In a famous sequence from The Karate Kid movie, teenager Daniel LaRusso asks Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate. Much to Daniel’s surprise, his first “lesson” was to wax his teacher’s car. He was to apply the wax on in one direction, and then wipe it off in the other (wax on, wax off). Daniel does this day in and day out, thinking it was a waste of his time, until he becomes frustrated and complains.
But he soon learns that all those hours he spent waxing on and waxing off have developed his muscle memory for defensive blocks.
In a lot of ways, martial arts, in general, are a way of learning philosophy through physical activity. You practice adapting to a changing physical environment and you implicitly learn through your actions. By practising martial arts, you can also learn life lessons that have applications in business.
Recently one of our members Marcin Kukialka, president of Howick BNI won two world champion titles at the ISKA (International Sports Karate Association) World Cup. Marcin believes that there are many lessons that have brought him to the top in martial arts which are also applicable to business and us at BNI.
Here are his top three:
- Look for support from mentors that can help you improve and grow. There’s the saying ‘if you want to pull somebody up you need to be on higher ground’. It’s mentors that can take you from good to great; find somebody who is successful and do what they are doing. For Marcin it was his coach, at BNI you’re surrounded by successful businesspeople that you can reach out to for support and help to grow, personally and professionally.
- Maintain your discipline. They say that excitement gets you started but discipline is what gets you to the top. Discipline is the small things that you do every day. Bruce Lee once said something beautiful. “I am not afraid of the person who does 1000 things once, I’m afraid of the person who does 1 thing 1000 times.” This is very applicable to BNI.
Maintain your discipline by attending every BNI meeting and developing your 60 second presentation. Practising this over and over again is like Daniel waxing the car to build his skills.
- Attitude is everything. Having a never give up attitude is crucial to winning in martial arts and in business. If you’re having trouble getting up in the morning and getting motivated for some reason, surpass this and push on anyway. Keeping a positive attitude and persevering is a big part of having success at BNI. Chances are you’ll leave the meeting feeling great and wondering why you had trouble getting up in the first place!
We often think of martial arts as training for physical fitness or self-defence, but it can also be training for life and business.
Remember to stay disciplined, keep your positive attitude and look for support from mentors at BNI.
