Fabian Fitzner, Black Belt, Entrepreneur, Network Marketer, Kite Surfer - Beyond the Belt #25 - Beyond the Belt

Episode Transcript
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(00:17):
Hey Fabian, thanks for being here.
Yeah, it's awesome to be here.
Thank you.
Tell me what it was like to get your black belt.
Uh, I mean, it was a long, long road.
That's how I would say is a good way to start the story.
Cause I was always a nomad, right?
So most people maybe start in one Academy and they stick to that Academy for the nextwhatever 20 years.

(00:42):
For me, it was a bit different.
Let me, maybe start from, start from scratch.
So I left Germany.
I'm originally German and you might hear by my accent.
Maybe I try not to speak too much like, like the real German, you know,
But yeah, yeah.
So we can't prevent people always notice wherever you are.
Hey, are you German?
Yes, I am.

(01:02):
oh So I started Jiujitsu not in Germany.
I left Germany after my military time.
was four years of military.
Left Germany to follow my first dream, which was to become a personal trainer.
Moved to Spain, so became a PT.
After a while, I found out it's not that sexy to...

(01:23):
work by the hour, I need to be on the other side of the business, the gym owner whoemploys the PT.
So my wife and I, opened gyms.
So we moved to first to Portaventura later to Tenerife, had two fitness clubs, littlecatering service, personal trainer academy.
And within my gym, I had a martial arts academy.
And I was actually offering Muay Thai because my background wasn't striking.

(01:46):
And I had a very good coach.
And one day one Brazilian dude came in and he was like,
Hey, can I can I actually rent the mats?
I want to offer jujitsu.
And I thought of jujitsu like what most people think when they hear it the first time likea kind of karate thing with some throws, you know, the Japanese old version.
And yeah, so I thought, no, man, I don't like those guys wearing bathing suits and havinglike funny belts and doing their things because I did judo when I was a kid, right.

(02:17):
And he said, let's give it a try.
Let me show you one lesson and if you like it, then we can talk.
Yeah, and then I found myself being strangled in all kinds of positions.
So thought like, okay, that that might be something interesting and a good addition.
And that was my introduction to Jiu-Jitsu basically.
um There was a big advantage.
So Pietro, my first coach, he was a Brazilian.

(02:38):
So it was like legit Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
So the upside was he was a Brazilian.
The downside was he was a Brazilian because he was never on time, right?
He was always late.
Sometimes he just didn't come up because just didn't appear because he went surfing orsomething.
So as a white belt, started, I wasn't in a position that I had to give classes without anyknowledge basically, because I had clients, right?

(03:02):
So I just took what he taught like the week before and I just went through it becausethrough my sports study, obviously I had the advantage of being good in didactics.
So at least I could teach what I've seen before, right?
So I fell in love a little bit with teaching.
Um, stood with those guys.
Uh, he was a purple belt by the way, but stood with those guys for a while.

(03:23):
Uh, we had was, was called the sword fight club, like sword, like South in Tenerife Southhad a guy who was a black belt from soul fighters who then kind of took over and I was
with them until my Brown belt.
And then I left.
So we go into the business venture a little bit later, but I sold my businesses, never gotpaid.

(03:44):
That's a different story for another day, or maybe for later, but this podcast.
And went to Germany for a while and joined a guy called Peter Schira.
Very, very good coach.
Awesome.
So very, very amazing coach.
Funny guy, a little bit crazy, but so knowledgeable.
I mean, this guy is an encyclopedia.

(04:08):
Do you see that?
Say that in English like that.
Yeah.
So he's a book of techniques.
You can throw a technique at him.
He shows you 20 of the same position.
Like it's amazing.
So I stood with him for a few years actually and got my black belt from him and GustavoEnrique Manchas, ah who's a Coral belt and uh that was in 2017.

(04:28):
So took me 11 years training in different gyms.
So not only Spain, I traveled a lot also back in the days, but I was never reallyaffiliated.
So it was kind of tricky, but it was a great feeling because when you start Jiu Jitsu, youthink that's the end goal.
But then you realize, oh, it's like...
I'm just getting started again, you know?

(04:49):
When you started traveling, how did that impact your view of people who stay in one gym?
Because I also traveled the majority of my career.
I would say nowadays it has changed, but my first crowd was all Brazilians.
And they were very strict to, this is our school.
Even if they were not affiliated, it was always like, oh, you're the foreigner.

(05:13):
So you can come, but we don't show you everything.
But it was back in the days.
So nowadays, I would say has changed a lot.
And I lived in Dubai for many years since 2017.
Actually, I can go into that as well, which...
We had like, I mean, in Germany, when I got my black belt, I think we had around 25 blackbelts in the whole country.

(05:35):
It was so new.
There was nothing much going on.
Right.
Um, and then I moved to Dubai and we had like 470 high level black belts from Brazil.
All working in one company teaching the whole country, Jiu Jitsu.
And then he went to an open mat and I really felt like, Oh shit, I'm a white belt again.
You know, I mean, suddenly you're training like with world champions.

(05:56):
who were world champion at purple belt already all the way to black belt, know, roll withthose guys and realize, man, the belt is really sometimes just to tie your gi, you know,
so and so you went from the from the how you say that like the goldfish from the watertank into the ocean, you know, like, okay, different different ballgame.

(06:18):
One of the things that's really interesting to me is because I travel so much and train inso many places I find that like the levels of uh
Like how, what people know about certain things are.
And like, if you get a gym where a lot of people drop in and like, that's like where I'mat in Berlin, we get drop-ins all the time because we have a huge mat.

(06:38):
It's very difficult to find people who are good at everything.
You find like, well, this person might be really good at deep half, and then they will donothing else effectively.
And you're like, but that was a black belt.
Like, how was I able to run all around them?
You know, but then you get them deep half, they get you in deep half and you're like, no,I can't, I'm stuck.
I can't do anything.
And then you get swept in, you know,
Like how do you find that traveling and skillset thing?

(07:03):
I mean, in general, would say if you just follow the idea of the belts, I mean, there'sdifferent ideas, obviously.
And nowadays it's also super hard ah to say like, what is black belt level?
Because there's competition black belts and there's amateur black belt.
And you cannot have someone who's 56 years old who started in his forties and not give hima black belt because he never won a competition.

(07:27):
I mean, this guy is consistently training and getting better.
Nowadays, would also say, so in my world, the difference basically is there's competition,black belts, we're great in competing, but only a few can also teach, right?
So I think the mentality of the professor, like you say in Brazilian, right, is theability to teach different techniques and to teach from all positions, but from a rolling

(07:57):
perspective,
I think you know everything, but you specialize on a few things you're really good at.
um And if you have a very hard roll, yes, you will always fall back into your A game.
And the A game obviously is never like super diverse, right?
It's more like specialized, which also is an interesting thought process because I don'tmind getting tapped.

(08:19):
I have an artificial knee already, so I have a full knee replacement.
I have like a lot of injuries in my shoulders, rotator cuff tears and stuff.
I don't mind getting tapped nowadays anymore.
But I know sometimes they have such a big ego because here comes the downside.
If you go as a drop in to a new gym and you are a higher belt, and doesn't matter ifyou're black or brown, you have an aim on your back.

(08:41):
Like everybody literally tries to kill you and try to prove how good they are.
Hey, I submitted a higher belt who just dropped in.
So I mean, the best way there is usually to, I just tell the guys, hey, let's roll smooth.
And I only do as much as they do usually.
They want to go full force?
Okay, I go full force.
I'm 110 kilos.

(09:01):
I use my skill set and my weight, you know, and a lot of pressure, but not necessarily ifit's not needed.
But then, yes, you would fall back into your A game kind of, right?
I do the opposite.
I'm going, if we get, you know, high level black belt drop-ins and they come in fullforce, I just tap.
like, I don't have the, you know, my body's not up for this.

(09:23):
If you don't want to go light, like if we talk about it and they don't go light and I'lljust tap, I'm like, you win.
They're like, but I didn't have you in it.
Yeah, but I don't want to get hurt.
But I never had that with very good uh high level competitors or black belts.
Usually there is, I mean, everybody is experienced enough to kind of start with a flowroll and adapt to each other in power, you know, and in style.

(09:48):
It's usually like all my injuries happen with lower belts to be completely honest, likeall of them, you know.
That's why I say nowadays I match, you know, as soon as I feel, okay, we start with like50%.
And someone goes like crazy, okay, let me ramp it up as well to at least match or like bea little bit higher, but it's more like protective, right?
Because as you said, I just don't want to get hurt.

(10:09):
I often give people at the beginning of a roll my sleeves, like if we're in the gi, and Isee how they grab them, and that's usually a good test.
If they immediately reach out, grab, and they're like, I'm gonna fuck this person upbecause I just grabbed, I got their sleeves.
I'm like, okay, I know, we need to.
you more Nogi or more Gi?
You know, I've former, as a former all American wrestler, I feel way more comfortable nogi.

(10:33):
Like it's easier for me.
It's more natural.
But over the last two or three years, I've really started liking the gi more.
And so I've had to, and because now I teach a lot, I've, I've ended up having to learn tolike the gi and I went from like to love.
And so at this point, I, although I'm way more skilled no gi, I really enjoy the gi more.

(10:56):
What about you?
I mean, I love the gi so it's not the opposite but I feel way more comfortable in the gibecause I can slow down the game, right?
Especially when you have like super athletic guys, young guys.
I mean, as soon as you grab the gi, I like a lot of lapel work, worm guards and squidguards and those kind of things to really untangle them so there's not much advantage

(11:21):
anymore by age or athleticism, you know?
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
How did you get the knee injuries?
Was that was that jujitsu related or was that something else?
No, so it started in military.
did a special forces training in Germany.
So I my ACL.
uh But I had to continue because that was my first dream.

(11:42):
So now looking back, I mean, I'm super happy that it didn't work out because being asoldier is possibly the worst thing you can do nowadays.
also, yeah, also the mindset changes, right?
So you think it was more like the adventure.
I wanted to jump out of airplanes, wanted to do like fancy diving and all of that stuff,right?
But I my ACL.

(12:03):
um Actually, what was another funny side story that was way before I did BJJ, I did breakdancing.
So was a B-boy, right?
And we actually did the world championship in the year 2000, the battle of the year,right?
We just considered the world championship.
But so I was training uh break dance after my special forces training in the afternoonsbecause I was really, really fit.

(12:26):
Everybody was like super tired and they told us, hey,
After every day you need rest, but you don't listen.
You're a young guy.
You know, you're like a 19, 20 years old.
You're like, yeah, I'm invincible.
So, went to a competition, a battle, we call it, did like a flip, uh, slipped on, I thinkit was like some, uh, some soda on the ground or something.

(12:47):
So ripped my ACL, but the next day I had to continue.
So I had like a swollen knee and I just played it down.
Didn't tell anyone.
Right.
So, uh,
It wasn't a lot of pain because I didn't want to get kicked out, right?
For being stupid and for being injured.
So, went through it.
That was fine.
It took a few weeks, but I just had the muscular support because if you do sports everyday for a few hours, so it was kind of fine.

(13:16):
Then I had a diving accident and by the diving accident, so I had to do like full bodyexamination.
put me in a CT and they found out
or like scuba diving?
Scuba diving, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
yeah, so I did the, it's called like the uh Waffentaucher, which is kind of the equivalentto the Navy SEALs back in the days.

(13:38):
Not exactly the same, but kind of the idea that was the training I did or started.
So um they found that actually my ACL was ripped and they said, look, you have kneeproblems, you have to make a break anyways, we're going to put you in the next turn.
You have to fix it.
So I fixed it.
Problem is in military you cannot choose your doctor.
So the doctor I had was not very experienced, was actually his first year and he made theACL a little bit too long and the ACL obviously is there to support your knee to not

(14:09):
sliding forward.
So now I had a lot of play in my knee and it rubbed off over the years the cartilage.
And now to your question, did Jiu Jitsu play a role for sure because obviously and alsoMuay Thai because you do a lot of twists and turns?
And over the year, it got worse and worse.
I 12 surgeries overall.
They couldn't fix it.

(14:30):
There's nothing yet for cartilage.
I tried stem cells.
I did everything that's on planet Earth.
Paid a lot of money to fix my knees and adapted my whole style.
That's the good thing about Jiu-Jitsu.
If you cannot do one thing, adapt your style to different things.
I had to switch everything from one side to the other side, but worked out for many years.
And at the end, yeah, I'm now 43 years old.

(14:54):
Couldn't move my leg anymore.
Really couldn't straight it all the way couldn't bend it all the way Found a good doctorand he said you're very young I said yeah, look I'm 43 doesn't make sense to wait until 65
and I missed the next whatever 22 23 years of fun with 65 I'm not gonna do fancy stuffanymore.
So let's do it now medical knowledge is anyways doubling every six months right now andwith

(15:19):
superintelligence coming up, know, uh super artificial intelligence.
I'm not so worried that there will be new techniques and possibly other possibilities tofix it once and for all in a few years, right?
So that's the danger.
That's my biggest injury I had actually.
uh Have you fixed it recently?

(15:39):
It's a year ago, uh in June last year I had surgery.
So now I'm already full on kitesurfing, full range of motion.
uh I didn't roll yet, so I went to training just to hang out with the guys.
I live now between Dubai and Mauritius, which is also funny because in the whole countryslash island of Mauritius, there's two black belts only.

(16:02):
and you're one of them.
No, no, I would be the third.
And they were like so happy that someone from the outside came, you know, and, it's even amore funny story because I know we're jumping all over the place, but um I'm, I'm,
adopting a child.
my, daughter's from Uganda, right?
So, and, um, we had to move to Uganda.

(16:23):
So to, keep the timeline a little bit.
So 2017, I left Germany, moved to Dubai.
So in Dubai, I lived for a long time.
Um, and, uh,
We had our lives settled there, everything was fine.
And then my wife got uh the offer to work in an orphanage and she always wanted to do somemissionary work.
So she went to the orphanage working there.

