Focus and Succeed

   Focus is one of the key components to reach success.  It is vital to exercise focus both presently as well as in planning for the future.  I will discuss three major pitfalls that get most people off track and cause them to not reach their goals. Learn to overcome distractions and master the Art of Focus.  Remember, with consistent practice you will see progress and ultimately success.

   Input comes from all around us through our five senses.  We can easily become distracted and sucked into the pitfall of “Going with the Flow”.  Oftentimes”The flow” goes against your ability to take deliberate action.  An example of that would be having a goal to work for the next fifteen minutes and someone comes up and starts a conversation.  Before you know it your fifteen minutes are gone.  Becoming laser focused would be telling everyone that you are not to be disturbed for the next fifteen minutes and you then need to make sure that you do not allow any interruptions.  Try this and you will be surprised how quickly you move closer toward success!

   The next major pitfall is not being “In the Moment”.  As a Martial Artist and a former Olympic athlete I learned to completely clear my mind prior to training.  The reason was so that I could be totally “In the Moment”.  If I was not, there was the possibility of suffering a severe injury.   There is so much power when you turn on your brain full blast and be totally “In the Moment”.  I have noticed that I can accomplish in 15 minutes what would normally take 45 minutes when I plan to be totally focused and motivated.  Before you start your fifteen minutes prepare for 30-45 seconds to be totally “In the moment”.  I promise the results will astound you!

   The final pitfall discussed today will be consistency.  Spend fifteen minutes a day, EVERY DAY, doing anything and you will reach success in that area.  Most of the people I know quit just before they had a breakthrough.  I know that if I can get a student to blue belt they will go all the way to black belt.  I know if I have a student practice spinning every day for only 5 minutes a day over the course of four months they will have a great spin kick.  Two years ago one of my mentors challenged me to write something every day.   When I began to write it would take forty five minutes to an hour and a half to write a simple blog post.  Now I can write one in about twenty minutes.   This year I wrote my first book, Unleash the Power of Focus. The power of consistency indeed is incredible!

The formula for success:

• ·         Avoid Distractions
• ·         Be in the moment
• ·         Consistent practice

Reach for your dreams and you will not be disappointed!

Tammie Lawrence is the founder of Golden Tiger Martial Arts Inc. and www.parentingclever.com.  She speaks to organizations and businesses about success principles and positive mindset.    Tammie can be reached at info@martialartsgt.com or 909-381-9603.  www.martialartsgt.com

Playing a Bigger game

Tonight the Power Ball lottery awarded 1.5 Billion dollars to a individual in Chino Hills California. 

 People all around me have been talking about their dreams of what they would do with 1.5 Billion dollars and it got me thinking about vision and dream building.  Too many times we sell ourselves short in the way of believing what we can achieve.

This article is about setting goals outside of your comfort zone. 
It is a challenge to do something BIG with your life. 
Author:  Tammie Lawrence 
Golden Tiger Marital Arts

I recently heard a challenge from Fabienne Fredrickson, founder of Client attraction school.  "If you absolutely could not fail and money was not an object what Great thing would you do, for free, all day along?"  What would you do that would change peoples lives and be happy to do it all day for free? It really got me thinking bigger.  How could I use my business as a tool to help families in a much bigger way?  Changing our thinking is a life altering event.  In fact every person in history who accomplished greatness had a shift in thinking.

In the many years I have taught martial arts I have shown students to overcome challenges.  The first step to overcome any challenge is belief. Belief has to do with your mindset.  

Today in class one of the beginning adults was asked to do 10 kicks without dropping his leg.  After 4-5 kicks he dropped his leg.  His instructor sympathized with him and said, "I know it is hard."  I have to tell you that I almost came unglued.  This student is extremely talented and he was more than capable of doing 10 simple kicks.  He just didn't believe he could do it.

Our first company core value is "Believe"

• Believe in people
• Believe in others until they can believe in themselves
• Believe in the system

I promptly told the student with great passion and belief, "You can do 10 kicks!"  "Your very talented."  I gave him 2 tips on his technique and a little push when he wanted to quit.  He did all 10!

Guess what happened next.  His brother stepped up and did 10 the first time!  He saw that it was possible and did it.  This is the power of having great coaches and friends who will challenge and give gentle pushes when needed.  I then delivered the powerful lesson we teach in our studio.  The mind tells the body what to do.  You can actually make your body do things that will amaze you. Disciplining your mind will train you to accomplish great things.  

As entrepreneurs we have the awesome responsibility to lead our companies, help people and do great things in our communities.  So my question to you is what would you do with your company if the sky was the limit?  I challenge you to dream bigger as if you had 1.5 Billion dollars to fund your dream.  Share your BIG dream in the comments below!   Let's inspire one another towards greatness. Who will join me?

Tammie Lawrence is a 5th degree black belt and the Owner/ Master Instructor at Golden Tiger 

Martial Arts located in San Bernardino, CA.  She has been teaching Marital Arts since 1987. Tammie is passionate about adding value to the community and enriching lives through the martial arts. You can learn more about her programs by visiting the website:

www.martialartsGT.com

Have you every wished you could clone yourself in your business?

