take it to a higher level to find its solution. Since you’re likely to continue on your current path with the same behavior, you’ll only earn the rewards at that level; therefore, trying to solve your current problem at your current level is often an exercise in frustration. You can unlock your intuition by using your imagination to think about your problem in a completely different way.

There are two major types of imagination that you use continually, both of which require the highest use of your intuitive powers. They are synthetic imagination and creative imagination.

Synthetic imagination is your ability to assemble existing pieces of knowledge and information into new forms. It is very similar to having a clear idea of a jigsaw picture, and then assembling all the pieces into a single piece.

This form of imagination is also called “integrative intelligence.” It is one of the highest forms of intelligence for success and achievement. Integrative intelligence is defined as your ability to integrate a large number of different pieces of information into a single precept for decision and action. It is your ability to recognize and sort many different facts and insights, choosing some and discarding others, in the process of making the correct decision. This form of intelligence is extremely valuable in fast-moving, fluid situations that require you consider a large number of different pieces of information in making a decision.

It has been estimated that you need 20,000 to 50,000 bits of information at your disposal to be successful in any field of endeavor. We live in the information age, and knowledge is the raw material of production and value of this age. The more different bits or “bytes” of information you have, the more effective your integrative intelligence, or synthetic imagination, will be.

The people who rise to the top of any field of endeavor are invariably those who know more than others. In fact, the division in our society today is not between those who “have more” and “have less” but between those who “know more” and those who “know less.” One of your jobs is to be continually gathering additional bits of practical and useful information, so that you have plenty of different ideas and concepts to apply to any problem or reach any goal. Your intuition then helps you quickly recognize the relevant facts and gives you the answers you need when you need them.

When you are exposed to more ideas, then the greater the probability that the right idea will appear at the right time.  When it does, your intuition will help you to recognize the idea and integrate it into everything else you are doing.

The second form of imagination is creative imagination. This is a higher form of imagination, where intuition plays an even more important part. Creative imagination refers to your ability to learn or develop completely new and different ideas and concepts to solve your problems and achieve your goals. It is the highest form of imagination, and is responsible for all the great breakthroughs in science, technology, art, music, literature and medicine. The most successful men and women of all time have been those who have deliberately trained themselves to tap into their creative imagination on a regular basis. You can too, if you learn how.

Your creative imagination is the source of all hunches, inspirations, imagination, flashes of insight and new understandings of complex concepts. The cultivation and development of your creative imagination can enable you to make more progress in one or two years than the average person might make in ten or twenty. Your creativity, your intuitive sense, is like a muscle. It grows with use. The more you practice with it and rely on it, the stronger it becomes and the faster it acts for you.

“You can unlock your intuition by using your imagination to think about your problem in a completely different way.”

Some skills are peripheral to success. It’s nice to have them, but they don’t make much of a difference. There are other skills, however, that are absolutely essential to fulfill your potential; and you must develop them to a fairly high level, if you are to achieve all of your goals.

One of these absolutely essential skills is the ability to manage projects of various sizes. Project management is a function not just of those who build hydroelectric dams or huge skyscrapers. You organize and engage in a project each time you go grocery shopping. If you are in sales, then every prospect that you are trying to develop into a regular customer is a project.

I will share with you, in this column, a systematic process that will help you become an excellent project manager; and it’s not that difficult to learn. Your ability to multi-task entrepreneurial tasks will easily translate to the projects in rest of your life.

Goals

Every project begins by clearly defining your goals, or exactly what form they will take if you accomplished your project, perfectly.

For example, you decide to take a two-week trip to the Caribbean next winter. You begin by specifically defining an ideal Caribbean vacation: hotel, beaches, daytime and evening activities, the people and service you want to experience and, of course, your budget. Once you have that clear description in mind (or on paper), it’s easy to plan your perfect winter holiday in the sun.

List

Next, make a list of all of the actions you must take to achieve your final goal. You research the various Caribbean islands you could visit. You call more than one travel agent for information about particular packages, including airfare and hotels, so you qualify for the best prices well in advance. You plan your budget, and determine the source of those funds. You consider your business responsibilities, and how they will be completed, while you’re away, without negatively affecting your business, students and staff.

“One of these absolutely essential skills is the ability to manage projects of various sizes. If you are in sales, then every prospect that you are trying to develop into a regular customer is a project.”

Deadlines

Once you’ve determined your goal, you then set specific dates and deadlines, starting from the end of your vacation and back dating, so you have a clear timeline of your entire vacation.

