Jiu Jitsu Principles That Can Make You Millions In Business | Jordan Edwards - The A Game Podcast: Real Estate Investing For Entrepreneurs

Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
Welcome to the A Gamepodcast with Nick Lamonia.
Digging into the minds and experiences ofsome of today's brightest entrepreneurs
in real estate and business, alongwith Hollywood Stars, UFC fighters
and your favorite rock bands.
People that have figured out howto overcome obstacles, take chances
live boldly, and no matter what theydo, they always bring their A game.

(00:48):
My guest today in the A Gamepodcast was Jordan Edwards,
Mr. Business Jujitsu himself.
And this podcast is the A Game podcast,real estate investing for entrepreneurs,
where we show ordinary people every singleday that they can achieve extraordinary
things in life and in business.
Whether it's juujitsu, fightingreal estate, building a business,
or just being a better father, abetter mother, a better parent, a

(01:09):
better spouse, whatever it might be.
We have 350 plus episodes of people thathave reached the highest levels of success
in every aspect of life in business,that you can just go back and listen and
learn the shortcuts that they have puttogether for their road to success, that
you can copy or you can learn from themistakes they made so you don't have to,
and you can save time and save money.

(01:29):
But if those episodes are notenough, we have another banger today.
With Mr. Jordan Edwards, and althoughhis motto in business brand is business
juujitsu, whether you are a Juujitsuperson and not a business person or
a business person and not a juujitsuperson, there is going to be plenty of
phenomenal takeaways because it's theprinciples of success, whatever it is.
And that's what I love about this podcast.

(01:50):
That's why I branched out to so manydifferent aspects of not just real
estate guys and not just fighters,because people that find success
all deal with the same stuff.
Variations, of course.
But overall, it's the same principles andfundamentals of discipline, overcoming
obstacles, facing fears, accountability,finding solutions when there's problems,
and all those principles are saidvery well through this gentleman.

(02:10):
Who not only is a high level Juujitsuguy, but he is the CEO of Mixology,
a clothing company that has gota massive online brand survive.
COVID flourished, huge.
He's got a massive online store,17 brick and mortar stores.
He's got all kinds of degrees, accolades.
He's got Mixed U. He's the co-founderof multiple different businesses.

(02:31):
He is a true entrepreneur, a true businessowner, and a true gentleman who came
on for over an hour and a half and spitsome amazing facts, stories, and parables
for you guys to be able to take away.
Today and implement into your life,through your business and your family
to achieve your highest level of successand operate at your highest potential.
So the only fee for amazing guests likeJordan is to pre subscribe to the podcast

(02:53):
so it takes a second anywhere you'dand listen to your podcast, whether you
watch 'em, whether you listen to 'em,Spotify, YouTube, we are everywhere.
All we need you to do is take a secondand just go find Real Estate Investing
for Entrepreneurs, the A Game podcast,and take a second and subscribe.
If you cannot find it by searching forit, just go to nick nick.com/links,
L-I-N-K-S, and you will see all the waysto connect and subscribe to the podcast.

(03:15):
And while you're there, you'll see allthe ways to follow us on social media.
So whether it's TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter,X, Facebook, Instagram, whatever it is,
the way that Jordan knows that you guysgot value from what he bought to the
table today, and he continues to spreadthe word so we can get more guests to
come on and give you free financial,physical, and amazing life advice.
Is to just please interact.

(03:35):
So find us on social media,follow me, interact with me,
and I will do the same for you.
And when I post some clips on thispodcast, let Jordan know that you got
value from it by sharing it, likingit, tagging your friend, supporting
him in some way, shape or form.
And of course, the main thing, thewhole point of this podcast is that
I want to do business together.
If you would like to buy investmentproperties from me, sell investment

(03:56):
properties to me or partner on somelevel, all you have to do is DM me the
words real estate on any of my socialmedia platforms, or just text me the
words real estate to 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
Again, that is 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
And we could have a conversation of howwe can work together, partner together,
or do business together on the highestlevel with whatever place you are in

(04:18):
your business is just starting out.
Intermediate or advanced.
We can always work together on some level.
Definitely support Jordan, support theBusiness Jujitsu podcast, which you
will see links for in the show notesand of course shake out his phenomenal
book, which I highly recommend.
I read the whole thing, coverto cover business Jiujitsu.
So great guy, great person.
Two of my favorite things, good people.

(04:39):
Good business.
Good.
Jiujitsu, thank you somuch for COR coming on.
Jordan, thank you so much forsupporting the A Game podcast.
To all of you, I look forward tohaving many more amazing guests.
Come on and help you guyshelp your life and business.
Be better.
Have a great day.
Alright, my guest today is anentrepreneur athlete, business owner,
real estate investor, podcast host, CEO.

(05:00):
Staple in the fast industry, marketingmaster jujitsu practitioner, and author,
now fighting out of Long Island, New York.
He wears many hats as a business owner.
He was literally in the blood comingfrom an entrepreneurial dad who taught
him early on to look at every situationas an opportunity, and he learn to take
advantage of those opportunities in life.
And he is now a partner at ChartOrganization, a diversified investment

(05:22):
in asset management company.
He's the CEO of Mixology clothingcompany that he runs with friends and
family members with over 450 employees,300,000 active customers, and growing
over 17 locations, he has seen thegood, the bad, and the ugly internally.
Battling self-doubt and fear, as well aseconomic, financial peaks and values at
the highest level, including pandemicsand hurricanes, and has managed to find

(05:44):
a way to stay calm and find solutions.
Taking the lessons he learned from yearsin the mats with Sensei Ndu and apply
those principles of Juujitsu to helphim not only survive, but to thrive
in life, in business, and take theintegrity of the martial arts, he did
the right thing with his employees andpartners taking no money and sacrificing
his own bottom line to withhold areputation as a reliable and good

(06:04):
person who keeps relationships in place.
He's a father, he's a husband.
He's the creator of MICU and Ark.
He takes accounting classeshere, earned an executive MBA.
He just wrote with my good friend JayGersh at Lifetime, and he has a phenomenal
new book out now called Business Jiujitsu,where he shares these lessons with all of
us in an informative and entertaining way.
Please welcome to the A Gamepodcast, my New York Jiu-Jitsu

(06:25):
brother, Mr. Jordan Edwards.
Wow.
Thank you so much, Nick.
That was one hell of an introductionand what I would say in response
to that is that anybody could dothat, any single person listening.
I don't want you to be intimidated bywhere I am today, 16 years in, because

(06:46):
I was a white belt in every single thingthat you just mentioned, from parenting
to business, real estate investingfashion I made every single white belt
mistake on my way to getting all that.
So it's very cool to look back and havethat bio, but it's with extreme gratitude,
knowing that it could be gone in a second.

(07:07):
You stop training, thetraining goes away, period.
Dude, I think that's such anawesome thing to start with because
when people see the highlights.
And especially today with socialmedia, all these people put is these
clips of all the things that go right.
And I think that now the assumptionis that nothing ever goes wrong
or that you were just beaming withconfidence and never make any mistakes
and you were born on third base.

(07:27):
And I don't think that they realize thateverybody is just a kid from somewhere
who just worked hard and battled allthose things to get where they are.
So for people listening, I like the wayyou opened up the book and what we'll do,
we will weave in a lot of different stufffor people that are maybe not Juujitsu
people or some of the Juujitsu peoplethat are business people, but I feel like
the principles of what you've done onand off the mats apply to everything in

(07:49):
life and business to help you do better.
And I think one of the biggest thingsis you open up the book with, Hey
guys, this is not a magic pill.
This is gonna take hard work.
This takes time.
So I think initially when webreak this out, the three biggest
fears I hear you talk about duringthe book are getting started.
Continuing to go andthen getting finished.
So with getting started, people mightget overwhelmed with, look at all those

(08:11):
things you've done, and they don't havethe patience to wanna put the work in.
So I think that's a really greatstarting point where you've climbed
the hill to success with so manydifferent aspects of your life.
And as Gary Toin was just telling me,he said, once you do once with one
thing, a lot of people don't ever doanything else because they realize how
hard it was to climb that hill onceto now know knowingly, I'm gonna go

(08:33):
willingly do that again, is very hardand you've done it multiple times.
So talk about the mindset, knowingyou're gonna have to climb the hill
to success and just getting startedon that mental and physical battle.
The first thing I'll say is that everyonestarts with a different set of attributes.
When you arrive to your very first jujitsuclass, you may have had a background in

(08:53):
wrestling, you may have been an incredibleathlete, you might be a runner, or you
might be a hundred pounds overweight.
Having never done any athletics before,the same thing applies in business.
You arrive with the set of attributesthat are unique to you, your training,
your education, your background.
Being born in thiscountry is a huge asset.
Being able to speakEnglish is a huge asset.