(16:45):
And while she was working there, she got introduced to a child that was like three monthsold and she was given to the orphanage, was found.
And she told me Fabian, I want to adopt that child, that's our daughter.
So I said, okay, great, then let's do that.
But what we didn't know then is...
that you actually have to foster in country for a full year, which means you need to livein the country for a minimum of one year.

(17:08):
So I packed my bags as well and I moved to Uganda to an orphanage.
So we lived in an orphanage for almost a year, right, in Mukono in Uganda.
Then I got the fostering, the foster care order, became the foster parents.
A little bit later we moved out and I got so bored because there's nothing to do.
So I looked for BJJ, I said, okay, I need to train again, like there's nothing.

(17:31):
And there's only one black belt in the whole country.
It's like, it's one Brazilian and he was giving classes 15 minutes from my house.
Right.
So I went there and I've seen like a whole different culture because it's so interesting.
Jiujitsu is not taking off in Uganda at all.
I don't think in Africa that much because also the competitions are very, very lowvisited, but it's a mentality and a culture thing.

(17:56):
just don't like to fight.
It's crazy.
Like it's a whole, it's a whole different.
It's a whole different approach.
Always when people came, they feel very uncomfortable in the physical uh alteration, yousay, like even it's right?
So we had around like 20, 25 students.

(18:16):
I helped them a little bit, so I taught a few months because for them was also, even formy friend, the Brazilian, because he's in Africa for like nine years and he hasn't seen
another, let's say like
higher level player for years.
Like I've shown him techniques he has never seen in his life because he comes from the oldschool Brazilian basic Jiu-Jitsu, right?

(18:42):
So that was also good experience.
um Was it like they didn't like touching or was it that they didn't like fighting or likewhat was it that was about the culture that didn't...
uh
hard to say.
when you open, so right now we're open.
So I'm now affiliated with Gracie Barra and we're opening actually schools.

(19:02):
So I have a school in Dubai.
And um in Dubai, it's like completely different.
You open a school and people just come because it's kind of people, they know whatJiu-Jitsu is already.
So they want to learn it.
They want the kids to learn Jiu-Jitsu.
In Uganda, no one really knows what it is.
There's no culture around it.

(19:23):
um But you also don't have the classical like Taekwondo schools or karate schools.
You don't have that.
It's like nowhere.
It's crazy.
So people just don't, you know, one of the quotes like, like, like, or hate Dana White,one of the quotes that he's like gotten famous for is if you see people playing basketball

(19:44):
and you see people fighting, everyone's going to watch the people fighting, right?
uh So fighting is something really endemic to humans.
And I get that this is a culture that people that don't like it, but I mean, when they seeit, was, there was no like appeal or anything is like culturally no appeal.
I mean, I lived there for almost two years now, we're still going back and forth becausethe adoption is not finalized, but the whole time it's a very dense population.

(20:13):
Like if you have like hundreds of people on the streets, okay.
And I don't want to talk about traffic.
mean, people transport their cows on motorbikes.
I mean, that was the craziest thing I've seen.
Or like eight people on one motorbike, you know.
Now you've given me something I need to search for a picture for later.
People transported cows out of motor vehicle.

(20:34):
Yeah, I would too.
not common.
don't want to talk bad about the country or the it's like a very, it's a really lovelycountry and really lovely people.
It's like super rich of nature and we have a lot of friends there and stuff, but it's justdifferent when you're from the West, like when from like a Western culture.

(20:55):
But it's like super dense.
And in the whole time, I only have seen one single altercation.
which was just one guy pushing another because they had some I want to call it road rage,but they were stuck in traffic for like, possibly were there for two hours, because they
don't follow rules, right?
So imagine you have like a two lane street.

(21:17):
And usually there is like one direction left one direction right.
Okay, so they're they drive the opposite they're they drive left hand.
And then one guy has the idea, okay, I'm gonna take over.
So, and then another guy has the idea, I'm going to take over as well.
Now we have basically three cars coming from one direction in a two line street.

(21:37):
And then another guy on the other side has the same idea.
So they will meet in the middle and they get stuck.
And now all the traffic piles up and no one can go back and forth anymore.
And that happens on a regular basis.
Right.
And we were stuck there for possibly two hours.
And then one guy got super mad at another guy, but he just pushed him.
And then immediately people came and put them apart and then everything was fine again.

(21:58):
So yeah, physical altercations, I haven't seen a lot.
think that's everything I'm saying now is interpretation.
if any Ugandan is listening to that, sorry for that.
Okay.
If I might say something that is not true, that's just my perspective.
But I think it has to do with in the Western world, we are very much individualized.

(22:20):
Everything is about the individual, right?
So it's about me and my family and so on.
So there is very much the culture is trivial.
they have, I mean, only in Uganda, they have 86 different languages.
So English is the main language, but every tribe has like kind of their own language,right?

(22:41):
And every region.
For example, if I go with my daughter somewhere, if you would do that in Germany, peoplewould kill you, but you go to restaurant and the waiter just without asking picks up my
daughter and carries her around.
Because it's that feeling of we are a community.
So, and I think that might be also one reason if something pops up, people go immediatelyin between and kind of split them.

(23:09):
And of course, on a bigger scale, yeah, there are people who one tribe hates the othertribe and all of that stuff.
I think that's, that's everywhere.
But from the, from the 55,000 feet view, I would say that's, that's possibly the maindifference.
there's not so much fighting culture.
What was it like living in an orphanage for a year?

(23:31):
Interesting.
I mean, you have you have kids everywhere.
We had a very good house, but it treated us very well.
So we had our own little shag kind of with like one one room with a little kitchen.
I mean, regular power cuts, but that's the thing of the country.
Even afterwards, we still have them.
We live in a gated community now.

(23:54):
I mean, there's that like 200 kids are a little bit over 200 and all living in different
lot.
call it like units.
Every unit has what they call an auntie, right?
So one employee who takes care of that unit and they have from from baby age until 18.
Right.
And they, and they do a great job.
It's a Dutch guy who does that Peter.

(24:15):
And he really helps the kids from growing up there until having a job.
So they have like a secondary school.
They, they give them education, training.
They can become a welder, an electrician, like all of that.
Right.
But yeah, also besides that, obviously it was hard to because I just started a newbusiness when I moved there.

(24:38):
So what I did, uh so now my background is real, but I had my uh studio before in Dubai.
So I took a picture of it and I had a little like three square meter room.
So I just painted the wall in green behind.
So I had like my artificial green screen.
Then I bought a little generator.
Then I had a 20 meter long ethernet cable.

(24:59):
because there's no cable internet.
So they use like mobile routers.
But I had no reception where I was because it was in the middle of the forest in avillage.
So what I had to do is I connected that and I took the router out and I hang it on thetree or put it on the roof.
That was the only way how I could do like online calls and stuff.

(25:22):
But that was the harder part.
But then still I was traveling in and out.
It was fun experience, definitely.
Is that something you kind of would, you would recommend that people do?
Maybe not specifically Uganda, but just like have a difficult section of your career whereyou're like, well, I got to make stuff up and see a different culture or are you, you

(25:45):
know, how do you, how do you view that time in your life?
um I think in general, whatever you do, it's always about being creative.
Resourcefulness, I would say, the biggest skill you can develop.
Because people always complain, this is not working, that is not working, or I cannot goto sports because whatever, I have to wake up early tomorrow.

(26:13):
nothing is ever perfect.
And there's always obstacles.
Each entrepreneur I know, I think I know many or met many over the years into thethousands, um everyone I know had difficult times.
But it was always how they manage those difficult times to finally level up.

(26:37):
But to your question, would I recommend that?
mean, what it really opened my eyes to is that things we think are our problems
are not really problems.
And you know that saying like first world problems, it really becomes a new meaning if youreally go to a poor country and very good friend of ours, for example, um she was our mate

(27:01):
later became a very good friend and now my wife built a charity with her in country.
And uh she has no hot water, she has no electricity and she had three kids.
But that's how she lives, right?
When she lived with us for her, just having warm water,
was like life changing.
Right?
Or we had another guy.

(27:22):
When we moved into later on, we moved into a very big villa, which is comparable, likeprice pricing, comparability is very much different to Europe.
So there you could get a villa with 1000 square meters, which is like 10,000 square feet,I guess.
um For the price of a three room flat in Berlin.

(27:45):
Okay.
So, and we had eight employees, which sounds like super decadent right now, but we had agardener.
had two people cleaning the pool.
We had um the maid.
We had a driver.
So, but why did we do that?
We didn't do that because we need, so we need, we didn't need them, but they needed us.

(28:07):
That was kind of how we thought about it.
We even had one guy, the only job he had was opening the door and cleaning the street, buthe was already in that house when we came.
So the thought process was like, okay, we can get rid of him and save 100 euros, or we canreally make his life better and his family's life and just pay him even a little bit more
and he will be happy.

(28:28):
Right.
So that was kind of the thought process.
even if it sounds like super snobby having eight people, we didn't need them.
describe it sounds like you kind of fell into the community fell into the mindset of ittakes a community or it takes a village you're like, hey, we're now a part of this and we
bring resources that they don't have, which in this particular case is money and access toit.

(28:52):
And we support everybody in the way that we can, which is not handouts, but helping themin a way that they feel purpose filled, which I think is wonderful.
It doesn't sound
That doesn't sound negative at all to me.
Now, if you have context yes, but imagine you would take only that snippet from thatpodcast, right?
And you put it online, we had eight employees, you know, lived in like a thousand squaremeter mansion, you know, that then it sounds very much different.

(29:21):
But yeah, if you have resources, I think.
Like we're meant to give.
for example, I'm a Christian, so I believe in God and you know, the 10th, right?
So, so give 10%.
And if there's, it doesn't have to, in my opinion, it doesn't have to be money only, butit has to be your resources and you always should give back and you will get back a

(29:47):
thousand times.
Right.
And, uh if you have the opportunity and we've all been in situations, I've been brokecompletely after I had my gyms.
Um,
because I I never got the money.
don't know if I mentioned that before, I hope.
Okay.
Okay.
So let me quickly get into that.
So I sold my gyms in, in, Tenerife with the idea to go back to Germany and build a newbusiness, which is purely online, which we do for the last, whatever since 2013 now.

(30:19):
So
The idea was great.
So my idea was if I sell the gyms, I have enough money on the bank so I can build thatbusiness without a lot of pressure for the next two years.
Right.
So that was my plan.
The plan of the guy I sold the gyms to was different because he had in mind he's nevergoing to pay me.
So we sold the gyms, paid off the like with the first check we got.

(30:40):
That was the money we got.
We paid off the banks, we paid off the landlord because I had my gyms during the financialcrisis.
That was actually the
the moment when everything changed.
And for the older folks here, that was between 2008 and 2012, right?
The big financial worldwide crisis.
You remember?

(31:02):
So, and in Spain, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Europe were the hardest hitting countries.
And in Spain, we had around almost 40%, 39%, 38 % unemployment suddenly.
And obviously people didn't come to the gym anymore.
right, because they couldn't afford it.
So that was the time when everything went south for us.

(31:24):
But then we found a guy who wanted to buy the gyms.
He bought them.
So we paid the landlord because we couldn't pay rent for a few months, like two or threemonths.
So we paid him off, paid the banks off.
And the rest we got in what's called pagare.
Pagare is like a bank check, banking check.
It's a little bit more secure.
Like right after cash, you would have this one because it can go to court immediately.

(31:47):
and get to say, this guy didn't pay me.
So it would be a fast track.
But anyways, he paid in those paragres and he paid them in installments over the next fewyears on increments of $5,000, which would be amazing in Germany.
But first check bounced, second check bounced.
I was already back in Germany.
So he sold yearly memberships to his clients, uh actually my former clients, to the oneswho had money.

(32:11):
He sold all yearly memberships, didn't pay the landlord, uh took
I don't know how much it was.
only calculated roughly, but it must have been a little bit over 100,000.
He calculated, left the country, was never seen again.
Right.
So.
That's certainly a business model.
Yeah.
So yeah, that was a very uncomfortable situation because also we couldn't get anythingback because now all the machines which were in the studio obviously belong to the

(32:40):
landlord because it's his real estate.
He said the guy also didn't pay me.
I'm going to sell the machines now.
So we're like, forget about that.
So we were really at the bottom of, I would say like our entrepreneurial career becauseafter being
slightly successful and living a good life for a few years, we fell down to havingnothing.

(33:02):
So I had to move in my grandmother's attic when I was like, was that 31 years old?
Right.
So after being an entrepreneur and a good example is my dad.
So my dad always, when people were asking, how's Fabian doing?
He was saying, he lives in Spain.
He lives on Tenerife Island.
He has a big Finca.
He has like two fitness clubs.

(33:22):
He has like two nice cars.
uh As dad, you're like,
proudly talking about your son and his achievements.
So now I went back and now I live in his mother's attic in 30 square meters.
Like what shall he say now?
Right.
my son lost it all.
I always try to like how people from the outside might see it.

(33:42):
So I use my dad.
So yeah, and we were completely broke.
I know that's why I told that story.
So I know how it is to be at the bottom and really looking for opportunities or someonewho can help you.
to get better in your life, to level up.
And that's why I always like to give back because I would have wished um that someonewould have just come and say, look, here's some money, I'm going to help you out.

(34:09):
Later I had mentors, but I needed to actively look for them.
Now I try to be the mentor if I can and someone is open to just share my knowledge how Ithink they can get better in life.
That's so interesting.
I've never had mentors and I really, that's something I always wish I had.
And so many people that I've talked to both on this podcast and off, they say the bestthing in their life for them has been mentors.

(34:36):
And nobody talked to me about it when I was younger.
It just sort of was implied.
now I try, similar to you, I try to mentor as many people as I can, but I had no, thiswasn't even an option like in my head.
Which leads back to Jiujitsu.
Yeah, which leads back to Jiujitsu because my definition of a mentor, because no one canbe a mentor in everything, right?

