I am select the 20th personal to be promoted to Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt, over my dojo opened its doors, approximately 33 dotage ago.

This is a dojo that has between 100-200 members at any given time, and since 1974, literally thousands of people have trained there; and possibly tens of thousands.

Obviously, this organization doesnt dispense senior belts with ease or any degree of frequency!

So, what does it take to succeed?

The facile explanation is perseverance. Certainly this is a factor.

But I think the answer is being willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and this entails MAKING AN IRREVERSIBLE DECISION.

Most students of martial arts are dabblers, attending a class here and there, opting for variety of influences, instead of going as deeply as possible into a single style.

Theyre tourists, passing through the portals, gazing this way and that, scanning the scene, peripherally. Theyre not focused.

And because they pass-through everything in their lives, including most interpersonal relationships, they are never fully where they are, when theyre there.

So, nothing settles in them.

Theyre in a state of flux, a state of indecision.

Contrast this with any movie youve seen that portrays a warrior.

Braveheart showed William Wallace as a man completely committed to a free Scotland; hed accept no compromises or bribes.

The original Day of The Jackal, portrayed an assassin who was so bent on finishing his mission that he ignored warnings that his cover had been blown, and he was walking into a trap.

If you want to scale the martial arts pyramid, you can, and theres a simple way to do it.

Make an irreversible decision to do so!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable, published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it