(09:15):
Having all of your facilities withyou, your hands, your fingers,
your toes, these are all attributesof which you cannot discount.
And so.
I was very lucky to grow upin a home of entrepreneurs
where working was not expected.
It was required.
I did not have a choice from thetime that I was a little boy.

(09:36):
I was expected to work in either myfamily business, sweeping, lifting
boxes, unloading paper trucks, orworking in a wide variety of jobs.
I had probably 25 or 30 jobs long before Iever began working in the corporate world
as a caddy where I made my most money.
That was where I really learnedindependence and also how to take shit.

(09:59):
I worked at the golf course, butI also flipped omelets, bartended.
I got my real estate licensethe day I turned 18 and on.
It was an expectation.
And so growing up in a house like that,I'd had a major leg up, a huge leg up.
I also had a father who kept meon the straightened line whenever.
I would drift away and you betterbelieve I drifted all the time.

(10:22):
Yeah.
I made a lot of mistakes.
And so juujitsu is such a pure metaphorin this regard because, you show up
with your attributes and the onlyway to get better is to use those
attributes and then build new ones.
And and so I, I often tell that topeople, it's don't compare yourself to
my me and my attributes and my special,but you can do it your own way, and so

(10:43):
I like to start at that point because.
I counsel a lot of my team, my employees.
I coach them as the CEO of Mixologyclothing company, but I also have
about 400 tenants around the countryin my commercial real estate portfolio.
Some of those being martial artsschools, jiujitsu academies, karate
academies, and I work with them asentrepreneurs and business owners.

(11:04):
And you have a crazy diverse backgroundof people from all over the world, all
over the country, and every single oneof them has only one thing in common.
Just like in jujitsu, we do jiujitsu.
That's what.
Connects us.
But the day that you decide tobecome an entrepreneur and start a
business you join a new fraternityand a new brotherhood, sisterhood,

(11:26):
whereas all the excuses go away.
You're not a black entrepreneur,a white entrepreneur, you're
not a Jewish entrepreneur,Christian or Muslim entrepreneur.
You're just an entrepreneur, which meansthat you have to win no matter what.
And you can't use any of the, past excusesof things that have happened in your life.
You grew up poor, you grew up rich.
Those both can be obstaclesto finding success.

(11:48):
The poor person looks at the rich personand doesn't think that's an obstacle.
Just look at the US government.
Easy come, easy go baby.
I have more friends who are comefrom rich and successful backgrounds
who effed up every single partof their life than I know who,
people who came from the struggle.
Who had to build it themselves,who figured out a way to succeed.

(12:10):
So some people look at their poorcircumstances and the way that
they started as a, as an obstacle,but I actually say use that as
a launching pad to your success.
And so this is the way that I vieweverything, not as obstacles, but as
opportunities, launching paths for growth.
And I have to say that I didn't,I was not born with that.
I developed that underthe guidance of my father.

(12:32):
So I think that there's a coupleof really good pivots we can
make off of that discussion.
And one of them being when you firststarted saying, Hey, that was a pretty
cool, like rundown that you gave mypast, and I'm appreciative of it.
'cause I know at any point it can go away.
And I think what you just said isinteresting about how, sometimes
coming up with no money and noresources is actually a positive.
And I often think about that becauseI spent probably more than half my

(12:55):
life at this point with no money.
I didn't grow up with money, Ididn't really have any options.
Knowing what it's like to have moneyand then lose everything and then do
that multiple times and like reallyremember what it's like to have no
money in the bank and be humiliatedand not know how to pay like that never
goes away, and I think that's part ofwhere you always feel like you have
that chasing you in the backgroundand it keeps you from going there.

(13:15):
Just Hey man I know what it's liketo get injured and lose my health and
that I can't train Juujitsu for a year.
So as much as I'm being lazy rightnow, there was a time where I would've
killed to be able to go there.
And I think that appreciation of knowingwhat it's like to not have the ability to
get up and run your own business and haveemployees and have the health to go train.
Sometimes when people are just bornwith a silver spoon, they don't really

(13:37):
know what that is and sometimes maybethey don't have that inner drive.
So I guess for you, how much has, havingknown what it's like to actually lose
also helped you stay consistent and maybegiving you a little bit of extra grit
so you can make sure you do win whenmaybe somebody else would've tapped out.
'cause they don't reallyknow what it's like to lose.
Can you imagine starting juujitsu andyou're so blessed, maybe because you

(14:01):
wrestled in high school and maybe evena little bit in college, and you show
up to an academy where it's almostall white belts and blue belts and
you can just use your natural giftto destroy everybody in that room.
But the feeling of going to yourfirst competition and finally getting
exposed to maybe someone who's.
Also wrestled except took theirjuujitsu a little bit more seriously.

(14:22):
Those people give up.
That's probably one of the biggestarchetypes of people who I see come
and go in Juujitsu are the people whoarrive with natural gifts and talent
because their egos can't handle beingexposed at the first sign of adversity.
When I was 28, I really stoodup and started to have to run my
family's portfolio of businesses,mixology being one of those.

(14:44):
At the time, very small investment.
It was only doing about $2 milliona year when Hurricane Sandy hit New
York, and I took the reins of thisbusiness and I used my collection
of experiences and attributes thatI had gained up until that time.
So this was around the end of 2012.
I was pretty sharp, I was prettytalented for a 28-year-old I had gone

(15:06):
to undergraduate business school.
I had been working underthe tutelage of my father.
I had other great, I. Business mentorsand very quickly I was able to turn
that business around from on the vergeof being out of business to six months
later on a run rate doubling its revenuesand getting its expenses in order.
When that happened, my ego was flying.

(15:27):
I was thought I was the shit.
Okay?
I was 28.
I had bravado.
I had business partners that had beenin the industry for decades, and here
I was thinking I knew everything.
All of my natural talent dried up.
After that six months was over,I was at battle with my partners.
I was at battle with my father.
I did not understand why nobodywanted to listen to me anymore because

(15:50):
quote unquote, I saved the business.
I turned it around.
Listen to me.
I demand your respect.
I deserve your respect.
This is what most talentedpeople think and expect.
And some, even in their fiftiesand sixties that I've seen.
My dad passed me a book.
He didn't read Tony Robbins.
He wasn't really a big Tony Robbinsfan, but he saw Tony Robbins on CNBC,

(16:13):
and he had recently written this bookMoney, and it was dissecting the oh eight
Financial Crisis, and he'd interviewedthe top 50 financial minds in the world.
He says in the book, before I couldteach you anything about money, I need
to teach you about my simple philosophy,and I'm summarizing this in my own words
because this is my own analysis, andthis is more than 10 years later, but.
He basically says, you're the asshole.
Stop blaming everybody else.

(16:34):
Stop blaming the partner.
Stop blaming at this.
You are the one who needs to change.
He has these simple phrasesthat he said in his book where
focus goes, energy flows.
What's wrong is alwaysavailable, so is what's right.
And he has these simpleways of doing things.
And my entire worldview changed bythe time I finished reading that book.
And I said, they're not the problem.
My dad's not the problem.

