Level 10

1. Empower everyone on your teaching and senior student team to talk about the benefits of your school and the martial arts, in general, as well as anyone in the world can. Yes, anyone in THE WORLD. Hint: It only takes practice. If you can’t explain the benefits derived from the training, YOUR training, then the only way your community will “get” what you do is through mental telepathy --and I’ve found that to be a VERY inefficient way to inform and educate people.
2. Treat every student in the school, whether you have 10 students or 1000, as if he or she were your ONLY student. What do they need to know and practice? What are his obstacles to excellence --and how can you help him overcome them? What do you need to know about her and her family that could show you care about her as a person, not just a student or agent of commerce.
3. Treat every member of your school who leaves the school, for any reason, as if he or she is still a member in good standing. People will come and go, as that’s the way of the world, but an excellent school gives of itself without remembering --and receives its students, past, present, and future, without forgetting (taken from “The Definition of a Mature Mind,” which is “To give without remembering --and receive without forgetting”). An excellent school develops the means and attitude that they mentor and coach the community, not only paying students. An excellent school isn’t simply another business in the community, it is an institution.
4. Excellent schools, I mean absolute “level 10” schools, don’t just teach, they EMPOWER people. To empower someone is to give them the power to make change in themselves and others. Power is found in health, in compassion for others, in believing that there is always a way to solve problems without resorting to violence or negativity. Power is found in being in the here and now, minimizing fear, seeking clarity, seeking engagement and participation in one’s community. Power is found in living a life of meaning and purpose. It’s good to think about teaching the martial arts, well; it’s excellent to ask yourself how teaching the martial arts can make the world a better place.
5. Talk about others more than you talk about yourself. An excellent school doesn’t just toot its own horn, an excellent school seeks out the wise, the effective, the movers and shakers, the enlightened, and the change-makers in its community --and helps them. It’s good to do for yourself, it’s excellent when you do for others, understanding that you can get what you want, if you help enough other people get what they want, first.

Excellence, like good, is a PRACTICE. It’s not something you have learned or simply know, it’s something you put to work on a daily basis. Cultivating excellence is like eating, you do some of it every day. Cultivating excellence is investigation, constant analysis, it’s honesty, curiosity, and about doing for others, as a way of life. Excellence has the exuberance of a 20 year old and the wisdom of a someone who knows, through experience, the difference between s*** and Shinola.

So, in every staff meeting, in every class, at the end of every day, week, quarter, and year, train yourself and train your team to rate the work, their effort, and the results you get on a scale from 1 to 10. Wherever it is that you end up rating your performance, if it’s less than a 10, ask yourself what the difference is between where you are and where you want to be. It’s in that question that your work begins; the work that changes you and those around you, you and your school, from something marvelously good, to something absolutely excellent.