How Growing Your Business Is Like Training In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Last week I found myself caught in a bad situation: I was on the verge of passing out as my neck was caught between two legs. At the same time my arm was gruesomely extended with massive pressure grinding into my elbow. For those that recognize this Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu technique, I was caught in a deadly “triangle armbar.” I considered my options. A) I pass out from the choke B) My arm breaks or C) I could tap out. I chose option C and tapped out with a sore arm and a bruised ego.

“The reason you are getting caught in a submission,” my martial arts instructor Steve told me, “is because you are not attacking enough!” I looked over to see his Octopus tattoo: a reminder to attack my opponent as if I had eight limbs.

“If you find yourself not moving for more than 5 seconds, move. Do something! Just don’t sit still.”

The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lesson reminded me how closely linked martial arts is to growing a business. It’s all about movement. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the times I stop moving are when I get caught in a submission hold. In business, the times I stop working hard to find new opportunities are when my sales drop. Experience has taught me time and again that movement is the key to surviving in business and to winning at it. Making sales for your business is one of the strangest things. When you work hard, you sell a lot. Putting in the extra time on a customer proposal, or making one more sales call is the difference between an underachiever and an overachiever. The moment you stop working as hard as you know you can, your sales drop exponentially. It is rare to find an average salesman. I believe that there are only hard working sales people and sales people who do not work enough. “I’m working really hard but my business is not growing. How do you explain that?” It is the hardest part about growing your business. It is also the hardest part about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It was absolutely demotivating last weekend when someone who hadn’t trained in over a year walked in and crushed me on the sparring mats. After all, I train four times per week at my gym and have 2 years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experience. Is hard work not the answer to success? After conducting a lot of research, I discovered that hard work is the answer, just not the way I originally saw it. This graph represents the plateaus we experience in our lives. In the beginning of starting something new (a job, a new business or a sport) we easily experience a lot of growth. Some call this “beginner’s luck.” I prefer to think that it is a combination of excitement and knowledge of that skill we didn’t know before. Looking back at the graph, you will notice the first plateau. The obvious downtrend is when we stop getting the results we first experienced at the start. We do not progress as quickly, our excitement fades a little bit, and ultimately that plateau offers us two options:

1. Quit and try something else
2. Work hard until you break through

Do you quit when things get hard, or do you work hard to break through? Hard work requires movement. It requires you to put in the extra hours of training, or the extra hours of cold calling, or the extra hours of networking with new people. It takes movement to get up in the morning when everyone is still asleep. It takes movement to put a smile back on your face when things don’t go your way. In saying this, the last thing I want to do is “preach” to you. I’m no superman! In fact, getting up on weekends is something I really struggle to do. Knowing that movement is the secret to pushing past my plateaus and reaching new heights of business growth is what motivates me to move out of my comfortable bed instead of sleeping in.

Plateaus are inevitable as you continue to develop your skills in business, martial arts, working out at the gym, or playing a sport. One of the reasons I emphasize working your passions so strongly throughout my blog articles is because when you love what you do, you find the will to breakthrough your plateaus.

Managing Your Movement

One of the best “success” principles I have ever been taught is the ability to organize one’s day with positive habits. Eric Thomas once said that if you swing your axe at a tree in different places, it won’t move. But if you aim your axe in the same place every single day, eventually that tree will fall down! I organize my day and my week around a series of consistent practices that I have to do in order to grow my business while working a job and still doing all of the things I love to do. Rather than stay rigid and time-bound, my schedule is a series of daily tasks I have to accomplish each day in the same order.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Cold Call	Cold Call	Cold Call	Cold Call	Cold Call	Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu	Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Appointments	Appointments	Appointments	Appointments	Appointments	Writing Articles	Writing Articles
Writing Articles	Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu	Writing Articles	Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu	Writing Articles	Marketing Over Social Media	Marketing Over Social Media
Marketing Over Social Media	Marketing Over Social Media	Marketing Over Social Media	Marketing Over Social Media	Marketing Over Social Media	Free Time	Free Time

                          * Note: I use a Franklin Covey Day Timer to keep track of all of my weekly appointments, and CRM (customer relationship management) software to manage my sales opportunities and contact list. In total, it may not seem like I’m doing a lot of things. That’s exactly what I want. I do the same key tasks day after day that slowly place me on the fast track to success. Overcoming plateaus becomes easier each time I experience one because I keep repeating the same tasks over and over without thought or doubt. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, we call this “muscle memory.” When you practice the same movement one million times, eventually that technique becomes second nature. In business, repeating the same series of tasks eventually becomes second nature too. Growing your business is like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The more you move, the more you will grow and succeed. To conclude, I wish to leave you with my favourite quote from Bruce Lee. “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Adrian Boucek is the author of Bloodhounder.com, a blog full of charismatic wisdom, controversial advice and passion-fueling interviews on the topics of Career Advice, Dream Employment and Entrepreneurship. Follow Adrian on Twitter: @adrianboucek