(34:58):
But you always can have one specialist in one thing you want to learn and get better in.
And a mentor is a person who is where you want to be in a specific task or in a specificfield and is willing to teach you everything he knows to get you there.
So that leads back to Jiujitsu, right?
Where you would say, okay,
What is the real black belt?

(35:18):
The real black belt.
Let's take John Danaher as an example, I guess, the prime example.
He's not a competitor.
He's a true mentor, right?
Even though his instructionals are five hours long for one technique, but still he's thereal kind of, I mean, if you would do a movie about Jiujitsu and you would have the old

(35:40):
Japanese guy with a martial arts movie with a long beard, that would be Danaher.
Yeah, he's still got the cane though.
Like he still walks around with the like it's he's got the Yoda vibe instead of the oldJapanese guy vibe.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So in the beginning, and that maybe would be one tip I could give anyone is outside of thesport.

(36:01):
Um, if you want to become good at something, just look for someone who's willing to teachyou the good news about, uh, these opportunities nowadays is you can just go online.
I mean, there's, course, there are also a lot of weird people and selling coaching andstuff.
If you look for a coach, then always ask the coach, okay.

(36:21):
Prove me that you have succeeded in what you're coaching.
So, and if someone can really prove that, perfect.
Then that's the person you can follow.
Right.
But now for business, I mean, there's great people like, let's say like Alex uh Hormozi,or let's say Gary Vaynerchuk you know, like real entrepreneurs who have an online presence

(36:42):
and they give so much content for free.
You don't need to pay anything.
That could be your first mentor to get a better understanding if you want to build abusiness.
But later it's always good to find someone who is close to you and really ah would takeyou by the hand personally.
That's the end game, I guess.
How do you feel people should differentiate between like proof and charisma?

(37:08):
I mean, you said that there's people, you know, sometimes selling bullshit, but like, ifyou are not an expert in that thing, how do you suggest somebody differentiates between
proof and charisma?
Because I think about that a lot too.
Like I don't have a good answer.
Uh, would say also the proof doesn't have to be the person itself, but it can also be theclients.

(37:29):
And let's go back to Danaher.
He never was a world champion, but he produces a lot of world champions.
So there is a proof definitely, even though he never succeeded himself.
Same in football or it as Americans call it soccer, like the real football.
So like our is the real football.
No, uh, I know there's a, okay, because we use the feet to kick the ball, you know, so

(37:52):
to me.
But it's the same thing.
There's some coaches who never were great players, but they just produce great teams.
So that would be the proof in general.
But of course, there has to be a, I would say like a wavelength if someone talks to you.
If you have, let's stay with Danaher as an example, because I think he's the perfect guyfor that.

(38:17):
So we know he might possibly be the most knowledgeable Jiu-Jitsu coach in the world rightnow.
But he doesn't appeal to everyone because as I just said, it's like sometimes so boring tolisten to the instructionals.
So I rather buy the same thing from Gordon Ryan, who also starts speaking like him, butjust shorter, you know.
So, but then you learn the technique maybe a little bit, a little bit faster because theway he teaches his charisma, whatever speaks more to you than maybe the other guy.

(38:48):
So I would say both is important, but I would always take proof over charisma.
honest.
Yeah, I think that's a really good way of thinking about it.
I just always want people to feel like when I coach or teach, like my thing is feelcomfortable, get people to feel comfortable, meet them where they are, and then the
communication can begin and the learning can begin because they feel safer.

(39:11):
And I know sometimes people shortcut that with charisma.
I think that particular thing is very interesting to watch people sort of fight through.
I think the main thing in our, let's call it business for a moment, Jiujitsu as abusiness, right?
Because also, as I mentioned, we're building Gracie Barra schools right now.

(39:34):
And there's a reason why we've chosen Gracie Barra as a franchise.
So the reason why we've chosen them because they're super strong in culture and community.
and they basically have all the strategies and tactics down and it's proven that it worksbecause they have over thousand schools already.
But on the other side, also produce a lot of high level world champions.

(39:57):
mean, Gracie Barra is always in the top three if you look at the schools worldwide.
So we have kind of both.
But the reason why people at the end, my opinion, stick to Jiu-Jitsu, I've seen once astatistic that the uh fallout rate is actually higher in Jiu-Jitsu than the Navy SEALs if
you go from white belt to blue belt.

(40:18):
Like more people quit than in one.
run round of the Navy SEALs in percentage, right?
I don't know if that's true, but it was like a funny comparison.
um But people um stick if they have a community, right?
If they really feel, if they really feel home.
And that I think leads back to the charisma.
If you have a coach that really makes people feel like you belong here, right?

(40:42):
I love you.
ah You're, you're part of the family that maybe that also sometimes is
maybe it is even more important than just the technical aspect that someone improves likesuper fast and becomes a competitor or something.
Yeah.
Is that one of the, is that the kind of lesson you took off the mat?

(41:03):
if I can help people feel like they've got a family or they've got a community thatthey're going to grow into a better, you know, business leader or.
Yeah.
So in my specific business, would say like the main business that broke me or that helpedme to get into financial freedom is network marketing.
And network marketing is, I would say, a business that not everybody understands andpeople have mixed opinions about it.

(41:28):
And um because it's like, it's like everything and let's take like the straight comparisonto Jiu-Jitsu.
This podcast is about our sport.
It's the same in our sport.
You have like great people and you have assholes, right?
And you have those people who try to kill everyone in every training and take over today.

(41:49):
I'm going to take a limp home, you know, and say that for fun, but they mean it for real.
And you have those people who really are there to help the community, to make peoplebetter and so on.
And it's the same in my business.
For those who don't understand, let me give you like a super old example.
Everybody might have heard of like super old school Herbalife or Amway, which were likethe first.

(42:10):
Network marketing companies, the first big ones, let's say.
Amway was actually the first real one and then came Herbalife much later.
The concept is pretty simple.
The concept is basically just a company says, look, I have products or service.
the goal is like with any company in the world, I need to find as many customers aspossible.

(42:31):
But here we give the customer the opportunity to talk about the business or the productand the customer can make money by selling it or
refer new affiliates to the company.
So concept is pretty simple.
What's the problem?
The problem is that not only back in the days, but also nowadays you have a lot ofuntrained, I like to call them white belts in our business, who spam people on Instagram,

(42:55):
right?
Like join my business, I make you rich, false promises and this and that.
And don't treat it like a business anymore, but treat it like a quick rich scheme, whichit is not.
And plus,
There's a lot of, let's keep the comparison bullshido uh like bullshido gyms.
And they're like many network marketing as well, like who are hiding as, as networkmarketing, but they're not.

(43:19):
that's why there's, it's like controversial, but on the other side for me, when I startedthat business, so that was my time when I was in the, I still had the gyms and I really
wanted to have an online business.
Or in other words, back in the days, my goal was I need a business without a door.
Okay.
Because if you have a door.
One person needs to open it and one person needs to close it, which was usually me.

(43:44):
I knew network marketing because when I was studying sports, I did that as a side job justby selling a little bit of Aloe Vera supplements and perfumes.
It's a small German company who does that.
But I learned everything for free about entrepreneurship, like the basics.
I learned for free in that business by my back in the days mentors.

(44:05):
And they were not like huge mentors, but they were better than I was in certain tasks.
Right.
That's why I said before my definition of a mentor.
think that's a really good definition because it doesn't put anybody on a pedestal.
It just says, here's a set of things that this person can help me with.
I think that's a wonderful way of thinking about it.
So I knew the business works.
um But obviously back in the days already, people were like, what are you doing?

(44:29):
That's a whatever, like a pyramid scheme and came with their like biased opinions withouthaving any knowledge.
So later when I was an entrepreneur already, and I've made a lot of money with my gyms andI looked at it again, I said, okay, this time I put my entrepreneur glasses on and let's
look at it from that perspective as it makes sense.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, it makes a lot of sense.

(44:52):
So then the next thought was like, shall I listen to people who are not successful orshall I listen to people slash mentors who are already succeeded in that business and see
if I can do too?
So, and I mean, everybody knows what does not work.
And especially, you live in Germany now for seven years, you know Germans, right?

(45:12):
Yes, very pragmatic and risk-averse.
So yeah, and me as a German, I can talk bad about Germans every day.
And there's a reason why I left the country, right?
Because the German is literally, you call it like risk adverse, I call it feared, right?
They have fear of everything that's new, right?

(45:32):
Complete opposite of Americans where everything was based on the American dream, right?
And in America, when someone is successful, that person gets usually celebrated.
Not today anymore so much.
know the politics.
tick has changed a lot.
And unfortunately, but in Germany was always like that.
If you succeed, you have to hide your success.

(45:53):
If you have a big car, and let's say like someone rides a Porsche, the typical thing as,as kids, what we were not taught by our parents, but we obviously uh copy what parents say
and other people say was always like, he needs to he possibly has a small genital.
That's why he rides like such a big car.

(46:14):
You know, like those kinds of things, you know, that's like typical German.
So, um, but anyway, so Germans, Germans always not skeptic, but sometimes almost hateful.
But here's something I learned over the years.
And I think that's a very, very powerful lesson.
And if someone wants to write something down, take a pen now and write this sentence down.

(46:37):
There is no hater in the world that is more successful than you.
There is no hater in the world that's more successful than you.
Yeah, fair.
you want to realize that, because also on social media, it doesn't matter.
Like if that podcast is growing and it will grow for sure, because there's so much, somuch interest to community so big.

(46:58):
will be hateful comments, right?
Like, and you're like, why would it like we have a good intention, right?
So, but then at the end, do they, do those people have a podcast?
Do these people wake up at 6 AM in the morning to be ready at eight, you know, tointerview a guy who sits on Mauritius?
They won't.
I'm somebody in general who works hard.

(47:19):
I you know, I'm CTO of a tech company.
I do this podcast on the side, you know, I teach jujitsu.
do executive coaching like I like doing things and helping people and I have I don't thinkI've ever phrased it like that.
But in general, I just try to avoid being a hater because I don't it's just energy wastedfor me.

(47:40):
And if somebody wants to hate on this or me or whatever, go right ahead.
I've got other things going on.
I've got a busy life and so I don't waste my time.
just do the things that I wanna do and usually it's pretty fruitful.
Yeah, we always like to say, or I always like to say when I say we, mean, like my family,my wife and I, because we're together since 20 years, we build everything together.
Um, so I always like to say in Germany, there's often too much opinion for too lessknowledge.

(48:07):
Right.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so, but, getting back to getting back to, um, the main topic.
So in.
So, so network marketing.
So we started to build it.
talked to a few people who are very successful and I said, just, just show me how itworks.
I'm going to ignore the people who are not successful.
I want to learn it.

(48:28):
took me a while.
So it took me almost, I would say like two years to understand how it really works.
Right.
But we became financially free, like completely free after, I would say after three and ahalf years into the business, right.
Because we understood and now comes the, to close the loop.
Yeah.
we understood it is literally about help other people to become successful.

(48:52):
And I didn't understand that in the beginning, because when you start a business and look,all those people who online tell me I do it for a bigger purpose, for me, it's all
bullshit.
You start a business to make money.
That's where you start a business.
Right.
So, but later on, or if you're already successful in your life.
So I think when you started this podcast and correct me if I'm wrong,

(49:15):
The main purpose was not to maybe create an additional income stream here because you arealready successful, you don't need it that much, but if it turns out to be successful,
financially perfect.
That's exactly it.
I don't make any money.
not really, I don't really have an intention of making money with this.
My goal is to help people get onto the mats and showcase that this community is full ofwonderful, whole, complete, learned people.

(49:41):
Yeah.
says, I create a supplement business because I want to help people know in the firstplace, you want to make money.
And if you then help people buy that perfect, just, just my opinion, how most peoplefunction.
And, and that was how I started when I started my new business venture in networkmarketing.
My first goal was I want to make money.

(50:03):
Right.
So I did all the mistakes that most people do.
I ran around everybody who was not on the tree on count of three, as we say in Germany,right?
So I would, I would approach them.
talked to strangers in the city because I didn't have contacts.
Much later, I learned how to work professionally.
And that's what I teach nowadays, to not fall on that.

(50:23):
So one of the things that I'm curious about, because when I was young, my mom got intoHerbalife and I learned all about network marketing, like the broken sides of it, the hard
way, know, too much inventory, not enough focus on sales, focusing on the affiliate side.
Like what are some red flags that from your experience that newly interested people shouldbe looking for for their safety?

(50:48):
And what are some green flags?
Cause I genuinely don't know enough.
Yeah.
I mean, it's very easy to, first of all, Herbalife is a legit company, right?
So, I mean, they sponsor big football clubs, you know, they're on the jerseys, they'relisted on the stock market.
But they made a lot of, I would say like trial and errors.
I never worked with Herbalife, but I'm very deep in the industry.

(51:09):
Don't want to go like in the, like I do complete lectures on the history of networkmarketing, but that would be a little bit too much and too boring for people, guess.
So, so.
But just to quickly uh understand why people had big, like super big orders back in thedays, that wasn't a scam.

(51:30):
There was literally an idea that didn't work out.
It was called front loading, right?
Back um in the 80s, 80s, 90s, right?
No one does that anymore nowadays.
That's not happening anymore.
But they literally said you can order a bigger chunk of products and you get a higherdiscount.
But of course the company expect the people also to sell it.

(51:52):
But then what did, what did the, we call up lines do, right?
Like the people who are above like, and managing the affiliate system, they were like, ifeverybody orders a lot now, we all make a lot more money because a lot more products get
sold as we get paid on volume.
And instead of my opinion, really leaving it to the people who can sell, they sold likethose huge packages to everyone.

(52:15):
And that's where the
The old saying comes from, I know someone who still has a garage full of products.
That wasn't the eighties, nineties.
That doesn't exist anymore.
Right.
But yeah, what are the green flags, the red flags?
First of all, you need to have a product or a service that people also would use if theydon't do the affiliate program.

