Hello KMMA Tribe!

Happy Monday! Today I want to share an important lesson of the week, a personal failure and what I am doing about it, a progress report about our Tunnels To Towers Fundraiser, and a sincere congratulations to Dr. Saroja Medidi!

1. “Your past failure is not an indicator of your future success.” This is the lesson of the week and, while it is so awesome when we get to sow into the children in our program, I think this message is especially important for teens and adults! The truth is, we’ve just had more time living, attempted more things, and thus had more opportunity for failure. But failure is not fatal unless we choose for it to be and, even more powerful, failure is in fact an important part of success if we choose to let it be!

This is to say: the more we fail, the more we learn.  Those at the top of anything have failed more than others- I certainly know first-hand that this is true in building a world class business. It’s also true in sports and martial arts and so many other things…

The secret is that learning from failure is in and of itself a success skill. It’s the missing ingredient for most. It’s also the reason that so many quit before they become successful.

Now, to be clear and transparent- this is only one of the secret ingredients of success; but it’s certainly one of them, and definitely an important one.

What we do when we fail- how we react emotionally, mentally- and especially how we react as pertains to our next actions or lack thereof; these are some of the most important indicators of how our future will be.

So, in the next few weeks, I am going to do a whole lesson series on the Blackbelt Leader way of embracing failure. I’ll be giving the lesson live in our KMMA Blackbelt Leadership classes, but I will also be sharing here and on our social media channels.

2. Let me share about one of my recent “failures”.

I am usually super proud of my Blackbelt Leadership and Certified Instructor Training (CIT) classes on Saturday, but this past Saturday, I underwhelmed myself.

I failed to really plan how long the first session of the three I’d plan would take. The handouts were too long. The lesson took too long and, thus, I neither got to all I wanted to share, nor was able to make the class as exciting as I usually do.

Here are some of the take-aways about what happened when I got home to do the “Review” portion of my PARI (Plan, Act, Review, Improve):

1. Because I had been away training the whole week before, I failed to plan as well as I usually do.
2. There was way too much “down-time”. Too much of students sitting and writing while I lectured.
3. The handout was just too much. I had meant to create one with some blanks to keep people engaged, but failed to even check the work before it went out and therefore found out real time that it was way too much to even get through.

   And here’s what I’m going to “Improve”:

1. Always plan and rehearse my class ahead of time.
2. One of the leadership principles that I teach is that “everything happens for a reason and it serves me well”. The extreme down-time of this particular class made me realize that I need to build classes that include physical training and other interesting activity in conjunction with the leadership training- and that’s exactly what I will do. In fact, I’ll go one better and ensure that the physical activities support the mental ones and vice versa.
3. I may even scratch the idea of handouts that need to be filled out. I’ll just give the lesson I want to give and then give you the notes after. Here are the complete notes on Saturday’s lesson about Attractive Personality by the way. 

3. We have enrolled 5 new students so far in September; we are up to a $1000 donation to Tunnels For Towers, 10% to my goal.

Of course if we PARI that, it means we are 40% behind, as we’re more than half-way through the month.

But I STILL BELIEVE that, with your help, we can do it!

Our best students come from our best students!

YOU are one of our best students! When you help someone get started on all the physical, mental, self defense and leadership benefits of our program this month:

• They get 2 weeks free trial and orientation, including a free private lesson, free progress and goals check, free uniform, my book and hopefully a new positive tribe and personal development activity that can change their life, and their families!

• You get my heartfelt gratitude, a private lesson with me or any Sensei of your choice and the joy of knowing you helped your friend and a hero.

• Because we are donating the first $200 of every new student’s tuition towards Tunnels To Towers!

4. In closing, I want to congratulate Dr. Saroja Medidi! Not only is she a Blacklbelt Leadership student rocking the Blackbelt Leadership Trip program, but the first to take advantage of my 2023 Elite Training Program, to take her physical, martial, mental, spiritual and professional development to an even higher level in 2023! I am going to help 12 amazing people make 2023 their best year ever! Dr. Medidi is one of them! You can be too!

Elite Training Course (ETC) ’23

Your friend,

Grandmaster Del Castillo

p.s. Good luck in testing this week!

Tough you don’t need luck; you have preparation!

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About Grandmaster Stephen J. Del Castillo: Grandmaster Del Castillo is the founding Master Instructor of Krav Maga Martial Arts and has been empowering lives in Pasco and Hillsborough Counties since October of 2000. He is a 7th degree Blackbelt, MBA, author, mentor and success coach, a US Army Veteran and a proud father and grandfather. He is married to Ms. Barbara Del Castillo who helps him run the school. Grand Master Del Castillo began his training in the early 80’s and has high level blackbelts in Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Premier Martial Arts and Krav Maga Martial Arts as well as experience in kickboxing, Jeet Kune Do and Jiujitsu. He has high level instructor certifications from BBSI, IKMF, and KMG and has been featured in numerous Martial Arts publications and also Success magazine. He was a competitive sport karate and American Kickboxing instructor until he enlisted in the US Army where he served in the 82nd Airborne Division, where he won an Army Green to Gold scholarship and proceeded to ROTC and the University of Tampa. He was commissioned in 1992 and went on to serve in Germany with the 3rd Infantry Division and then in several other posts in the US until he left military service to pursue his dream of creating KMMA in 2000.

The Krav MagaMartial Arts Headquarters is in Lutz, FL at 1900 Land O’ Lakes Blvd., 33549. Krav Maga Martial Arts serves Lutz, Land O’ Lakes, Wesley Chapel, and surrounding areas.

See stephendelcastillo.com for more information and to order my book, Developing Your Superpower, Meditations on Mastery, Volume 1.

Also, check us out on Fun4TampaKids & on Go2Karate.com