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.

Secret #3: Surround yourself with positive, successful people. Associate with men and women whose lives are headed in the right direction. Avoid negative, critical and complaining people. They drag, tire, distract and discourage you, and lead you inevitably to underachievement and failure. Remember, you cannot fly with the eagles if you continue to scratch with the turkeys.

Secret #4: Take excellent care of your physical health. You need high levels of energy to sell effectively, and to bounce back from continual rejection and discouragement. Be sure to eat the right foods, exercise appropriately and regularly, rest sufficiently and participate in recreation and other activities to revitalize your mind, body and spirit. Make a decision that you will live to be 80 years old or older, and begin today to do whatever you must to achieve that goal.

Secret #5: Visualize yourself as one of the top people in your field. Imagine yourself performing at your best, throughout every day. Feed your subconscious mind with vivid, exciting and emotionalized pictures of yourself as positive, confident, competent and completely in control of every part of your life. These clear mental pictures pre-program you and motivate you to sell at your best in any situation.

Secret #6: Practice positive self-talk, continually. Control your inner dialogue. Talk to yourself the way you want to be, rather than the way you might be today. For example, repeat to yourself these powerful words, again and again: “I like myself! I’m the best! I can do it! I love my work!” Tell yourself, “I feel happy! I feel healthy! I feel terrific!”

Remember, fully 95% of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourself, most of the time. The way you feel determines how you behave; and how you behave determines how much you sell.

Your job is to put yourself on an upward spiral, thinking and talking to yourself positively, throughout the day. You think, walk, talk and act like the very best people in your field. When you do, your success becomes inevitable.

Secret #7: Take positive action toward your goals, every day. Be proactive rather than reactive. Grab the bull by the horns. If you are not happy with your income, then go where your customers are and meet them face-to-face. If you are not happy with any part of your life, then accept responsibility and take charge.

All successful salespeople are intensely action-oriented. They have a sense of urgency. They develop a bias for action. They do it now! They have a compulsion to closure. They maintain a fast tempo and move quickly in everything they do.

The good news is that the faster you move, the more energy you have. The faster you move, the more ground you cover. The faster you move, the more people you see. The more people you see, the more experience you gain. The more experience you gain, the more sales you make. The more people you see and the more sales you make, the more your self-esteem and self-respect increases, and the more you will feel like great about yourself. You will have more energy. You will be happier and more positive.

The faster you move, the more you take complete control of your entire life, and virtually guarantee that you will be one of the top performers and the highest paid people in your field.

Salespeople are among the most important people in America. Every company’s survival depends on the success of its salespeople. High sales are the number one reason that companies succeed. Low sales are the number one reason that companies fail; and you can be in the driver’s seat.

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.

Project Forward Five Years

If you are in sales, scheduling the initial appointment, when you meet face-to-face with the decision maker, is the first 20 percent of the transaction; but it accounts for 80 percent of the value in the sales process. The presentation, the closing of the sale, the followup, the delivery of the product or service, etc., represent the second 80 percent that only accounts for 20 percent of the value.

Forget About the Small Things
In setting priorities, never be tempted to complete small things first. Don’t start at the bottom of your list and work toward the most important tasks at the top. Don’t allow yourself to become bogged down in low-priority activities. Don’t major in minors. As Goethe said, “The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.”

Human nature tends to follow the Law of Least Resistance. In time management and personal work, this means that you are compelled to start with the small tasks, thinking that as soon as you are warmed up, you will launch into your big tasks and be more productive.

What I have found is that when you start with little tasks, they begin to multiply, like rabbits in the springtime. When you begin completing your small tasks, you seem to attract more and more small tasks that require work. The longer and harder you work, the more small tasks seem to arise. By the end of the day, you will be exhausted, and you won’t have accomplished anything of value. Start with your most important work first.

Learn more about how to grow your school from Brian Tracy
Go to: NAPMA.com/BrianTracy.

Five Key Questions for Setting Priorities
Ask yourself the following five questions, regularly, to ensure that you are working on your top priorities and achieving the most that you can possibly do.

Why am I on the payroll?Ask yourself if what you are doing right now is the most important thing that you have been hired to do. If your boss were sitting across your desk, then what would you do differently than what you are doing at this moment?

Try this exercise. Make a list of everything you think you have been hired to do and take it to your boss. Ask your boss to organize this work by priority. Have your boss tell you what is most important and what is least important. From that moment forward, work single-mindedly on those tasks that your boss considers to be more important than anything else.

What are my highest value activities? Remember, there are only three things that you do that account for most of the value of your work. Which of your activities contribute the greatest value to your company? If you are not sure, ask the people around you. Everyone knows the most important things that other people should be doing.

What are my key result areas? What are the specific results that you must achieve to do your job in an excellent fashion? Of all those key result areas, which are most important?

What can I, and only I, do that if done well will make a real difference? What is the one thing, hour by hour, that only you can do and, if you do it well, will make a significant contribution to your business? This is something that no one else can do for you. If you don’t do it, then it won’t be done. Doing this task, doing it well and doing it promptly can have a major impact on your career.

What is the most valuable use of my time, right now? This is the key question in time management. Every time planning and management skill is oriented to help you to determine the correct answer to this question at every moment of the day.

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.

Why is it important to have a crystal-clear vision of where a person wants to go in life?

Brian Tracy answers…

This is one of the most important things I’ve ever learned: Successful people tend to be future-oriented. Unsuccessful people tend to be present- or past-oriented. You can tell if a person will be successful by listening to his or her predominant conversation.

If people expect to be really successful, then they can talk about the future most of the time. They talk about where they’re going, not where they’ve been. They talk about what they want to accomplish, rather than what’s happened. They talk about their goals, rather than who’s to blame for their problems.

You find that unhappy people are always looking backward, but successful people have a future vision. Now, what is your vision?

To answer that, apply the “magic-wand” technique. Imagine that you can wave a magic wand over your life five years from now and your life would be perfect in every respect. If your life was perfect in every respect five years from now, then what would it be? What would you be doing? How much would you be earning? How much would you have in the bank? In what kind of home would you live? What kind of lifestyle would you and your family be leading?

In other words, just fantasize about this for a period of time. I do this with Fortune 500 corporations. I did this exercise with the top people at a $170-billion-dollar a few years ago.

Now, you have a clear vision of where you want to be in five years. Let’s return to the present and determine what would be the first step that you would take to begin moving toward making your vision a reality. Then, what would be the second step, and so on.

It’s absolutely amazing how your life changes when you imagine that you have no limitations. You create your ideal future vision and then you take that first important step.

For a martial arts school owner, those key questions could be: “How big of a school do I want? How many staff member do I want working for me? How much money do I want to earn? What kind of car do I want to drive?”

Now, here’s an important thing to remember: There are always several ways to reach your goals. So, you start with the end in mind. For example, “How much do I want earn per month or per year?” There are several ways you can do that. One school owner might say, “I can increase the size of my school.” Another school owner may decide, “I’ll open another school.” There are all kinds of ways you can achieve the your financial goal, once you have it

ACMA board member 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.

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.

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.