March 10, 2024 • 50 mins
Have you ever faced a setback that felt like the universe was telling you to take a different path? Mike Evans certainly has, and he turned those moments into a mosaic of success across various industries. From the ashes of a martial arts supply company to the heights of co-owning a thriving school, launching into massage therapy, and imparting survival skills, Mike's narrative is a powerful testament to the art of the pivot and the resilience required to thrive in the entrepreneurial landscape.
Join me as I sit down with the chameleon of enterprise, Mike Evans, to uncover the strategic and personal growth that comes from embracing failure and the transformative power of mentorship. We tackle the stigmas around setbacks and discuss the significance of adapting our skills to the needs of the modern world. Discover how raising your rates doesn't just benefit you, but can also create space to support those less fortunate, a lesson Mike learned through personal financial hurdles. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone navigating the choppy waters of business ownership.
Wrapping up, we delve into the impact of effective communication on success, both in business and personal relationships. As Mike shares his journey, we reflect on how important it is for entrepreneurs to find balance, aligning their ambitious goals with their mission without losing sight of family and personal well-being. Be ready to be inspired by Mike's evolution, from weathering the storm of challenges to pioneering new paths, all while keeping his compass firmly set on what matters most.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The show is about to start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is, don't Fear Great, with Wabtau-Ramina,
marketing strategies andadvertising technologies to help
you build a better business.
Welcome back to DFG.
This is literally going to beour first guest interview of the
season.
As you guys know, I teasedeveryone, letting them know this
is going to be a special seasondedicated to guest interviews
(00:37):
In the studio.
To kick it off, I got my friendMike here.
Mike, why don't you justintroduce yourself?
Give some context.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Who are you Sure?
My name is Mike Evans.
I am a multi-hyphenateentrepreneur.
I have a lot of differentventures that I like to do Right
now.
We have Vision Martial Arts,which is a martial arts school
in Patchouge, new York.
I'm also a massage therapist.
We have, within the MartialArts School we have a massage
(01:03):
therapy clinic, massage Ally,where we also do aesthetics
classes for people that want tolearn about it.
We have Forgotten Skills, whichis a survival and community
building endeavor that came outof COVID era.
A couple of other things Dablinhere and there science,
communication, writing, anotherbook oh, wow All sorts of good
(01:24):
stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You're a entrepreneur , right?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You got bit by the buggy and you're not going back.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
He's that Renaissance man, danny DeVito.
That's right, rain man.
I don't have his money yet.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So here's the question and this is the
question that everyone alwaysstarts off with, so we'll just
get this one out of the way ishow did you get your start?
What was your firstentrepreneurial experience?
And then as far as where youare now, why did you get started
?
Why did you decide I want toget into Martial Arts, I want to
get into massage therapy, Iwant to get into survival skills
(01:58):
, stuff.
What got you to where you aretoday?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So that is quite the path, Ups and downs, left and
right.
So I guess the first thing Iever did entrepreneurially is I
tried to start a Martial Artssupply business.
It was just an opportunity thatwas there.
I was probably 20 years old,took out a person alone, bought
some stuff, didn't know anythingabout business and we went out
of business instantly.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I did get some cool toys that were left over from
that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, they're still hanging on my wall.
From there, I just had someopportunities as I grew through
the Martial Arts, where at acertain point, my teacher wanted
to retire from public teaching.
He still does teach, but not asmuch publicly, so he left the
school to a partner and I.
We failed that business and welasted a little longer.
We lasted about a year, a yearand a half.
(02:51):
I opened another Martial Artsschool just by myself.
Thereafter.
That one lasted probably aboutnine years, until 2008,.
2009, when everything collapsed.
Our lease was up, everythingjust perfect storm.
I still didn't know anythingabout business at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But you're getting better and better and better
with each new experience.
Each time we got a littlebetter.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And I had a student of mine who said you know what?
This is kind of my thing, we'renot going to let you close.
Here's a key.
And he got a space where werented a space in another
Martial Arts school.
It was this gentleman, geneMontalion.
He's an Aikido guy and one ofthe things that he did was he
(03:38):
would bring in new Martial Artsleaders and kind of he was an
incubator for Martial Artsschools.
So there was probably six orseven of us Wow Teaching in his
school at a time.
So when my student handed me thekey, I still had to pay the
bill.
It was that, wow, if somebodybelieves in me, all right, I'm
going to do it just for you guys.
(03:59):
And then one thing led toanother.
We started getting really goodat it.
I said, all right, I don't wantto leave my student who did
this initial thing on the hook.
I definitely don't want to hurtMontalion Sensei's business.
So I better go learn at least alittle something.
And through a lot of mindsettraining, I used to be a very
(04:19):
negative person.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh yeah, one of those as soon as you said.
I have this idea, my ADHD wouldkick in and I would project the
27 different reasons it wasn'tgoing to work.
So through a bunch of mindsettraining, working with a lot of
mentors and kind of working myway through the Martial Arts
industry, at one point I was theCOO of the largest curriculum
(04:42):
provider in the industry.
So that close mentorship reallytook my weakness of that
negativity and it let me say allright, here's an idea.
Yeah, I still have that initiallittle voice that says what are
those 27?
Things are going to go wrong.
But now it's how do I shootdown those 27 things before they
ever even come up?
(05:02):
so that I can go be successful.
So one thing led to another.
We kind of made it up to COVID.
As soon as COVID hit, we wereone of the first businesses to
close.
We saw the writing on the wall.
We pivoted, probably two daysbefore the state shut down.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
We went to Zoom.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And that went.
I'm going to say, well, I mean,that was an interesting time in
the world.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, but at that time you didn't think that it
was going to last as long as itdid.
You thought it was temporaryright yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
two, three weeks were good to go and then 10 months
later, we're still closed.
When they finally did let usopen, it was very small 30% and
50%.
So we were going kind of stircrazy and this is where we
started getting into those otherbusinesses.
We can't be inside doingmartial arts.
Let's go outside.
What could we do outside?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You have to get creative.
Yeah, we started this.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
First it was just like go hiking and clear my mind
.
And then it was a couple offriends let's go hiking and
clear our mind.
Then there was a couple morefriends and it was, I remember,
when we were kids and we wouldstart fires in the woods.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So we started fires in the woods.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That led to another business and then we went from
there.
Everything opened back up.
We built the school up to acertain point but we never quite
recovered from COVID.
We did okay, I think duringCOVID we were probably one of
the leaders in the countrysurviving and even thriving, is
(06:31):
it?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
because you well, maybe you think that you because
you embraced the sort ofvirtual reality sort of aspect
early, yeah, you were earlyadopters of that, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I think we'd already been talking with with an
account of hours over in the UKand they were starting an online
teaching platform, so it waskind of like it's a good thing
that spark was already therebecause when it hit, the fan all
right, let's just pivot.
We already have this idea.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Let's just go Right.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But it just wasn't the same.
I mean part of what we do.
A traditional Chinese martialarts school was the center of a
community.
It wasn't just like I'm goingto go take karate.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
But it was.
You know.
They were doctors and healersand scholars that also taught
martial arts and they broughtthe community together in times
of, you know, famine andsickness.
That that was the hub, sothat's what we wanted to be.
And even though we did okayduring that virtual, it wasn't
the same no-transcript.
(07:35):
And then when finally thelandlord was great, he worked
with us all through it.
