I want to tell you something that took me longer than it should have to learn. The number you check first thing in the morning — the one that tells you whether it’s going to be a good day or a stressful one — is probably the wrong number. For most martial arts academy owners, that number is membership count. Total students. Bodies in the system. The headcount on the whiteboard or the dashboard that goes up when things are good and down when things are worrying. It’s the number we built our businesses around, the number we report at team meetings, the number we compare against last month and… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy Your Best Adult Students Probably Weren’t Specialists as Kids (And What That Tells You About Running Your School)
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a book called Range by David Epstein. It starts with a story most of us in martial arts have heard told as inspiration: the Polgar sisters. A Hungarian psychologist named Laszlo Polgar homeschooled three daughters in chess from age four. Drilled them. Specialized them early. Two became grandmasters. One — Judit — became the greatest female chess player who ever lived. The martial arts world loves this story. We love any story that validates early commitment, deliberate practice, and the long grind. We tell it to parents who ask whether their six-year-old is “too young to start.” Here’s what Epstein found when he… Read More
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