I might have studied hundreds, maybe thousands of case studies — but I never realized I would be part of one.
As a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, I can tell you that the culture of the academy plays a major role in your development — whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional athlete. And 100% of the culture is downstream — it has to come from the leadership.
I was once part of an academy that went from an aspiring place to a downtrodden, toxic one reeking of politics, insecurity, and drama. All because one day the founder decided to scale from 3 to 100 centers in 5 years. So he started making changes — standardizing curriculum (you can conceptually design a program, but can’t standardize it because it’s an “art,” for god’s sake), hiking fees, pushing center managers and their paid coaches to upsell packages and schemes that favored their agenda more than the athletes they served.
Within months, members started looking for options, with some cross-training elsewhere. Those who resisted the vision because they could see the writing on the wall were chucked out.
He was even monitoring which other academy members visited and deleting WhatsApp messages that questioned his decisions.
It seemed he was running his entire business using ChatGPT for advice — which, unfortunately, he was.
When leadership loses the plot, everyone watches, experiences the chaos, and eventually leaves.
When I’d finally had enough, I stopped teaching. It stopped giving me the joy and meaning it once had. All the politics, drama, and noise had taken their toll. Eventually, I moved on after eight years.
History has it that most people won’t realize they’ve fallen into this trap until it’s a little too late. All they witness is resistance, their best talent leaving, and a bottom line that was “destined” to be 100x in five years.
You’ve probably seen this when leadership enforces unreasonable timelines for something significantly challenging to accomplish. They assume the people below them are lazy and just need to be pushed. But why? Because they think they’re Elon? Yeah, right.