(52:35):
That's number one.
Right.
So, and this also eliminates all the crypto and um financial schemes that are out there.
they don't produce anything.
is no let me think of the English word.
There has to be a chain of production kind of right.

(52:57):
let's go into economy just for a second.
What's the only way on planet Earth to make money to generate an income is always tradingits sales, right?
So if you work as a support agent in one company, you get paid by the sales the companydoes.
Yep.

(53:17):
Yep.
and if you work for the state and you say, no, I'm a policeman, I'm a whatever fireman.
Yeah.
You get paid by taxes, which get paid by people who sell something.
So it's always, it always leads back to that.
Right.
So the main idea always has to be, is there a product or a service that gets sold?
And if the answer is yes, you're already on the, on the green side.

(53:39):
Right.
So, and then second thing I would look out for is, um,
Is the company around for a certain amount of time?
It's hard to say nowadays, back in the days we said at least like five years, but nowadayslife cycles of each company's worldwide are so fast.
You cannot even say if a company makes 10 years, even if it's very successful.

(54:01):
used to work with the company um for almost 13 years, the company, I'm sorry, for 11years, the company.
I think they're still around, but they had their peak after six, seven years.
They made like $8 billion in sales, fastest growing company in the industry out of theUnited States, out of Florida.

(54:22):
But they're about to close down now.
So it was a giant, you know.
So you cannot say that anymore.
But I would look out for, I'd say like at least regulations, like which country they'resitting, you know.
So if you have an American company, you usually are very safe because the most regulatedcountry is the United States.
Right.

(54:42):
So if you want to look for that, right.
um Then, yeah, you should look at the compensation plan, like how much money really getspaid out.
If you see they pay out over a hundred percent, it's impossible that will never work out.
So it has to be like a healthy balance.
Um, yeah.
And in general, as a, you want to do the business, look for a good support system, goodmentors who really teach you and have your success in mind.

(55:09):
would say that is way more important than, the company itself.
Like find the right tribe back to community, right?
Find the right tribe that, really wants to help you to succeed.
And now going back to that, we don't forget the questions.
What changed was literally the same approach that I, after a while said, okay, let's notfocus on myself now, but let's now really do this thing.

(55:33):
What I heard from all the big speakers.
I don't know if you know about Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins, might know as well.
uh And everybody always said, Jamron, everybody always said, help other people to becomesuccessful and you will be successful.
And always thought.
Of course you say that, because you're a millionaire, you're on stage and it sounds good,that's bullshit.

(55:54):
But much later I understood that is true for every aspect in life.
Circle back to Jiujitsu.
If you help people to get better, will you be successful with your school?
1000%.
Have you only keep in mind that you make money?
Not so much.
I think it's this really interesting balance of like, it's if you focus just on, you haveto focus a little bit on your success in order to help other people be able to achieve

(56:21):
their success.
And so it's like finding that balance of when do I focus on myself to figure out when Ican switch?
Because I did the same thing in my earlier career.
I was really focused on myself learning martial arts, building the businesses.
And until I got to a point where I was reasonably,
safe and successful and secure.
And then my view completely switched and now the majority of what I do is helping others.

(56:44):
But I could not do that if I hadn't focused on myself.
Yeah, there's another saying you have to be selfless to be, um what's the right word inEnglish?
You have to be selfish to be selfless.
Exactly.
So it's the same thing with the, um think a good analogy is the airplane, right?
With the oxygen mask.

(57:05):
oh for your thirst, because only then you can help people, right?
Because we can never act positively out of fear and m anxiety and problems.
You you gotta have yourself in order.
a really good lesson.
And that's something that I wish I had learned earlier in my life, in my career, becauseit would have in many ways given me more of a goal, because I didn't know why I was

(57:33):
spending so much time working on my professional skills or working on my martial artsskills.
I was just doing it because.
if I knew, I mean, I don't know that I would have bought into it, but if I knew that therewas that goal of like in the future, I'd be able to like.
live in service of others in many ways.
think it would probably have helped me with purpose and direction.

(57:53):
question is if you're young, if you would even accept that idea, know, that's no, I mean,you're meaning that everything came at the right time.
And there's another thing about success.
It's like many, many years ago, but I heard and read about that study that the averagelottery winner is broke again after seven years.

(58:16):
And that includes like every level of winning of wins, right?
Like the
people who made like 20 million, the people that made like 1 million.
And the reason is pretty obvious because those people never became the personality toreceive such amount of money.
But if you first develop your personality and you get the right mindset and then thesuccess comes later, you can handle it.

(58:42):
Yeah, I think that's a really, yeah, and I...
I didn't put effort, at least me, I didn't put effort into the, in all kinds of personalgrowth when I was younger.
I put it into my professional success.
put it into physical stuff.
But I think the last thing that I put the effort in is like, you know, the self growth,the self awareness, the emotional growth.

(59:05):
And now it's making it more difficult to learn.
But I think it's something that would have been incredibly helpful when I was younger.
I would have been a better manager.
I would have been a better leader.
And yet I was still leading soldiers.
I was still managing people.
just doing it very poorly.
And it made living in service of the community a very difficult thing to do not knowinghow to sort of navigate those things.

(59:26):
So you also were military in the US?
Yeah?
I did eight years in the military.
was deployed to Iraq.
I did a bunch of national guard stuff inside the U S, uh, had a bunch of trainings withsome internal stuff with like Rangers and special forces stuff.
So I really trained around the military a lot.
you train in Germany, Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels?

(59:48):
okay.
Because I was stationed there for one year and that was before Iraq, actually, becausewe're the same age, said.
That was before Iraq and we managed all the checkpoints.
Maybe we have cross paths there.
Sometimes the world is small, you know?
I have found that it is in the military very small.
came through Germany, we entered into Iraq through Germany and we, yeah, Rammstein, uh wewere there for I think two days and then on the way out we were there for two or three

(01:00:16):
days.
uh So I don't know that our paths would have crossed there, but...
Sometimes the world is small, you know.
Well, given that Peter Shira, we both trained under him and we were both in the military,I'm surprised our paths haven't specifically crossed or maybe they haven't, we just don't
remember.
One thing...
I left 2017 as I said, so you train with them before or after.

(01:00:39):
Yeah, okay.
or 2019, I forget.
It's somewhere in that area.
One thing I wanted to ask you about that I think is really interesting about the way youtalk about network marketing is I think just a good idea in general is like the four
pillars of success of self industry product and company belief.

(01:01:01):
The thing that I really want to know is when did that not work?
Like, because I love having these like, hey, here's how I think about things, but I alsoreally like when something stops functioning and you got to work through that.
the four pillars, you got that from one of my videos and the research or?
Okay.
because I like doing research on people.
I like learning about people and then talking to them.

(01:01:24):
Yeah.
So, so basically the, let's go into the four pillars and then I get into my story withthat.
So, so basically, I mean, the green flags, obviously product and service, you need to be aproduct of the product.
Like don't do a business where you don't believe in a product.
That's number one, which leads back to only doing it for the money.
It's hard to, it's hard to grow.

(01:01:45):
Right.
number two then is, uh choose the right company.
Just make sure that you have a company that fits you, I would say.
So if you're not into supplements, why would you work with a supplement company?
So next thing, um like management overall or the company as a management, um do I relateto those people?

(01:02:15):
Can I believe those people?
What about the team around the infrastructure and so on?
But the hardest part is the belief in yourself.
And this is where I struggled the most, I would say.
So I even had uh a moment.
Okay, so this is a good loop to close the story from before.

(01:02:35):
So we sold the gyms.
I was already doing network marketing with a company also out of the States.
The company was called Monavy.
It's not around anymore.
So I can mention the name.
um So this company sold acai juices.
which is an interesting correlation to Brazil.
But they sold acai juices in wine bottles.

(01:02:59):
Okay.
So, and I started with them, but it didn't really work out.
So actually I started in Spain already when I had my gyms.
And during having my gyms, I already started building my little group.
And also to those people who say, I don't know anyone or
I cannot build a business because I don't have time.
was working 17 hours a day in the gym, opening the morning, closing at night.

(01:03:22):
And I still found time to meet people in between and talked about the opportunity toproduct and so on.
So if you want to find a way, there is a way.
That's what I want to say.
But anyways, sold the gyms, went back to Germany, lived in my grandmother's attic, hadthat plan to build that business out, but it really didn't work.
I was literally running against windmills.

(01:03:42):
I don't know if you say that in English as well.
we say running into the wind or running uphill.
Okay, that's coming from, I think the Don Quixote, you know, the story.
Yeah, okay, don't you already have we call them Don Quixote, .
but anyways, so it just didn't work out and I was really struggling to pull off mybusiness.

(01:04:03):
never made more than I think the maximum I made ever was like $2,300 in one month, but onaverage it was like $1,000 a month.
So as a side hustle, that would be an amazing income.
Imagine you have your main income and with a side hustle you make a thousand extra, That'sby the way what 99 % of people that were marketing do anyways as a side hustle.

(01:04:24):
But I was full time.
And then you have taxes and then you need to meet people and then you need to buy coffeeif you have a meeting somewhere, right?
So it wasn't enough.
So I did something I thought I will never do in my life.
I took a job.
So I took a job.
a friend who has a sales company in the fitness industry.

(01:04:46):
So he employed me and I said, okay, I need that to support my family because it's just notgoing.
I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, it's not working.
So em what em I would say like, I loved the job for the first 60 seconds.
Okay.
Because when I came in and I sat down, the first thing they told me is, please put yourphone in the drawer.

(01:05:08):
We don't want to see your phone at work.
But was always self-employed and they wanted me to do sales.
Like how do they expect me to do sales when I'm not allowed to connect?
No, no, you have to use the company phone.
And also you cannot go out.
You have to do everything on the phone.
And I tell them, guys, I'm a sales expert.
I meet people.
I build relationships.
Let me drive to the gyms.

(01:05:29):
Let me meet.
Nope, that's not how it works.
I started hating it after the first minute, right?
But I did it anyways for like six months.
And I was kind of...
trapped again in the rat race.
Yeah.
And by rat race, I know many people like their job, but it's not too many, right?
It's like most people actually don't like what they do.
They don't wake up in the morning and say, I'm excited to meet the people at work.

(01:05:52):
I'm excited to do what I get paid for.
And I admire everyone who is, but in my case, it was literally every morning, fuck, I haveto go to work again.
Right.
So, then time was so slow.
Right.
Uh, I thought it's like, whatever already noon time, but it was only eight 30.
So
Anyways, ah I stopped literally because I was so frustrated.

(01:06:13):
stopped building my own business and I did less and less and less for my own business.
And I fell back into that, that rat race literally because I was like, man, I'm gettingpaid.
I hate it, but I'm getting paid.
I'm safe.
And I was never safe.
First time in my life, I was sick and I didn't show up.
I didn't know that as an entrepreneur, right?
It's not like uh that you just stay home, you know?

(01:06:37):
So.
Did less and less and less and there was a point where I completely quit.
And one day I came home.
My wife and my back in the day's best friend Christian were in our like 30 square meterapartment and our little like there was only one table in the middle, a couch and then a
little sleeping area.
And they were sitting at the main table and I came in like exhausted as always.

(01:07:01):
And they're like, okay, Fabi, we got to talk.
I said, what's this?
And I don't know if you know how I met your mother, if you remember the TV show, you know,the intervention when they put up the signs like that.
But without the sign.
So literally say, we got to, we got to talk.
said, what is it about?
And I said, it's about you.
said, yeah, okay.
Then let's go.
And I was not really into it yet.

(01:07:23):
But then my friend said, Fabi, I want to know what happened to the guy with the vision,the guy who really wanted to lead the guy who had a big dream.
the guy who wanted to be a big leader.
I see a guy who comes home every night, is frustrated, sits down on the couch, watchesNetflix and goes for the next day.

(01:07:44):
That's not you.
What happened?
Right.
And I said, oh, I'm just doing a little break right now.
I will go back to my own business a little bit later.
I just need a little bit of rest.
I look at him and he says, stop bullshitting.
Like, I'm your best friend.
This is your wife.
Like, what is going on?
We want to know the truth.
And it was the first time I had a little watery eyes, you know, and I said, you know, thetruth is, I think I'm not good enough.

(01:08:10):
I try, I try as hard as I can, but it's not working out.
Like I see all those other people, like my mentors, my friends, they're all succeeding upto a point that they're making millions.
And I'm building, I'm losing, I'm building, I'm losing, I'm building, I'm losing.
Maybe it's not for me, maybe I just can't do it.
Like, was so much self-doubt, right?

(01:08:32):
No.
I just didn't believe in myself.
And then he said, and that was actually the turning point of the story I told you before.
So he said, okay, before you quit, okay, I want you to think about one thing.
If you give up on your dreams, you will also give up on other people's dreams.
And I tell you why, because there are people that are following you.

(01:08:53):
They have heard your story with the gyms and how he came from Spain and that you'rebuilding that now.
Maybe you talk to them yourself.
Maybe they have seen you on one of the seminars speaking.
If you give up now, you also will make them give up because they will not believe inthemselves.
So far they believe that you believe in it.
That made them believe in themselves.

(01:09:13):
So I just want you, want you to be clear about that.
And that was actually the moment when we decided, okay, let's give it one more shot.
But this time let's focus on the success of others instead of our own success.
Right.
So that was how everything.
people that are doing that for you, because not everyone has that kind of support.
And the fact that you had not one person in your wife, but a second in your best friend,that's like an incredible stability.

(01:09:38):
Yeah, but that leads back to the whole topic, personal development, because my best friendis a very successful coach.
And we went together to Tony Robbins seminars.
I we went around the world.
possibly spent around over the years, possibly a quarter million dollars for personaldevelopment seminars.
Not at once, like over the last whatever years, of course, it's always in relation to whatyou also earn, right?

