Women who fight

Are you passive in your daily life or do you react?

I'm a practitioner of Krav Maga, a israeli self defense art. And starting to exercise was one of the best management decisions of my life. But how has learning self-defense made me a better prepared executive?

The first thing I found out was that more than self-defense, muscle and good fitness, Krav Maga showed me a new worldview.

From the training, I went through a process of personal evolutionwhere my motivation was to fight my inner enemies and overcome my limitations. The first step is to defend yourself and the beliefs and values ​​that hinder your evolution.

In the corporate world, most people think that they do not progress in their career because of the boss's persecution, the exploiting company or because the world is a well of injustice.

I hardly see people saying they didn't grow up because they didn't become good enough, because they didn't try hard enough, or simply because they didn't deserve it. There is always an external enemy, but the great truth is that most of the limiting factors are within us.

At self-defense, we don't have to fight each other, what matters is being prepared if the threat becomes real. Every day we try to be better and the overcoming is personal.

From the moment I began to observe my limitations and consequent physical and mental overcoming, I became more competitive. Personal evolution has made me believe that I can go further, bringing security and courage to new challenges. I am trained to act with simple, quick and objective answers. And this is within everyone's reach.

I would like to summarize the advantages of professionals practicing self-defense based on four pillars of spiritual and mental preparation:

Courage

O fear itself is not a problem, it is a warning instinct. The problem is what we do before it. We must not live paralyzed. There are threats that, although possible, will never materialize and others that become real when we least expect it are inevitable.

Happening or not, courage comes from the decision to be prepared, it is an attitude that involves risk, initiative and strength to face obstacles.

But courage unprepared is crazy. At the Krav Maga, courage is the decision to renounce passivity. But to be brave, it takes effort and boldness, because if the threat becomes real, you need to be prepared to act.

In the business world, some careers die prematurely because people confuse courage with "wooden face". Courage is being aware of an obstacle and deciding to overcome it by knowing the weapons you have. Already the "wooden face" is the inconsequential attitude of saying that you can do something without having any conditions for it.

Notice the people who risked doing great things without having anything on their hands or their resumes and yet won. They were brave, knowing that they had the talent, optimism, drive and strategy to achieve their goals. Now think of that overbearing boy who sold a speech of being able to take on an important job and was fired before he was six months old; this is "wood face".

Therefore, the success in the corporate world may be in knowing how to differentiate what is? wooden face? and what truly is courage.

Emotional Balance

This pillar is critical to controlling and being able to make the best decision in the face of real danger. I know very smart, high-IQ people who just can't take off in their career because they don't have emotional balance.

These people live paralyzed. They have degrees, qualifications and potential, but they cannot act and react right at the right time. Without emotional balance We have a hard time relating to others and are vulnerable to a threat because our reason is blocked at the moment we need it most.

It is at the moment of the threat, whether professional or personal, that we need to act with balance and tranquility. And peace of mind can only come about if you think, calculate, and prepare to defend yourself effectively, whether from a personal or corporate coup.

Patience

At Krav Maga, I learned that the greatest ally of personal failure is the immediacy. We live in the age of fast food and create a false sense that everything can be done right away, without the effort and maturity.

We want it all too fast, and this speed can make us become like the fruits we put in the newspaper to accelerate ripeness and in the end they rot and become bitter without having reached the height of fullness and maturity.

We need to change our attitude towards our time and discipline. It takes discipline and constancy and knowing that we can only reap what was once planted.Immediacy can kill careers, businesses and even people. We need to analyze if we are living only in the short term.

In time, constancy does not mean slowness or lack of initiative. Self-defense scams are quick and accurate, but you have to train hard and always qualify for them to perform successfully at the right time.

Respect

Respect is such a spoken word, so demanded, but I confess that I learned its real meaning not long ago. As an Executive Director, in my assessment of principles, I was always underperforming, and I just didn't understand why.

I started to say good morning, good afternoon, improved my manners and to my surprise I was still in the lantern. Until the day a friend gave me honest feedback. He told me that I did not honor some comrades and that he often ran over them in front of everyone and that was a lack of respect.

For me it was a shock! I never intended to do such a thing, I was just wanting to be objective, but no matter, if I made that impression, he was right.

When the word honor came into the picture, it came to mind that before starting and finishing a workout we turned towards the board of Imi Lichtenfeld (founder of Krav Maga) and we always bow.

I began to wonder why this act. I am just developing and learning to defend myself, because one day a man was willing to devote his life to developing such art. We must honor the story of the people who have paved our way in some way. Let them be entrepreneurs, directors, servants. Somehow they dedicated themselves and made our way.

In companies, we forget this way of respect. We are always willing to criticize, denigrate and not honor our leaders or comrades, and this most often in an attempt to make up for our incompetence and mediocrity. This is lack of respect. We need to know how to differentiate good ways of respect in companies and our relationships.

I end this article with the words of Master Kobi, the man who was given the mission of introducing Krav Maga in Latin America and who encourages all readers: "The feeling created by self-confidence is liberating, and stems from the assumption that everyone is born with the same tools, and therefore it is not necessary to submit or be subjected to gain respect.".