I've never really been a huge "positive thinking is the key to success" kind of guy...
Oh sure, I've gone through phases where I spent some time studying various self-help fads and trends. But in the end, I always end up labeling it as mostly voodoo, quackery, and nonsense.
Not that self-help books and audios and seminars and the like don't help some people. It's just that I don't need a guru to tell me that I need a positive mental attitude to succeed.
But I digress. The email series this week isn't really about motivational speakers, or thinking yourself rich. Instead, it's about five mental attitudes (really, five false beliefs) that will absolutely kill your dojo before it has a chance to grow and prosper.
"I Don't Need To Focus On My Business - I Just Need To Teach Good Classes And My School Will Grow..."
There are actually several variations of this false belief.
- "I don't need to focus on making money..."
- "I don't need to focus on marketing..."
- "I don't need to learn about business..."
...and so on. Regardless of how a school owner states this belief, what it boils down to is a belief that teaching good classes is all an instructor needs to do to be successful.
Why people insist on believing this is beyond me. Take me to any city in the country and I'll show you at least half a dozen incredible local instructors who are struggling to make a living teaching martial arts.
I'll tell you a secret that isn't really a secret at all - there are LOTS of talented instructors out there. In fact, good instructors are a dime a dozen.
Some of you are bristling right now at what you just read. "But-but-but Mike - the problem with the martial arts industry is that there are so many charlatans and phonies and yadda, yadda, yadda..."
Wrong. That's just what you've been led to believe, because you spend too much time (waste too much time) on martial arts forums, where some keyboard Columbo thinks it's his or her responsibility to do weekly investigative reports on the latest martial arts fraud.
News flash... it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to uncover those people. They stick out like a sore thumb, and in today's age of social media and YouTube they usually out themselves by posting video of their skills (or lack thereof) online.
And sure, it may seem like there are charlatans everywhere you look in the martial arts world, but that's just because you spend way too much time reading those threads on the forums.
It's sort of like how some people think bad cops are everywhere, when in fact just a fraction of a percent of LEOs abuse their power.
But, because you see and hear stories about "bad cops" every day on social media and in the news, pretty soon it starts to seem like ALL cops are bad.
When in fact, most cops (like 99%+) are really good people who chose to do a dangerous job for low pay because they want to protect and serve.
Same goes for martial arts instructors. The vast majority of us aren't signing our own 18th degree black belt certificates, getting our students to promote us, or mailing other instructors with those "I'll promote you if you promote me" letters.
Nope. Most of us are actually honest people who are trying to be the best martial artists and instructors we can be, every single day.
Which is why I'm telling you that awesome, talented martial arts instructors are a dime a dozen. That's why you need to have serious business chops if you want to make it as a school owner.
Now, tomorrow I'm going to tell you about the second deadly attitude that will kill your school. Again, it's a biggie... so keep an eye out for that email.
