People Skills Lead To Success Taekwondo And In Life by KwanJangNim Jong Sung Kim

After more than twenty years teaching university students, Taekwondo students and even Marines, I can tell you that grades and technical skills do not determine a person’s success in life.

The most important skills that will determine how far one will go in his career involve dealing with all sorts of different people, i.e., people skills. The wider the range of others in terms of ages, cultures, and company levels that you can deal with, the better your people skills are.

This is a real eye-opener for students when I do college and youth talks here in Korea. There is so much emphasis on just getting good school grades, that 100% of a student’s focus is on studying. Grades will help get them to the next level, but the thing is grades will not be the major factor that determines how far they will go in their future careers.

It doesn’t matter which field it is whether it’s Taekwondo, medicine, law, engineering, journalism, and business, one of the trades or any other career. The most successful individuals in each area are not necessarily the ones who had the highest school grades or the most technically gifted. Instead, the top stars in each field, including Taekwondo, are the ones with the best people skills.

People skills are not usually taught in classrooms at any educational level. So many students who end up spending all their time and energies during their school years to maximize their grades do not end up with decent people skills. Their personal development was unbalanced too much towards pure academics. That is why leadership training for Taekwondo students is so important. Because what we do in the Dojang can develop great leaders in our community with social skills.

Many people who are already in careers probably realize this but may not have done much about it. They soon realize that certain people are getting promoted while they are not. The folks promoted may not always have the better skills or even the work experience but what they do have are superior people skills.

If you find that you could use some improvement in your own people skills, then it’s never too late to further develop them by taking our leadership courses and seminars through your Taekwondo school.

Today so much is determined by working relationships between individuals, people skills will be one of the most important set of skills that anyone can ever develop for success in the Dojang or in life.