(16:55):
I'm the problem.
That change in philosophy wasalmost as if I went from being
a white belt to a blue belt.
I attribute that moment to setting off achain reaction of becoming obsessed with
reading books about leaders, generals,athletes, businesses, business stories.
And what I found on the pages ofthese books was a common theme,

(17:16):
which is it's not a highlight reel.
Almost every single one of thesebooks, whether it was snowball, the
story of Warren Buffet or MichaelJordan's story, or Patton Lincoln.
Was these extreme struggles that Irecognized in my own life was trying
to save a business in a hurricanethat's about to be outta business,

(17:36):
or trying to buy a building where theopposing seller is impossible, and so
what I realized was, wait a second.
I'm only seeing everybody'shighlight reel in the newspapers.
But when you go and you learnabout them, they're so candid.
They're telling you everything.
Warren Buffet in the book, snowballDissects a situation that happened with

(17:57):
one of his chief investments at the time afirm called Solomon Brothers, where one of
their head traders did something unethicaland made a trade that almost brought
down the entire global financial system.
And what happened was, is that thetrader, when the executives found out
about it, they tried to cover it up.
And in trying to cover it up,it set off a chain reaction that

(18:18):
caused a panic sell in the markets.
And Warren Buffett, who is aboard member, had to step in.
And he had to basicallystabilize the business.
So they got rid of the executives,they got rid of the trader.
And what Warren Buffet said was, I'mnot hiding from any of the problems.
The best disinfectant is sunlight.
And he basically says, we'regonna tell you everything
that went wrong and he what?

(18:38):
What we're gonna do to fix it?
And he turned around the situation.
This is not what people normally thinkabout when they think of Warren Buffett.
When they think about Warren Buffett, theythink about him being the Oracle of Omaha.
They think about him being this legendaryinvestor, a guy who sits behind his
desks and reads reports and makes bets.
They don't think about him in crisismanagement, stepping in to save the
firm and save one of his investmentswith truth and integrity, honesty.

(19:01):
And the more and more that I read,whether it was about Lincoln or
Marcus Aurelius or Michael Jordan,what I found was a common theme.
That every single one of these peoplewas facing more adversity than success.
And that moment was the momentof alchemy that led me on
the path to where I am today.
Otherwise, I might've just been ablue belt, blues businessman, washout.

(19:24):
So there's so much tobe taken away from that.
And I think part of one of the chaptersin your book, you talk about risk.
And I think when somebody listensto what you just said, they get
nervous because, and I thinkthere's two important pieces here.
One of 'em, you brought up TonyRobbins, that was the first thing I
thought of, and there was a quote yougave from one of Tony Robbins book,
is that people basically, what is it?

(19:45):
They should all over themselves.
They should all over the, yeah.
Should have done this.
I should have done that.
Oh, I should be working harder.
Oh, I should be getting this.
I should be doing that.
Yeah.
They should all over themselves, he says.
Yeah.
So I feel like a lot of people haveall these ideas of, I'm gonna start
a business, I'm gonna get intoJiujitsu, I'm gonna get a black belt,
I'm gonna make a million dollars.
But they never actuallyfollow through with it.
They never actually do anything.

(20:06):
And they live their life on thefence and they never make decisions.
And I think.
It goes hand in hand because I alsoheard you talk a lot about decision
making in the book, and I'm huge on that.
I feel like I tell everybody thatwhere you are in life right now
is a recipe of every decisionyou've made up until this point.
Your life is a recipeof all your decisions.
I. And when people go, well, I'mnot really good at making decisions,
I feel like that's because theydon't wanna make the wrong decision

(20:28):
because they're afraid of risk.
And there's going tobe nothing you can do.
There's risk in Juujitsu,there's risk in business, but
how are you mitigating that risk?
And I think that's a huge discussionfor decision-making in business and
decision-making in life and beingable to do that because there's
no way to eliminate that risk.
And there's things that you boughtup that you can't account for.
Who the hell knew that a pandemicwas just gonna drop outta nowhere?

(20:51):
But I think this is really wherethe true principles of juujitsu
and business come together.
Because I can tell you, here's 10 thingsthat can happen to you on the mats.
But then I do a privatelesson and then I go roll.
And the guy does something completelydifferent that we didn't account for.
Maybe he's brand new and he just didn'teven, but you take what you're given and
you learn how to stay calm and go cool.

(21:11):
How do I find a way to deal withthis and to manage this risk?
So I think that's probably 10 hourswe can do just on those alone.
Yes.
But starting with decision making let'sbreak those kind of components down.
Where does that come from?
That you make better decisions and youdon't get caught up with indecision
in life, business, or juujitsu?
'cause all those are gonnaleave you in a bad spot.

(21:31):
Yes.
Thank you for bringing that up.
My book, business Jiujitsu, is ultimatelya collection of the decisions that
I've made over my business career,specifically the decisions that I
had to make in order to keep mixologyalive during Covid, my fashion
business and my real estate business.
But I have a more deep focusin the book on mixology.
What I do in the book is I flash back thetimes where I make the wrong decision, or

(21:52):
I learned my lesson earlier in my life.
And so I will talk about Hurricane Sandyand how the decisions that I made during
Hurricane Sandy and the things that Ilearned taught me what I needed to do
eight years later for the Covid crisis.
If you heard what Ijust said that probably.
Will sound a little bit like Jiujitsu.
We show up night in andnight out year after year.

(22:14):
What are we training for?
Are we training to getin a fight with someone?
Are we training because we'regonna be a professional fighter?
I'm not planning on beinga professional fighter.
I'm not planning ingetting in street fights.
It's nice to know that I couldbe able to defend myself, but
most of the time I am utilizingJuujitsu in other parts of my life.
Parenting business, myfriendships, interactions.

(22:35):
Doing things often gives youthe frame of mind on how to make
the decision at a later date.
The quicker you learn that something wasthe wrong decision, the better you're
gonna make that decision in the future.
I learn a juujitsu technique.
I use that juujitsu techniqueover and over and over again.
And the more that I use it, the betterthat I get in employing it, where it
does not become a decision any longer.
It becomes muscle memory.

(22:56):
I just do it When covid hit.
I did not have to think about what to do.
I just did it the day that.
Andrew Cuomo, who was the governor of NewYork at the time, forced us into our homes
and made us shut down our businesses.
Remember that This wasa state by state thing.
So Ron DeSantis in Florida didnot make the same decisions

(23:17):
that Governor Cuomo did.
Just by way of example, I was forced todefend, sweep, submit the oncoming attacks
from Covid, and I immediately knew tofurlough my staff, call my landlords,
get ahead of it, call all my vendors,get in touch with all of my banks,
build my cash position, tap my credit.
And by the time that was, I thinkMarch 17th, 2020, by 5:00 PM I had

(23:41):
already taken all those actions.
Well, Nick, I told you I worked withhundreds of tenants around the country.
If I told you that even a yearand a half later, I had tenants
who still hadn't taken step one.
They were so paralyzed by fear,they didn't know what to do because
for the years leading up to COVID.
They hadn't been putting in themetaphorical training, which not

(24:03):
metaphor, they hadn't been reading,they hadn't been studying, they
hadn't been making these decisions.
They walked in, theywere really nice people.
Maybe they serviced their customers,but they weren't working on
the fundamentals of business.
And just like jujitsu business also hasfundamental principles underlying it.
Whether they're accounting principles,finance principles, payroll, HR principles

(24:24):
that many small entrepreneurs hide from.
Because like you said, theyare scared to take a risk.
They say, I don't know this accountingthing, I'm not good at accounting.
I don't understand it.
I let my accountant do that stuff.
You read my book.
So, so you know that I tookaccounting three times post-college.
I failed accounting the first timeI took it when I was a sophomore.

(24:45):
Technically, I didn't fail itbecause I dropped the class 'cause
I was doing so poorly in it.
Okay and at the end of thesemester, rather than getting
an f, I dropped, but I failed.
The principles were too abstract.
I had no frame of reference.
I had no experience.
By the time I retook accounting,I got by the skin of my teeth.
The second time I took accountingpost-college in 2017, I had been
running businesses for eight years.

(25:07):
Up until that point, it was a lot easierfor me to understand the principles.
After having run a business for that long.
I took accounting again when Igot my executive MBA in 2022.
Each time I kept revisiting thesetechniques, I got better and better
and more equipped to be able tohandle these types of situations.
I often tell people that when I go toJuujitsu on an average night, I'm learning

(25:27):
things that I've been learning for now.
Almost 16 years.
When I take a class, I'm one ofthe highest, one of the senior
students and I'm learning howto do a fundamental arm bar.
It's the same exact thing about learningthe technique, about going back and
studying for, accounting, for example.
And I often counsel people that in orderto learn how to take risk, is it risky for

(25:48):
me to execute an arm bar at this point?
No, I've done it thousandsand thousands of times.
The decision goes from I have to take thisrisk, I should do this, I should do that.
I don't have to thinkeverything in my body.
I know what to do.
My legs shoot up.
I bring their arm acrossthe center line, right?
I break them down.
I keep their posture broken down,and I can go to break their arm.
I brought that with mefrom Juujitsu, by the way.

