Become a Master at anything you do
How to develop personal excellence
I started Karate when I was 13 years old, in high school. The older kids had three, four, five years more than I had, and I needed to defend myself. That was one reason. The other reason was that I found Karate extremely beautiful. I was fascinated by the Japanese culture, but also found the Karate moves, the posture, really, really beautiful.
This fascination lies at the core of my approach to transformational coaching. Over time, it delivers meaningful change and helps create the best version of yourself.
My first teacher, my first master, Sensei Sanogo, who is now at the highest level of Karate teaching in the world and is one of the most respected teachers in Africa, emphasized perfect kicks, perfect punches. And that's what we practiced, over and over and over again. Hundreds of times. Today, 50 years later, when I come to my Karate club in France, or to other clubs—although I'm older than most people in the club—when I do my sidekick, for instance, which is called Yoko Geri, they go, "Wow!"
My current teacher, Sensei Moulin, is like the Mozart of Karate. Everything he does is artful. It is amazing to watch him. And when you look at that, you begin to understand the search for perfection. Through this type of teaching, the gift we received was to search for the perfect moves. Once you have those perfect moves, they stay with you for a lifetime.
I practiced in Africa, in the United States, in France, and, throughout, I met amazing teachers. I learned from the best and was very involved in competition from the beginning, because I wanted to express the warrior inside of me. This was a phase. After a while, I became much more interested in the art form, in the moves, in the sequence, in the traditional Karate style.
Because I changed clubs, it took me a long time to get my black belt. That’s because every time you change your club, basically, the tradition is that you start from zero. So, when my current teacher, Sensei Nicolas Moulin, congratulated me on my amazing black belt exam. je said, "Good. Now is the beginning of Karate." After over 30 years, I was humbled.
Life, in my experience, had been rough—has been rough—and I carried some anger and frustration as a result. However, Karate helped me channel that anger into the powerful movement that Karate brings. So, I became powerful. But not aggressive. I had to really manage my aggressiveness and remove some of this aggressiveness and stay centered, present, directional. And that was a new kind of power—not anger power, but a much more dominant, calm, master, powerful person. That's amazing.
The link between Karate and leadership
There is particularly useful teaching in Karate, which is that you have belt levels. White belt, yellow belt, orange belt, green belt, blue belt, brown belt, black belt. And then, within the black belt, you have level one, level two, level… up to five in some schools, and 10 in other schools. These systems allow time to really take place, but also the correctness of practices. You have regular evaluations. And if you are evaluated as having reached a certain level, you proceed to the next belt level. That, in a way, asks us to rethink our leadership development approaches.
People become bosses and are put into leadership positions, but the difference is that they've never been evaluated. Worse, the risk is it may make you believe that you are really at a high level, when, in reality, you are very much at the beginner level. Particularly in terms of basic skills: how you communicate, your presence, how you listen, how you talk, how you give feedback, how you organize your meetings, how you organize your projects, how you organize your time. So, we have much to learn from martial arts in how to really assess ourselves. That's a really humble but really practical way to possess the right skills at the right moment, in the right role.
The 3 fundamental leadership principles to learn from Karate
The first principle is learning the basic skills toward attaining perfection. And you can only approach perfection if the teacher shows you the right tool—the method—the right way to go. You need to practice it intensely, so you gain knowledge and practice. And you really improve the practice up to a point where you are unaware of how good you are. You move from unconscious incompetence, which is “I don't know how good I am or not; I don't even know the skills,” to knowing that you don't have the skill because you watch a teacher and the teacher shows you the perfect skill.
At that point, you're consciously incompetent. Then you keep practicing, you tend to same things. Sometimes you learn new things and you become aware that you are competent. You are good. So, you are now consciously competent.
And there is a point where you've practiced it so much, maybe you've been teaching those skills, that through time you do it naturally. It's ageless. And you are no longer even aware that you are competent. You have reached the level of mastery, because the underlying principles have almost disappeared, and it looks effortless. You are now unconsciously competent.
Now we're talking about mastery.
The first principle is knowledge, competence, mastery, and practice, practice, practice.
The second principle is being evaluated all the time. That really helps. You evaluate yourself, your peers evaluate you, your teachers evaluate you, your superiors evaluate you. You receive direct feedback, and you reach stages where you're ready for the next level and everybody knows it. And you are acknowledged. Your level is announced to everybody. Such a system helps you to really be aware of your skill, for yourself and for others.
The third principle is about spirit. If you have a good spirit, you will learn fast. If you have the wrong spirit in Karate, you will only learn violence. You will only learn to win, at all costs. But you will not learn to interact with others. Very much like a leader who wants to be a boss, but cannot navigate the company.
The most effective path is through practice, through evaluation—you develop spirit, you develop presence. You are focused, you're precise. One move and it's done. But you also show wisdom, calm. You have internal peace. You feel powerful. You're present.
And in your presence, people recognize that you are really one. A true leader.
A true master.