Organize

Organize your list of all required actions to reach your goal. You can organize your list in one of two ways: First is sequential, where one step follows another. These are often called dependent activities. One depends on the successful completion of another. The second is parallel or concurrent actions. These are tasks that can be completed, simultaneously, separate and apart from other actions.

Select and Delegate

The core action of effective project management is selection and delegation; it is the key to your future in the entrepreneurial world. The bigger the project, the more people and specialists will be required to complete it, successfully. Your ability to select the right people, and then delegate effectively to them will determine your success or failure. A mistaken selection or a miscommunication could delay or derail the entire project, or bust your budget.Using this project-management process properly can give you the winning edge. It can enable you to kick in the afterburners for your life and career. Becoming an excellent project manager will enable you to move ahead further and faster. Although the project management steps are simple, project management skills are complex, and are vital to your success.

The cumulative results of developing project management skills will enable you to accomplish bigger tasks with greater responsibilities and greater income-with greater rewards of all kinds. Project management is a powerful key to your future.

All of life is a risk. You take a small risk when you drive to work or walk across the street. You take a larger risk when you start a business or invest a sum of money. You take a risk whenever you venture into the unknown that cannot be exactly determined.

The issue, then, is not whether you take risks, but to have the skills and confidence to take the right risks for the right reasons in pursuit of the right goals.

There are five basic risks.

1. The risk that is not yours to take is the simplest. It is the decision you don’t have to make.

2. The risk that is unnecessary. You engage in an unnecessary risk when you act without sufficient information or taking the time to think it through carefully in advance.

3. The risk that you can afford to take. Calling on a new prospect, following up on a lead and exploring a new opportunity all are risks that you can afford to take. The cost of failure is very low, while the rewards of success can be very great.

4. The risk that you cannot afford to take. The consequences of making a mistake would be too enormous. You cannot afford to bet your whole company or your whole bankroll on a single speculation.

5.       The risk that you must take. The downside may be costly, but the upside is so exciting that the risk is very much worth taking.

Those who have achieved a high level of success are intensely realistic. They do not put their trust in luck. They carefully calculate every possible risk, and then prepare for those risks, which includes a backup plan, with options that take all kinds of variables into consideration.

Successful individuals engage in strategic thinking. They minimize risk by continually questioning their assumptions and asking themselves what they would do in the case of unanticipated delays, cost overruns or unexpected actions by their competitors. They are seldom caught unprepared because they have thought through the uncertainties that create unacceptable risks-risks they cannot afford to take.

One of the best of all exercises, in every situation involving uncertainty, is to assess and evaluate the worst possible outcome. Ask yourself, “What could possibly go wrong in this situation?”

When advising businesspeople, I suggest that they triple their very best estimate of breakeven for any business venture to calculate a more realistic number. They are amazed that, in spite of their best, initial calculations, it takes approximately three times longer to start to make money.

Once you have identified the worst possible outcomes, then make a list of what you could do to offset those negative factors. “Crisis anticipation” allows you to look to the future, and imagine every possible crisis that could arise as the result of changing external circumstances.

Develop your ability to take intelligent risks by consciously and deliberately doing what you fear, one step at a time. You don’t have to leap from an airplane without a parachute. That is not risk taking. What you must do is to resist your natural tendency to slip into a comfort zone of complacency and low performance.

Many of our fears of taking risks are unfounded. When you test them, you find that they don’t even exist.  Set clear, written and measurable goals, and then review those goals regularly.

When you continually work on your clear goals and plans and evaluate your progress each day, you will see what you’re doing right and how you could improve your performance. You’ll become more thoughtful and reflective, and willing to take on even greater challenges. Your fears of taking risks will virtually disappear.

Learn how to take intelligent risks without fear by taking intelligent risks, and then analyzing what happened. When you have clearly identified the risks involved, you can plan and prepare to maximize your opportunities, while minimizing those risks. The more positive you feel about yourself, the more effective you will be. Your ability to take calculated risks confidently in the direction of your goals will ultimately lead you toward success.

Your leadership success and the success of your team will be determined by how well you foster the five qualities of productive work teams throughout the stages of your team’s development.

The first quality is shared values. Ask your team to help you list your shared values on a large board or flipchart. They will contribute the values they consider the most important, such as integrity, excellence, quality, caring about people, profitability and harmony.

The second quality is shared objectives. It is absolutely essential that everyone take the time to discuss the actual reason for forming the team and the chief results that are expected of them.

