WHY FORTY MINUTES IS MORE POWERFUL THAN FORTY HOURS

“I’ve never had a job interview like that,” she said on the phone. “No one has ever put the values of the company before the technical skills needed to do the job.”

She wanted the job. Badly. Not because of the salary or the title or the company name on her resume. She wanted to see what it was like to work in that kind of environment.

I wasn’t trying to be innovative. I was running the only company I knew how to run: a martial one.

Most people hear “martial company” and think... what? Military? Aggressive? A kind of corporate boot camp where we do push-ups when quarterly numbers are missed?

No.

We live by five specific tenets. And everyone who works for us lives by them, too. Not as slogans on the wall. As the actual operating system.

I thought it was the Karate Kid

At 49, I thought martial arts was basically The Karate Kid. Violence. Aggression. Wax on, wax off. Teenage boys in headbands getting revenge on bullies. Not my vibe at all. I’d spent my entire adult life first in the kitchen, then in the office working in technology. I sat in meetings. I wrote code. I shipped products. I negotiated deals.

The idea of getting punched in the face on purpose? Hard pass.

But I was dating this woman named Kymberlee. She trained three nights a week at a Hapkido dojo in Santa Barbara. And if I wanted to see her those evenings, she said, I needed to come to the dojo.

So I went. Once. Open-minded and all that.

The Grand Master running the school was Dave Wheaton. About my age. About my height and build. About as chill a human being as you’d ever want to meet. The school was just getting started—maybe 20 years ago now—and there weren’t many people in the class yet.

The vibe was 100% different from what I thought. Not aggressive. Not militaristic. Not Karate Kid at all. Just... focused. Respectful. Intentional.

I signed up the following week.

If you walk off the street into a Hapkido dojo, you don’t even have a belt. You have to test to get a white belt. Then you work through the colored belt system. At each level, you demonstrate proficiency in the skills expected at that rank. There are test days on Saturdays. Other students are testing at the same time. A board of black belts is watching. And when you pass, Grand Master Dave comes over and ties your new belt on you himself. It’s a ceremony. It’s quiet and powerful and it matters.

I trained religiously for three years. Three nights a week. Kymberlee and I did everything together—work, family, play, martial arts. I never once thought about quitting.

After about two and a half years, I earned the belt that makes you a candidate for a black belt. A six-month countdown starts. Everything changes. If you drink, you stop drinking. They look at your weight. Your focus. Your commitment. There are extra classes on Saturdays. The road to the black belt gets very, very serious.

You also have to write an essay. Only Grand Master Dave reads it. No formula. No length requirement. Just write what becoming a black belt means to you. I wrote something unusually long.

The day before the test

The test itself is three hours. Forms. Sparring. Breaking boards. And The Form—a choreographed scenario you create and name yourself, demonstrating at least 25 different skills in whatever sequence you choose. I called mine “The Staff Defense” and used the bo staff—a seven-foot polished wood staff that Japanese citizens used to defend themselves because only samurai could carry weapons. I practiced in my driveway for months. Sweeping moves. Spinning takedowns. Ways to trip attackers and keep them at a distance.

For sparring, they put me up against the top black belt in the school. Oh my goodness, it about killed me. But I got through it.

The day of the test, families and friends are invited. The school is packed. The stress is real. Master Wheaton gave me advice I still use: “Pick a spot on the wall. Focus on that spot. Drill into it.” When something is hard now—a presentation, a negotiation, a high-stakes moment—I find a spot and drill into it.

But the day before the test, I took Dave to coffee. I wanted a quiet moment with him. He was seventh dan at the time. Decades ahead in skill and wisdom. I asked what I should think about. What I should focus on. What he’d learned that he could pass along.

He looked me right in the eye and held my gaze. Then he said: “Don’t f**k up.”

I’ll never forget that. It’s become folklore in my house. When something important is on the line—a big pitch, a critical decision, a high-stakes moment—we look at each other and say it. Don’t f**k up.

I got my first dan in exactly three years. Record time. Minimum time. When Dave leaned in and tied that belt around me, it meant something.

But here’s what I didn’t understand yet: earning a black belt isn’t the destination. It’s the beginning of Mastery. For the rest of your