(26:09):
I didn't learn that in business.
I brought the principles of howto study to over to business.
If you have been kicking yourselfthat you didn't start investing in
real estate sooner, whether yourbeginner, intermediate, or advanced.
Any way you're looking to getit on a residential, commercial,
land development, wholesaling,fix and flips, whatever it is.
Let's find a way to get you involvedin some projects, get you some
properties, whether you wanna sellsome properties to me, whether you

(26:29):
want to buy some properties from me,whether residential, fix and flip,
cash flow, multifamily, whatever it isyou're looking for, it's figure out a
way to get you involved or find a wayfor us to partner up on some deals.
Reach out to me on any ofmy social media channels.
If you go on www.nic.com/links, you willsee all the different ways to connect
with me and figure out how we canstart to work together, make it happen.

(26:51):
Everybody that invests inreal estate always just says
they wish they did it sooner.
Best time to start is today, dude.
So I think that this is such agreat point that I thought was one
of my big takeaways from your bookis let's say I'm in a bad position
and I go, you know what I'm losing.
I don't want to be losing,I want to be winning.
And you go from, well, I, I wannabe in a position where I'm in a

(27:13):
submission to submitting the guy.
But it doesn't work like that.
And I thought a huge principle was ifyou wanna assess risk and don't look at
it as I'm going from winning to losing.
First we have to go back to neutral.
And I thought that was such agood thing of oh yeah, let me just
get out of this position and getback to a neutral position first.
And it, I was smiling 'cause it'sexactly like you said for two things.
One, I go to a new school 'causeI travel all over in do Juujitsu.

(27:35):
A guy shows a basic arm bar andI've been doing juujitsu same
exact amount of time as you.
And they'll show something andI'll go, I've never seen that
detail of the arm bar before.
Now they might have taught it the same way20 times, but I'm at a different place in
my journey that detail hit me different.
And now I go, oh, so like youget to relearn different things.
But I remember dude asI'm sure Nardo does.
Matt, Sarah would make us just dofreaking elbow escapes up and down

(27:59):
the mat every single class for years.
And I remember being like,I don't want to do that.
I just wanna roll.
And then I'll never forget the firsttime I was doing MMA sparring and the guy
started hitting me and all of a suddenmuscle memory, like you just said, elbow
out, pull 'em back in neutral position.
And I was like, thank goodness.
Because if I didn't know how todo that real quick, I would be

(28:21):
getting my face bashed in now.
And there's something to besaid for before you can win,
you have to get back to neutral.
So I love that principlefor life and business.
So for somebody going, well, I don'treally have a lot of money right
now, or My business is starting out.
I just want to be a multimillionaire.
What are some of this first steps tomaybe somebody that's struggling a little
bit in their real estate business ortheir e-commerce business or whatever

(28:42):
it is, what are some principles of whenyou're taking losses to get yourself back
to neutral, to get back in the fight?
Such a great question and so timely forwhere we are today and, in March 5th,
2025, we have, so many of your listeners,this is a, an apolitical statement.
This is not a commentary on whether youlike Donald Trump or like Elon Musk or

(29:04):
not, but what they are doing right nowis that they are stopping the bleeding on
our out of control government spending.
They're exposing hundreds of billionson the way to being trillions of
dollars of just total fraud and waste.
What do you mean by waste?
I would challenge anybody listeningto this to go, look, if you have

(29:25):
an iPhone, open it up, go to yoursettings, type in subscription.
Go look at all the subscriptionsand things that you
subscribe to on your iPhone.
If you don't have one extra appon there that you forgot you were
paying for 3 99 a month, that putsyou in a superhuman category and
you're a lot better person than me.
In your personal life, I guaranteeyou that you have some thing

(29:49):
you forgot about tire insurance.
SiriusXM on an old car there is somethingthat is hitting your credit card bill
every single month that you forgot about.
There is an area to optimize.
And so what I counsel peoplewhen they are struggling is
a return to the fundamentals.
Getting back to neutral is areturn to the fundamentals.

(30:11):
Carve out two hours in the eveningoutside of your normal work to dig
into the fundamentals, and what you'regonna find is your own little mini
version of Doge, your own littlemini version of fraud and waste and
it's fraud and waste on yourself.
You might be saying, what the hellis this Edwards talking about?
I'm perfect.

(30:31):
Then do it in your diet, in your exercise.
Maybe you go to the gym every single week.
You do the same routine, youalways do the same stretch.
So, so this advice to return to neutralityis something that you can spot in
all different aspects of your life.
There's the things that you're goingback and doing every single day that
got you to where you are right now.
Something isn't working.

(30:52):
Something needs to be improved.
If you can dissect your habits, youcan, like you said, those habits are
gonna tell you your decisions, and thenthose decisions are gonna show you that
your outcome is where you are today.
So these little metaphorsare so powerful to me.
This is what I do all the time.
Just a few days ago, I wasdoing what I just counseled.

(31:12):
I was combing through my QuickBooks.
With my CFO and I was findingall the little things.
Well, let me illustratea more detailed point.
You said.
I have 17 brick andmortar clothing stores.
Every one of my managers ofthose stores has a credit card.
They have about a $500 a month budget for.
Supplies, but we also give them somediscretionary spending so that if they

(31:37):
wanna buy a cup of coffee for a greatcustomer, or if they want to buy a, dinner
at the end of a shift for their team.
We want them to feel empowered to do that.
But there's a very fine line betweenbeing empowered to make the right
decision and the wrong decision.
And at my portfolio of businesses, Ihave a saying, I said, you don't need
my permission to make a good decisionbecause I don't want them to call me.

(31:57):
Can I buy my team dinner?
Can I buy toilet paper?
There's a light bulb out.
Can I change the light bulb?
Just do it.
You've got a credit card.
Make the best decision.
But there's a secondpart to that statement.
You don't need my permission tomake a good decision, but if I
don't agree with something, I'mgonna call you and tell you.
And I hope we have a good enoughrelationship that you don't take
offense and you make the switch.
So let's just do a little math.

(32:19):
Let's say everybody is overspendingon their good decision By $20 a day,
that's a $20 decision by per store.
That could be a Starbucks,a trip to CVS, whatever.
$20 a day times 17 stores is $340per day times seven days a week.
$2,380 times 52 weeks a year, $123,760.

(32:43):
Is it a $20 decision?
Every single $20 decisionin your life compounds.
To a crazy thing at the end of the year.
20 pushups, is the samething for the better.
Unbelievable guy on my podcast, and he'sin my book, his name's Tim Hennessy.
He's a former Rutgers wrestling alum,great businessman in the corporate world.
And he has a wrestling academy down inNorth Carolina called C two X. And he's

(33:07):
famous for saying seven shots afterpractice, seven shots after practice.
No matter what happens.
You gotta get your seven shotsin, did you do your seven shots?
Seven shots?
And he does this exact same calculusthat I just did for you to tell
you what, seven shots per day, perpractice, per season totals up to.
You can do this at everysingle part of your life, and
I advise everybody to do it.

(33:28):
It's so powerful to think this way.
I love that man.
I think that there's, again, everylittle mini lesson in your book.
I feel like I. You can applyto so many different things.
And I always am big on that slight edgeprinciple to things that in life are
easy to do that'll make you successful.
And they're also easy not to do.
And it's these little decisions and thislittle discipline of over years, these

(33:50):
little things add up to big things.
And that's where, even today, thefirst thing we did, me and my buddy
Brad he hurt his neck a littlebit, but he runs the Damian Maya
school out here at the BJJ Lab.
And we were doing so well.
I had taken a couple privatelessons with Kenny Florian.
And he gave me these amazing principlesfrom half guard that really helped me
as a smaller guy, rolling bigger guys.
And we were doing really well.
But then we hadn't trained fora while 'cause he got hurt and

(34:11):
like when we went back yesterday.
It was almost like wedidn't know what to do.
It was like, well I don't know.
Did we roll?
Did we wrap?
Blah, blah blah.
And I was like, well dude, let's justgo back to what we were doing and just
while we figure out what we wanna do,let's just rep those half guard sweeps.
And while we were talking, it waslike dog fight under hook over.
And it was like, oh yeah.
And you get it back and it becomes easyand then you go to do it and somebody
else, and the second they lock it in,it becomes like that muscle memory.

