A Black Belt Achievment

See this guy I just tied a black belt around? Mike just walked in to our Karate Academy and said "I want to do something for me". That was a number of years ago. He was a successful, wonderful man with a family and a great job. The picture we are looking at does not show all of the work in the dojo he did. Loosing his great job and finding another one in less than a week. And now what appears a big promotion with lots of work. When he changed jobs he had to travel to North Dakota to work every two week. Home for a week or so and then back to North Dakota.

He told me- "I'm not quitting. I can work out in the shop up there. Can you put some of my rank requirement on video and message them to me?"

Now, there are several ways I see people able to fail at achieving their goals.

3 Ways to Fail at everything in Life:

1. Complain about everything.

2. Blame others for your problems

3. Never be grateful.

Mike Mike, as I call him, never complained about anything. When he lost his job he just said, "It is what it is". And went to work on his resume.

He did not complain about any of it. And if you knew the story you would think complaining and blaming others was sure an attitude that most of us would have embraced.

Mike is always grateful. After his 15 rounds of kickboxing for his black belt test followed by 14 "quick kill" drills with the guys he just sparred he went to each one of them and thanked them for coming in to test him. You see he was up against a new fresh fighter ever one of those 15 round. Mike is grateful that we even have a school of this caliber in our little town and thanks me just for being here.

We make a few people into Black Belts. I think Mike came in to our school and lives with all the attributes we try to instill in people on that road to Black Belt. All we had to do was teach him the rank requirements and how to fight 15 new opponents in a row.