This blog is about instructor training.  One of my goals as a studio owner is to develop amazing staff. I want to empower people to come beside me and teach with passion.  For many years I have worked long hours with no time off.  A few of years ago I really focused on creating a business that would deliver some freedom of time instead of a glorified JOB.  For business owners who are looking to create the same thing and want to brainstorm ideas and solutions feel free to email us at: info@MartialArtsGT.com  

Have you ever wished you could clone yourself in your business?  I have had this wish more than one time! 

Over the last 4-5 years I have been working on creating excellence in our staff training systems. We spent relentless hours creating "How to manuals"  for everything in our business.  The results were disconcerting.  People were learning how to do things but I was still dealing with lazy work and bad attitudes.

I read at least 40 books on management and while the material was helpful I still was struggling with high turn over and low morale.  I found a great little book called: 

 Crucial Accountability  

"Behind the problems that routinely plague our organizations and families, you'll find individuals who are either unwilling or unable to deal with broken promises. Colleagues break a rule, coworkers miss a deadline, friends fail to live up to commitments (or just plain behave badly), and nobody says a word. Nobody holds anyone accountable. With repeated infractions, individuals become increasingly upset until they finally do speak their minds, but they do so poorly--often creating whole new sets of problems.

Research proves that mishandled disappointments aren't just morale killers, they're institution killers--diminishing organizational performance by 20 to 50 percent and accounting for up to 90 percent of all divorces".

As I applied the principles I realized that I lacked the skill set to motivate and hold people accountable.  I began to dig into accountability conversations and evaluating my conversations every single night.  I ask myself what did I fail to address.  

I realized that I lacked a skill set called soft skills so I googled classes on soft skills.  I watched classes at Harvard business school, Stanford business school and London school of business. 

Every day I have been evaluating my skill sets looking at what went well and what went not so well. Although I'm still far from where I want to be positive things ares starting to happen.  There is a shift in the culture.  

Now some of the principles that I read in all of the management and "change the culture books"  are working.  Perhaps it is time for that MBA I put off when I went to the Olympics?  What skill set is holding you back from reaching your full potential.  Feel free to share below.  




Tammie Lawrence is a 5th degree black belt and the Owner/ Master Instructor at Golden Tiger www.martialartsgt.com
Martial Arts located in San Bernardino, CA.  She has been teaching Marital Arts since 1987.  Tammie is passionate about adding value to the community and enriching lives through the martial arts. You can learn more about her programs by visiting the website:
www.martialartsGT.com

Why I love owning a Martial Arts studio

It is winter camp time today began with early drop off at 6 am.  I rolled into the driveway around 10 pm after staying to help with the evening classes.  

Although I'm completely exhausted my spirit overflows as I think about how grateful I am to have the privilege to work with wonderful children and families.  

Day camps are a time to create memories with students and have good clean fun.  I can play and be silly as we go non stop visiting different places each and every day.  

 It is also an opportunity to work on social skills and attitudes.   It is humbling as a teacher when I think about how I get to influence and develop the future leaders of our great country.  As I crawl into bed this evening my only thought is,  "This is why I love owning a marital Arts studio."

3 Tips for Planning your Business Budget in 2016

Time to plan our business budget for the new year 

Teaching martial arts is amazing!  Planning and budgeting are essential for business wellness and growth.  It is easy to ignore or overlook simple things that cause unnecessary stress. 

Have you ever got to the end of the year and found out that you owe twice as much in taxes than you saved? How about just forgetting about an automatic draft you set up?

Our team set 5 major goals to help us avoid pitfalls due to lack of planning and knowledge. Here is our list and the research on the first 3.  

• Examine every expense and evaluate the return on investment. 
• Identify and  eliminate unnecessary expenses
• Do a better job planning for taxes
• Stay on top of our budget with minimum time expenditure
• Improved processes to control supply expenses

Examine every expense and evaluate the return on investment

As we examined the profit and loss month by month we did some research and found that Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management  had some great information to help us evaluate ROI.  We created the following action plan: 

•  Is the expense necessary
•  Shorten and simplify the sales process
• Look at tangible and intangible ROI
• What expenses do we need to shop for better rate or term

Identify and eliminate unnecessary expenses

Some expenses jump off the page as out of line while others are easily overlooked.  11 Expenses Destroying Your Budget by "US News" allowed us to really look at our phone expenses and make some adjustments. "Business News Daily" also has a great article 10 Simple Ways to Cut Business Expenses.  We found that a couple of our training sessions could be done by means of telecommunication thereby saving utility costs.  

Do a better job planning for taxes

Roberg tax solutions published a great article I wish I would have read 29 years ago. Our growth over the last few years resulted in a large increase in tax liability.  Prior to meeting with our CPA I decided some research would help me to ask more intelligent questions. "US News" proved to be a great resource.  How to create a self employed budget was one of my favorite articles.  It is packed with tons of useful tips that we plan to employ. 

