A Valuable "Learning Opportunity" is Coming this Week... I hope you had a wonderful break from school! But.....its time to do what all Black Belts do and to do something so important for your development as a leader.  It is the critical success habit of STARTING STRONG! Success is just a habit.  Just as failure and struggle are habits.  Here at the dojo, we know what habits result in high achieving, successful and happy children and adults.  So now it is time to get to work! Why?  Kids - this habit will make your success in life so easy.  But you will need your parents help.  Parents - We can develop these habits in your child but...we know that YOU are a critical part of this. Guess what?  We have a major learning opportunity coming up on Wednesday.  Set your family up for success and set them up to reinforce this success habit.  Both SCHOOL and KARATE restart on Wednesday.  You need to make sure you START STRONG in both.  Black Belts and leaders start strong at everything they do.  It is a habit and the only way they know how to do things! How?  Kids - If your parents don't do this tell them to!  Parents - We are going to need your help on this one because, unless you invite us into your home, over the next couple of days you will have to do it.  It is easy.  Just do these three simple things: 1.  Prepare - It is always hard to restart anything.  You are out of your school day routine.  Just like trying to restart a diet or workout program you fell off of. Or, that first day back at work after a lengthy vacation.  But, it is even worse for kids.  So here is all you have to do: Start talking about and talking up Wednesday...the restart of school and karate. Make sure you are ready for Wednesday morning.  Get them back into a school sleep/wake routine.  Get everything ready for Wednesday morning...their clothes, backpack, breakfast. lunch...everything! Pre-plan everything.  Do not leave anything for the last minute.  And don't forget anything. If you are an over achiever or really a Black Belt parent...do a dry run Tuesday morning! 2.  Get Excited - This is one where you can only lead by example.  Get your child excited for the restart....the best way to do this is YOU need to get excited!  How?  Fake if you need to but give off the emotion and energy that you just cannot wait for Wednesday morning!  Get so excited you cannot stop talking about it.  Your child feeds off of your emotions and energy.  You need to be ten times more excited than they are! 3.  The first two hours of that day - If I had to pinpoint the two most critical hours of this whole process it will be your first two hours of Wednesday morning.  Do you know a family whose typical morning sounds like this:  They try to get their kids up for school but it takes 15 minutes of yelling at them to get out of bed because they stayed up too late playing video games.  Then once they finally get up it takes forever for them to find their clothes and get dressed.  Then once they are dressed they don't like what Mom made for breakfast as she yells at them to hurry up and eat because they are going miss the bus.  They complain about everything maybe even saying those dreaded words "I hate school!" Then they cannot find their jacket or the things they need for school.  Any wonder why the kids (and Mom) start the day in a cranky mood?  But you are going to be the opposite.  That first couple of hours sets up the whole day.  So envision the "perfect" morning then make it happen.  How?  Here are a few tips: Take care of you first - Make sure you get to bed, wake early and are fully ready, energized and excited before the kids even get up. Get them up strong - get them out of bed right away.  Now you should be doing this already, but teach your kids to set their own alarm clock and to get up the first time it goes off.  Why do kids let their parents nag them to get up?  Because they can!  Start a new morning ritual by teaching them to get up strong.  All highly successful people have one thing in common - they get up early, they get up strong, they have a strong morning routine, and they start their day energized and excited. Stay ahead of the chains - Stay ahead of the time schedule.  Most of the stress of a school morning is caused by one thing - being late!  So at first, allot extra time, then later run your morning like a U.S. Navy Seal Team mission!  (This is another success habit altogether.  Leaders are precise.  They are not sloppy or lax.)  Gratitude and the Big Picture - When you catch yourself thinking this is too hard or "why", just remember this - you have one of the greatest gifts in the world and one of the greatest responsibilities in the world:  Your child.  Take a very deep breath and go into your heart and remember how lucky you are.  Go to gratitude.  Then look into your child's face.  Do this:  remind yourself that the greatest thing you can do as a parent is replace these frantic moments with moments where you just "emotionally connect" with your child.  Let them make crazy pancakes with you in the morning.  Put a special note in their lunchbox.  Sing a silly song together at breakfast.  Do a crazy dance on the way to the bus stop.  Let them intentionally wear a set of unmatched socks.  This is what every child needs most from you - for you to be fully present with just a moment of emotional connection.  Do this and your children will look forward to getting up and you will touch in you what is truly the most important thing you can give them as a parent. Okay....so are you in? Are you ready to step up?  Are you ready to raise your standard? Here is the best part...while you're working on developing your child, you are really becoming a better person yourself. See you on Wednesday morning.  Let me know how it goes? Start Strong, Sensei