(34:33):
So when we were talking, what remindedme of what you were saying was they just
opened up a couple of other businesses,so shout out to, to go athletic club
and they're expanding the BJJ lab.
If you ever come out to Chicago, man,we love to host you, but now they're
putting in like saunas and coldpunches and all these different things.
And the guy who runs the brewery next tothem is a jiujitsu guy who trains with us.
His name is Jo.

(34:54):
Be a fantastic guest.
We'll talk offline, but I'll go.
Yeah.
But the guy's amazing.
And they were like, you know what?
We have the money to run the business,but we've never scaled the business
and sold it for like millionsand millions of dollars he has.
Let's bring him in.
And that was a connectionto the Juujitsu Academy.
And so every time now I getstuck with, I need a contractor.

(35:14):
I need an accountant.
I need somebody to help move something.
I need a babysitter.
I need this, I need that.
I can't find anybody worthwhile on Fiverror Upwork or Thumbtack or any of these.
But the second I hit a Juujitsu,Chatman, I get the most reliable people.
So Juujitsu is a new golf wherethere's more relationships that are
gonna get built on the golf course.
Two people that set you straight.

(35:36):
You mentioned your accountant,your lawyer, your insurance broker.
If they tried to tell you to dosomething shady, unethical, and
illegal that you think smellswrong, go on Chatt PT, go on gr.
And ask it.
There are no excuses left.
There was no excuses with Google.
Now there's really no excuses with Grok.

(35:57):
You just say, Hey, grok, I'm feeling alittle weird about this business decision.
This insurance broker told me that I canget a discount on my premium, but I have
to use my dad's address down in Florida.
You think that's right?
Is your business in Florida?
No, my business isn't in Florida.
It's here in New York.
You should avoid thisinsurance broker at all costs.

(36:18):
There's just no excuses anymore.
And so sometimes it's very clear,but most of the time it's not.
This is why Lineage is so important.
On more than one time in this podcastyou met brought up Matt, Sarah,
you brought up Sensei Nadu, youbrought up John Dhar When we, you
and I as part of the Henzel Gracie.

(36:40):
Portfolio of family.
We know that we are learning pure,actionable technique that has crafted
and created dozens of world champions.
You brought up before wecame on here, Jason Rao.
We are amongst a group anda network of people in the
jiujitsu world with techniquethat works at the highest levels.

(37:04):
I know when I'm doing a sensing Nadu armbar, but I'm in Paris or The Bahamas and
I'm training, I have a lot of confidence.
Is it the only way?
No.
There's Brazilian top team.
There's other methodologies thatwork, but I know my lineage has
produced winners at the highest level.

(37:28):
That is exactly the same approachyou need to take to business.
You must seek out the best thatyou can afford and the best that
you can get in touch with thepeople, with the best reputation,
the people who do it the right way.
The people that when you bring them anidea that you think might be a little
gray, they say to you, Jordan Uhuh,that's breaking code violation 3.2.

(37:53):
You gotta find a different wayand these are people in your life.
These mentors will beso invaluable to you.
And like I said, if you read books aboutthe best, you will not mess this up.
If you're sitting here saying, you'relistening to me right now, you're like,
what the hell is he talking about?
All it means is that you need moremetaphorical business mat time.

(38:13):
That's it.
Until you understand me, it justmeans you need to read more.
That's all that means you need to go pickup Warren Buffet's biography, snowball.
You need to go pick up the book.
Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday.
You need to go pick up the book.
Good book, good To Great by Jim Collins.
It doesn't matter which one you pickup because as I said, there's a common

(38:33):
theme amongst all of these winners,general Patton, Abraham Lincoln.
You can't miss.
You just have to go find whothe best is and start learning.
And what I love about all thesebooks is that they're gonna tell you
all the other books to read, right?
You read my book, I leave the wholetrail of breadcrumbs, all the books
that inspired me, all the placesthat I learned this philosophy,

(38:56):
whether it's Tony Robbins and on.
What's my other favorite one?
Oh my goodness.
The Art of Learning.
The Art of Learning by Josh Watkinwill teach you so much about
what I'm talking about right now.
It's probably like the most I have tooffer all the audience right there.
I love that man.
So we were talking about.
Jiujitsu being the new golf andthe relationships to reliability.
And I think you brought up a goodpoint where I agree a hundred percent.

(39:19):
Like when I look at things, I willliterally ask myself sometimes
when I'm in a situation like,what would Matt, Sarah do here?
What would Ray Longo do here?
Because over the years I've paid alot of money for a lot of mentors
and I think some of the best lessonsI've gotten have been learning from
mentors how to act and what to do.
But also I've learned how notto act and what not to do.

(39:39):
So and again, same principles, man, whereI hear you talk a lot about, I don't look
at that as that was a waste of $20,000.
That was a valuable lesson of like how notto act as a leader or a boss or a person.
And I think those areall good things there.
Without taking up your whole dayhere, you, well hold on Before
you go away from that thought,I just wanna get Pete Roberts.
A big shout out, great black belt, CEOof origin, fight wear, and Jocko fuel.

(40:03):
He named that and he calls it tuition.
He said It's just a tuitionpayment when you mess up, when
you fail and don't give up.
It's just tuition.
And let me tell you, people outthere, I have paid millions and
millions of dollars in tuition.
I've made million dollar mistakes,half a million dollar mistakes.
Sometimes I make a $50 mistakethat hurts just as much.

(40:24):
So you got, you asked about risk before,and now you're asking about your network.
Sometimes you're gonna make a networktuition payment where you trust the
wrong person, you invest in the wrongperson, you hire the wrong person, and.
Guess what?
That makes you a human.
You can't be perfect.
You're gonna hire the wrong people.
You're gonna invest inproperties that don't cash flow.

(40:47):
I flipped 12 homes in my, group ofinvesting and I learned a lot of
lessons from the first one to the 12th.
One, you're gonna make a lot of mistakesand you're gonna make network mistakes.
You're gonna make peoplemistakes and just don't give up.
Get back on it and justkeep showing up more.
Mad time.
You bought up something that I was tryingto find the name of him in the note.

(41:08):
Jared.
Jared was the guy's name in the book.
That you talked about him being somebodythat you hired and you said something
that I can't let you go without askingyou because it's so great being that
it's fundamentally a real estate podcast.
Yes.
You brought up a such a great pointthat it like clicked for me where you
were saying, I need this to basicallyhave the impression of a $10 million
business without a $10 million budget.

(41:30):
So he gave me the look and feeland culture of a $10 million
store on a $250,000 budget.
And I was like, dude, that.
Is the whole trick with real estate.
'cause I'm like, how do Imake a house look like that?
But if I paid that price,they don't make any money.
So I thought it was a good thing that Iwanted to ask you about is what are some
tips you can take away from that lessonin the book for maybe some of our real
estate people in here for some little tipsand tricks to maybe make your house look

(41:54):
like it's a little bit more of a higherprice tag than it is without actually
having suspended that, but giving it thefeel of a more maybe luxurious homer spot.
So this is my brother-in-law, Jared,at the time of what you're discussing,
he was my sister's fiance and.
We were cohabitating during covid, sowe were all living under the same house

(42:14):
when we were all locked in our homes.
Jared is one of the most successfulNew York City real estate
residential brokers in the world.
He's sold over a billiondollars worth of homes.
He routinely sells 10, $20million homes and more.
So he's very good at what he does.
Very good at the tippy top in the world.
When he walks into a home, he doesn'tsee it like you and I walk into a home.

(42:36):
He has a whole entire different wayof seeing it, and this is a metaphor.
But he's very into the lighting,what lights on the direction
that the lights are pointing.
And during COVID, we had to maximizeevery single resource that we had, and
his business was effectively shut down.
So he couldn't do what he was doing,and he just sprung into action.

