In teaching karate for three decades, I have come in contact with a lot of people from all walks of life. The people that come into the dojo have ranged from work-a-day joe’s, some executives, small business owners, teachers, and parents.
I have learned that none of these people where satisfied with their lives unless and until they had developed their own sense of success, an internal guidance system, based on their values.
If you are going to define your success externally, by how other people see you, you are never going to fill in that giant hole called; ultimate success. There is not enough dirt in the world to fill that hole.
When you define your own ways of success then what happens, is that you become a brand unto yourself. You are an individual and one of the greatest desires for man, and I do mean man is a race not as a gender, is to be what author Tom Wolfe called “A man in full.”
Loren Christensen, Author, martial artist, and all around decent guy, once told me that his definition of success was, “Being able to come home from his job as a cop and watch Johnny Carson every night.” He knew that he had a successful shift when he was in bed watching Johnny Carson. That was how Lauren measured success, simple, clean, and goal oriented.
So my question to you is, “When it comes to your martial arts do you make it personal?” Do you define what is a success or do you allow others to do it for you? Are you a brand to yourself, or are you a part of a brand?
This is how I define my success; when I go to bed at night I like to ask myself this question, “Did I learn something today?” That is how I define success. Loren wanted to watch Johnny Carson, I want a positive answer to a simple question.
How do you define success in your martial arts? Further are you a brand unto yourself with your own internal guidance system?
If not, why?
