We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jalyn Rangel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jalyn below.
Jalyn, so glad you were able to set aside some time for us today. We’ve always admired not just your journey and success, but also the seemingly high levels of self-discipline that you seem to have mastered and so maybe we can start by chatting about how you developed it or where it comes from?
Self-discipline is a major thing that’s taught in martial arts. I started martial arts when I was 9 so it’s been something that I’ve been working on since I was a kid. I feel like it’s something that take continuous work, it’s not something that comes naturally. Being an entrepreneur has definitely challenged my discipline. Even if you enjoy what you do there are still days that you don’t want to show up. Maybe you don’t feel great, you’re discouraged or just feeling burnt out. But when you’re the owner, especially in the early years (which I’m still in), if you don’t do it…it’s not going to get done. Knowing that is what keeps me disciplined in business. If I put something off, it’s just going to be waiting for me in a couple of days. I’ve learned to do what needs to be done whether I feel like it or not.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My husband and I own Iron Dragon Martial Arts in Marietta, GA. We just celebrated our 4 year business anniversary in March 2024. For the last 4 years we have had slow but steady growth. Right now we are focused on keeping our current students motivated along with adding new students. We are also currently focusing on partnering up with local schools in our community to offer Taekwondo classes to their students.
At Iron Dragon our goal is to bring the best out of every student. We strive to produce not only great martial artists but great leaders in life.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I’m still early in my entrepreneurial journey so I absolutely don’t have everything figured out. Every day is a new opportunity to learn.
But, I will share a few things that have been useful over that past 4 years.
The first is resiliency. Owning a business is one of the hardest things I’ve done, it’s definitely not the easy path. There is always a problem to solve and a lot of the times it feels like all your problems pile on at the same time. It can be very overwhelming and discouraging but all you can really do it take things one day at a time. Through the hard times you’ll need to keep reminding yourself of why you started.
The second is time management and prioritization. For the first 3.5 years of owning Iron Dragon I was also working a full time job during the day. Time management was KEY. I make daily lists of what my priorities are for that day. Understand what needs to be handled immediately and what can wait. If you learn how to manage your time efficiently you can meet your goals much faster.
The third is patience. This is something I really struggle with. A lot of the time you might feel like you’re putting in a ton of effort and it’s not paying off at all. We have done plenty of marketing that has seemingly gotten us zero leads. Our studio has definitely grown but it’s been much slower than we’d like. I think it’s important to remember, especially during the age of social media, that growth takes time….a lot more time than people want to admit.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I recently read “The Ride of a Lifetime” by Robert Iger about his time as CEO of The Walt Disney Company. I am a huge fan of Disney and participated in the Disney College Program in 2015.
I can’t imagine how overwhelming it is to lead a company of that size. I get overwhelmed at times just trying to manage 2-3 employees.
He talks a lot about the lessons he has learned working with different people throughout his career. One thing that really stuck out to me that he said was if you’re going to do something, do it the best. This is obviously something that Disney does well, they are the best at what they do.
You can take this into any industry and any size business. Don’t do something if you aren’t trying to be the best at it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.irondragonmartialarts.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/irondragonma
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/irondragonmartialarts
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/iron-dragon-martial-arts-llc/