(42:58):
He had no experience in women'sclothing, fashion, retail, or any of it.
So he took his attributes andhis collection of experiences to
help make our business better.
And when New York State allowedus to begin reopening our stores,
they had been sitting empty,collecting dust for four months.
I had 200 total employees at thetime, and 170 of them were furloughed.

(43:19):
So how do you restart a business?
Get a million dollars worth of goods onthe floor, all the stores cleaned and
looking good in a very short window.
Jared, what?
What you're talking about helpedus do that, and also helped us
re-envision to make these storesexciting for the customers.
And in some cases it was just simplechanging the light bulb color.

(43:42):
We're not really paying attentionto the warmth of a bulb, but
when Jared walks in, he sees ittotally different than I ever saw.
And those little touchesare the difference.
Like in the real estate game,you're trying to sell a $5
million house, but you've got thecontractor just went to Home Depot
and bought the first bulbs he saw.
Well, guess what?
If you've got an unbelievable realestate broker, they're gonna come

(44:03):
in and they're gonna say, you justspent three and a half million dollars
building this home by the time youpay the taxes, the insurance, my fees.
What are you gonna make on this home?
We gotta get this thing sold.
I need you to get rid of thesecontractor special light bulbs,
and I need you to invest in, maybethese might be 50, $60 a bulb.
You might have 400bulbs around this house.

(44:25):
You know what I mean?
That kind of thinking is whatdifferentiates the best from the rest.
That's just a tiny anecdote.
No, it's great too because I remembermy buddy before he started getting into
investing, he bought this house andhe was so proud of it and he borrowed
his friends and family through it.
And then when they went to Home Depot,he realized months later, all the stuff

(44:47):
that he got that he thought was all great,nothing was high end, but he felt like it
was, and it gave him that, like when hewent in there, you got that feeling of,
ah, so I think it's, the perception issuch an easy thing where you can create
a certain feel or vibe for certain thingswithout really breaking the budget.
So I appreciate you sharing that.
And I know we're getting tight on time.
Do you have another like maybe 10 minutes?
Sure, absolutely.
Alright, cool.
So I didn't wanna let you go withoutbringing up, what we started talking

(45:09):
about was, there was a part in thebook where people would comment on,
are you still doing that juujitsu?
Almost will you grow up?
You have responsibilities.
And I've talked to a lotof people and I've learned.
I call it the reset, where my buddyhe runs 10th Planet Santa Fe now.
His name is Ruben Rivera, greatblack belt and Daddy Bravo.
But he bought his baby in and I remembershe was brand new and he bought her

(45:31):
down to one of her private lessons andhe was like, man, she's like an iPhone.
Every night he put her down asleepand she wakes up with a new feature,
like when you shut your phone downand now you got emojis or you got ai.
And I was like, yeah, that's true.
And I think sometimes with business,with life, with relationships, we're
so dead set on solving the problem.
And some of the times where I'vebeen like, if there's one thing I

(45:52):
can't do today, it's go to freakingjuujitsu because I am up to here
with stress and indecision andbills and all that kind of stuff.
But then I go anyway because mybuddy calls me and says, Hey man,
we're supposed to roll today.
And then when I leave there, I'mforced to be present in a way
like I had never been before.
'cause as much as that's on your mind.
When Jordan's trying to choke me or takemy arm, I better be thinking about that.

(46:13):
And only that like you're forced toshut your brain off for an hour or
two, and then you go home and youreboot, and suddenly the solution
is right there in front of you.
So as much as some people mightlook at us and be like, it's
irresponsible, you're evadingirresponsibilities by going to Jiujitsu.
I feel like I would not be whereI am as a good boyfriend or a good
son, or a good owner of a business.

(46:35):
If I didn't have that time to myselfto reset my brain through jiujitsu.
So talk about how that selfishnesshas actually helped you be really
selfless for the people in your life.
Well, first and foremost I want tobe very clear that I personally do
not look at it as being selfish.
Although, as you mentioned, thereare people, the, some of the
closest people in my life thathave seen it as being selfish.

(46:57):
My book is called Business Juujitsuand most of my book is about business.
But chapter six is aboutfamily and friends.
And the effect that your personalnetwork and life have on both your
business life and your jiujitsu life.
Your family and your closest friendscan be your greatest advocates or
your biggest detractors, and likelythey're going to be both to your face.

(47:21):
They're giving you shit.
They want you to come hang out.
Let's go to dinner.
We have a birthday partyto go to behind your back.
They're bragging about you nonstop.
They're both simultaneously proudof your accomplishments and also
craving more of your time and energy.
And anything that you are doingnot with them is effectively

(47:41):
taking away time to be with them.
This creates a divide.
Right now we're getting into very deep.
Entrepreneurial waters that maybe noteverybody will be able to relate to.
But this is really important.
And I actually view this conversationin chapter six as the most
important chapter of my book.
My publisher wanted me to take itoutta the book, and Rich by friend

(48:03):
and podcast guest and black beltworld champion at the master's
level encouraged me to keep it in.
So shout out Rich.
He's also the CEO of Kasai.
I don't know if you Oh yeah.
So Rich encouraged me very strongly.
He said, who are youwriting this book for?
I said, for me.
And he said, keep it in best advice ever.
So your network can simultaneouslybe your greatest source of strength
or your biggest excuse to quit.
And when you just got beat up all dayat work and the deal didn't go well,

(48:27):
you're teetering on the verge of beingin business or out of business, and you
go home sometimes your family, who youexpect to be your greatest cheerleader.
They have their own problems going on.
They have things that they don't givea crap about what happened in your day.
They are just as human as you at work.
You're the boss, you're theCEO, you're the founder.

(48:48):
You're the big guy in charge at home.
You're just a member of the family,even if you're the leader of the family.
And so this is critical to understandin the things that they say to you.
What you were alluding to here aboutbeing selfish is that sometimes
they'll say things to you like,you still doing that karate thing?
They don't understand this hobby.
I don't see it as a hobby.

(49:08):
I'm, this is my life.
I'm a martial artist toevery bone in my body.
I don't have a choice to do this.
This is this is who I am at this point.
After all these years, juujitsuis infused in every conversation
that I have, every negotiation inbusiness, every decision that I make.
I think in Juujitsu, sometimes I'm doinggood juujitsu, and sometimes I mess up

(49:30):
a technique just like any other person.
I don't.
It's not a perfect expression of juujitsu.
I am trying to live a life where Ihave a perfect expression of juujitsu.
It's a goal I will neverobtain, but I will try.
Your family knows howto cut you the deepest.
They know you the longest.
They're always gonna see you asa little kid, your base self.
You read all the books, you had allthe success in business, and they're

(49:50):
happy to brag about you to all theirfriends, but get around a dinner table
and all of a sudden you are all backto just being a fam family member.
And if you expect them to always have yourback, you're gonna be sadly disappointed.
And if you use them putting you down asa, an excuse to fail or to quit or not
to win, then that's on you, not on them.

(50:11):
And that's the core insight of chaptersix, which is that your family and
friends, which not an excuse for you tolose whatever they think or say, good or
bad, has nothing to do with your abilityto go out and employ the principles of
juujitsu across all areas of your life.
And that's why I don't see it as selfish.
People will come up to me in thesame breath and be like, your

(50:32):
children are so well behaved.
They have such good manners.
They look at you in theeye and shake your hand.
How could this be inthe age of the iPhone?
Juujitsu one, one word, juujitsu.
Ask my wife.
My wife will tell anybody who will listen.
The principles of Juujitsuare alive and well in my home.
6-year-old and three and a half year old.
Are they perfect?

(50:52):
Of course they're not.
They mess up all the time.
But it's mat time, it's areturn to the principles.
I'm never, I don't lose my temper.
I would never hit them.
I don't have to scream atthem to get what I want.
I use the principles of juujitsu agive and take a return to neutrality.
A laughing off a loss.
Sometimes I lose the nighttemper tantrums happen.
Yeah.
But it's about what you keep showingup with for them on a daily basis

(51:15):
and how you're inspiring them.
And I'll leave you withthis little anecdote on this
topic, which is your children.
Your parents and your siblings arewatching everything that you do.
Your employees, your vendors, yourlandlords are watching all of your moves.
You are reporting to your bankers,you are reporting to your landlords,
your financial performance.
They're watching everything that you do.

