Hi guys, we’re going to be talking about what we need to do to be successful, or what we need to do to get our kids to be successful. So, let’s talk about what is success. I’m going to read this exactly off of Google so we know it’s true. “Success: the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” And that’s the whole idea of what success is. Some people have a different concept of what it is, but success is this, we want something, are we working to get there? So, the four things that we’re going to talk about they’re things that I’ve gotten through coaches, mentors, or people that I’ve trained with, and my personal understanding of what it is to be successful.
The four things are. 1, goal setting. 2, scheduling and consistency, 3 acknowledging and praising achievements, and 4, the winner mindset.
Let’s go to number one, GOAL SETTING. I’m going to tell you a little story of how I got to this subject in my mind a couple of weeks ago when I knew I wanted to talk to you guys about this. So, I keep on going to career days, functions at school, school talks. Sometimes I’m there for pep rallies, sometimes I’m there for red ribbon weeks, just say no to drugs. The last one I went to was a career day, and I get to talk to hundreds of students all year long, I’m at a lot of elementaries, middle schools, high schools.
So, one of the fun things … the weird thing about career day is that I have a very specialized career and it’s very different than anybody else. When I ask students what they want to do when they grow up, most of the time they tell me doctor, lawyer, veterinarian, fireman, police officer, something like that. They’re all great professions, but I had never had somebody tell me that they wanted to be a martial arts instructor. So, most of the time when I ask them and I’m talking to them about succeeding in life and doing what they need to do to get to their chosen career, or what they want to do, or what they think they want to do because they’re really young, I ask them and they all tell me something that I don’t know anything about.
So, if I ask them and they tell me I want to be a fireman, I don’t know what to tell them. I give them a stock adult answer. What is it? Study hard, work hard, listen to your parents, listen to your teachers, wash behind your ears, brush your teeth every day, and everything’s going to be fine. If you do all those things, everything’s going to be fine. And honestly, I just really don’t know the process of becoming a fireman, a policeman, a doctor, a lawyer, because I’ve never gone through that, right?
So, this last time what happened was that … and it got me all excited too, this one little boy I asked him, “Hey, what do you want to do?” And I don’t know if he did it to make me feel good or something but he said, “I want to be a karate instructor.” My ears perked up, my eyes dilated and I’m like, “Oh, I have exactly the information that you need bud.” So, in my mind I start going what does he need to do? So, my first question is what school do you train at? And he goes, “Oh, I don’t train in martial arts.” And I’m like okay, and my whole enthusiasm died down and I’m like okay, okay. Why not? And his answer was something along the lines that my parents don’t like it for me. And I’m like okay, I get that. And from then on I just changed the whole conversation.
So, the whole idea is this, in my mind if that’s what he wants to do, and I don’t know if it was real or not, but I got excited about it. But if that’s what he wants to do, then why aren’t we setting him on the path to reach his goals? See, it’s like I want to sell mangoes, for whatever reason I want to sell mangoes. But the only tree I have in my backyard is lemons, for me to sell mangoes is going to be very difficult. For me, if I want to be a doctor, but I get accepted to law school, that really, really doesn’t help me become a doctor.
So, knowing all these things and getting on the right road we have to start on our road with the end in mind. So, if we have a goal, we need to see it now, we need to talk about it. This is where the parents get involved, or you talking to yourself. If it’s for yourself, this is the exact same thing for a student, an adult student, or a kid, or a parent that doesn’t have kids. It doesn’t matter, it involves everybody. As long as you want to be successful, goal setting is where we start. So, what is it that you want to do? First of all, goals, there’s two kinds of goals. First, short term goals, and Second, long term goals.
So, in martial arts for us, our short term goals are all the little ranks or every single rank there is before black belt. Our long term goal is our black belt. Now, it takes years to get a black belt, it takes a lot of hard work to get a black belt, and it doesn’t come overnight, but, from one belt to the next, it only takes so long, way shorter than to get from white to black.
So, we know what a short term goal, we know what a long term goal is. Or I’ve given you examples. Now, the hard part is actually talking about your long term and short term goals. So, if it’s an adult, you guys can set up your own goals and start racking away at them. If it’s children, sometimes it’s a little bit harder, but talk to them anyway, get them used to understanding what we want. Or, if we know what they want, now it’s easier for the parents, it’s easier for us as instructors to know what they want and where we can get them at.
So, parents, if you guys want a certain attribute from your kids, then we need to know that. If you guys filled out the form and it said bully defense, I automatically ask you, has he been bullied? And if he has been bullied, okay, we need to get him on this, this, this. He needs to learn this self-defense. He needs to pick up his confidence this much. We need to get him into a certain spot, and I know exactly what that child needs for us to bully defend him.
If you put in physical fitness, for some reason either he hasn’t been working out, he hasn’t had PE time or something. You know what, that’s simple. That’s super simple. You know what, we’re going to start the warm-up, and you know what, we’re going to do a harder warm-up today and we’re just going to continue. But if us as instructors we don’t know, or you as parents don’t know, it’s really hard for us to start pushing people into a certain path.
Now, lately I’ve been extremely goal oriented, but for other people. For my wife, I’m super goal oriented for her, helping her out with everything that she can do and everything that she wants to do. I help her out with everything. All my students, the people that are wanting to compete, and wanting to get gold medals and trophies and everything, I’m super goal oriented for them. My students that are going to school, I support them in everything that they do. They call me and tell me, “Hey, I can’t make it to class because I’m studying,” or, “I’m doing this,” or, “I’m doing a test.” I’m totally on top of them, “Hey, what do we need? What do you need? How can I help you? How can we move on?”
I tell all my students that are in college or in high school, we have more than enough instructors that have degrees, or students that are advanced in their degrees that they can help anybody else. And we’ll have tutor sessions. There’ve been many a time when I’ve sat down with students, or my wife has sat down with students and been, “Hey, you know what, let’s get this, this, this and this.” Whether they’re little ones and they need help with reading, or they’re adults and they need help with complicated math. That’s Martha, that’s not me, complicated math or whatever, we have students in all areas that we try to help out. I’m always really gung ho for all my students.
So, for the last two to three months I’ve been working on my goals. Now, personal goals, business goals, whatever it is, I’m trying to keep everything as focused in my mind, but everything had to start with my goal. Where do I want to be in a couple of months? And what am I going to do to get there? If you guys don’t have your goal in mind, you guys can be going in the wrong direction and you will never meet up with your intention in mind.
So, this is our goal setting webinar, hopefully you guys like it. Let me know, please just write a comment right below guys, let me know what you guys think. Next week I’m going to come back and I’m going to go through the second part, and the following week for the third part and the following week for the fourth part. If you guys are really into this, maybe I can do this every week, but hopefully I’m helping somebody out. Go home, parents, write some stuff down for yourselves. Write some stuff down for your kids. Make sure you guys are setting up all those goals, guys, and let people know. I let my inner circle know exactly what my goals are personally and exactly what my business goals are. So, everybody knows and I’m held accountable for everything that I want to do. You understand? So, maybe they have a buddy and they can work it together. Maybe you guys have friends, you guys can go workout together. You guys can go learn some stuff together, be successful in anything you guys do. Let me know what you guys think, I’ll see you guys later.