But, he got to a point wherehe's like all right, look.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And we just couldn't do it anymore.
Sure, so we stepped back onceagain.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
My story is a story of failure, but I'm always I
forget what it was, I forgotwhat it was on the top of my
head, Always talking aboutfailing forward.
Yeah Right.
So we stepped back and we said,okay, a little heart
palpitations going on.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
A little chest pain for a couple of days and then we
got together and said, okay, wecan't go away with the martial
arts.
It saved my life mostly frommyself so many times.
Yeah, changed so many people'slives.
I said, all right, let's bringback the other things I'm good
at.
So we brought back the massagetherapy.
We brought in a partner who'san esthetician.
(08:21):
So half of our school is set upfor healing and wellness.
The other half is set up forthe child development.
We were running the skillsprogram and even though I no
longer work for the company, Ido believe in the product so
much and we use it with our kids.
For the adults, we brought backa little more of that tradition
and then we're like all right,but how do we get the community
(08:43):
back Right?
So we started, well, goinghiking in the woods and we kind
of remembered that all right,back there in COVID we had this
whole business idea that we justnever really took.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
We met up with a friend of mine who's a biologist
and runs seed out in Brookhaven, new York, and they do
wonderful environmental things.
Yeah, and to me, like I grew upas an environmentalist, I'm an
East End boy.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
He came home from school, maybe did your homework
and then you were off in thewoods.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So, as we chatted, he's like oh, I love the woods
here, and we started going outand doing things.
Sure, and now we have thesesurvival classes that we're
running through seed but it'skind of talking the forgotten
skills thing that I do with thesurvival, and I used to call it
primitive skills, but I wasinformed that that's not a nice
way to say it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So now we're going with like, no, no and like look,
I don't want to offend anybody.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So now we're going more like ancestral skills To us
at survival.
You go back two or threegenerations.
Yeah, that's just how theylived.
Life was a fight every singleday, so that's how I got where
we are now.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I love the journey, but one thing you said that I
want to stick to right now alittle bit is you quoted, you
know, making sure that you failforward if you fail, and that's
something that, like lately I'vebeen reading a lot of books on.
You know, mindset, training anda lot of sort of like.
The common theme with a lot ofthe books is this idea of
failure and helping people getperspective on it, because they
(10:13):
look at failure as this you sortof didn't accomplish anything
and now life is over in a way,instead of looking at failure as
opportunity.
And you know, in the sort ofathletes world and the sports
world you know, failing is astepping stone for them.
Oh yeah, you know whether it bethe greats that everyone knows,
like Michael Jordan and whatnot.
(10:34):
You know failing, you know 70%of the time, or 60% of the time
when taking the shot.
You know he looks at these asopportunities to get better and
but a lot of people they fallshort of experiencing their
success because they look atfailure as the endpoint, like I
and what and I love this.
This is sort of like the fortunecookie sort of piece of advice
is is is the true failure.
(10:56):
I guess the way that they'redefining it is is really when
you give up.
When you fall down, you staydown, you know, but failing is
you just get back up and you trysomething else, you know.
And so I'm interested as anentrepreneur, how important do
you think that that is?
I mean, I could sort of guesswhat you're about to say,
considering what you just sharedabout your journey with
multiple businesses.
Right, but for entrepreneursthat listen to this and right
(11:18):
now are experiencing struggleand they're looking at it like
I'm done, this is not, I can'tdo this anymore.
Clearly I failed, right.
So what sort of advice wouldyou give them as far as failure
for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So the first thing is you didn't fail.
The thing that you were tryingfailed.
You know we can't let it defineus.
That's something that I used todo is I'd say, oh, I suck, and
you know I'm horrible and I'llnever be good at something, and
that's that old negative person,right.
So when we realize, well, itwasn't me that failed, it was
(11:51):
the thing I was doing failed.
That provides me now a coupleof things to think about.
First, when I price things.
You know, if we go into thebusiness aspect for a moment,
when I price things, I used tobe well, I have to keep it cheap
.
I grew up pretty broke, right,I don't like to say poor,
because my grandmother would saypoor is a mindset.
So even as a child, yeah, right, yeah, that's amazing.
(12:14):
So we grew up without much.
At the time I didn't reallyrealize it, because my parents
did a wonderful job of makingsure we were loved and taken
care of and fed, and sometimesfed meant like hey, we don't
have anything for dinner.
Go across the street and catchsomething.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, real, real quick on that point.
People need to realize thisthat kids don't understand sort
of like lifestyle at such ayoung age.
And I think parents put so muchpressure of lifestyle on kids
like, oh, my kids need this bow,mowing their kids into, into
into life.
And I think you know the moreyou share about your growth,
(12:50):
your sort of upbringing.
I had a very, very similar.
You know.
We had that zero dollars, wedidn't have two nickels to rub
together.
And I remember when I wastelling my dad I'm like, hey, I
would love a pet, my dad wouldbe like, yeah, go catch one.
That was, and I didn't look atit as a bad thing.
I didn't be like, oh, my dad'stelling me to go catch a pet
because we're poor.
I was, I loved my life.
Oh yeah, I loved it.
(13:10):
Now we were very, very poor, wehad no money.
But that's what I mean, likekids don't know and they can
find joy, they can find growth,they can find stability and
success.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Even in those moments we don't have to fomo kids into
things, and that's actuallyrequired, you know, as part of
what we do, is the whole childdevelopment aspect.
Yeah, kids need boredom.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's required for their mental growth, for their
emotional resilience.
They need to be able to saylike I'm bored, and for dad to
say, hi, bored, I'm dad and youknow, and then to be kicked out
of the house or kicked into theother room and you'll see that
very quickly they're creating.
And that creativity goes tobeing able to get past failures.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, yeah Be creative.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So you know, as we now start pricing things in our
business.
I was taught that you have toraise your rates first.
That was lesson number one.
And I had that pushback becausewe didn't have much and I
wanted it to be accessible.
Sure, and with working with themindset coach and the business
(14:12):
coaches, it was the more youcharge, the more money you'll
have coming in, the more peopleyou can help, but also you'll
have more freedom to truly helpthe person that can't afford it.
You know, when I had everybodypaying me $20 a month, I
couldn't afford to help anybody.
Yeah, that's a good point, whenwe were, you know, the most
expensive in town and somebodylegit came in from a shelter or
(14:34):
something and they would say, oh, you know, I always wanted to
do this.
I said, good, so do it, let'sgo.
Well, how much?
I didn't ask you, let's goRight, you know, because I had
that freedom.
So, as you're pricing things,you keep raising those rates, as
you're supposed to, and youknow you have the right price
because you're getting about a30% pushback.
If you're not getting 30%pushback, you could have done
(14:57):
better, you could have done more.
So, in essence, I'm seekingthat failure, that failure to
sign up 30%, to tell me I'mdoing the right by 70%.
Now, if I'm failing all thetime and my sign up ratios are
like in the toilet, all right,it's time to reassess.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
The second thing is when we hit that failure that
says, well, something was toohard for me or I didn't quite
understand it completely, as Iam now and like I've been in
this game for a long time.
So when something I don'tcompletely understand or I'm not
good enough at it, that meansit's probably something pretty
(15:36):
difficult.
If it's difficult for me, it'sdifficult for someone else, and
what is the purpose of anentrepreneur is to find that
pain point that people have andsolve it.