(01:10:04):
But the best investment you always can do is the investment in yourself.
I think everybody has heard that.
And if people tell me those seminars are bullshits, these are wannabe gurus, how come thatthe first two rows are all multimillionaires in those seminars?
So I always try to get a ticket in the front.
Nowadays I can afford them.
Back in the day it was a real hassle.

(01:10:25):
But just the network of those people lifts you up tremendously.
I know so many successful people.
I actually have contact nowadays to billionaires.
I never knew where would I find billionaires.
Now I went to dinners with billionaires just because I have people in my network who havethem in their network.

(01:10:47):
So there's another very old quote from Jim Rohn, who was actually the mentor of TonyRobbins.
He was the first like, economical philosopher in the United States.
I think they would count him.
And he always said, you are always the average of the three to five people you spend themost time with.

(01:11:07):
So choose wisely.
Right.
And I think that's one, one tip I always, um I always followed as soon as I heard aboutit.
And now back to the loop, Jiujitsu, same thing.
Hang around with five high level black bells.
You will see how fast you get to a super high level.

(01:11:27):
Right.
I just want to ask one question.
you at this point when you were struggling, you were probably at least a brown belt orsomething like that.
okay, so I found that in a lot of ways, jujitsu gives people even if it's just one in thatvertical, it gives people like self confidence that they often didn't have before.

(01:11:48):
Did you find that you were feeling safe?
in your own capabilities or did you find that you started questioning jujitsu as afunction of well I'm not really happy in my life like where was that interplay of like
self confidence when you were struggling.
think life is always easy to learn backwards.

(01:12:12):
now if I would nowadays be in that situation, I have been in that situation, because thecompany before we've built together with our team over a million customers and
distributors in 133 countries over a decade.
So that was a huge business.
had 17 millionaires in our group.

(01:12:32):
oh
Tremendous success, but then three years ago we restarted with a whole new business.
So we just made a cut voluntarily because I've seen that this company wasn't last muchlonger with that success.
They were declining.
My check dropped, which also equals that the check of my people will drop.

(01:12:54):
So we restarted from scratch and that was a hard decision to say, okay, can we do itagain?
Right?
Can we really rebuild again with new people from scratch?
Because
Not everybody was keen to uh leave with us.
So nowadays, yes, back in the days to answer your question, um I never lost doubt inJiu-Jitsu, was kind of my anchor, I would say.

(01:13:20):
Because the cool thing about that sport is if you have a lot of stress and I also suffereduh anxiety, panic attacks, um not really depression, but that came from my military times.
possibly you know a lot of people.
it that transition leaves you with depression sometimes it's really a struggle.
yeah, but also the, also the high, um, like for me, at least, I think it's also a littlebit possibly genetically how you can handle stress.

(01:13:47):
I can handle stress very well, but as soon as I calm down, I can handle it anymore.
Right.
During stressful situations I'm there, but then the, the switch to that, my nerve systemsays, okay, now you can relax.
Now you're safe.
cannot.
Like when I moved to Uganda, I was, because I didn't know the country where we're in theforest, I was always on alert.
Yeah.
if I hear a noise, boom, I pop up.

(01:14:08):
said, okay, I got to protect my family.
Right.
anyways, so Jiujitsu was always my outlet because in Jiujitsu, you're literally in thefight or flight mode, involuntarily, because you're in a fight, even though you don't get
literally hurt.
Right.
So, and that was always helping me to, in highly stressful situations to, I would say liketo calm my nerves.

(01:14:30):
So quite the opposite.
Um, did I answer your question actually?
Not exactly the reason the thing that I'm asking no, that's okay It's a very specificquestion and it's something that I've thought about a bunch like when I go through
difficult times ah And I know I'm still good at something like I know I'm still good atjujitsu I know, you know now I'm really good professionally, but ah Like I still have in

(01:14:53):
the in my back pocket that I was an all-american wrestler like that sort of can or shouldgive me confidence that I'm capable of accomplishing something and yet I still was like
How can I be so down on myself in this moment?
And so the question is basically, you were really down on yourself.
Like, I don't know if I'm cut out for this, but yet you had made it to brown belt injujitsu, which is not an easy thing to do in and of itself.

(01:15:15):
Like, where was that confidence or did it not transfer for you in those moments ofstruggle?
it didn't transfer in those moments because for me it was so different doing mind workslash business to physical work.
Because I so I played I played European football, it's called this way.

(01:15:36):
So I played European football in the in highest youth league.
Okay.
I played beach volleyball in the highest leagues.
I did the world championship in breakdancing, right?
Then I did the
didn't finish but uh started the special forces training in Germany and before I gotinjured was told that I was one of the best in the class, but this was all physical.

(01:16:03):
But now the entrepreneurial road was literally it's not depending on me.
So I cannot perform myself and suddenly everything works.
You need patience, you need to learn new skills, but you don't have an instant feedbacklike you would have rolling.
Yeah.
Hopefully that answers it.
So that's why I could never really say, I accomplished and achieved so many things on anathletic level, but I cannot transfer that to my entrepreneurial success.

(01:16:37):
It answered the question and actually more than I was specifically asking, which I reallylike.
Like it was, it's this thing.
It's this difficulty of like, if I'm successful at one thing, can I be successful atanother?
Or if I'm successful at this thing once, can I do it again?
And you actually answered both of those questions at like the last three minutes, which Ithink is super interesting.

(01:16:58):
What made you think that you could do it again?
Like leave your current job and like go, you know, Hey, can I build the same ish businessa second time?
and be successful.
Because that's like one of those things all entrepreneurs ask themselves.
Yeah, but later it changed because later I had the skills, right?
When I started the first time, I literally didn't know what to do.

(01:17:19):
Like I didn't know what to teach people.
knew how to sell, right?
So I could sell people a product or I could sell people the idea of a built your ownbusiness with me and become an affiliate if you like the product.
And then we build customers together.
I could do that, but then I didn't know what to teach them exactly.
Right.
So now I am.

(01:17:40):
such a good trainer in our specific industry of network marketing, sales, right?
That I can take a new person, a random person, a housewife from where they are and makethem successful if they want to be successful by really teaching them the skills.
Because every business I would say is a skill-based business.

(01:18:02):
Same like any sport, it's a skill-based sport, right?
No one can just randomly come in and dominate everyone just by nature or talent.
It's not going to work.
Right.
So, yeah.
So, so I think what really gives you security is two things.
Number one, um, your skillset slash personality.

(01:18:22):
think skillset goes very much into your personality because the more skillful you get, themore, the more secure of yourself you also are, you know, if you go into any conversation.
And the second thing, what
So basically there's two things that no one ever can take from you.
And when you realize that once, then you kind of are safe.

(01:18:44):
think number one is your personality, like skill set number two is your network.
And a great example is Donald Trump.
And I know not everybody loves Donald Trump in the United States, but so, but in general,if you take him as a businessman and you would say, okay, this guy was billion dollars in
depth.
how did he come back?

(01:19:04):
And I don't care what funny stories.
people come up with.
The truth is he had the personality, the knowledge and the skill set and he had thenetwork of people who say, yes, I give you the money, I borrowed your money because I
believe in your skill set that you can build it up again.
And he did.
Right.
So that's why I say like those two things.
I don't know.

(01:19:24):
It's hard to look at.
I absolutely do not like Donald Trump.
But one thing I can say is he is incredibly charismatic and his authentically who he is,which is often just a uh con man, but a charismatic one.
He sticks to who he is.

(01:19:46):
He was like, I'm not going to pay people all the way and save money that way.
And he did that for
decades, you know, and, that got him money.
And there are people who invest in that kind of business mindset and his network waspeople who are like that.
So I, as much as I dislike him and have to uh besmirch the way he operates, he isconsistent.

(01:20:13):
He chose a path.
and pattern that worked and he stuck to it.
And I think if you take nothing else from him, that is an incredible lesson in businessand mindset to take from him.
and political opinions completely aside, it was just an example that if you have a certainskill set and you have a network you can rely on, then you always will end up on top

(01:20:35):
somehow.
know, like in character and all of that, we can completely put aside, it was just oneexample of many, you know.
but I think that's, I think it's incredibly valuable to take lessons from people in thisway.
And again, like him or hate him, he's incredibly successful depending on your definitionof success.
And if you can take the right things away from that, you should, you should look at thatand say, how can I become better person?

(01:21:00):
Like knowing what to do or what not to do, depending on who you look at.
So to make it round, why I wasn't scared because I had the skill set and I had thenetwork, you know, and I knew, I have 4,500 phone numbers just in my phone.
So, and I can restart the business any day and I can build a whole new group of clients,of affiliates, uh but also other businesses.

(01:21:26):
So I don't do only network marketing.
I five businesses in total I'm running.
uh
Like one of them is like completely traditional like the Jiu Jitsu schools, as I said, afew others are online.
teach, we have an online course we teach in Germany specifically and sell there.
We just present like a pro, it's about keynote speaking because I do a lot of keynotes forbig audiences.

(01:21:47):
So we take people there.
But this all came then through the network, right?
Because I have business partners in the businesses.
My partner in Dubai for our Gracie Barra schools is my former uh coach from Dubai.
Also network, that's what I'm saying.
We always stood in touch, even I left the country a while ago, we became close friends andas part of the network and suddenly out of the network, there's a business opportunity.

(01:22:17):
I like to call it social capital, right?
Like I think about it, I don't know where I heard the.
the phrase specifically, think now it gets thrown around a lot, but I've been calling itsocial capital in the sense that like, I will constantly try to do things for people and
not ask for a payback, whether that's financial or whatever.
And then occasionally somebody's like, hey, by the way, you did this thing for me manyyears ago and I haven't forgotten about it.

(01:22:40):
And I'm like, sometimes they'll be like, that's great.
Who are you?
Because for me, it's just a method of operation.
Not that I'm willingly forgetting people, but you know, as we talked about earlier, mymemory is not what it used to be.
sometimes I'm just like, yeah, okay, cool.
I'm glad that worked well for you.
It's also version of uh help others to be successful and you will be successful becauseyou get paid it back.

(01:23:05):
Or it's also what I said before, uh give and you will give them back by a hundredfold orwhatever somehow, you know, and I do the same thing.
Network also means nurture, nurture your social surrounding, right?
If someone has a problem and I cannot help directly, I usually connect them to someone.

(01:23:27):
Right.
So as of now, we did 27 to 28 business openings and um Emirates IDs in the UAE for peopleI knew or I didn't know before.
But I have a guy who does it for an amazing price.
I don't get anything for that.
I just refer him, right?

(01:23:48):
And people are super happy.
And then they come back one day and say, hey, everything worked out fine.
And sometimes there are other opportunities coming out of that.
Mostly not, but it's cool.
I'm happy when they're happy.
I uh think that's a great idea to sort of perpetuate and help people to do because whenyou pay it forward, other people pay it forward.
I really like that.

(01:24:09):
Not everybody though.
We have to believe in the good.
So you like you own or you uh partially own that school in Dubai.
Is there anything I'm curious about jujitsu in Dubai that's culturally different?
mean, I know you talked earlier about having so many black belts, but you know, I'vetrained and maybe

(01:24:32):
25, 30 different countries and I feel like it's different but I've never trained in Dubai.
Like what is different to you in Dubai versus other places?
First of all, Dubai is, would say nowadays, the Jiu-Jitsu hub, even bigger than Abu Dhabi,even though Abu Dhabi started it with ADCC.
There's a huge culture around BJJ because the military and the police are, it's anobligation to train Jiu-Jitsu.

(01:24:59):
That's why they brought all those Brazilians there in the first place.
They all worked for one company called Palm Sports and that company basically catered tothe military and the police.
So I was a big...
big opportunity for many Brazilians who were not so um wealthy but great in the sport tofinally make a living out of jiu-jitsu without even being a competitor because, you know,

(01:25:21):
the sport didn't pay much back in the days, you know.
So, which means, first of all, the culture is that everybody's welcome because youliterally have drop-ins every day.
I mean, right now we have around in Dubai, um
think it's 90,000 people per month coming currently to Dubai.

(01:25:44):
So the population is growing like crazy, right?
We have all the big schools.
have Noguera there.
have um Royce Gracie there.
We have Gracie Barra there.
ah We have um what's his name ah from London.
Hence, Renzo Gracie.

(01:26:05):
okay.
Yeah, so everybody's there basically has their own schools.
A 10th planet just opened.
it's almost like in the United States where you have all the schools, you have the samelike in Dubai now.
But you can literally drop in anywhere.
uh Open mats are usually organized in WhatsApp groups.

(01:26:26):
So we have open mats where all the black belts meet.
And then possibly you have like 40, 50 black belts on the mat.
for an open mat, which is kind of crazy and they're like two colored belts, those poorguys.
But no, I would say in general, it's a very welcoming uh culture, right?
And very fast developing level-wise and skill-wise.

(01:26:49):
The other thing, what I would say is a little bit of a downside for like from my opiniononly, that's like my personal opinion, is we have a...
We have a huge MMA culture as well.
So we have like guys like Khamzat Chimaev now living in the UAE training there.
We have a lot of like Dagestani wrestlers and they also sometimes come to open mats andthey wear like a white belt, but our Dagestani whatever national champion in wrestling,

(01:27:17):
you know, and uh different mentality.
So you would need to be a little bit careful sometimes when someone comes with twocauliflower ears and wearing a white belt and having a beard, but no mustache.
Be careful, you know.
I find that still happens sometimes with like Luta Livre, right?
Like you get a jujitsu white belt, come in and they're Luta Livre black belts and you'relike, why did I just get killed by this person with like a backside 50-50 or inside heel

(01:27:42):
hook?
And you're like, what?
With white belt?
And then you're like, oh, you're a Luta Livre black belt.
get it.
Yeah, but yeah, the culture is great.
I really, I really love it.
And uh it's also very much, I don't know the word in English, but maybe you know theGerman word, Breitensport.
Do you know the word?
it's like, just like there's a wide variety.