"I Know I Only Get Stronger Every Time I Fail!" This is our training theme for the week.  Please make sure your child and every student at the dojo greets you with the full "Hi, my name is Sophia and 'I know I only get stronger every time I fail!'" Remember the words your child says, or more importantly repeats, get imprinted into their brains.  You want them saying "Try My Best!" instead of "I hate school!" (BTW, don't ever let them say that!). So for your ride home, or family dinner conversation all you have to do is change your and your child's " perspective ".  When you change someone's perspective, or how they look at something, you have the power to instantaneously change how they think.  Change how they think and you change what they do.  Change what they do and you change their habits, attitudes and their lives. Here is the perspective change I want you and your child to make.  Instead of thinking failure and making mistakes are 'bad', I want you to flip it over and replace it with this thought: "Mistakes are GOOD!" Now this does not mean that it is okay for your child to start intentionally failing in school, but we know all highly successful people have two powerful skills or traits - persistence and perseverance .  These are only developed with hardship and failure!  Character can only be developed through hardship and failure. If you believe mistakes are bad you will work hard to avoid failure and mistakes.  You will be crushed with even the slightest mistake.  The thing that hold most people back is the fear of failure.  The only way to avoid making a mistake or failing is to not even try! So, have this powerful discussion with your child (and yourself).  Stories work well.  Talk about yourself and your life.  Talk about other people they know that were either held back with the fear of failure or the people that excelled because they did not fear and actually loved making mistakes.  Remember that you can only learn if you push yourself to fail.  You cannot learn much when you stay within your comfort zone. I will close with a short story about a good father.  At the end of every day this father would ask his daughter " Anna, tell me what you failed at today?"  If Anna had nothing to say the father would say "Well if you did not fail today then you did not try hard enough....." Enjoy your ride home, Sensei

"I Love You . . . Thank You" You have probably noticed at the end of every one of our classes we say “I Love You…Thank You!” While I truly appreciate the trust you place in us as a partner in helping you develop your child, I wanted to take a moment to explain why we are doing this so you can share it with your child. Words :  Words are so powerful, more powerful than we often realize.  The language or words we use mold our thoughts.  Our thoughts become our actions, and over time these actions repeated become our habits.  Our habits will define who we are and lock in our destiny in life.  If you want one of the most direct ways to develop your child’s attitudes and actions, focus on their words and language.  Do not let your child make a habit of saying things like “I can’t” or “that’s too hard” or, worst of all, “I hate school!”.  But, it does not work to tell a child what ‘not’ to say.  It works much better to help them repeat the positive and constructive words they can say.  For instance, you have probably noticed all the words we repeat over and over at the dojo.  This is definitely on purpose.  Things like the training theme of the month (currently “I know I only get stronger every time I fail.”)  And the student creed. How many times has your child said “Try my best” at the dojo?  Every word leaves an imprint on their minds and hearts. The two most powerful human emotions or states :  So, why should these two words be important to you?  You and your child’s state and emotion are key to your success and ultimately, happiness in life.  Of all the human emotions, love and gratitude are by far the most powerful and life changing.  These states have built nations and empires.  They move people and planets.  When you learn how to tap into these powerful emotions, you will have the key to your full potential and success! And more importantly, your child’s. Two words we do not say enough :  These are definitely two words we all do not say enough.  But even more, these are two EMOTIONS we do not feel enough.  The words are “I love you” and “Thank you”.  Do you know a child or even an adult that can go a whole day without saying either?  See if you can notice how often those around you (besides at the dojo) say these two words? How to use them properly :  Part of the challenge is most of us do not know how to use the words powerfully or at its highest level.  You can say “I love chocolate!” or “Hey thanks Dude.” or “I love going to Florida!”  In other words you can love and thank things or people but both love and gratitude at their highest level are a state, an emotion, an energy, that you feel in your heart and it radiates from your body and soul.  In it's most powerful application, it does not just turn on when directed at something or someone.  It is a feeling or state you are in, not focused on anything in particular.  You can harness this amazing power you already have inside you. So is saying “I love you...thank you” a little uncomfortable for you?  Well I hope this helps by putting “I love you…thank you” into a little better perspective and maybe understanding the reason for its value to you and your child at this dojo.  But then again, being a little uncomfortable just might be a good thing.  That discomfort might be a signal you are a little outside your comfort zone.  Isn’t that where learning and growth happen? Repeat after me:  “I love you…Thank you.”, “I love you…Thank you.”, “I love you…Thank you.”! See ya soon! Sensei