So my own failures kind ofdirect where my next steps will
be.
Sometimes it's for my ownedification, you know.
Oh, hey, wow, I got to go learnhow to do taxes or go how to
(15:58):
learn how to do AI.
Now, and sometimes it's for thepeople around me.
And that's how I originally gotinto coaching, because we had
some really old guys not old inthe sense of age but old in the
sense of mindset where they justwanted to teach martial arts
the old ways.
They didn't understand how tomarket, how to get their school
(16:19):
going, and there were greatmentors out there but there was
nobody in the middle saying allright, look, let me show you the
first couple steps so that youunderstand what the big guys are
saying and that became my niche, you know that that how do you
get over that first step ofgetting into getting help?
So that failure on my ownhelped me find that opportunity
(16:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I love that perspective and I hope people
listening to this save that LikeI want you to save this moment,
because I think you justarticulated it really really
well to give people perspectiveon on the value that can be
found in failing, you know, andto sort of seek that stuff out.
I think that's really great.
Now, I guess, moving a littlebit away from from failure,
let's talk a little bit about,and maybe you know,
(17:05):
understanding failure is a skill.
But what are some necessaryhigh level priority skills and
abilities you think thatentrepreneurs should have?
Or maybe your answer is well, Idon't think there is a skill or
ability that all, allentrepreneurs have.
That that's fine, and I wouldcurious as to why you would
think that.
But so I guess there's that twopart question Do you think
(17:25):
there are skills and abilitiesand, if so, what are they for
entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Sure, I definitely think there are.
I think there is a certainamount that you can just come
with to the game.
My cousin was alwaysunfortunately he fell more into
the get rich quick kind of guy,so he never really had that
longevity in things.
I think he could have beenamazing.
Unfortunately he's no longerwith us, but watching him was
(17:49):
part of what colored my, mydesire to want to get into
business, because I saw he wasalways moving, always, you know,
moving forward, and I thinkthat is a big part of it.
I mean, the podcast is calledDon't Fear Grit and I did an a
series of interviews with someteachers a while back and I
asked them like I teach allthese kids and it's martial arts
(18:11):
, but it's child developmentclasses what do you need in your
schools in a post COVIDenvironment that you know I
could help your kids have?
And the number one answer wasgrit, resiliency, that ability
to fail a test and move forward.
So being able to look longdistance and yeah, we're failing
right now, but generals formillennia have been losing
(18:35):
battles but winning wars, sure,right.
So that ability to look longrange and keep eyes on the prize
.
Also, knowing where are you nowin our survival classes.
One of the exercises we do is welay out all these different
tools there's a knife andmatches and a compass and a you
know water, straw and all thesedifferent things and we just ask
(18:56):
people, before we even startout, of all these things, what's
the one you would take?
And 90% of people say, oh, ifI'm lost, I want the compass.
And we say, fantastic, do youknow how to use a compass?
Well, I mean I can find north.
So one of the first things youlearn in land navigation is, in
(19:17):
order to get where you want tobe, you need to know two things
where you want to be and whereyou are right now.
If you don't have that, thecompass is useless.
So in business, also, like knowwhere you are, be very humble
about looking at your ownstrengths and faults.
Now, that doesn't mean youcan't have any ego, because I
think an ego is very important.
(19:38):
We need to believe in ourselvesmore than anybody else, sure,
but but having just a littlemoment of humility.
And this is where coaches comein you know, helping us see
those things.
Maybe we don't want to seesomething.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You're a big advocate of mentorship and coaching.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Oh yes, that is that is, if I look back in my life.
You know every time thatsomething bad happened and I got
passed it there was a coachthere.
Yeah, there was.
You know, I started off.
I was almost wrote a book aboutmy life, but I'm not that
interesting.
So, like the first memories Ihave of a major set back is like
(20:13):
I was probably three or fouryears old and it's just very
vague memories of being molested.
But then I had like people in mylife that helped me get past
that and say, well, this doesn'tdefine you, this is something
somebody else did, from theregoing, and you know, if we fast
forward, like, I wanted to be anathlete.
So I had a coach who stepped inand said, well, I know you're a
(20:35):
fat body right now, but I'mgoing to work with you.
And he brought me to the pointwhere I was.
You know, after the Super Bowlwe're talking about this I was
playing football at a nationallevel with PAL.
Because he built us up likethat, I went into the Marine
Corps.
This is going to be my career,yeah, and I got hurt in boot
camp and they were kind ofshrinking the Marine Corps down.
(20:57):
So anybody that got a hangnailthey were, they were out, so you
know.
So, like that plan failed and Igot lost and I had somebody
just in town that came by andpicked me up and said look man,
I know you're a little lostright now I'm going to teach you
my business.
Whether you stay in thatbusiness for now or forever,
that's up to you, but you needto get out of your funk.
(21:17):
So, like every time in my lifethat there was failure, there
was a coach helping me get tothat next step.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Is that because, though, you were intentional of
making sure you sort of weresurrounded by people that, in
these moments, could in fact,advise you, or this was just, it
just sort of was by accident,in a way, that you surrounded
yourself with people like this?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
That's an interesting question.
I don't think early on that Iwas looking for it.
I was totally a nerd, a dork, ageek, okay, all of those things
that you shouldn't be whenyou're coming up and starting to
think about girls and that wasme, but you know, there was
always just somebody there.
So I think probably I was maybeso consciously looking for
(22:00):
who's going to help me get tothe next level, but it really
wasn't until probably 20, maybe2010.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know that I started going to business
conferences and hearing otherpeople talk about their
successes and stories that werevery similar, parallel to mine
yeah, yeah.
And that kind of sparked thatoh, this is how you did it Right
.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Right, you know, I noticed one thing that you know
everyone has a story, right,Everyone.
And as far as entrepreneurs,the more that I get to speak
with them, whether it be on theshow or in personal life and in
my business career, I've noticedthat a pivotal moment in all
entrepreneurs journey is theymention this a conversation they
(22:45):
have with another entrepreneuror another successful person, or
a conference that they went to,a seminar they attended, and
you know, it seems that you know, if we would just humble
ourselves a little bit earlierto bring that sort of support in
, that we can sort of fast track, you know, our success, you
know, and maybe avoid some ofthose you know avoidable sort of
(23:09):
pitfalls early on thatdiscourage us, waste our time,
waste our money, you know.
So here's the question for youDo you think that having those
challenges, though, help toshape us?
Therefore, it's important forus to go through that or, if we
can avoid it, avoid it.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
So I wouldn't say necessarily go seek out failures
yeah, but I wouldn't say avoidthem either.
You know, as we kind of lookback at our paths, a lot of the
things that we get challenged byare similar to the same thing,
same things that other peopleare challenged by yeah, and as a
teacher, one of the things Itell my students is you will be
(23:53):
better than me as martialartists and you're going to do
it in far less time because youhave everything that I learned
from my teacher over decadesthat I'm now condensing down.
You have everything I'velearned over decades that I'm
now condensing down.
You're going to get it allwithin five years.
Now.
Will you have the experienceand maturity and all that?
No, that'll come.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
But, you're, one of the cool things about humans is
we learn generationally.
So you mentioned being able totalk even just to another
entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
We all have our.
It's our passion, it's our baby.
We don't want to tell anybodyabout it because we want to
steal it, and and I'm just notwhere I want to be yet yeah.
