Martial Arts Professional Asks… Bill Amelio, 2nd-Degree Black Belt and CEO of Lenovo

One of the challenges of martial arts professionals and school owners is a resistance to change. Do you believe in change, if it makes sense?

Absolutely. The world is changing around us and if we aren’t able to adapt to that change, then we’ll perish. As Tony Robbins says, either grow or die. Just as we never stop trying to perfect our martial arts skills, we should never stop trying to perfect our time and management skills.

I have a simple game plan that my team uses to manage our time more effectively and stay productive. We focus on the critical few versus the trivial many. That is what is important to help prioritize your time and manage, effectively.

Our leverage technology and tools and resources help to keep my schedule efficient. For example, I spend a fair amount of time traveling, so I find myself in many airport lounges or hotels. I use that time to reply to e-mails; and it’s great to be able to do that with my notebook, with wireless technology and easy access to broadband.

I also have an excellent administration assistant who keeps me organized. In my view, talent is everything, especially the people that most influence your business performance. As simple of a concept as that is, you would be surprised at how many people can’t do it. It’s important for every business owner to reflect on a daily basis and ask, “Am I working on the right stuff or being dragged into things that are less important?” This idea of constant prioritization and making sure that you are working on the critical things that will make a huge difference to your business is so vitally important for every key business leader.

Let’s focus for a moment on continuing education. There is a saying, ”Your level of success will only grow as much as you do.” How true is this and what advise would you give to every martial arts school owner when it comes to furthering their business knowledge base?

Well, we really have to be masters of our own destiny. We can choose to make the best or worst of any situation, just as we can choose to learn or not learn. I think that the owners of martial art schools are in a very unique position. They can leverage the disciplines and instruction from their forms of art to benefit their businesses, just as I have personally experienced in my professional development. Take the concept of self-mastery in self-competition; compete with yourself everyday to improve. You’ll run a business that also improves day by day. Take execution; staying focused on one business objective is just as important to the well being of your students as it is the understanding of the principles of learning karate. If your business is not successful, then how can you continue to teach and influence so many others?