A scene in the “Karate Kid” 2010 remake stood out to me:
The Karate Kid, Dre Parker (played by Jaden Smith), starts his training with Mr.Han (played by Jackie Chan, in the Mr.Miyagi-type role).
Earlier in the movie, Dre was shown disrespecting his mother by leaving his jacket on the floor of their home and never hanging it up.
Mr. Han saw that it was driving the mother crazy. So on the first day of his martial arts training, he has Dre take his jacket off and hang it up …
And then he has him put the jacket back on, take it off, and hang it up again.
And then he has him do it many more times.
The student complains and tells his teacher that he gets the lesson, and he’ll hang his jacket up at home.
He’s eager to learn cool new kicks and punches, not how to hang up a jacket.
But Mr. Han has him do it all day long – the same motion 1000 times with the jacket until the boy is sore and can hardly move.
The jacket exercise wasn’t fun for Dre, but it helped him with his martial arts moves later in the movie – so there was a method to Mr.Han’s madness.
I feel like successful coaches have to go through their own tedious jacket-hanging exercises.
They have to slog through the often tedious stuff, day in and day out, until those actions compound and get them results.
Not everything you do for your business is going to be fun or “cool”.
It can be monotonous, and there will be days when you won’t feel like doing it, but it’ll be worth it in the long run.
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Marc Mawhinney