But really 90% of any businessis the same malarkey that every
other business is doing.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And one of the first friends that it really started
leading me down this path.
He said you know, what we wantto talk about today at this big
mindset thing is we're going tochop wood and carry water.
And I said what do you mean?
And he's like well, all thethings you're doing right in
your business are the passionateparts, and all the things
you're doing wrong are just thethings you never learned how to
(24:59):
do.
But we're all doing it.
I'm going to show you how totrack leads.
I'm going to show you how tomanage an employee.
I'm going to show you you know,so it was.
It was a big weight lifted offto have that.
Oh, you mean, I don't have todo it all alone.
You know, entrepreneurship canbe very lonely at times.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Not everybody understands, especially those
closest to us.
Yeah, my parents were some ofthe first ones to talk me out,
to try to talk me out of some ofthis stuff.
Hmm, they said if you do, itwill support you.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
But having a paycheck come in every nice is every
week is really nice yeah.
Which, yeah, I do kind of missthat corporate regularity
sometimes but you know, justknowing that, even as we're
working alone, we are not alone.
Right, there's a coffee shopdown in Pachug where a lot of us
(25:56):
hang out and the gentleman thatruns it is he's a wonderful
entrepreneur, a wonderfulcommunity member.
In the space that he's createdIs such that you walk in and you
look around and you feel thevibe.
These are all entrepreneurs Alot of students as well, doing
work, but just being there andhearing the other snippets of
(26:17):
conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
You know, somebody not listening in, of course, but
yeah, it's a public space andyou hear like somebody has that
little snippet of oh, that'sexactly what I'm here to work on
today.
It's just empowering.
Yeah, Knowing that, even in mysolitary what's the word?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I'm looking for Solidarity, solidarity,
solidarity In my aloneness.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
I don't blame that on COVID brain or something right.
Even in my aloneness I amsurrounded by others.
You know it's like that missionof warriors, all on a common
cause.
We each have our job and ourduty, but we're all kind of
going together.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, yeah, you know there's a saying that I sort of
like abuse it, you know withpeople that I coach even my kids
and I say that the tide risesfor all ships.
And I think that one of thedangers that I think
entrepreneurs get into is thisidea that what I have and what I
do is I'm the only one and Idon't want anyone else to see it
(27:16):
, because then they get, likeyou were saying before, they're
going to steal my idea.
I actually wholeheartedlydisagree with that mindset
completely.
I actually think you're moresuccessful the more that you
sort of bring people into sortof that journey with you.
Even if it's people and this is, I know, a danger but even if
(27:36):
it's people that are sort of inyour industry, in your space, I
think that you should actuallycome together.
I think that if you can createmarket, you can educate market
together.
If you educate the market, themarket becomes bigger.
There's more than demands forwhat you do, because now you
guys have come together andcreated a demand, and so you
know, that's why I feel like onepiece of advice that I can
(28:00):
consistently try to give brandnew entrepreneurs is to don't
sort of lock your business uplike Fort Knox.
Open up those doors and in facttake the initiative to reach
out to other people in yourspace.
And I'm not saying you have tobecome a partner with them, I'm
not saying you partner with them, but definitely open that
conversation and regularly talk,because you guys can educate
(28:23):
the market, like I was sayingbefore, build demand for your
product.
You could just do a better joband I think there's plus.
There's plenty of money outthere to be made.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yep, yeah, and I wholeheartedly agree.
I didn't used to, but yeah, Ido now.
You know, our niche for kidsmartial arts for years has been
child development and we had tokind of create the market in our
area for that.
Nobody knew, like, if you said,oh, I'm a child development
specialist, they would say, oh,is it a school for special needs
(28:54):
kids?
Well, we can certainly workwith your child, but that's not
what we are.
Once we created this market, westarted seeing like the other
schools in the area were all ofa sudden like, oh, we do child
development too.
And you know some of my friendswould be like, oh, they're
stealing your stuff.
And I said, well, wait a minute.
First of all, I believe sowholeheartedly in what I do that
(29:16):
it will benefit kids, that Iwant every single martial arts
school, soccer coach, danceschool, gymnastics school, I
want them all to take thisBecause, yeah, you know, in
business we are trying to makemoney, but there was something
that we saw that that was needed, you know that from which we're
trying to make that money, yeah, yeah, and that thing for in
(29:38):
that venue for me is giving kidsthose tools that I have now
that I didn't have as a child.
So if I can, through myinfluence, get other influencers
to lead those kids into a venuewhere they have access to those
tools, why wouldn't I want that?
And the second way I look at itis if what I'm doing isn't good
(30:04):
enough for somebody else totake notice, I need to step back
and figure out what I'm doing.
If it is good enough andeverybody's trying to not
necessarily copy it but beinspired by it, then yeah, maybe
I'm right, maybe I do havesomething here and then I just
refine it.
So, it kind of guides me alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I love it.
I love it.
Now, in your opinion, assomeone who's had multiple
businesses, it seems like yougot your hands in a lot of
different things.
You've met a lot of people,tremendous amount of experience
and, by the way, that leads tolots of wisdom.
So I look at you as someonewho's very wise.
No pressure right, no pressureIs.
What do you think is theimportance for a new?
(30:43):
For answering two parts, if youcould, because I think the
approaches are different Someonewho's a brand new entrepreneur
just starting out, and then aseasoned entrepreneur.
What's the importance of marketresearch and zeroing in on a
niche?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, that's a good one.
So, as a brand new entrepreneur, we have these big ideas and I
still fall to it, right, becausewhen I start a new venture, I'm
a new entrepreneur again.
It's new things and shinies, sofinding that niche is really
important.
One of the failures that we hadin one of my previous martial
(31:20):
arts schools is we tried to doit all.
Oh, kickboxing is a cool newthing.
Well, guess what?
We have kickboxing classes.
Kids are a cool new thing.
We have kids now.
Yeah, we had that now.
And it was hard to do.
Even as we scaled the team, itwas hard to say this is who we
are, this is what we do.
It was even harder to say ohman, how do I market my
(31:44):
kickboxing today when I onlyhave ideas for the MMA and I
only have an ad prepped for thekids, and I only have?
It didn't provide me a lot ofclarity, focus, vision.
So we named my business thevision martial arts because in
our biggest failure, it was thatclarity of vision of who we
wanted to be that brought usforward.
So one of the things we like totell newer people is look, you
(32:08):
can always add on a product line, but save it for when that ship
is running smoothly and withoutyou.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Then you can focus on the next thing, For the more
seasoned person, this idea thatwhat got you here is not what's
going to get you to the nextspot.
In martial arts it tends to belike oh, I got to the 150
student or 200 student mark.
Tends to be like the thing andyou got to realize.
(32:38):
Look, when you hit that whatyou were doing keeps you there,
because that's what got youthere.
Now all your percentages arebigger.
So instead of putting on twostudents a month, you got to put
on 20 students a month just tobreak even.
So it's that market research isgoing to allow you to keep a
wide perspective.
(32:59):
It's going to say here areother opportunities I mentioned
I talked to a lot of teachersand one of the challenges in
schools is the things thatthey're preparing our kids for
today.
Half of that won't exist infive years.
Most of it won't exist in 10years.
So we're preparing kids forjobs that won't be there Now.
