Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to JW Wright. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

JW, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

The idea of going from the construction management industry to opening a Martial arts school was a scary one! I never thought I wanted my hobbie to turn into a job. But what I soon realized was that when you follow your passion it’s easy for people to see and want to support. In 2009 as the construction industry struggled I decided to bet on myself and open a full time Gracie Jiujitsu school. That gamble turned into owning 3 schools, Mentoring 34 affiliated schools and creating a franchise business related to the industry of martial arts.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Owner of Gracie Humaitá St Louis we represent the Original Jiujitsu academy from Rio de Janeiro Brazil. The first Gracie academy opened in 1925. My first intro into martial arts was when I was 15 but I first saw Gracie jiujitsu in the UFC 2 in 1995. I was amazed at the concepts and first attended a Royce Gracie seminar the same year. In 1999/2000 I started traveling to train more jiujitsu and first met my instructor 7x world champion Royler Gracie. Thru his teachings I brought those concepts of self defense and sport to an academy to teach men,women and kids classes and also LEO agencies.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I’m very lucky to get to mentor many business owners. In the martial arts industry what I see an instructor may be a Blackbelt on the mat but a whitebelt at running a small business.

The biggest issue. Failure to lead. It may seem odd but you have to have a strong leader pointing the business in a strong direction. Learn to make decisions quickly, learn from mistakes while still moving forward. We all live and learn but we can’t focus on the past.. Also make sure you have a team that is bought in. If you do have people who want to constantly work against the grain, remove them quickly. I like to think my business as a train that doesn’t stop it only slows down to add or subtract.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’m big on goals. What are you willing to do to achieve those goals.

When I first opened my academy I had a goal of teaching enough one on one lessons to pay the rent. I had an affliate about 3.5 hours away that requested a ton of lessons from new students so i agreed to teach 17 hours of lessons in 2 days. That is a brutal undertaking. As I crunched numbers I saw if I booked a hotel I wouldn’t be able to reach my goal. So I found a gym to shower and came back and slept in the parking lot. It was in the winter and a brutally uncomfortable night. But I did what I had to and made my goal. What are you willing to do to make your business work?! I kept thinking this is awful but I’m doing what I love and pushing my boundaries to push my business forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.graciestlouis.com
• Instagram: @jw.wright
• Facebook: @jw.wright