The Seven Ingredients of Success Ingredient Three: Loving Relationships
In my previous columns, I explained that the first ingredient of success is peace of mind. Peace of mind is achieved by creating a vision of your perfect future. You begin unlocking your potential by envisioning your life, as if it were exactly how 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 of all the ingredients of success, but also it is your birthright. Everyone is born with a right to 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. 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.