(01:28:04):
It's catering to the masses, right?
So there's a lot of...
a lot of availability is I get.
Yeah, I think why there's the word the direct translation doesn't exist in English.
um
So, yeah, catering to the masses more like amateur, like uh having the moms and dads,know, the housewives, the managers, the lawyers, the workers, like everybody's kind of

(01:28:26):
represented and not with the will to be a competitor.
But on the other side, we have the worlds in Dubai every year.
So there's always uh like, they're always like great competitions where everybody canparticipate as well.
There's even a stadium in
Abu Dhabi called the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Stadium.
So culture is great.

(01:28:47):
very intensely cultural.
You moved to Mauritius, like what precipitated the move to Mauritius?
I feel like that's not a common place you hear about people moving to.
So I live between Dubai and Mauritius actually.
So we have a places or spots in both places.
But it's the contrast.
in Dubai, everything is first of all, Dubai is not as you see on TV if you have never beenthere.

(01:29:11):
Right.
It's not all luxury and supercars and you don't need to be a millionaire to live in Dubai.
So that's that's BS.
Right.
You can literally with a I would say like a European wage, you still could live good inDubai.
Okay.
But it's very dynamic, it's very fast, and it's very much Disneyland.

(01:29:31):
It's super safe.
But we were thinking my daughter obviously is of different skin color.
So my wife and I are white, my daughter is black.
And there's not so many places where you have...
I mean, there's always, I would say racism is everywhere somehow.
But the racism is so low in Dubai that definitely is one place we want to live.

(01:29:55):
But then...
Talking to all my friends who have teenagers, they all kind of regret that the ah kid grewup in Dubai because again, it's Disneyland, right?
And they get like very weird perceptions.
Even though if you're adult and you understand the world and it's not about money, it'snot about materialistic things.

(01:30:18):
If you are in school, and here's a good example, a friend of mine who also just moved toDubai last week, by the way, business partner of mine and uh
also in the network marketing space, very successful.
She lived in Dubai and she's also not about fancy stuff.
But then her son came home and he's six years now.
And he said, mommy, why don't we have a Porsche?

(01:30:38):
Right.
Because he sees the parents of the other kids who like fancy stuff, right.
Coming with expensive watches and expensive cars.
And the kids start talking about that.
Right.
And so that was the moment also when she realized, man, I don't want my kid to grow up inthat kind of mindset.
It's great to think big, but it's not great to think success equals fancy brands.

(01:31:04):
Right.
I recently did a speech as an example.
Um, so it was a, it was a bigger speech.
think we had like 8,000 people in the audience and I went on stage in board shorts andflip flops.
Right.
So, uh, everybody else wearing the suits, but I just wanted to make a point.
And part of the speech was basically ask people, why do you think the brand of yourt-shirt is always on the outside and not on the inside?

(01:31:28):
Is that other people can see it and not you can see because you know what you're wearing,right?
and successes, successes defined different by any person.
And now to your other question, why Mauritius?
Because my biggest value of success is freedom.
Right.
And I like to kitesurf.
I like to be in the water.
I like to wear board shorts and flip flops every day, you know?

(01:31:49):
Yeah.
wake up in the morning, go out in the sun.
I like the laid back lifestyle.
Here in Mauritius, there are no fancy cars, right?
There's an island.
So I drive a pickup truck here, very, very casual.
if someone would come around with a G-Wagon, people would look like, what's wrong withthis guy?

(01:32:10):
So, while it's in Dubai, it's the most normal thing.
It's almost like the Nissan Corolla or something, Toyota Corolla.
Everybody drives an Ubers now.
So I like the contrast of both.
That's what I'm saying.
The problem on the island life is though, if you are an entrepreneur, it's kind of, if youstay too long, you kind of fall into that very laid back lifestyle and you become a little

(01:32:35):
bit lazy because again, it's the three to five people you surround yourself with.
And in Dubai, you always have that, dynamics of being, being more successful.
Good example.
And even though I say now materialistic things are not so intriguing to me, but it is agood example.
You go to the Marina in Dubai and you see all those boats.

(01:32:57):
And I was in a boat club, a boat club, meaning you pay a few hundred dollars per month andyou can rent a boat, I think four times a week, which was an amazing deal.
So we went wakeboarding, went like barbecue on the world Island stuff.
So you have like smaller boats, which are, I think like a maximum of eight meters orsomething in length.
But hey, you're driving with the boat through the Marina.

(01:33:18):
How fancy is that?
And then you pass by those like mid-sized yachts and you're like, man, this thing is likethree, four, five million dollars.
And it's just parked here half of the year, you know, like what kind of people own thatstuff?
And then you say, okay.
Yeah, exactly.
So you're like, okay, there's levels to it.
So there's like millionaires.
Then you see like the bigger yards, like, okay, there's also multimillionaires becauseDCRs are not even the Marina because they're too big.

(01:33:44):
They're parked outside.
Right.
And then you pass by Sheikh Mohammed's Island and you see like almost a cruise ship andyou realize, okay, there's also billionaires.
Right.
So again, not to, not to talk about the materialistic thing, but talking about the levels.
If you're in Dubai, you always feel kind of not successful.

(01:34:05):
Doesn't matter how successful you are because there's like 150 people more successful thanyou in the same area.
And that kind of, if you want to be successful in whatever sense, you're like, okay.
Let me spend time with those guys and let me find out what they do different, right?
And how I can level up.
And that's why I like both.
One of the things that's interesting about what you said is you very specifically seem tobalance your time between things that are personal and humbling and things that are um

(01:34:37):
ambitious and driving like just to like give the juxtaposition in a clearer sensekitesurfing like I've done it a bunch uh and it's one of those things where you're on your
own you're doing it by yourself and
It can be dangerous, right?
You're out in the water, you can get thrown, you could like, there's a lot of stuff thatcan happen.

(01:34:59):
Jiu-Jitsu, it's safe, it can be dangerous, but it's mostly on you, even though you have ateam around you.
And those things are both humbling experiences.
And you juxtapose that against, I have this success in Dubai and wanting to like live inthis business focused, ambitious world.

(01:35:21):
You juxtapose these ideas for yourself.
Is that like an intentional thing?
that's a good question.
Never thought about that.
I think the sports, kitesurfing, specifically like going in the waves, which is a bitmore...
Adrenaline kicking if that makes sense, you know, because you don't want to you don't wantto fuck up if your kite tumbles in the waves, you know what happens so same like skydiving

(01:35:47):
don't don't mess up with your gear, you know, you're in trouble.
um But but I'm also I would say nowadays very careful since I have a daughter.
So I never go out into the ways by myself always go with a buddy, right?
um
just to be safe.
Recently someone actually died in Mauritius, which was very seldom, but one kitesurferdisappeared.

(01:36:10):
ah They couldn't find him, they don't know what exactly happened, only found the gearafter a while.
um But he went out by himself in One Eye, which is one of the most, I would say,challenging spots, wave spots in the world.
So I don't want that happen to me, so I'm still careful.
um
I got to think a moment.

(01:36:31):
would say let me come, I don't know if you say that in English actually, but we say like,let me roll it from the other side.
We sort of say, me come back around, let me come at it from the other direction.
Okay, okay, okay.
So let's get back to money.

(01:36:52):
what is money for?
Why do I still like to buy and why still I like the success?
So money for me is printed freedom.
That's number one.
So it's not like that.
Again, I don't care about cars at all.
Right?
I'm super happy.
As I said, like the most expensive car I ever bought was my pickup.

(01:37:12):
It's a pickup truck.
It's Ford, right?
So I don't understand people who pay whatever like a quarter million for a thing on fourwheels.
know, so it's like that just doesn't go on my brain.
um But the resource for me is very important because it's not only freedom for me, it'salso freedom for others as we give a lot.

(01:37:33):
Right.
And uh don't want to go too much into detail as we always decided we don't want to, wewant to give freely without speaking about it.
Right.
But uh
just as a rough overview, we build orphanages right now ourselves.
That's a project of my wife.
We always make sure that people who are not in the same privileged situation than we areget helped.

(01:37:58):
But you need resources for that.
You cannot give if you have nothing.
So that's why it's important for me to build up the resources.
But on the other hand, yes,
The question is, what do you live for?
Because we only have one life and the older we get, obviously, and I'm pretty sure we'veall lost friends already where we were very shocked uh and we realized, life can be over

(01:38:25):
very fast.
You don't know which day.
So what do you live for?
teaches you that unfortunately at a very young age.
So that's where I learned it was the military and with, in firefighting.
So yeah, that's a, that's something that that's a lesson I had early on.
and you're like, man, that could have been me, right?
So if positions would be switched.

(01:38:46):
yeah, so but anyways, the...
um Where was the leading here?
You were talking about why money and uh what having money allows you to do.
Yeah.
were.
So what do you live for is always the question.
What, how much success is enough success?

(01:39:06):
So I have, I have a very good friend, actually one of my, business partners and one of mymentors, one of my closest friends.
He operates on a whole different level.
Like for him, it's also not really about, I would, I would say the money itself.
He loves money and he loves the success and what's correlated to it, but he measures it bybuying things.
So now.

(01:39:28):
His first dream was to own a Porsche, or I think it was a GT4.
So he bought a GT4.
His next dream was a Ferrari.
He bought a Ferrari.
His next dream was he wanted a Lambo.
He got the Lambo Urus.
The next thing was, okay, he bought a Tesla just on the side.
Now he ordered a helicopter.
Okay.
So his next goal is he wants a private plane.
So, and I once talked to him and I said, bro, like, when is it enough?

(01:39:54):
Because after the private plane, what's next?
You will go for a Boeing?
You know, like a 737 or whatever.
And it's his way to think and I appreciate that.
um And I mean, just his house, he rents his house for a million dollars a year.
Right?
So he built houses in Dubai and he rents them for a million dollars a year, like insane.

(01:40:17):
Okay.
So also a whole different level.
But again, like where do you stop?
You never have time for.
Or you don't take the time for the things you really love.
don't even have, now he has hobbies, I, or one hobby at least, which I love a lot.
But before there wasn't a hobby.
It was always about, okay, making more money, more money, more money.
But one day you will just fall dead.

(01:40:40):
And then what?
Then you created a lot of money, but when did you spend time with your friends?
When did you do things you really love?
know?
So that's kind of my, my point to always try to balance that a lot.
And I really work on myself to get better family-wise.
That's something I'm really, really working on to be present, to be in the moment, becausethat is the downside when you have a lot of things going on.

(01:41:04):
When I'm sitting with my family, like typical, when I was growing up, typical German, uhwe sat down and we had dinner altogether.
Right?
So back in the days, I was hating it because I was a kid, but now I appreciate it a lotbecause those conversations overly shaped me, you over the, you don't realize when you're
a kid.
But now I want to do that too, but as soon as I sit down and I'm there to play with mykid, like my mind is already, okay, I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do

(01:41:32):
this call, I have to make a transaction here.
So that's something I'm learning right now.
Personal development never stops.
This is one thing that I really have deeply appreciated about martial arts in general isthat it has taught me the ability to be present because it's less so in jujitsu.
It's overall a little bit safer.
But when I used to do a lot of striking, if you tune out for a moment, you get punched inthe face, you get kicked in the, you and like that ability to force yourself to be present

(01:42:03):
in a moment is something that I've carried from, from
everything from sports into everything else in my life in when I'm having podcastepisodes, when I'm sitting with my friends, when I'm paddle boarding, I'm whatever it is.
Like that lesson for me was one of the most valuable things I've ever taken for martialarts is how to be present.
It doesn't mean it's always easy, but it is, but I have a pathway to do it.

(01:42:26):
Yeah, I'm still learning because in fighting you get forced to it.
I read a lot about uh psychology, nervous system, brain and so on.
mean, it's the typical, you are literally in the fight mode.
Like your sympathetic nervous system takes completely over and you have to be in the zone.

(01:42:47):
It's almost like a natural response.
Whilst when you're sitting on the table, you're not in danger, you're safe.
It's the opposite.
Yeah.
So that's why I'm still struggling with it, but I'm getting better, you know?
So that's just something I want to be able to do.
for you?
Because like you've talked about a whole bunch of different versions of success of peoplethat you know or whatever, like how do you define it these days that you have that goal?

(01:43:15):
Like is it your family?
Is it financial?
it?
You had a great question.
And I would say success is in all different fields.
You have to restart from scratch, right?
Because being financially successful does not mean that you're socially successful or thatyou're successful in your family or that you're successful in your religion slash belief.

(01:43:37):
like you really have to ultimately to master all those different fields that are importantto you, right?
I feel like I mastered maybe one or two, but there's many more I have to become muchbetter.
But what is it for you?
Like, I'll give you an example.
For me, one of my primary definitions of success is being able to have the freedom to dowhat I want.

(01:44:01):
And that doesn't necessarily mean financially.
That means like, I get to spend the majority of my day doing things that I love to do.
I don't hate my job.
I like a lot of the jobs that I get to do between day-to-day work, coaching, the teachingjujitsu, the podcast, the friends that I spend time with, family, like.
That to me is a core definition of success.

(01:44:23):
And I wouldn't have defined it like that, you know, 10 years ago.
So for you, how do you think of success these days?
getting to, maybe it's like a, what is your ideal day?
And you know, like, I'm successful because I made that ideal day.
Uh, so for financial, it's pretty easy because that was the first thing I wanted to masterbecause I think, I mean, sometimes people, especially in Germany, they go around, they say

(01:44:48):
money is not important.
That's like an old saying, which is complete bullshit because it is society driven, right?
I'll give an example in a second, uh if money is not important, why do you go to workevery day?
That's always my counter question.
Right.
But.
I understand where they're coming from because I had the privilege to be on Bora Bora afew times and I made friends with one of the guys who did a coconut show.

(01:45:15):
So this guy came to the hotels and they showed us what they all do with coconuts.
They basically make dishes out of the leaves.
They have different ways to prepare the coconut.
Super cool dude, like long hair, like very dark skin, board shorts every day, old flipflops.
And then we did a jet ski tour.
And I was driving with a jet ski and I see this guy in a little boat fishing, you know, inthe Bora Bora lagoon.

