CULTURE
business unusual | LIFE | TRAVEL | DESIGN | TRAPPINGS
“The skills [the students] learn with us as they journey deeper into our syllabus are transferable to other things off the mat. This makes us a very good return on investment.”
Wael Al Sayegh with his students at the FMA UAE Leadership Academy
“once you get there, you understand that despite what people may think, you now know more than ever before that the accomplishment is not going to ensure that you are in business next year. You need to go beyond that accomplishment.”
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Entrepreneur june 2017
This is where you really begin. Many athletes get their black belt and stop training. It has statistically the highest dropout rate on a person’s martial arts journey. Getting a black belt is all people dream about and desire when they train as non-black belts, just like folks dream about opening their business and working for themselves in a field that nourishes their soul. But once you get there, you understand that despite what people may think, you now know more than ever before that the accomplishment is not going to ensure that you are in business next year. You need to go beyond that accomplishment. You now know the magnitude of what you don’t know. Others may call you an expert but the truth of the matter is that you know that you are just a few steps ahead. Your journey has really just begun.” Al Sayegh quotes Scott Sonnon - a martial arts expert who was amongst the six most influential martial artists in the 21st century by Black Belt Magazine and
named one of the top 25 fitness trainers in the world by Men’s Fitness Magazine – to explain his approach to scaling up the business. “Sonnon once said, ‘The best you can hope for in competition is the worst performance you can deliver in class. We do not rise to the occasion but rather fall to the base level of our training.’ This means my base level, my worse performance on the mat must be good enough to get the job done, even by an inch,” he says. “I hold the same philosophy with our business systems. They must be
robust enough to withstand any challenge they may face, and if they are not, then we must see what needs to be changed, added, taken away, simplified or made more complex to rectify it.” In line with that, the last sport lesson Al Sayegh would advise entrepreneurs to learn from is a principle found in many grappling martial arts styles, such as judo, Brazilian jiu jitsu, and various wrestling styles: “Position before submission.” He explains, “Before you find finishes in grappling, you must first set them up properly with your position. This will better secure a finish. But if you just seek to finish and do not secure your position first, the chances of your opponent or opportunity escaping are high. In business terms, this lesson has always helped me to think of setting up
Students receive Black Belt Bootcamp certificates by the Family Martial Arts UAE Leadership Academy