Leadership coaching & training · Mesa, AZ & anywhere
You're not losing. You're learning.
I've taught over ten thousand students in my fifteen years on the mat, and every single one of them has taught me something new about getting back up.
Charles W. Baker · 4th-degree black belt · Head Instructor, East Mesa Karate
The problem
A team that's afraid of mistakes stops trying things.
You've probably seen it. The ideas get smaller, people start hiding their mistakes, and after one bad quarter nobody wants to raise their hand anymore. It isn't a talent problem. Somewhere along the way, they learned that messing up is the end of the world.
I want to challenge that.
What I believe
Failure is the wrong word.
Failure only occurs when you quit or give up on a goal. If you fall down and get back up, that's learning. Here are the three words I use instead:
PerseveranceResilienceGrit
Where this comes from
I didn't learn this in a classroom.
In 2007, my family owned five martial arts schools, and they were doing well. Then the housing market crashed. Foreclosure. Bankruptcy. What most people would call total and utter failure.
We held onto one location and learned from everything that went wrong. When the pandemic closed most karate schools, we adapted and kept teaching. By 2022, we had built the largest kids karate program at a single martial arts school in the United States.
What happens to you doesn't write your story, what you look like on the other side does. Our “why” was to be a lighthouse for the community. That's still what we're trying to be. These days I just do it for leaders and teams going through storms of their own.
The framework
The Cycle of Learning
A simple five-step system that will help you improve no matter what life throws at you. I've used it with my students for fifteen years, and it works just as well in an office as it does on the mat.
- Face a challengeTake it on. If you're afraid to do it, do it scared.
- Identify what went wrongBe honest with yourself here. No one else is ever going to see this list.
- Assess what's in your controlThe simple answer is yourself: your actions, your thoughts, your people.
- Equip yourselfSkills, tools, or people in your corner. Get what the next attempt needs.
- Try againThis may be the toughest step to complete. However, it's also the most important one.
Then you're back at step one, and that's on purpose, because the cycle never really ends. Work it with every challenge you run into, and you will improve every single time.
Ways to work together
Four ways we can work together.
Tired of hitting the same wall?
One-on-one coaching where we take your real challenges through the Cycle of Learning together, until trying again comes naturally.
About coaching →Make it safe to try things
A half-day or full day where your team works the Cycle on a real setback you just went through. I promise it will change the way your team talks about mistakes.
About workshops →A talk your people will remember
My signature talk: why failure is the wrong word, the stories that taught me that, and a system your people can use the next morning.
About speaking →A trainer who sticks around
I train your team every month, and whenever you promote a new manager, I train them too. That's the only way I have ever seen skills stick.
About the partnership →Change how you see setbacks
You're Not Losing, You're Learning.
Changing the Stigma on Failure
The book
Read it in one sitting.
In You're Not Losing You're Learning, we take apart the word “failure” and replace it with words that will actually help you grow. It's short, and that's on purpose. You can read the whole thing in an evening.
Paperback & Kindle · read free with Kindle Unlimited
The challenges we face in life are temporary, but the resilience we gain from them lasts forever.
— from You're Not Losing You're Learning
Next step
Tell me about the wall you or your team keeps running into.
Every way of working together starts with one honest conversation. And if you don't need me, I'll say so.