The plan is to finish our budget tomorrow with some detailed action steps for a successful 2016.  

Feel free to share any useful tips you use in planning your business budgeting.  

Tammie Lawrence is a 5th degree black belt and the Owner/ Master Instructor at Golden Tiger www.martialartsgt.com
Martial Arts located in San Bernardino, CA.  She has been teaching Marital Arts since 1987.  Tammie is passionate about adding value to the community and enriching lives through the martial arts. You can learn more about her programs by visiting the website:
www.martialartsGT.com

Master the art of student retention

It is necessary to master the art of student retention for your martial arts program to survive and thrive. The initial challenge is to have students and parents see the value of your program  in the very beginning. The ongoing challenge is to keep students and parents excited long enough for them to actually receive the life changing benefits your programs provide.  People are inundated with an enormous amount of information about how they can make their lives better. We must stand out to overcome all of the opposition. There are three techniques that we use to stand out in the minds of our students.  Number one, ask great questions. Next, dig deeper to find  out how we can add value to their lives. Finally, we must build a dream that is big enough to keep them excited and committed long term.

Asking great questions is a key skill set. Great questions will prompt prospective students to  tell you how you can help them.  This will allow you to better serve your students.  It also allows students to think for themselves about how the marital arts can have a life changing impact.  Dig deeper by asking student to give examples of how they would like to become more fit or more focused.  When you let people tell you instead of you telling them,  your retention will rise. Take the time to uncover all of their goals.  Don't rush this stage or be in a hurry to tell people about your program.

After the question asking stage, repeat what ever they told you.  It will help to clarify the goal in the minds of students.  An example of restating a goal is: "So losing 40 lbs is an important goal for you?"  Another example, "So improving focus is important to you?" Your statement must not be pushy,  just conversational. Let your potential client know you're listening and understand their needs or desires.

 After uncovering the needs and desires, you are then able to help them dream big. Build the emotions and then back it up with logic. The goal is to only use two sentences. Here is an example:  "Imagine how much energy you will have when you loose 40 lbs." (pause) "That will be huge as you need to chase your four year old."  We built emotion with the first statement and then backed it up with logic in the second statement.  This will be key to retention. Students will need revisit their goals over and over throughout their training.

The final stage is to make sure that you have built enough value for students and parents to want to stay in the program long term.  After building value, make sure that your program is actually accomplishing that goal.  We have found that progress is a slow process. Have a system in place for instructors to point out specific progress for each individual.  Remember, retention begins day one.  Lay the proper foundation of dream building and goal setting and you will see your retention increase.

Handeling Parent Concerns

Enormous tension ran completely through my body as I observed my son working through his martial

arts lesson.  His lackadaisical effort accompanied with his rambunctious spirit was absolutely driving me out of my mind.  My true desire was to grab, shake him and remind him that I was working a second job to pay for his lessons.

 Parents often come to observe their child's training after a long stressful day at work.  I truly remember wanting to jump on the mat and choke my son a couple of times and I am a master teacher.  All I can say is that it is a good thing we don't have to torture ourselves by watching our children all day as they attend school.

We all know that children will play and have unfocused times during training.  The key is to have realistic expectations for their progress and hold them accountable to realistic standards.  Parent concerns are a real thing.  They need to be addressed with care and concern.  Remember parents work hard to make sure their children are successful and get the best out of training. 

We follow a 5 step process when addressing parent concerns.

• Acknowledge
• Relate
• Point out positive progress
• Connect progress to the end goal
• Dream build

Let's examine how each step is handled.  

Acknowledge 
Let the parent know that you saw what the child was doing.  Most of the time clients just want to make sure you are aware and not ignoring the situation.

Relate
Make sure to tell the parent that you understand how they feel.  Use examples of your own stories or the stories of other parents in the studio.  Explain that what they are feeling is perfectly normal.

Point out positive progress
The best instructors point out positive behavior.

Connect progress to the end goal
Relate the positive behavior you witnessed to the overall goal parents are looking to achieve and explain how the student has made progress.

Dream build
Use the terms "just imagine"  when Johnny can focus like he did on that drill the entire class. Explain how it will effect him in other areas of life.  You can also tell a story about another student and how it worked for them.

Remember parents are looking to you for the answers and they many times just need the reassurance that the program will "work".  Make sure you take the time to listen and give extra help to students that may need one on one attention.  When a parents have concerns I always take time later to analogize how I can make the drills more engaging or make my interactions more positive.  The more you recognize positive behavior the less parents recognize the negative behavior of their children.

“Tammie Lawrence is an educator who has taught in public and private sectors as well as a Master Martial Arts instructors.  She  trains aspiring young teachers how to engage students to make learning fun and  successful.  Tammie is known for her work with inspiring positive mindset changes and goal setting."   She can be reached for seminars and workshops at Golden Tiger Martial Arts, San Bernardino, CA  92407, 909-881-9603