Today's email is going to get a little bit more serious than usual.

Yesterday a colleague on Facebook shared this article on the psychological cost of running a business.

I suggest you read it. Even though it's mostly focused on leaders of high-tech start-ups, I think there are some lessons in that article for small business owners as well.

I'm here to tell you, running a dojo can make you crazy. Heck, running any small business can make you crazy, because every day you have a million things to worry about...

Getting that marketing campaign out the door. Hiring and training staff. Making payroll. Dealing with unhappy customers. Ordering equipment. Writing lesson plans. Making rent. And on, and on.

Over the years I've developed a few personal rules that have helped me stay sane while starting, growing, operating, and selling three different martial art schools.

I'll happily share them here, because these rules might help you stay sane as well.

Rule #1 - Keep the dojo at the dojo. 

Never take your work home. Ever. Keep your work at work, or at best set a fifteen-minute limit on discussing work matters when you get home. After that, the house is off-limits for discussing work matters. That way, you can relax when you get home, instead of continuing to stress about the day's events.

Rule #2 - Schedule time off.

And, make sure that time off is time away from everything. My wife and I used to like taking cruises, because years ago they didn't have internet access and it cost an arm and a leg to call home from the ship (now however, every ship has internet access and you can use your cell on board with roaming charges - yay, technology).

At any rate, when you take time off, really take time off. None of this working vacation B.S. - shut down the dojo if you have to, but schedule time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You need that time to decompress.

Rule #3 - Thou shalt take on zero debt.

Run your business lean. That way when lean times arrive (and they will come, eventually) you can easily weather the storm because you're used to running lean.

I broke this rule after I started my second school. A year after launching it, things were moving along so well that I decided to take out a line of credit and expand. Good idea, bad timing.

Soon after I took out the loan and moved into a new space, the mortgage crisis hit. And then, the Great Recession. It took me 18 months to recover and get the business back to where it was stable. Talk about losing sleep. I'll NEVER do that again.

Since then I went back to bootstrapping everything. And I sleep a heck of a lot better at night, too.

Rule #4 - Save.

You need to save for a rainy day. Put aside a portion of your income for an emergency fund. Keeping a portion of your profits in reserve rather than spending every last red cent is not only a good financial discipline - it could save your business at some point.

Be frugal. Live below your means. Pay off your debts. Plan ahead. Save. Make it a habit to use common sense in how you handle your money, and you'll be able to weather any financial storm that comes your way.

Rule #5 - Replace yourself.

If you follow the Small Dojo Big Profits method of starting and running a school, you'll be doing a lot of the work on your own until you hit a certain point in your school's growth.

But once it's time to replace yourself, don't hesitate. Pursue delegation with a passion, and take as much off your plate as you can by delegating tasks to your staff.

Trust me, you don't want to put this off. Find people who enjoy teaching martial arts, but who are not necessarily entrepreneurially inclined. Once you find them, train those people to replace you on the floor, and also in the office. 

Then, focus on teaching the classes you enjoy and save the bulk of your mental energy for strategizing daily on how you can grow your business. That's when you'll start making real money, because you'll finally be doing the highest paying work you can do in your business.

That's all the advice I have for you today. Hopefully, it'll help run a less stressful business... and a more profitable one as well.

Until next time,

Mike Massie

MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com