(33:24):
We can shift that and say,instead of preparing for the job
, I prepare the tools that willallow you to be successful in
any job.
And I think that's what mostteachers do within the confines
of their district rules.
The second part of it is oncethose jobs are gone, what's
going to backfill?
It is things that we haven'teven imagined yet.
(33:44):
So by doing market research andwe do it all the time I'm
constantly asking just randompeople and not just about my
martial arts or my massage or mysurvival, just asking them in
general what's the challenge ofadult life for?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
you right now.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Because we go back to what are we really trying to do
Make money by solving problems.
That's right.
So my perspective tends to bewhat do I have to do today in my
business to be successful?
Not necessarily what's Joe Bobover there trying to do, so he
can just get through his day.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
If I could solve that it makes it all easy.
There's a book it's consideredlike the Bible of advertising
called Breakthrough Advertising.
I don't know if you've heard ofit or read it.
It seems like anyone who'sreally been in business, and
especially in braces marketing,you've read this book, even
though it was written probably,I think, about 50 years or so at
this point ago.
It's sort of timeless In there,as you probably are well aware.
(34:45):
It has.
What is it?
The five levels of marketsophistication.
Yeah, right.
Now, one thing that I think alot of new entrepreneurs don't
understand is that they don'tunderstand adaptability.
They sort of are get a littlearrogant about their product and
their service and they don'tunderstand how, when, maybe, as
the market's evolving in thesense that there's now lots of
(35:08):
competition clamoring right, andnow your market what's it
called?
Your market share, isdecreasing.
That one way is to simply sortof just change a little bit.
A small aspect of what you doand why I'm saying this is
before you brought up is thatwe're all doing what other
people are doing or have done.
(35:29):
We're not really inventinganything or much brand new.
It's just a small littlederivative here.
How important do you think it isfor entrepreneurs to be able to
number one through marketresearch, be aware and then be
adaptable.
Is there a time and a place forhaving that ego and confident?
(35:52):
No, I know what I have willsolve the problem and I'm
trailblazing forward and I'mgoing to bully my way through it
.
Or do you think the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs say hey
, listen, I do have a product,but I need to be able to evolve
as the market evolves with it.
What's your sort of take onthat?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Sure.
So if we look at some of thebiggest corporations that are
entrepreneur driven in ourlifetime anyway, we could look
at Amazon.
Amazon started selling booksand right now they sell
everything.
It became less about hey, Iwant to sell everything, and
more about hey, I have thisplatform on which we could sell
(36:34):
everything.
I don't think that when JeffBezos was sitting there, he said
, wow, I want to sell books andI want to sell detergent and I
want to sell tools, and he saidI want to sell this platform.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Correct.
And now so many like my ownwebsites run on Amazon web
servers, because I was justgoing- to say, aws now is
probably one of their primarystreams of revenue, not even the
products that they're selling.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So the adaptability there was not.
Hey, I need to be able to doall these things.
It's what else can I do with mything?
And if we now scale that backand we can now go into my
business, it was, yeah, I wantto help these kids.
And in the beginning it was.
I helped them by teaching themhow to throw a punch of bully.
And then I became a little morerefined about it and said, well
(37:19):
, okay, that doesn't reallysolve the problem.
Now I want to work with thebullies, and that was something
nobody was doing.
Nobody wants to work with thebully.
I said, well, I want to solvethe root cause and that became.
Well, how do I do that?
Okay, well, if I get into childdevelopment now, child
development led me to well, kidsare not little adults.
They have their own uniquethings, but adults are just big
(37:41):
kids.
Yeah, we just have bigger toys.
So now it's all right.
My products are all aboutimproving people's lives.
It's whether it's through themartial arts, personal
development, child development,parenting classes, massage
therapy, aesthetics, women'sempowerment, learning how to
survive when things go wrong, oreven just the mindset behind
(38:03):
all those things.
They all tie together with that.
You know the what's my why?
It used to be part of thehustle culture until I learned
about alignment Now likealignment isn't one of my
favorite words so that when youalign everything to your mission
, you do see other opportunitiesthat you can then adapt to
(38:26):
without losing focus.
Sure, and I think that's thepart that most people get wrong
is they lose focus.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Oh yeah, all right, in line with that, last two
questions here.
The first one has to do with aquestion that someone asked.
I'm going to go up a post andsaying, hey, I'm going to be
interviewing a bunch of people.
What question would you ask?
And so this is the hot seatmoment.
You never know.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You never know what, it is All right.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Okay.
So the one question that Ithought you would be really good
for and this is actually aperfect transition, considering
what you just said is how, as abusy entrepreneur, you know,
because there are entrepreneursand then there's ambitious
entrepreneurs, right, I look, Icategorize you as ambitious
because you got your dabbling alot of things.
So how, as an ambitiousentrepreneur, this is what that
(39:10):
was the question.
It is, how do you create ahealthy work life?
Speaker 1 (39:14):
balance.
Oh, there's a question of themillennia right, yeah.
So part of it is you do have torealize that there are going to
be times when balance is notstatic.
When I was in college formassage therapy, one of the
first things they taught us wasthe balance between Eastern and
(39:35):
Western medicine.
And in Western medicine we talkabout we have homeostasis,
everything in your body is inbalance and you're healthy.
In Eastern medicine we say,well, you are homeodynamic, you
are on a seesaw and think, youknow, let me go into the camera
for this one, instead of beinglike you know we're balanced and
everything is perfect andnothing's going to change.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Well, I can do that.
We're seesawing back and forthwith in a range of acceptability
.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So we have to recognize in entrepreneurship
there are going to be times whenwe don't have family dinner
together when we have to stay uptill 2 in the morning Getting
that last campaign done.
Yeah when your ADHD Hyperfocuskicks in and you go all light
bulb, I gotta get this done nowand you miss the kids soccer
game.
Yeah, there will be thosemoments.
(40:25):
But I think it is also and thisis where, like, an
accountability partner comes innot necessarily a coach, but I
have people that check in on meand they're like, alright, hey,
are you doing what you'resupposed to be doing?
That reel you back in.
So there's also gonna be timeswhen you say, alright, I'm gonna
miss out on my Valentine's Daycampaign Because it is far more
(40:47):
important to me to go to thedaddy daughter dance you know.
So there's that balance and itdepends on where you are in your
adventure not just your venture, but your adventure With that
as well where you'll have thefreedom to make Decisions as to
how that balance plays out.
In the beginning You're gonna bekind of weighted towards I
(41:09):
gotta get it done, because Ijumped off the cliff and I'm
building the parachute on theway Down.
Later on I could say, alright,I see this opportunity.
Is it time dependent?
Is it dependent on some marketshift?
Do I need to be ahead of it oris this just a little thing that
I want to add on?
So having that long-term visionalso helps, because now I can
(41:32):
see, like what's out there andwhat's going to be more
important in the moment Mm-hmm.
And I think the more you matureis both a person and a business
person.
It will balance more towardsthat family, to the point where
it's not just how can I makepeople's lives better, it's how
(41:52):
can I make my life better and myfamily's life better by making
other people's lives, you know,and that that kind of shifts
your perspective a little bit.
Yeah the point where now you cansay All right, I need more time
at home so I can make my familybetter.
Maybe I put on a team member,you know, yeah, delegating.
(42:12):
Yeah and you get it out likethat yeah, and it does.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
So it doesn't have to be one or the other, and I love
that seesaw saw sort of visual.
