How Ignorant are you?
Okay I don’t think you are stupid. Relax lets talk a bit.
Have you ever asked yourself that serious question?
I was listening to a Podcast the other day when I was traveling and they asked what is the Ignorance Tax Rate you pay each year? The premise of this question was that are you holding yourself back based on not advancing your level of knowledge, performance and skill level because you no longer actively improve upon your education to increase that level.
For Illustration purposes he tied the verbal description to annual salary because numbers for most people are easier to relate to numbers than concepts. By the way this is also very relatable to skill level, intellectual growth by school or craft, career advancement opportunities as well as health and fitness.
So let’s say you know your experience in time is equal to someone else in your field but they are making $100K a year and you are making $50k a year . Then math would show that your Ignorance Tax Rate is $50k per year. Now if you been at that same position, field, career for let’s say 10 years, well math shows us that you paid $500,000, a half a million in Ignorance Tax Rate.
That might be higher than your retirement fund. So basically its way to say, ask yourself what are you cheating yourself out of in your field or any area of your life because you stopped elevating your knowledge or increasing your skill level to stay relevant?
Let me relate it to Martial Arts first for me and then to my career. What martial arts has taught me if “you don’t know what you don’t know”. I see so many one sided martial arts that are single minded and single art focus that have no tangible experience or slightest personal exposure on what they criticize of others arts values. So their Ignorance Tax Rate is relatable in loss skill, lack of knowledge or average or less than average physical, mental and emotional ability.
As a martial artist first and foremost I study and train daily because when I put myself in scenario to test physical skill opposed to the history and theory only concepts my instructors fed me verbally I realize that theory had flaws when I physically went beyond my 4 walls and those theories did not hold much water in what was truth. At that moment to try and expand my art at that moment I never knew before what I did not know. So since that time I try never to not know anything about the arts and ranges they compliment.
That same is true for my field when I was career labor negotiator and now as a full time school owner operator, a CEO, an Employer, a Manager, Payroll. Bookkeeper, Investing, Leasing etc, its multi hat operation right – as is most of our lives and careers.
So I learn and I invest time, trust in mentors and invest lots of finances in learning more. My 3 monthly Mastermind group and mentor/coaching fees exceed my State of Illinois Salary in 1994. Example for month of May only, I have 8-10 hours of teleconferences per week. This last week I was in Biloxi Mississippi training with Alan Belcher, one of my Mastermind Groups Combat Tribe for 4 days total.
Each night I go back to my hotel room order room service and write all my notes out into content for my Operational Procedures. Why? So my staff can elevate their skill and knowledge. We as operation elevates. Basically we grow together. Before that the first week of May I was in Denver for 2 days with Dave Kovar and David Chamberlin’s Satori Alliance Mastermind group Ascend followed by 10 members of my staff and trainees joined us in one big house for 3 more days of Pro Mac Conferences.
See, I live by by 2 rules little bit better today and little bit better tomorrow and that I don’t know what I don’t know. Rule 3 I guess is I push myself to always be learning and developing because it’s my responsibility. I owe it to me, I owe it to my family, I owe it to my staff, I owe it to my students and JGMAA families and I owe it to my community. I must always so therefore I do. I elevate my level of knowledge and skill constantly. So each day I am trying to eliminate by Ignorance Tax Rate that I have paid Annually.
So my purpose of this message was that I hope it made you examine what your Annual Ignorance Tax Rate and how you can examine it and decrease it. As I tell students at belt graduation, There are 3 L;’s – the third one is Lots and Lots, no matter what you think you know you still have Lots and Lots more to learn and to develop. Remember it is easy to hit a comfort zone and we are all guilty of it but you also remember you never know what you don’t know.
So let me close this post with this favorite quote from one of my dear friends and motivational speaker Mr. Jack Burton from ChinaTown…. “When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, looks you crooked in the eye and asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like that: “Have ya paid your dues, Jack?” “Yessir, the check is in the mail.”
Are you paying your dues to learn or your dues in Ignorance Taxes ?
Empowered Martial Arts Academy
1929 W Iles Springfield Il 62704
217-546-6762
