Title: How to Punch Failure in the Face
Author: Tracy Huff
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 167
Genre: Personal Development
Are you struggling with your confidence? Have you ever wanted to go after something but don’t know where to begin? Do you need help believing in your ability to go after what you want? Are you afraid of taking the next step? How To Punch Failure in The Face is here to guide you and help you get crystal clear on the exact steps you should be taking right now to identify what is holding you back and the steps you will need to take to achieve your goals.
My goal is to invite you into our community to be empowered, inspired, celebrated, and supported to go after your dreams and get them. I am an expert at helping my students build their confidence and develop the leader in themselves. As a team, we create the space you need to get clarity, confidence, and balance without overwhelm or guilt.
If you are tired of being afraid, or tired of being uncertain and want to stop being so busy you don’t take the time to focus on what you want, then my 9 step process will help you. Let me help, you can do this. Take the first step today.
Book Information
Release Date: November 2021
Publisher: Independent
Soft Cover: ISBN:979-8773327189; 167 pages; $14.99; hardback $24.99; eBook $7.99; FREE on Kindle Unlimited
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VjpkSl
Pick up a signed copy: https://bit.ly/HTPFIFSignedCopy
Introduction
I'm so glad that you decided to pick up this book and that the title didn’t scare you! This book is a step-by-step guide to getting yourself from the beginning of a goal or idea to achieving the goal. Not just one time, but over and over again.
Believe it or not, there is a process you can follow to make success a habit, to make follow-through a habit, and to be able to consistently succeed. This is a process I have used repeatedly with myself as a martial artist, as a business owner, and as an instructor with my students. This book is the exact system I use to coach my white belts to black belts, my instructors in my instructor training program, and myself.
I want to let you know what you can expect from this book. We are talking about simple, effective strategies and tools that you can use to not let failure, obstacles, and even other people's opinions, stop you from stepping into who you're meant to be as a person.
There are a couple reasons I wrote this book. I have been looking for a way to take the lessons that we learn experientially as martial artists and pull them out into a process to help anyone who wants to learn the habits of success, regardless of if they want to train with us on the mat.
The other reason I finally documented the process that we use on the mat and wrote this book is because until I started to promote my coaching business and these steps for success, I didn’t realize what a gift knowing this process has been for me. I also didn’t know how many people don’t know how to develop the skills to succeed on their own.
My first clue was the utter confusion I was confronted with when people didn’t see how a martial arts instructor could help them succeed.
I have always viewed martial arts as a personal development program. As a student of Tang Soo Do, the Korean martial that I teach, I am constantly pushed to do things that I have never physically done before like punches, kicks, strikes, forms, jumping, and self-defense. But I have also been pushed to grow as a person. This is what most people don’t realize.
To progress in the rank system, I had to face my fears to become something else—a better communicator to myself, a leader, more persistent, and be willing to fail. As a martial arts school owner, I have to step into new roles as a leader, a coach, a manager, a communicator, a salesperson, a marketer, and an instructor.
Which is why I was surprised when I started to talk to businesses and the biggest question I got, when I start talking about leadership, goal setting, attitude, and motivation was, “How does a martial artist have any experience or expertise in teaching me how to grow my business?” I have been in business for myself since 2001, and it takes all of the lessons I have learned as a martial artist: respect, obedience, perseverance, honor, integrity, no retreat in battle, concentration, and humility. It has also taken being able to overcome obstacles, overcoming my fears, overcoming my self-limiting beliefs and learning how to use my emotions to fuel me forward. That's all we do every day in every class.
I get to have someone who walks into my karate school and sees us punching and kicking and ki-haping and cheering each other on, who is unsure and nervous about what to expect, and we get to help them learn that they are amazing and can do anything.
We get to push them to do things they think they aren’t capable of doing… and succeeding at them. We get to teach them that failure is an integral part of success and not something to fear, but something to strive for by challenging themselves.
My favorite example of this is in our Pee Wee class. My peers think that I am crazy for teaching 3 – 5-year old’s. It is definitely a challenge, but there is NOTHING like hearing that class yell at the top of their lungs, “ I can do anything” and then watch them try something and fail and be okay with it, or… try something and succeed. I teach this age because they are building how they feel about themselves in this world, and we get to teach them how to go all in no matter the results. My favorite drill for this is when we practice jumping. We stack the blockers, and they have to “Explode!” over them. We have four levels of this game and stack the blockers four high. When we have a new student on the mat, we explain that it is okay to knock the blockers over as long as they try -- we cheer for them either way. For those students who have done it awhile, they ask me to make it taller. How cool is that? They are challenging themselves and don’t even realize it — secret ninja stuff.