(01:45:42):
So I passed by and I said, hey bro, how's it going?
So we started talking and then I just asked him openly, I said, I just have a question.
Like, do you think it's fair?
Because he told me what he gets paid, which was comparison peanuts.
And I said, do you think it's fair because the hotel charges $2,500 per night, right?
So all the guests you're doing your show to are like very wealthy and they leave.

(01:46:04):
possibly millions of dollars per month in that hotel and they pay you just a little bit.
And he said to me, look, what do I need money for?
I have my son in my boat.
We're sitting here, we're fishing.
We're going to go back to our home.
We have fresh fish.
We're going to cook tonight.
What shall I do with more money?
Right.
So thought there was like a very refreshing idea, but obviously it's cultural.

(01:46:28):
So in Europe, in the United States, you need money to survive.
It's just.
given by society that you need that resource as an exchange for every trade you do.
So just wanted to bring that up quickly.
my first thing was how to find out to master this one.
And there's a great quote from a guy called T Harv Eker I don't know if you ever heardfrom T.

(01:46:52):
Harv He is the first billionaire in the personal development space, even before TonyRobbins.
And he said, financial freedom.
Is the ability to live your life as you wish without having to work for it or beingdependent on a third party.
And I love that, definition.

(01:47:13):
So because financial success for me is directly correlated to, um, let's say like personalsuccess, whatever you wish you want to do, whenever you want to wake up, whenever you want
to travel, whatever you want to buy, if you want to buy things that you have the resourceto do that.
But this is only stage one.

(01:47:34):
And I think this one you master, assume whatever level you reach.
If you want to live as a king in Thailand, yeah, with like $3,000, you live like a king inThailand if it's coming every month, residualy, right?
But if you want to live in Dubai, not so much.
But then on the other hand, like what is success in social?

(01:47:54):
Like, do you have friends you can rely on?
Right?
Let's say, good example, you move your house.
How many people would come and help you to move your house?
That's always a good example, right?
So like how many people are really there?
So that would be like social success.
uh Success in family is how happy are you, right?

(01:48:16):
So do you, when you see your family, are you happy to spend time with them?
Are you willing?
And that's how I see it.
Am I willing to work to have a better relationship?
um
with my wife and with my daughter because I want to.
So I'm working towards the success also in the family.
Otherwise I would say, I don't care.

(01:48:38):
I just go rolling.
I just do Jiu-Jitsu, whatever.
I just go kite surfing and I don't care if you guys are here or not.
And also would they support you, whatever your needs are.
Good example, my wife and I, did everything together.
So we went through, we're 20 years together now.
We went through being successful, but we also went through being completely broke and...

(01:48:58):
living from spaghetti and tomato sauce, back to being very successful.
Right.
So, but she stood on my side.
stood on her side.
So that's maybe how I would measure success there.
And in sports, it's pretty easy, I would say.
You know, there's another quote I love, which is just uh progress equals happiness.
One of my favorite quotes, right.

(01:49:20):
And you are successful if you progress.
And I think that could in general be an
a definition for all kinds of fields of success, it's financially, social, family,whatever.
As long as you progress and you're not stagnating, you are moving forward and you aresuccessful.
If you're then satisfied with that level already, that's a different story.

(01:49:43):
Yeah, I like the idea of targeting contentment, not happiness, because I think happinessis a very difficult thing to achieve.
And it's a high in a lot of ways.
And I think it's hard to exist at a high in the same way that it's hard to exist at a low,right?
Like I like the idea of progress.

(01:50:06):
Like I always
Progress over perfection is one of the things I say most often, right?
Like I'm not aiming for perfection, because I feel like happiness is perfection in a lotof ways.
But if I can aim for contentment and I do that over with progress, that to me has beenlike a good anchor for a better day-to-day life.
Yeah, but also perfection is the lowest standard because you can never reach it.

(01:50:31):
So that's why progression makes much more sense to strive for.
I love what you just said about ah no one is like happiness.
No one can be happy all the time.
Right.
And I told you before a little bit about my uh mental health struggles I had to deal with.
uh that's also an ongoing thing because the brain is

(01:50:54):
is an organ like any other organ you have in your body, but it was overseen for so manyyears.
And now specifically from military standpoint, I don't know if you listen to the Sean Ryanshow, you should really tune in the podcast.
So this guy, started only interviewing operators.

(01:51:14):
He's a former Navy SEAL and he started interviewing Navy SEALs, SAS, Delta Force, alsosome
unknown names, but also some known names like Chipley, J.
Chipley, and all those guys and John Shrek.
But anyways, what is interesting is that all of those guys, I mean, you have to be cutfrom a special cloth.
If you are for so many years in special forces and you have uh a direct actions everysingle night, you know, for four years.

(01:51:43):
But what was super interesting is that all of those guys are almost all of those guys.
Um, have what's now defined as operator syndrome.
It's not PTSD because it comes much later.
So they can handle the stress and the trauma for five years, six years, eight years, 10years, but it will catch you sooner or later.
Right.
So now finally, he was one of the first guys.

(01:52:05):
Everybody started talking openly about mental health issues, specifically with veterans,but then more and more people, also entrepreneurs came up with it.
And I think everybody who was a high performer.
has a different kind of stress level and you have to cope it somehow.
And if you don't learn how to, it's hard.
but one thing I learned was, I mean, it's so easy to understand, but you don't see it.

(01:52:32):
We just go through natural emotional ups and downs.
That's just how we are.
equals at the same time, you cannot be happy at all times.
It's impossible.
So,
But then what are you looking for?
know, if happiness is not always at all times, what are you looking for?
then, would say progression and also being thankful, uh having gratitude is something thatalways helps.

(01:52:59):
When you're not happy, just look back what you already achieved.
Right.
So, and what you had right now.
at it.
I want to comment on something you just said about operator syndrome and PTSD.
And this is something that so I struggled with PTSD for a while because I was in Iraq.
um And when I when I came back, I was anxious about any walking anywhere near a windowbecause we would get shot at and stuff like that.

(01:53:21):
ah
And I learned that like the struggle with PTSD often came from always being reactionary.
And there were much fewer instances of PTSD with uh rangers and with uh special forcesbecause they were often, not always, often on the offensive.
So they were able to like get themselves ready mentally, emotionally to go into thatsituation.

(01:53:46):
And because they were less reactive, they were able to like, I mean, obviously now itcomes out much more as operator
which is the higher stress level.
But that lesson that I took from dealing with my PTSD was whenever I have the option tonot be reactive, but to like try to prep myself in advance, that was a huge lesson that I

(01:54:07):
took away from dealing with the downsides of PTSD and the onset depression from it and allthose things.
Yeah, but you as Americans, you were in a whole different situation because they literallythrow you in a war zone, like in your deployment and then, okay, deployment is over, go to
Starbucks tomorrow.
Right?

(01:54:28):
Like what?
So, and how do you, how you deal with that?
10 days of uh transition if I remember right.
It was nine or 10 days and then I promptly got pulled over in my local town for going like140 miles an hour because my brain was like, no, the last time you were in a car, you were
driving as fast as you could and like weaving under a bridge to avoid IEDs and I justdidn't transition very well.

(01:54:54):
Yeah, and also your awareness changes so much.
You're constantly looking out for threats.
You know, you just walk with your...
And that's one of the things I mentioned before, like when I was in Uganda, unknowncountry in the forest, know, every noise I hear, you know, like stress levels through the
roof.
I couldn't sleep.
My wife sleeps like a baby, you know.
I'm like, okay, so what if someone comes?

(01:55:14):
Because we heard of stories, uh very rarely happened, but of raids, you know, that peopleraided even orphanages, stole stuff.
uh
And then you have, that's another thing.
I don't know if you've ever been deployed to Africa or have been there, but kids aresecurities and they have like old AKs or something, you know, and they're securing the

(01:55:37):
banks or they're securing any store.
They don't even know how to handle a weapon.
Right.
And I'm always like looking out if some of them would go crazy, you know, what, uh, like,what to do.
anyways, so yeah, just, just, just wanted to say that no one should be ashamed of having.
mental issues in general that happens everywhere.
And I would say there's so many people who got saved through Jiujitsu with theirdepression, with their mental health issues and anxiety because they finally have A, an

(01:56:06):
outlet and B, they have a community that understands them.
Right.
And you really have that also, of course, we also roll with females, but you also havethat
that male energy around you, but in a very positive way, not in an I'm the alpha and Iwant to be an alpha too way.
It's literally like, you know, we help you out.

(01:56:30):
I think there's something really interesting about the fact that anti-depressants, likefor sure there's people who need anti-depressants and once it gets really bad, like that's
the thing that you need.
But anti-depressants on the whole have something like a less than 20 % success rate.
maybe it's like 10 or 12%, but exercise has a like a 30 % success rate of reducingdepression.

(01:56:52):
And then on top of that, if you not only do the exercise in jujitsu, but you get thecommunity from it, those are both ways to really help pull yourself out of those deep
holes.
And like you said, I've used martial arts and jujitsu in a lot of years over my, you know,mental health up and ups and downs.
That's a great, it's a great, great tool.

(01:57:14):
mean, at the end, if you have any kind of, let's call it disease, you need a tool to getover the disease.
Sometimes it can be medication, but if you have an injury, yeah, you do physiotherapy, To,to like to strengthen your whatever was ruptured before, but yeah, you might need, you
might be, you might need the surgery.

(01:57:34):
Sometimes you need, might need some medication for start off, but then long-term.
You need a tool, right?
And the jiujitsu is a great tool, definitely.
So I normally ask people at this point, like if there's any piece of advice you wisheveryone knew, but we've talked a lot about that.
you know, and you've done a lot in your life, you know, like you've really, you've reallycovered a spectrum.

(01:57:57):
Like what, what do you want people to know?
Yeah, please.
Yeah.
A white belt is a black belt who never quit.
So if you want to become successful, you start as a white belt, but if you quit too early,you will not get to the black belt level.
So don't quit, go through the ups and downs.

(01:58:19):
You know, if you take our sport, yep, you will get smashed in the beginning, right.
But you will get better.
Yeah, one day you will be the one who smashes, then you will learn that you don't need tosmash anymore, right?
Then you will learn how to have full control over a role.
So same happens in entrepreneurship and in life.
Just don't quit and you will get there eventually.

(01:58:42):
Everything ah is a journey, know, enjoy the journey.
The only thing I would caveat and I love that advice, but the only thing that I caveat isin addition to not quitting, make sure you're looking out for ways to help yourself in
that journey.
Like you use mentors, uh but like there's the idea of making it fun or making itinteresting or being grateful for the journey.

(01:59:08):
Like it's very difficult to not quit if you're not appreciative or grateful or enjoyingyourself.
Agree.
um What are you excited for in the future?
working on myself for sure.
Getting better.
As I said before, becoming a better father because the journey is quite new.
She's turning three in November.

(01:59:30):
So complete a new adventure, you know, and, yeah, in general, I'm enjoying the journey.
never know what's, what's coming next.
I think the world is going to change a lot.
So AI is coming.
We didn't talk about that, but, just on the side note, I don't know if everybody realizedwe are,
in August, 2025 right now and GROK4 just launched, GPT-5 just launched, which both theysay is the closest to an AGI, artificial general intelligence.

(02:00:00):
uh Yeah, so we are close to having an artificial super intelligence and either, I knowthere's different camps, either it will be changing the world for the good or the
opposite.
Who knows?
You know, there's no safety protocol.
We can spend a few minutes talking about AI because this is something that I work in like,you know, my company, have an AI product that does computer vision.

(02:00:26):
We use it very intensely.
You know, I have a couple, I have a hundred plus developers that work for me.
So I spend a lot of time thinking about this.
The interesting thing for me about AI is all of the inverse lessons that we're all of asudden learning.
And I could legitimately talk for hours about this, but we're learning that
You know, uh just because you've got a business doesn't mean it's a good business, right?

(02:00:50):
Open AI is making tons of money, but losing tons of money.
We are learning that like making these businesses come at a cost all of the climate impacton the construction materials, we're getting wonderful technology out of it, you know,
like power generation and network equipment and like all of these things.
And then we're also learning that AIs learn better learning like humans, know, like theAIs that are most functional are the ones that are taught with simple stuff and then

(02:01:17):
complex stuff, not everything at once.
That to me has been fascinating to watch from the outside.
I think everybody has to be aware that jobs will disappear 1000%.
And that pretty fast, faster than we think.
A few years back, I always said, we don't have to worry about two specific categoriesbecause AI will never be able to A, be creative.

(02:01:42):
It's already gone.
And the second thing was AI will not be able to build a relationship.
And this is also on the edge of being gone.
I'm pretty sure in
Two, three years time, people will just have conversation with their personal GPT call herLaura, know, when they be, when they're in the car.

(02:02:02):
And just, and just talk like, like to a friend, you know?
So there's so many jobs that will literally disappear.
programming.
just programmed the whole website through AI.
The whole coding was done through AI.
It just said what we want boom was done.
Yeah.
Programmers right now are saying, they will never be as good or I can do it better.
Still.

(02:02:23):
No, they will.
I've been writing code for 35 years and I can tell you that AI is just as good, if notbetter in a lot of ways.
It's not replacing engineers yet.
I think we're still at least a year, maybe three or four, depending on how quickly itadvances.
But yeah, of course you'll be able to replace engineers.
Another example, I'm also in the trading space.

(02:02:45):
So basically our product is we teach people how to build.
So we have an education platform and we teach people how to build business online, whichcan be trading, Forex, can be crypto, e-commerce, like all of that.
Looking at the trading space, for example, I don't know if the trading space as it isright now will be around because as soon as AI takes over, it will equal the playing

(02:03:08):
ground.
Everybody who has access has the same
Like the stock market, like...
It already can do that.
That's the thing is that it still hallucinates a bit but if you go into GPT-5 or Claudeand say, hey, I don't know anything about, you know, e-commerce, give me the, and I want
to sell on Shopify, give me the first five things that I need to know, structure it forsomebody who has only been.