(51:37):
And sometimes you canforget this really easily.
So last week I started this diet.
We had a health and wellness week atmy company, mixology Clothing company.
And I was gonna do this slowcarb Tim Ferriss four hour body,
eating program, which I've donein the past with a lot of success.
Gotta take off a few winter pounds.
So I take my two boys to Targetand Whole Foods, and I go to Target

(52:00):
and I buy cans to, to can my food'cause I'm gonna make like a salad
jar, if you can envision this.
And then we go to Whole Foodsand I buy all the ingredients.
I go home and I make the,that week's meal prep.
My children say nothing to me.
I. Okay.
They're interested at toys at Target.
Daddy, when are we gonnago to the toy aisle?
When are we gonna go tothe toilet at Whole Foods?

(52:21):
When are we going home?
When are we going home?
Three days later, my son Axel comesto me six years old and he says,
daddy, next week can I can with you.
I said you saw me canning?
He's yeah, I want to do it with fruit.
My mind was blown.
I didn't even know he waspaying attention to this.
He said nothing to me.
He did not acknowledge this when we weretogether doing it, but he saw me doing

(52:45):
this healthy habit and then days latercame to me and wanted to do it with me.
That is Juujitsu.
That's what the white belts inyour academy, the blue belts.
That's your employees.
They are watching you.
Everything you do, theywill mimic back to you.
Everything you hate about yourself,that's what they're gonna do.
Don't expect them to do.
You do one thing, you showup late every single day.

(53:05):
They show up late every single day.
You show up early every day.
You better believe they'regonna show up early.
That's awesome, man.
So that's chapter six in my book,and it's not the last chapter, but
I think it's the most important.
It's incredible.
And there, there's so many goodlessons than, like I said, within
an hour before we started talking,I was like, man, I have so many
notes and so many good topics.
And I think there's so much goodstuff in there about the tales of
winning the battle, but like losingthe war and yeah, so many good things.

(53:28):
So if you're looking for anything tohelp with business, this book's great.
And I love that for theJiujitsu people in there.
You have a match at the end of eachchapter and it gives us a little bit
of the juujitsu side of that as well.
So you have a really good flow andbalance of both in there that I
think everybody, whether the Juujitsupeople or not, can take things away.
So talk about business Jiujitsu,the book and the podcast.

(53:51):
How do people find it?
What do you have going on with it?
Anything new and exciting?
Talk all about those ventures.
And then I wanna give you sometime to talk about mixology
before we leave as well.
Sure.
Thank you.
So yeah, the book is calledBusiness Juujitsu and the podcast
is the Business Juujitsu podcast.
I started the podcast with theintention of writing a book.
So the reason for me beginning the podcastwas I knew that I wanted to write a book,

(54:17):
and the guiding principle and thought thatI had, which was influenced from my wife,
was to make your heroes, your friends.
So, on a night in and night out basis,I would go do Juujitsu and most of my
teammates were regular people like me.
They owned a business, they're a teacher,a plumber, firemen, police officer,
corrections officer, garbage men.
I, generally speaking, did nothave any business networking

(54:39):
in my Juujitsu Academy.
It was amazing.
People that were likemy family and teammates.
But there were people in the world thatI was seeing do Juujitsu and I said, why
wouldn't they wanna be friends with me?
Of course they'd wanna be, that was mysay, make your heroes, your friends.
And so I created a list and I said, I'mgonna start reaching out to these people.
And I began to reach out to themone by one, and they all started

(55:02):
saying, yes, world champions,A DCC, veterans, UFC fighters,
billionaires, billion dollar CEOs.
The best of the best Marines,firemen, anybody who wanted
to talk to me about jiujitsu.
Okay.
Then people would just reach out to me.
I own a business and I do jiujitsu.
Can I come on your podcast?
Yes, absolutely.
I'd love to talk to you.
So I had a very wide range of peoplejust like me, and I began to create this

(55:25):
network and talk to amazing people justlike you and find out their stories.
And I took their stories and mystory and began to write the book.
And what the book ultimately becameabout was the story of mixology,
my fashion business through covid.
The lengths that we had to go to andthe principles of Jiujitsu that I used

(55:47):
to overcome unbelievable odds whenCovid was over and we left our homes.
And by the end of that year, thenext year, 2021, more than 3 million
businesses had failed and gone outtabusiness and no one was spared.
Family restaurants, medium-sizedbusinesses, fortune 500 companies.
Just this week, there's a half a dozenworld-class businesses like Forever

(56:10):
21 that are completely bankrupt.
Party City, Joanne's Fabrics,one after the next a hundred year
old businesses in some cases.
Folding.
And by the way, even today, we arestruggling like mad across every
business that I own and operatewith hyperinflation of every kind.
Wage inflation, insurance,inflation, good cost of good, sold

(56:31):
inflation, every single thing.
We're still in this fight.
It's not done by anystretch of the imagination.
And so the Business Juujitsupodcast was that mechanism.
And then I wrote the book and Iwould say the best way to contact
me, if you wanna get in touch,you can do it through the website.
But on Instagram, I'm pretty activeon there at Business Juujitsu
and I still continue to post.
About how these principles affectme, books that I'm reading,

(56:54):
quotes that I love, things thatare happening in my business.
It does tend to turninto a highlight reel.
So I want to caution everybody that I'mjust sharing the updates as they happen.
And I share way more of thegood things than the bad things.
But the bad things are absolutelyhappening and I try to be very
candid and forthright when they do.
I often write little posts about.
Losses that I'm taking or moments ofmajor struggle that are happening and

(57:16):
create a commentary around those two.
And people have respondedvery well when I do that.
But I will caution you that newdeals, new tenants, new buildings, new
stores, that gets the most focused,it's the most fun thing to share.
That's awesome, man.
Anybody listening, obviously all inthe show notes, I'm gonna have all
the direct links to all the stuffyou have going on, all your social
media, the way to subscribe to thepodcast, the way to get the book.

(57:38):
And then you also have mixology.
And a couple of my friends in LongIsland, I texted a bunch of girls
that I know and I was like, Hey.
And they were like, yes.
Like raving reviews.
Everybody knew exactlywhere it was right away.
Yeah.
So you gotta hit on your handsand not only the stores all over
New York and all over the country.
And then you also have ahuge online presence as well.
So for somebody looking on thefashion side of it for learning

(57:59):
some of the things through mix, youare just buying some clothes for
themselves or for their loved ones.
Talk a little bit about howthey connect and look at what
you got going on with those.
Thank you.
Yeah, the website is shop mixology.com.
It's a business that began as asingle boutique store in 2009.
My sister and I runthis business together.
My sister is all of the fashionin this business, and I am

(58:21):
the business of the business.
That's a very good combinationthat we get to share because if
you left the fashion up to me, wewould not be where we are today.
And she lets me make businessdecisions opening and building stores.
And my role as a commercial real estateinvestor and shopping center owner is
not too dissimilar from my role as aretail executive because on one hand

(58:44):
sometimes I'm negotiating and buildingout a store on behalf of a tenant.
And in my role as a retailer, Iam doing it on behalf of myself.
And then running the team.
So I, I do get to operate and runthe business, which is fantastic.
We have 17 locations in the New Yorkmetropolitan area and a single location
in South Florida in Boca Raton.
A big part of my focus over these next fewyears will be expanding in South Florida.

(59:06):
So if you're listening from SouthFlorida, I will be hopefully
coming to your neighborhood andthe business centers around the
mother-daughter shopping experience.
And so we target, generallyspeaking, starting in women sizing.
So high school and college age, orright outta college and they're moms.
But we service all women.
So any adult woman could comein the normal size range,

(59:26):
extra small through large.
And get a very affordable, our name comesfrom mixing and matching price points.
So it's not uncommon for a womanto wear a Chanel or her maze bag
and then $58 denim of which wesell the denim, not the hermas.
And so we have a very moderateprice point, which has helped
us succeed in challenging times.
And we have a great business.
We've had some employees that havebeen there since day one, which

(59:49):
is a huge moment of pride for me.
And then we've collected andgrowing of amazing roster of fashion
retailers who just love this business.
And so, so that's one ofthe great joys of my life.
I love that business.
I'm involved in a lot ofbusinesses, whether it's operating,
investing or advising acrossa lot of different industries.