I think that really, reallyhelps, you know.
And another thing is, I think,communication, because you know
you might have this greatunderstanding and approach and
but unless the familyunderstands that as as well,
there's still get, there's gonnabe a breakdown, right?
So I think that communicationelement is so, so important, you
(42:38):
know.
But but you're right, I meanone thing that I've learned and
I've done a lot like.
I've got, like you, I got myhands dabbled, you know.
You know in a lot of differentthings, and there are, there are
times where I'm gone before thethe family's up and I'm back at
home before and when they'realready sleeping and I don't see
them for a couple days, and andand I'm and I realized as much
(43:00):
as like I would love to delegateeverything.
You know, there are moments innew projects and new ventures.
It needed my time, though, andwhat what's great is
communication is the familyUnderstanding that.
You know dad's dad's doingsomething.
That's that's important.
He's trying to create somethinggreat, solve problems or even
create a better lifestyle for myfamily, and they understand
(43:21):
that.
I think that communication isimportant.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Sure, and you have kids so yes you know the under
the importance of getting themto understand it, because they
are our next generation, oh yeah, Just real quick on that.
This is another opportunity fora positive failure.
If I go home and I tell mypartner you know, hey, this is
this idea I have and it's gonnarequire a lot of time and
attention or maybe money orwhatever, and she says, no,
(43:47):
that's important to me becausethat means I don't yet have it
fleshed out, I haven't andhaven't defined it well enough
to explain it to her.
She's not necessarilyEntrepreneur minded, so if she
doesn't understand it, it's notready yet.
You know it doesn't mean no, itjust means alright, let me go
back to the drawing board, likeWiley Coyote in my little cave,
(44:10):
you know, let me go back to thedrawing board until I can come
back and say, okay, now, here'sthe idea.
And when she says, yes, well,now I've got something.
You know, it's a sounding board, market research at home.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean listen, it's a greatfilter.
You know, being sensitive tothat stuff and understanding
that, and I love what you justsaid, even if, let's say, our
partner or wives, whatever arenot, maybe sort of you know,
experts in our, in our fields.
They do represent someone,though, and that when we do run
(44:41):
it by in the, from thatperspective, this is what I'm
gonna be doing and it's a no,they don't understand it.
We should be paying attentionto that.
That's really interesting.
I'm gonna pursue that a littlebit more.
I love that.
Your wife will think You'regonna be getting a little
message.
By the way, you know, it'sValentine's Day.
You just say you just saved myday.
Thank you, all right.
(45:01):
So last question for you hereand like in, just like a, like a
one sentence thing.
Like all of a sudden you gotthis genie.
He sends you back to your life20 years ago, 25 years ago, and
you got 30 seconds with yourprior self.
So you got this limited windowhere.
What's one piece of advice thatyou're giving to your younger
self before you had thisincredible journey?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
You know, I think about this a lot and, man, I
think that just the thing Iwould say is like it's gonna be
okay.
It's not even an idea or amindset.
I'm a pretty emotional guy.
I get it from my dad.
We're not afraid to show ouremotions and I'm sorry, but you
(45:46):
know me, I can't do just onesentence.
It's the fact that I've had somany failures, big ones, even
recently that were life altering, heart-shattering, debilitating
at times, but I've alwaysgotten through it, and I think
the challenge as a younger manwas that I didn't have the
(46:09):
experience Of knowing that Icould get through it.
So if.
I could go back in time at 49years old and talk to my 15 year
old self and just say look man,it's gonna suck but it's gonna
be okay.
You know, to have that Trustedword from, hopefully, somebody
that I I can rely on, I thinkthat would mean a lot.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, I mean, that's actually.
It's interesting.
That's the first time that Ihave gotten that as an answer.
You know, cuz, normally and Ithink it's fine you know, people
try to find what is that?
So one defining advice that'llhelp me make more money, right,
like, can I?
Can I tell myself this?
But I think that's a muchhealthier sort of piece of
advice, especially given thatyou have this short window, like
(46:53):
you've got just a small amountof time with your younger self.
What's that one thing that'sgonna help them?
And I think you're right, Ithink confidence.
I'll admit it to you with youhere.
You know, you know everyone hasvarious insecurities at various
moments in life.
No one is confident 100% of thetime and everything that
they're doing.
We all have those moments.
So those moments of self-doubt,you know, and sometimes those
(47:17):
moments of self-doubt, we givein to those moments because of
fear.
Yeah, you know.
So if, if, if we can giveourselves that advice when
you're younger I you know you'reprobably right it makes a world
of a difference.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, no matter what's going on like, no matter
how bad your life has been.
Yeah here you are right.
You.
You survived every challenge.
Maybe not the way that youwould have wished or hoped, yeah
, but you've survived everysingle challenge this far.
You know, like one of thethings I Mentored my students
with is what's the worst thatcould happen?
(47:49):
Yeah, you know, you get punchedin the face, you get a
free-nosed job.
That it's.
You're still here.
Yeah, it's gonna be okay, rightand you still have that thing
that nothing, nobody could takeaway from you You're, you're,
you're who you are on the inside, that mindset, the mentality,
yeah, and if you've done it once, you could do it again.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Yes, yeah, absolutely , mike.
I can't thank you enough forbeing here.
Honestly, you are just likejust, and I'm have an enormous
amount of wisdom.
You're like like the modern-dayencyclopedia of wisdom for
everyone, really walkingmansplainer.
You know and I and honestly Ican't endorse you enough.
You know anyone who's out there.
(48:28):
I my recommendation is to seekyou out and because you know,
just having a brief conversationwith you I know helps a lot of
people because you do have areally profound understanding of
things and and those that havean understanding have the
ability to help people throughstuff.
And and I think that's whyyou've had great success and
you're able to Do a lot ofthings and people trust you.
You know in various elementswhether trusting you in the
(48:51):
survival, trusting you you knowAt your martial arts school, you
know, and that's because theytrust your level of expertise.
So I want to definitelyencourage everyone to seek you
out.
Do me a favor, if you can, leteveryone know how can they find
you.
Whether it be a website, phonenumber, it doesn't matter.
How can they find you, sure,easiest?
Speaker 1 (49:07):
way is, our school's website is not karatecom,
because it's not karate, it'skung fu, something my dad built
for us way back in the day after.
I told him 20 years later, likeit's not karate, yeah, so you
could find the school phonenumber, email addresses, all
that good stuff all that goodstuff and you're.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
You operate out of Patchog, but if people don't
live in patchog, I'm sure theycan still seek you out, right?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Oh, absolutely, you know.
We do projects all over LongIsland and it's a digital world.
Yeah, you know, so hit me up.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, very good.
Well, there you guys have it.
I'm sure a lot of you guys wereinspired by Mike here.
You learned something brand newand you're definitely walking
away like jazz right now.
I got because I am.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
I'm like I got work to do now.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
So definitely seek him out, because he's got so
much more to offer than even theconversations that we've had
here today.
We could probably talk forhours, an hour and hours, and
we'll definitely have you backagain.
You know, just real quick.
I first met you in this studio,yes, but someone else who was
recording their, their podcast,and I remember I sort of like
like you're marked you.
I was like I'm like this is aguy I want to talk to you again.
(50:13):
This guy is smart, he genuinelycares about people and he
understands that.
