Posted on July 28, 2025

Today I want to share a few critically important ideas about a critically important issue- mindset.

My mother has been in and out of the hospital for the last couple of years. There have of course been some relevant medical issues at play, but the biggest difference between the good days and the bad has been her mindset.

I was talking to a future Blackbelt Leader recently that’s lost her job. I was checking up on her because she’s gone kind of dark and I fear she’s battling some depression…during her time of tribulations the most formidable adversary and most powerful ally are one and the same depending on how wielded- her mindset.

We’ve recently helped some adolescents through anxiety and depression- this is all about mindset. And, by the way, it’s not so different for you and I, or anyone.

If you do an honest after action review of your best and worst times, you will find that your mindset played a critical role.

In the best of times and the worst of times, our mindset determines our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and actions- which collectively control what happens next.

Our mindset is like the set of the thermostat in our academy.

You probably know that the thermostat determines the temperature.

But you may also know that the A/C has an easier time when the temperature is reasonable outside- cool at best or just not Florida summer hot, heat advisory warning, 100 degree hot like has been recently.

We’ve found that, if we prepare in advance we can control what happens inside, even when the external conditions are hot.

When I get in in the morning I set the A/C’s (the central units on both sides and the extra one we bought and deployed for the big side where all the classes happen) down to 73 from 77. Then later, about an hour before classes, I drop them all again, to 70.

See, we learned that when the weather is in the nineties or even feels like 100 outside, and then you combine that and the in and out of students coming and going from classes with the intensity of the great workout going on in those classes, it gets hot….

During the cooler months we can pretty easily just keep the temp at a comfortable 74.

But if you start at 74 on these hot days that I’m talking about, then when those hot classes of great KMMA combatives, kickboxing and self defense kick in, it can get 80 really quick and then it’s impossible to get it back down!

So we learned to set it to 70 so that, when the heat index inside and out raises, we still can keep it to 74, 75, or 76 throughout the evening.

The prior planning prepares us to weather the heat,

This is what our lives are like!

You can’t prepare for the crisis when the heat is on; you must prepare before.

That’s why a large part of my Blackbelt Leadership curriculum, which creates confident and competent Blackbelt Leaders, is all about mindset.

This is a lesson that I gave my Blackbelts this weekend.

It’s the raw and unedited version and I spoke for a whole 9 minutes.

They weren’t complaining though- it was after 40 minutes of heat! That is, they def had fun, got a great workout and learned something new; and they loved this lesson too.