(01:00:10):
And the principles that I use to runthose businesses are generally the same.
That's mixology mix U is, it's actuallya great way to end this podcast, Nick,
because in 2017 I wanted to and needed to.
Start a training program at mycompany, we were growing like a weed.
And what happens when you're anindependent business operator, you

(01:00:33):
know everyone, you know your managers,you know all the employees, you even
know most of the best customers.
Every business owner who's growingand scaling is gonna get to a
point where you start to lose touchwith the most junior employee.
You start to lose touch withsome of the newest managers.
You put in a layer of management belowyou regional management, for example, and

(01:00:56):
you don't know all the customers anymore.
'cause you spend a lot lesstime on the sales floor looking
the customer in the eye.
And this is another place wheresome businesses could fail.
So I knew that I needed tocreate a training program at my
company and I brought it into myexecutive meeting at the time.
And I have former business partners whohave since retired from the business.
And so it's a hundred percent owned bymy family, my sister and I, my father.

(01:01:16):
But I brought into the meeting, Hey team,we need to start a training program.
I want to teach the averageemployee at mixology about the
fundamentals of this business.
And I said, I'm calling it fashion1 0 1, that's the working title.
And this was the response.
That's a stupid name.
It's never gonna work.
Our team doesn't wanna learn.
People want to sell clothes,they don't wanna learn.

(01:01:39):
And I was like, what?
But this is the, when you have an ideaand you bring it to people, someone's
gonna, they have one or two up.
That's a great idea.
Or that's a terrible idea.
In either case, it doesn't matter.
You still have to execute on that idea.
If you think it's a good idea,you have to make it happen.
No matter what they say, even ifthey tell you it's a good idea, you

(01:02:00):
still have to execute on that idea.
I knew not only was it a good idea, Iknew that it was necessary if we wanted to
win, if we wanted to grow this business.
So that idea was basically just.
An idea in my notebook, which Ialways carry around with me, and
it sat there until about 2020 whenwe were relaunching after Covid.

(01:02:21):
And I knew that we neededthis desperately now.
And I had been, I was actually late.
And so we launched it.
I actually went to my team andI said, team, here's my idea.
Here's the curriculum, you name it.
And the team came up with Mix UMixology University, and it was very
well received by our internal team.
So much so that I said to myexecutive team, I bet you some of our

(01:02:44):
customers would want to get on this.
I think we could sell this.
I think like other people wannalearn about the principles
of retail and fashion.
Now here we are five years laterand we have programming all year.
We sell it.
We have customers who take it.
Last year we had, during the eightweek summer fashion leadership
program, we had 340 participants.
Nice.

(01:03:04):
It's crazy, and so we just hadMix U Health and Wellness Week.
We have Mixed U, personal Finance Week,we have Mix U self-defense and awareness.
Obviously have to teach a little Jiujitsu.
That's only a day.
It started as a week, butwe're a fashion business.
It was hard to do it.
So, I also do I'm very passionateabout something called Stop the Bleed.

(01:03:24):
I don't know if you're awarewhat Stop the Bleed is.
Oh, stop the Bleed as a nonprofitorganization that happened after, I
believe it was Sandy Hook, and whenthey did their after action analysis on
school shootings, what they found was80% or so of people die, not from the
gunshot wound, but 'cause they bleed out.
And what they said is, we don't needto teach people EMS, we just need to

(01:03:46):
teach people how to tourniquet and stopthe bleed long enough for the EMS to
get there and they could save people.
So this is a, it's a freeorganization called Stop the Bleed.
If you own a business or you're on ateam, an organization, you can reach out
to them and they will have a local personcome to you and teach you the principles.
I always keep a. Stopthe bleed kit with me.
It's in all my cars, mydesk, all my closets.

(01:04:08):
And this has the very basickit that you need in order
to stop people from bleeding.
And you actually don't need this.
You could just do it with yourhands, your knee, or improvised
tourniquet if you didn't have it.
But they teach you the trainingis like 45 minutes long.
I do it every year at my companies.
And so we have Mix u Stop the Bleed, andthen this organization was affiliated

(01:04:30):
with another non-for-profit organizationthat teaches life-saving techniques
around Narcan, which is for the overdoseepidemic that we've had in this country.
And so they have another free resourcethrough these hospital systems
where they'll come and teach youhow to administer Narcan if you see
somebody overdosing in your family.
So I've now distributed.

(01:04:51):
Hundreds of Narcan kits and we domix U presents, Narcan training.
So education, whether in Jiujitsu businessor these things is, I just love it.
So Mix U has become this likeincredible umbrella for me to do
what I love inside of my business.
And I don't make very much moneyfrom it, even though I have hundreds
of students paying for it now.

(01:05:12):
It's an extremely small revenue maker.
I couldn't support myself on it atthis point at all, but it's the thing
that I'm the most passionate about.
Which is teaching.
That's incredible, man.
And the whole Stop de bleeding is a wholeother principle we could probably talk
about for business as well, but Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's all.
Incredible, man.
Yeah.
But Nick, I gotta tell you, just likewhen I told the average fashion person,

(01:05:32):
even my sister, like my sister isone of my closest people in my life.
We're friends, we traveltogether, we love each other.
We have a great partnership.
She's totally different than me.
She's not into jujitsu.
She's not, I. She actually is areader, but not in this style of book.
She likes fiction.
When I originally come to herabout Stop the Bleed, she's
what are you talking about?

(01:05:53):
But now, years later, after seeingthe success of Mixed U, I've even
made her a believer in these thingsbecause my own love and passion
of it is what makes it successful.
'cause the last sentence of my bookis my motto, show up, follow up.
Don't give up.
That's it.

(01:06:13):
There's no other secret.
You gotta show up start.
You gotta follow up.
You gotta keep goingand then don't give up.
That's it.
There's no other secret.
If you don't give up,you're not gonna lose.
If you lose when you give up, you don'tlose from tapping in Juujitsu, you lose
from not coming back to the next practice.
You don't lose from gettinghurt and juujitsu and being
off the month for three months.
You lose if you get hurt.

(01:06:35):
Blow out your knee, go to physicaltherapy or don't go to physical
therapy and stop training.
Jiujitsu, I've blown out bothof my knees and my shoulder.
12 weeks.
Physical therapy, all in every case.
And every one of those casesI came back to Jiujitsu.
And so you don't lose when you get hurt.
Get you lose when you don't come back.
Dude, this is why I knew wewere gonna be a good fit.

(01:06:56):
It's one of my favorite things.
If you don't quit, you can't fail All thethings you've been saying, man I resonate
with, I found your book fantastic.
I think your social media is incredible.
I think what you've done in life on andoff the mats is nothing short of amazing.
And you, sir, as somebody who bringsyour a game to everything you do
in life, in business, and thisinterview has been no different.
You definitely brought your agame to the A Game podcast today.
Man, you were a total gentleman.

(01:07:16):
I made you go way over time.
I know you're a busy guy, so pleasure.
I can continue to talk to you for hours,but I want to be respectful of your time.
Any final thoughts before Ilet you go about your busy day?
No, Nick, just I would reallylove to bring you onto the
Business Jujitsu Podcast and learnall about your background too.
So please let's makesure that we set it up.
I know that we will.
And and I just really appreciateyour interest and time in my

(01:07:36):
project and helping me spreadthe word to as many people.
So, like I said, if one personhears this and listens to it and or
reads just one chapter of the bookit's, that's the reason I did it.
So it'd be great, man.
I think you're gonnaimpact a lot of people.
I really appreciate you taking the timeto share the book and the time to come
on the podcast today, and I would behonored to come on your podcast as well.
Thank you so much for comingon Business Juujitsu Jordan Air

(01:07:57):
was ladies and gentlemen, havea fantastic day, sir. Thank.

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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;}Jiu Jitsu Principles That Can Make You Millions In Business | Jordan Edwards