(02:03:35):
uh you know, like a cashier or whatever you've been for your life uh and like teach methose lessons through that and all of a sudden you can have a full training plan uh with
references to go get better in, you know, validate your assumptions and your thoughts.
Like it already can do this if people put that effort in.
Yeah.
And we use, mean, what most people don't know, over, I don't know the exact number, butit's certainly over 80 % on the Forex market is algorithms.

(02:04:03):
They're still overseen.
They're still overseen by uh usually like floor traders or experienced traders becausethey cannot yet read the news as good as a human can because interpretation, but give it a
few more months, you know, the whole like news website, boom, done.
So what I'm saying is it doesn't matter what kind of

(02:04:23):
business or job you have right now, it's always good to diversify, to have like differentthings.
one, one guy I hated years ago was Gary Vaynerchuk Okay.
I couldn't listen to him because it was always, it was exactly the opposite of me isalways about hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle 24 seven, never have time for yourself.

(02:04:45):
You need to build, you need to build.
I hated that message, but recently he has changed.
Right.
has, which I very much appreciate.
And his new message I love a lot.
Now I'm listening to him a lot.
And he said, number one, so I recently started working more on the socials.
I don't like being on the socials, right?
But he said literally, hey, in one of his speeches, hey, to all the entrepreneurs whothink they don't use TikTok because it's Chinese.

(02:05:11):
And I was like, that's me.
said, you can close your business if you don't do it literally because you cannot winagainst technology.
And that quote, like was so deeply anchored now.
That's why I'm so as an amateur going into AI to understand AI better, because it willhappen if we want it or not.

(02:05:33):
So either you go with it or you will go.
Right.
So yeah.
I also have a Gary Vaynerchuk thing that has stuck with me my whole life, but in acompletely weird, different way.
This must have been 15 years ago at this point.
He was giving an interview and it was like not even a famous thing.

(02:05:55):
And he goes, you know, I'm relatively famous at this point in my career for wine.
And if I could get everybody to understand one thing about wine.
you should drink whatever you like and it doesn't matter how much it costs because you canfind a great, you know, $5 bottle of wine, a $10 bottle of wine, $30 bottle of wine and
$3,000 bottle of wine.

(02:06:15):
Like drink what you like and don't care what anyone else says, including me.
And for some reason that particular thing has stuck with me my whole life.
He's a, he's a great mind about that stuff.
What is it about AI that you're particularly interested in?
I would say like the whole development in general um and just being prepared of what'scoming.

(02:06:40):
So another reason you asked me before why Mauritius?
so Mauritius is a rock in the Indian Ocean.
So the world has...
the world is going a little bit...
it's a little bit tricky right now, let's say it that way.
You know, like how there's a lot of division in general in the world.
You know, between in the Western world, like left and right, everything goes, I mean,either it goes like all the way to the left or all the way to the right.

(02:07:06):
There's almost no middle anymore, which is insane.
Yeah, exactly.
So this creates a lot of a lot of diversion, a lot of what's like aggression as well.
Then you have all the wars.
uh I mean, we have in Europe, we have currently the Ukraine Russia situation.
A good friend of mine and business partner lives in Thailand.

(02:07:27):
He calls me last week and he says, oh, I cannot come to the meeting.
I have to pick up my wife's family from the border of Cambodia because they're justfiring.
It's like, what the fuck's going on?
know?
So then we have the whole Middle East situation.
And even though Dubai is considered the Switzerland of the Middle East, it's still MiddleEast.
And Iran is not very far.

(02:07:48):
That's like 80 kilometers, I think, over the over the canal, right?
Maybe 200, I don't know exactly.
It's not far.
Like it's at least in reach of artillery, right?
So, any kind of fire, let's say that way.
So, yeah, so here you're very safe.
Also from a technology standpoint, Mauritius, they're still doing advertisement onFacebook.

(02:08:11):
So they don't use Google, they don't use Instagram.
If you want to find something, go into a Facebook group, right?
So.
That was one of the reasons why I said, if the world goes crazy with AI and goes into thewrong direction and AGI turns into ASI by itself and we have no safety protocols and then

(02:08:32):
you have the...
Well, it doesn't matter where anybody is at that point.
Yeah, also true.
But if they shut down the internet here, I can still have some chickens and go fishing,you know?
yeah, but that, yeah, I think I would say that's the kind of the worry.
But then the other side of the worry is there will never be a safety protocol because weare just humans.

(02:08:52):
Right?
One started with the, with a nuclear bomb and everybody jumped on it.
I want to be first.
And it's kind of the same here.
um If everybody would agree, okay.
humanity, let's put safety protocols all together, let's slow it down.
Would be much safer, I guess.
But uh instead of every country wants to be first, every company wants to be first, theywant to use it as a weapon, you know.

(02:09:17):
It's a game changer when it happens, but I, you know, I fortunately think we were quite anumber of years away from that at least, at least 10 plus, but I do, I do like what it
does.
You know, I like for me, it's given me many more hours in the day.
It allows me to plan things better.
allows me to learn things better.
Um, and it allows me to improve myself in ways that, you know, I didn't know like that Iwas going to have in effect, a personal assistant to do, you know,

(02:09:48):
yeah, no.
have this emotional conversation.
Teach me how to be more present.
Like, give me some tactics.
And you could search that on Google or you could say, here's what I'm struggling withabout this thing and have a conversation.
And it's usually pretty good at this stage.
in business when we now opened the gym.
So a lot of the research we did with GPT right?
It was much easier than going on Google trends and doing everything on my own.

(02:10:12):
There was one thing we did the whole accounting for the business opening.
We just fed in all the costs, everything we did, put me out of the sheet, you know, what'sthe ROI?
When can we hit the ROI?
What's the worst case, best case, scenarios, normal case?
It's a huge help for those kind of things.

(02:10:33):
Also for, like for example, I said I don't like social media, right?
Why didn't I like social media?
Because I hated putting captions, right?
Because it took so much time and I'm not a writer, you know, I like to speak, I like tolisten to audio.
I'm not a reader either.
I mostly listen to audiobooks.
But now when I do a social post,

(02:10:54):
So I have my video.
I just explain quickly what's in the video and I say, hey, I need a caption for thatvideo.
I'm sitting and I'm just walking the beach and I'm talking about beach money, financialfreedom.
This, this and this are what I'm saying.
Can you please write me an inspirational caption and give me some hashtags?
Thank you.
You know, so done.
it's utility.
And that's, think, a beautiful thing.

(02:11:14):
I like AI as a tool because it gives me more time in my day.
And I think of it as a tool.
And I try to take care of the tools and use them in the way that they're supposed to beused, I think.
thing I'm a bit worried about is that people become way more stupid, you know, because I

(02:11:34):
learn as many skills, you can just ask for the answer.
Yeah, and you and I, we remember the time when you went from A to B and you had like aproper map, right?
And you needed to draw the map plan and we could still use it, you know, but nowadays ifthe internet breaks down, people would be lost.
They wouldn't find their way from Berlin to Frankfurt.

(02:11:56):
When I was young, my dad used to make me, I was like, but we have a calculator, why do Ihave to do this math?
And he was like, I will not allow you to use a calculator in this house until you can showme that you know how to do it.
And then after that, use the calculator as much as you want.
And so that's been like a mentality for me is that I always learn how to do the thing asbest I can.

(02:12:19):
And then I just ask for the answer after that.
Yeah, it's a great advice because also, at least as of currently, I don't know if you everdid mathematical equations or tables or anything with GPT.
It fucks up a lot.
And if you just believe what you see, And you say, because you.

(02:12:42):
Yeah.
I was doing a comparison because of the company I work with, we operate in a whole bunchof different countries.
And I asked it to output a table for me with American GAAP because I needed to generallyaccepted accounting principles because I needed to hand it to one of the people in my
finance team who worked in the US.
And then I said, can you also give me a copy of this with German GAAP?

(02:13:07):
because I needed to look at it in Germany, it's generally accepted accounting principlesand the outcomes were completely different and I was expecting like a little bit of a
difference, but they were completely different.
So I was like, please walk me through all of your logic.
And then I found that it decided, well, Canada and America are close together.
So I'll just use Canadian GAAP principles and whatever.
And I was like, man, if I hadn't thought about that, like, why are these things so wrong?

(02:13:31):
Like because I knew the troubleshooting that I would go through as a human, I was able toask it to walk me through that.
And that's scary to me, not seeing enough people understand the troubleshooting steps tofind those problems or to diagnose that there could be problems.
You're also believing everything.
mean, Google Vio three.
Now you see all the viral videos.

(02:13:53):
I love the, I love the big foot to does Jiujitsu.
Have you seen this one?
Yeah, that's so funny.
But of course it gets better and better.
You can still catch it.
You know, you look at anatomy and you see there's like here and there, there's an arrow,but it's also month away and people believe everything.
They already believe.
Stuff without questioning.
And what scares me also a lot is against like stupidity of people, right?

(02:14:16):
Yeah.
They watch a short and they all have an opinion, but they don't realize a short is afraction without context.
doesn't matter what you see.
You don't have to context.
You don't know what happened before and after.
And you come to a conclusion.
That's not, uh, that's not logical thinking.
one thing that I really like about the German educational system compared to the US is theGerman educational system teaches about propaganda and teaches about the idea of context

(02:14:43):
and thought.
And that is not something we learned at all in the United States.
Like I was fortunate in that I had parents who taught me, know, immigrant mother and stuffto look for those things.
But Germany teaches it as part of the educational system, which I think is a wonderfulthing given the age of AI.
And I feel like in a lot of ways, Germans specifically are more ready to deal with thiskind of a thing than on the whole, than like say America or other countries who don't have

(02:15:09):
that as part of their curriculum.
Yeah, another example quickly, like believing things.
I once made a video series about Dubai and I wanted to have facts, fun facts about Dubai,right?
We can have as videos.
So I GPT, but there was an earlier version, I think it was 3.0 or 4.0, no, 4 was the lastone.

(02:15:35):
It was before 4.0, 3.5.
So, and it came up with a few very good ideas.
And idea number six was in Dubai has flying cars.
So just randomly, right?
And I asked him, I said, why are you saying it has flying cars?
There is no flying cars in Dubai.
doesn't exist.

(02:15:55):
I'm sorry.
That was the whole answer I got.
I give you a new one.
So I don't know how it came up with that.
Right.
But now imagine you're like a 16 year old and or 15 year old, and you just believeeverything GPT tells you.
Right.
So now we also come into a space where talking propaganda, So someone still feeds it orcontrols it to a certain degree.

(02:16:24):
For example, there was a big thing coming up with the, let's say like what the rightleaning, I don't want to say right and left, but you know what I'm talking about.
Let's like rightish people came up with and ask a few questions.
And it came up with the idea to only show like woke things.

(02:16:46):
Right.
So again, like where's the information coming from overall.
Right.
So because in that particular moment, it was like very much woke leaning.
And again, without any political um opinion here, it's dangerous because now if you wouldgo, let's say there's a big election again, which happens every four years in our

(02:17:07):
countries, right.
Yes.
So, suddenly people go to GPT and trust it blindly.
And now someone finds a way to manipulate what, what it got fed because it learns fromwhat it reads.
there's Russian bots creating millions of sites and just trying to overwhelm it withinformation.
And this happens from other countries, not just Russia.
But to me, what I think is really valuable to remember is that technology moves fasterthan humans uh and cultural evolution can.

(02:17:36):
uh Keep up in our day and age and so like to me This is an analog right the the analog isin the whatever that was 30s or 40s when they did the war of the worlds on the radio
People were like wow, you can just make up information and get it to the masses and theneveryone learned you can actually make up information in this way and then you see
something on TV because movies are able to be done in more creative ways and you're like,wow should I just believe everything I see and then

(02:18:01):
the generational change had to occur where people learn that you don't trust everything onTV.
And then with CGI, it was the same thing in the 80s and 90s.
And now we've learned this.
And the same thing is going to have to happen with AI and the tools with AI.
But the generations have to learn what they can trust in that.
And that that change hasn't happened yet.

(02:18:23):
And technologies are moving too quickly.
Yeah, let's close with a positive note.
So what I'm excited for is let's take my knees.
yes, uh artificial knee on one cartilage issue on the other.
So why I'm not doing my other knee right now, because I still, I think in the next two,three, four years, there will be a cure for cartilage, for cancer, for all of that, uh

(02:18:46):
possibly by AI, right?
So that's definitely a positive note.
Then also when people...
are scared about their jobs.
It's a fact that jobs will disappear, but jobs have always disappeared.
So there was an industry 150 years ago, there were no carts, there were horses, you know,if you think about it.

(02:19:07):
So the whole horse and how you call uh the thing you pull with the horse, ah the carriage,yeah.
So the whole carriage industry disappeared, doesn't exist anymore, but it got replaced bysomething else.
So the same will happen here, you know.
I completely agree.
just, hope some of the universal basic income catches up for some of the people that wherejobs just disappear and take too long for new ones.

(02:19:31):
But yeah, I agree.
uh Is there anything you'd like to promote?
when you have in Dubai, check out a Gracie Barra JBR.
Okay.
Opening in September, 2025, whenever you listen to that podcast.
So drop in.
And, uh, other than that, if you want to follow me on Instagram, uh, maybe we drop it.

(02:19:53):
I know here exactly.
Cool.
Thank you so much for your time, Fabian.
This was a wonderful conversation.
you, it was amazing.
Maybe we can roll one day.
Whenever I'm in Germany or you pop by in Mauritius or in Dubai, let me know.
That sounds like a plan to me.
Take care.
Bye bye.

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Fabian Fitzner, Black Belt, Entrepreneur, Network Marketer, Kite Surfer - Beyond the Belt #25

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Fabian Fitzner, Black Belt, Entrepreneur, Network Marketer, Kite Surfer - Beyond the Belt #25