You know what I need to be agood steward of my information
here and I'm like we need totalk.
So I'm glad I was able to haveyou my show here, which is
awesome and I love all the stuffyou put out.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
I followed.
It is very impactful for me, soto have this opportunity today
was wonderful, and it'sdefinitely got my own gears
thinking awesome, self-inspired,awesome.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Well, there you have it, guys.
Thanks again for joining us anduntil next time, guys, remember
, don't fear the process anddon't fear grit.
The show is about to start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is, don't Fear Great, with Wabtau-Ramina,
marketing strategies andadvertising technologies to help
you build a better business.
Welcome back to DFG.
This is literally going to beour first guest interview of the
season.
As you guys know, I teasedeveryone, letting them know this
is going to be a special seasondedicated to guest interviews
(00:37):
In the studio.
To kick it off, I got my friendMike here.
Mike, why don't you justintroduce yourself?
Give some context.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Who are you Sure?
My name is Mike Evans.
I am a multi-hyphenateentrepreneur.
I have a lot of differentventures that I like to do Right
now.
We have Vision Martial Arts,which is a martial arts school
in Patchouge, new York.
I'm also a massage therapist.
We have, within the MartialArts School we have a massage
(01:03):
therapy clinic, massage Ally,where we also do aesthetics
classes for people that want tolearn about it.
We have Forgotten Skills, whichis a survival and community
building endeavor that came outof COVID era.
A couple of other things Dablinhere and there science,
communication, writing, anotherbook oh, wow All sorts of good
(01:24):
stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You're a entrepreneur , right?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You got bit by the buggy and you're not going back.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
He's that Renaissance man, danny DeVito.
That's right, rain man.
I don't have his money yet.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So here's the question and this is the
question that everyone alwaysstarts off with, so we'll just
get this one out of the way ishow did you get your start?
What was your firstentrepreneurial experience?
And then as far as where youare now, why did you get started
?
Why did you decide I want toget into Martial Arts, I want to
get into massage therapy, Iwant to get into survival skills
(01:58):
, stuff.
What got you to where you aretoday?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So that is quite the path, Ups and downs, left and
right.
So I guess the first thing Iever did entrepreneurially is I
tried to start a Martial Artssupply business.
It was just an opportunity thatwas there.
I was probably 20 years old,took out a person alone, bought
some stuff, didn't know anythingabout business and we went out
of business instantly.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I did get some cool toys that were left over from
that.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, they're still hanging on my wall.
From there, I just had someopportunities as I grew through
the Martial Arts, where at acertain point, my teacher wanted
to retire from public teaching.
He still does teach, but not asmuch publicly, so he left the
school to a partner and I.
We failed that business and welasted a little longer.
We lasted about a year, a yearand a half.
(02:51):
I opened another Martial Artsschool just by myself.
Thereafter.
That one lasted probably aboutnine years, until 2008,.
2009, when everything collapsed.
Our lease was up, everythingjust perfect storm.
I still didn't know anythingabout business at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But you're getting better and better and better
with each new experience.
Each time we got a littlebetter.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And I had a student of mine who said you know what?
This is kind of my thing, we'renot going to let you close.
Here's a key.
And he got a space where werented a space in another
Martial Arts school.
It was this gentleman, geneMontalion.
He's an Aikido guy and one ofthe things that he did was he
(03:38):
would bring in new Martial Artsleaders and kind of he was an
incubator for Martial Artsschools.
So there was probably six orseven of us Wow Teaching in his
school at a time.
So when my student handed me thekey, I still had to pay the
bill.
It was that, wow, if somebodybelieves in me, all right, I'm
going to do it just for you guys.
(03:59):
And then one thing led toanother.
We started getting really goodat it.
I said, all right, I don't wantto leave my student who did
this initial thing on the hook.
I definitely don't want to hurtMontalion Sensei's business.
So I better go learn at least alittle something.
And through a lot of mindsettraining, I used to be a very
(04:19):
negative person.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh yeah, one of those as soon as you said.
I have this idea, my ADHD wouldkick in and I would project the
27 different reasons it wasn'tgoing to work.
So through a bunch of mindsettraining, working with a lot of
mentors and kind of working myway through the Martial Arts
industry, at one point I was theCOO of the largest curriculum
(04:42):
provider in the industry.
So that close mentorship reallytook my weakness of that
negativity and it let me say allright, here's an idea.
Yeah, I still have that initiallittle voice that says what are
those 27?
Things are going to go wrong.
But now it's how do I shootdown those 27 things before they
ever even come up?
(05:02):
so that I can go be successful.
So one thing led to another.
We kind of made it up to COVID.
As soon as COVID hit, we wereone of the first businesses to
close.
We saw the writing on the wall.
We pivoted, probably two daysbefore the state shut down.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
We went to Zoom.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And that went.
I'm going to say, well, I mean,that was an interesting time in
the world.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, but at that time you didn't think that it
was going to last as long as itdid.
You thought it was temporaryright yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
two, three weeks were good to go and then 10 months
later, we're still closed.
When they finally did let usopen, it was very small 30% and
50%.
So we were going kind of stircrazy and this is where we
started getting into those otherbusinesses.
We can't be inside doingmartial arts.
Let's go outside.
What could we do outside?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You have to get creative.
Yeah, we started this.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
First it was just like go hiking and clear my mind
.
And then it was a couple offriends let's go hiking and
clear our mind.
Then there was a couple morefriends and it was, I remember,
when we were kids and we wouldstart fires in the woods.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So we started fires in the woods.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That led to another business and then we went from
there.
Everything opened back up.
We built the school up to acertain point but we never quite
recovered from COVID.
We did okay, I think duringCOVID we were probably one of
the leaders in the countrysurviving and even thriving, is
(06:31):
it?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
because you well, maybe you think that you because
you embraced the sort ofvirtual reality sort of aspect
early, yeah, you were earlyadopters of that, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I think we'd already been talking with with an
account of hours over in the UKand they were starting an online
teaching platform, so it waskind of like it's a good thing
that spark was already therebecause when it hit, the fan all
right, let's just pivot.
We already have this idea.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Let's just go Right.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But it just wasn't the same.
I mean part of what we do.
A traditional Chinese martialarts school was the center of a
community.
It wasn't just like I'm goingto go take karate.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
But it was.
You know.
They were doctors and healersand scholars that also taught
martial arts and they broughtthe community together in times
of, you know, famine andsickness.
That that was the hub, sothat's what we wanted to be.
And even though we did okayduring that virtual, it wasn't
the same no-transcript.
(07:35):
And then when finally thelandlord was great, he worked
with us all through it.
But, he got to a point wherehe's like all right, look.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And we just couldn't do it anymore.
Sure, so we stepped back onceagain.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
My story is a story of failure, but I'm always I
forget what it was, I forgotwhat it was on the top of my
head, Always talking aboutfailing forward.
Yeah Right.
So we stepped back and we said,okay, a little heart
palpitations going on.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
A little chest pain for a couple of days and then we
got together and said, okay, wecan't go away with the martial
arts.
It saved my life mostly frommyself so many times.
Yeah, changed so many people'slives.
I said, all right, let's bringback the other things I'm good
at.
So we brought back the massagetherapy.
We brought in a partner who'san esthetician.
(08:21):
So half of our school is set upfor healing and wellness.
The other half is set up forthe child development.
