“Were You Born With It?” – Part 3

In the last 2 installments, we’ve been exploring the “Environment of Support” you are creating for yourself, and how it relates to the success of you and your business.

I was thumbing through one of those silly desk calendars loaded with cute little quips, and I stumbled across one that I couldn’t help but remember. Let this guide you, as you choose the people and environment that surround you.

“You can’t soar like an eagle, if you work with a bunch of turkeys.”

I got a chuckle, but more so, I began to reflect on my life as a school owner.

Take a moment to think about your “average day”. For most of us, we wake up in the morning, “kiss the wife” and head off to the school.

I block out the late morning through early afternoon hours for external marketing activities for me and my staff, so between approximately 10:00am and 3:00pm we are “kicking the bushes,” so to speak, in our community.

Then, obviously, from roughly 4:00pm to 8:00pm, we teach classes and enroll and renew students.

Then, it’s back home to finish up administrative duties and plan for the next day.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Does that sound familiar??

I thought so.

Let’s review.

In the morning, you are dealing with day cares, youth groups, Scout troops and elementary schools. In the afternoon, you are training your staff members, who are mostly 18- to 24-year -old Black Belts. Then, in the evening, you are teaching students (typically 6- to 12-year-old children, and their parents), and lastly, it’s back home to the family.

Now, before we go any further, please, don’t misunderstand. I love running martial arts schools. I feel very passionate about this business and I absolutely believe that every child and adult would be better off as a Black Belt.

Also, I think it’s important for us to agree that an entrepreneur/business owner and most everyone in the world think VERY DIFFERENTLY! The paradigms of the entrepreneur, in many cases, are at odds with the “conventional” go-to-work-and-punch-a-clock part of society.

Having said that, reflect on the day we just discussed.

In the first part of our day, we were dealing with day care providers and the like. In some cases, we have the opportunity to meet other business owners who can relate to us relatively well, but, in more cases than not, we speak with employees and staff members of the other business or school.

Then, in the afternoon, you are surrounded by 18- to 24-year-old Black Belt students who are now your employees, and looking to you for leadership. Obviously, they view the world with very different eyes!

According to Peter Drucker, business author and Fortune 500 consultant, in 98.9% of the cases, an employee, because of the simple structure of trading hours for dollars, will find “equilibrium” at the lowest common denominator. They naturally settle to the minimum level of performance to “keep their job” in relation to, among other things, other employees, managers and owners.

Certainly not a very “entrepreneurial” attitude! They certainly don’t understand what it is to be a school owner. They don’t know what it’s like to wake up Monday morning and sweat about how to make payroll by the end of the week, right?

Then, we teach classes all evening, meeting parents and students; but, can you “talk business” with them?? Of course not!

So, moving on, we finish the day, go home, where the spouse and family are waiting. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had the conversation with my “well meaning” brother in law…”Why don’t you get a real job, and get some security for your family?”

The worst of it is he actually believes that trusting your future to someone else (an employer) is the “smart” thing to do! Obviously, this is LUDICROUS to us entrepreneurs!

So, anyway, we’ve lived an entire day as an entrepreneur, and have spend exactly 0 minutes interacting with other business owners or entrepreneurs. There are no opportunities to share business ideas or explore solutions to our business challenges with anyone who would understand.

For many years, NAPMA has wanted to create an entrepreneurial environment for school owners where they could come together and learn from each other. Finally, after months of planning, NAPMA is now accepting applications for two such groups: NAPMA Inner Circle and NAPMA Peak Performers. The Inner Circle is limited to 20 TOP-NOTCH school owners who want to take the next step in their business. The Peak Performers group will include approximately 5% of the NAPMA membership base. There are MANY more details about these programs on the way, but for more info, visit www.NAPMA.com/InnerCircle!

If you feel you and your business would benefit from this type of group, shoot me an e-mail at TobyMilroy@NAPMA.com, and I’ll put you on the list of interested school owners!