We get to fail at something every day, because if you're not failing at something every day, then you're not stretching yourself and not pushing yourself. If you're just moving along in the world accepting what comes to you instead of really going after what you want you are living in the realm of average; and we don't want to be just average. Average is not living up to your potential. You don’t have to accept being average. You are more powerful than average. It is my belief that we are all put on this planet to perform a specific purpose with our unique skills and abilities.
It is completely natural when you start to put yourself out there in a new way to doubt your message or doubt your worth. We tell ourselves that everyone else is saying this, everyone else is talking about this, why should people listen to me? The fact that it's your unique skills and your unique abilities make the message different. There are some people that only you can reach because of your experiences and perspectives. You don’t have to help everyone. I have people who come into my school, but not all of them want to be my student. Some of the standards and values that we have don’t resonate with them. And that's okay.
To give you some background on why this is something that I feel particularly passionate about, I have to take you back to when I was 18 and was graduating high school. I was the first person in my family who wanted to go to college, and my parents didn’t know anything about the process.
My dad wanted me to go to school for business, and I wanted to go to school for fashion merchandising. He refused to even begin to help find a way for me to go to school if it was not for business. So, I asked myself, “How can I pay for college?” One of my favorite teachers suggested that I take the ASVAB to help me see what I was naturally good at doing (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). I took the ASVAB, and I scored really well and qualified for the GI Bill and the Army College Fund.
I had to commit to four years in the Army, and then I could go to college. I had this perfect plan and that is when everything changed. When I got to my first duty station, I met the man who would eventually become my husband.
I always tell everyone that he seduced me, impregnated me, and forced me to marry him. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! That is just my way of succinctly encapsulating what was one of the hardest beginnings in my life, but which also taught me how to trust my instincts. It never occurred to me that my family would be upset about him being a black man. I knew my family would be upset about me having pre-marital sex and getting pregnant because I was raised in a very religious household. We had bible study every night at eight o’clock EVERY DAY. What surprised me the most is that they were more upset about his race. So much so that they disowned me. I was 18, pregnant, in Germany, sleeping with a man who was separated from his wife, and he outranked me. I was a private and I was not supposed to be seeing him as a boyfriend -- we were seeing each other secretly.
And add to that the guilt of premarital sex and getting pregnant and everyone knowing that I had premarital sex. I was filled with so much guilt and shame.
I felt like the world had been ripped out from underneath me because my family just walked away from me. This is the first time that I ever did anything that they didn’t want me to do, and they acted as if I didn’t exist. I felt thrown away. I felt discarded. I was struggling with being pregnant, feeling so stupid, worrying about facing all of this alone. Add on top of that, I was also going to be a mom. Being a mom was not on my agenda. Being a mom was the thing that I said I would never do. Right. But I fell in love with my husband. And because I loved him, we created this person. I had to make some hard choices, and in that moment, I chose to trust my instinct that he was a good man, and he would be a good father — I wasn’t even sure I wanted to marry him.
Once I am committed, I’m in. I became a mom from a place of not being sure about my worth and constantly being in a state of uncertainty about my future. Walking around with a lot of fear and a lot of judgment of myself. Did I forget to mention that I was a virgin? I felt like such a failure, like I had let down God and my family. I almost believed that my future was over because I was being told that I couldn’t do everything that I wanted to do -- I had to choose between being a good mom or going after my dreams. I wanted to go to college. In my mind this plan of going into the military, doing my time, getting my money, going to school, getting educated and, going into the world and being successful.
So, I've spent my entire adult life creating my life from that place at the beginning. Trust me, when I tell you that everything that I'm about to share with you is not something I'm just talking about, it's something that I've lived. It's something that I've experienced more than once. I am going to share with you are the tools I continue to use today.
So fast forward, 30 years later, and I am still in love with this man who turned my life upside down. He is the man who I thought he was and so much more. He is the most wonderful husband and father.
My boys are grown now. James is 30 and Stephen is 26. My older son works with me in my martial arts school, and my younger son recently graduated from NC State to be a veterinarian. They have grown into amazing men just like their father. I have two grandsons whom I get to enjoy and love. I'm a fourth degree, black belt. I have two college degrees, not just the one degree I joined the army to get, and I have been in business for myself since 2001.
I want you to have fun, to love what you're doing and not be overwhelmed and stressed, angry, and tired but be invigorated, inspired and inspiring. That's what we're here to do today. So, let's get read, to make some changes and conquer our fears. Let's get ready to learn how to punch failure in the face!
After serving in the U.S. Armed Forces for four years, she finished her education in her current home of Fayetteville, NC. She is combining her life experience along with the skills and motivation she has developed as an entrepreneur and Master and sharing that with other business owners.
She is passionate about helping professional women and entrepreneurs build their confidence and achieve their goals. She’s an in-demand speaker and an expert on developing confidence and leadership skills and is available for workshops and speaking events.
Visit her website at www.defeatfailure.com or connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.