Leaders are those who can see the big picture. They are absolutely clear about what it is they want to accomplish. They have the ability to articulate this vision in the minds of others and to convince everyone to work together toward the realization of that vision.

People cannot hit a target they cannot see. Again, even though it may appear time-consuming, everyone must have ample opportunity to discuss and agree on the ultimate goals before work begins. The more thorough the discussion of objectives, the more effective the team will be when it begins working.

The third quality is shared activities. As the team leader, you are responsible for dividing the work among your team members. You want everyone to know their roles and the roles of others to achieve the team’s goals.

The fourth quality is the team leader initiates the action. You become the role model for your team members. You continually look for ways to make it easier for your team members to do their jobs.  You accept complete responsibility for the achievement of the overall goal. You start a little earlier, you work a little harder, and you stay a little later. You carefully set priorities and always work on your highest value tasks. You never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. You are a leader because you continually lead.

The fifth quality is that the individual team members and the group continually evaluate their progress toward their goals and values. They are always asking themselves, “How are we doing, and how can we do better?” They ask their customers for continuous feedback and evaluation. They set incredible standards of excellence and they are constantly striving to be better.

Whenever there are problems, misunderstandings or difficulties within the team, they re-examine their values, goals, activities, assignments and responsibilities. They are more concerned with what’s right than who is right. They are more concerned with winning than not losing. High-performing teams run by excellent leaders, are determined to perform in an excellent fashion. All members know that their ability to work together is the key to everyone’s success.

The wonderful thing about becoming a leader in your professional and personal life is that you can practice the skills of influencing and persuading others to work toward a common objective.  You can promote the principles of excellent teamwork by establishing your values and goals, determining your activities and then leading the action. You can improve yourself by continually evaluating your performance against your standards.

One of the marks of excellent people is that they never compare themselves with others. They only compare themselves with themselves and with their past accomplishments and future potential. You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then doing everything possible to uphold those standards. The more proficient you become at reaching the goals of your school, the more opportunities you will have to produce results through others. Your ability to put together a team and then lead that team to high performance will enable you to accelerate your career and fulfill your goals faster than ever before.

Your ability to negotiate, communicate, influence and persuade others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you accomplish in life. The most effective men and women are those who can quite competently organize the cooperation and assistance of other people toward the accomplishment of important goals and objectives.

Of course, everyone you meet has different values, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, cultural values, work habits, goals, ambitions and dreams. Because of this incredible diversity of human resources, it has never been more difficult, and yet more necessary, for diplomatic leaders to emerge and form these people into high-performing teams.

Fortunately, leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. As a leader, you combine your personal competencies with the competencies of a variety of others into a smoothly functioning team that can out play and out perform all its competitors.

When you become a team leader, even if your team only consists of one other person, you must immediately develop a whole new set of leadership skills. To determine these skills, you must consider the genesis of high-performing teams.

Teams generally progress through four phases, as they evolve toward high performance. These stages are called forming, storming, norming and performing.

The forming stage is very important, perhaps even critical, to the success of the team. Your ability to select the proper team members to accomplish a particular task-personal or business-is the mark of the superior leader. If you start by selecting the wrong people, then it becomes almost impossible to build a winning team, just as it would be impossible to win athletic championships with unskilled or ill-suited players.

In the forming stage, the team members come together and begin to understand each other. There will be a good deal of discussion, argument, disagreement and personal expression of likes and dislikes, and the forming of friendly alliances between team members.

This stage, especially the discussions and conversations, may seem time-consuming, but it is absolutely indispensable to the development of a unified group of people that you can lead. One of the most important qualities of a leader is patience; and patience is never more necessary than the early stages of assembling your team.

The second stage of team development is called storming. Storming is a shortened form of the word “brainstorming.” It is during this stage when the group, whose members are now comfortable with each other, begins the hard work of setting goals and deadlines, dividing the tasks, and starting the job. During the storming phase, people learn about the contributions that each member can make to achieve the purposes of the team.

The third stage of team development is called norming. This is where norms and standards are established among the team members, so that everyone feels secure and confident in his or her place. All members know what is expected and how it is to be measured. All members are aware of their responsibilities and obligations, not only to the job, but also to the each other. Your ability as a leader to promote the norming process is critical to the success of the team.

The fourth stage of team development is performing. In the final analysis, your ability to achieve results is all that really matters. Your lifestyle, rate of promotion and level of rewards, and respect and esteem among your co-workers and bosses will all be determined by your ability to perform and to lead others to perform.