I’m a karate teacher, and my business has a presence in multiple locations across Israel. I used to be a full-time special education teacher, apart from teaching karate twice a week, and a lot of my time went toward talking to the parents of my students about self-confidence. That’s when I thought of integrating my self-confidence and my knowledge of karate into a process that would help kids aged seven to twelve years old learn martial arts and that also would teach social and life skills. My work life back then was hard, and there were many nights I couldn’t sleep. My low point came when my daughter was born and I realized that I couldn’t afford to have all of our household income depend on me, especially if I were sick and couldn’t work. That was when I first thought of making a living where I wouldn’t have to be involved daily.

I first came across WTS when I read about Sam on social media. I downloaded the book and listened to the audio version a few times over the course of a year. It took me another year before I joined the WTS training program and documented my business idea. In the process, I realized that the work I thought only I could do could actually be taught to other people who might even do it better than me. If I wanted the business to run without me, I would have to turn my creative work into a procedure. Which is what I did when designing my program.

Currently, seventy schools in Israel have incorporated my program into their educational system. Each school has a team of eight to twelve teachers who implement my program with the help of a teacher I hired as their guide. Some of my team members are people I’ve never met, but they’re still doing a great job because they’re following the procedures we’ve laid out. We’ve built a wonderful community of student-coaches that help kids cope with challenges and reach their highest potential. I’m extremely grateful to Sam and Josh for helping me reach a point where I’m working less and having a greater impact on my community at the same time.