We were running the skillsprogram and even though I no
longer work for the company, Ido believe in the product so
much and we use it with our kids.
For the adults, we brought backa little more of that tradition
and then we're like all right,but how do we get the community
(08:43):
back Right?
So we started, well, goinghiking in the woods and we kind
of remembered that all right,back there in COVID we had this
whole business idea that we justnever really took.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
We met up with a friend of mine who's a biologist
and runs seed out in Brookhaven, new York, and they do
wonderful environmental things.
Yeah, and to me, like I grew upas an environmentalist, I'm an
East End boy.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
He came home from school, maybe did your homework
and then you were off in thewoods.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
So, as we chatted, he's like oh, I love the woods
here, and we started going outand doing things.
Sure, and now we have thesesurvival classes that we're
running through seed but it'skind of talking the forgotten
skills thing that I do with thesurvival, and I used to call it
primitive skills, but I wasinformed that that's not a nice
way to say it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So now we're going with like, no, no and like look,
I don't want to offend anybody.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So now we're going more like ancestral skills To us
at survival.
You go back two or threegenerations.
Yeah, that's just how theylived.
Life was a fight every singleday, so that's how I got where
we are now.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I love the journey, but one thing you said that I
want to stick to right now alittle bit is you quoted, you
know, making sure that you failforward if you fail, and that's
something that, like lately I'vebeen reading a lot of books on.
You know, mindset, training anda lot of sort of like.
The common theme with a lot ofthe books is this idea of
failure and helping people getperspective on it, because they
(10:13):
look at failure as this you sortof didn't accomplish anything
and now life is over in a way,instead of looking at failure as
opportunity.
And you know, in the sort ofathletes world and the sports
world you know, failing is astepping stone for them.
Oh yeah, you know whether it bethe greats that everyone knows,
like Michael Jordan and whatnot.
(10:34):
You know failing, you know 70%of the time, or 60% of the time
when taking the shot.
You know he looks at these asopportunities to get better and
but a lot of people they fallshort of experiencing their
success because they look atfailure as the endpoint, like I
and what and I love this.
This is sort of like the fortunecookie sort of piece of advice
is is is the true failure.
(10:56):
I guess the way that they'redefining it is is really when
you give up.
When you fall down, you staydown, you know, but failing is
you just get back up and you trysomething else, you know.
And so I'm interested as anentrepreneur, how important do
you think that that is?
I mean, I could sort of guesswhat you're about to say,
considering what you just sharedabout your journey with
multiple businesses.
Right, but for entrepreneursthat listen to this and right
(11:18):
now are experiencing struggleand they're looking at it like
I'm done, this is not, I can'tdo this anymore.
Clearly I failed, right.
So what sort of advice wouldyou give them as far as failure
for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So the first thing is you didn't fail.
The thing that you were tryingfailed.
You know we can't let it defineus.
That's something that I used todo is I'd say, oh, I suck, and
you know I'm horrible and I'llnever be good at something, and
that's that old negative person,right.
So when we realize, well, itwasn't me that failed, it was
(11:51):
the thing I was doing failed.
That provides me now a coupleof things to think about.
First, when I price things.
You know, if we go into thebusiness aspect for a moment,
when I price things, I used tobe well, I have to keep it cheap
.
I grew up pretty broke, right,I don't like to say poor,
because my grandmother would saypoor is a mindset.
So even as a child, yeah, right, yeah, that's amazing.
(12:14):
So we grew up without much.
At the time I didn't reallyrealize it, because my parents
did a wonderful job of makingsure we were loved and taken
care of and fed, and sometimesfed meant like hey, we don't
have anything for dinner.
Go across the street and catchsomething.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, real, real quick on that point.
People need to realize thisthat kids don't understand sort
of like lifestyle at such ayoung age.
And I think parents put so muchpressure of lifestyle on kids
like, oh, my kids need this bow,mowing their kids into, into
into life.
And I think you know the moreyou share about your growth,
(12:50):
your sort of upbringing.
I had a very, very similar.
You know.
We had that zero dollars, wedidn't have two nickels to rub
together.
And I remember when I wastelling my dad I'm like, hey, I
would love a pet, my dad wouldbe like, yeah, go catch one.
That was, and I didn't look atit as a bad thing.
I didn't be like, oh, my dad'stelling me to go catch a pet
because we're poor.
I was, I loved my life.
Oh yeah, I loved it.
(13:10):
Now we were very, very poor, wehad no money.
But that's what I mean, likekids don't know and they can
find joy, they can find growth,they can find stability and
success.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Even in those moments we don't have to fomo kids into
things, and that's actuallyrequired, you know, as part of
what we do, is the whole childdevelopment aspect.
Yeah, kids need boredom.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's required for their mental growth, for their
emotional resilience.
They need to be able to saylike I'm bored, and for dad to
say, hi, bored, I'm dad and youknow, and then to be kicked out
of the house or kicked into theother room and you'll see that
very quickly they're creating.
And that creativity goes tobeing able to get past failures.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, yeah Be creative.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
So you know, as we now start pricing things in our
business.
I was taught that you have toraise your rates first.
That was lesson number one.
And I had that pushback becausewe didn't have much and I
wanted it to be accessible.
Sure, and with working with themindset coach and the business
(14:12):
coaches, it was the more youcharge, the more money you'll
have coming in, the more peopleyou can help, but also you'll
have more freedom to truly helpthe person that can't afford it.
You know, when I had everybodypaying me $20 a month, I
couldn't afford to help anybody.
Yeah, that's a good point, whenwe were, you know, the most
expensive in town and somebodylegit came in from a shelter or
(14:34):
something and they would say, oh, you know, I always wanted to
do this.
I said, good, so do it, let'sgo.
Well, how much?
I didn't ask you, let's goRight, you know, because I had
that freedom.
So, as you're pricing things,you keep raising those rates, as
you're supposed to, and youknow you have the right price
because you're getting about a30% pushback.
If you're not getting 30%pushback, you could have done
(14:57):
better, you could have done more.
So, in essence, I'm seekingthat failure, that failure to
sign up 30%, to tell me I'mdoing the right by 70%.
Now, if I'm failing all thetime and my sign up ratios are
like in the toilet, all right,it's time to reassess.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
The second thing is when we hit that failure that
says, well, something was toohard for me or I didn't quite
understand it completely, as Iam now and like I've been in
this game for a long time.
So when something I don'tcompletely understand or I'm not
good enough at it, that meansit's probably something pretty
(15:36):
difficult.
If it's difficult for me, it'sdifficult for someone else, and
what is the purpose of anentrepreneur is to find that
pain point that people have andsolve it.
So my own failures kind ofdirect where my next steps will
be.
Sometimes it's for my ownedification, you know.
Oh, hey, wow, I got to go learnhow to do taxes or go how to
(15:58):
learn how to do AI.
Now, and sometimes it's for thepeople around me.
And that's how I originally gotinto coaching, because we had
some really old guys not old inthe sense of age but old in the
sense of mindset where they justwanted to teach martial arts
the old ways.
They didn't understand how tomarket, how to get their school
(16:19):
going, and there were greatmentors out there but there was
nobody in the middle saying allright, look, let me show you the
first couple steps so that youunderstand what the big guys are
saying and that became my niche, you know that that how do you
get over that first step ofgetting into getting help?
So that failure on my ownhelped me find that opportunity
(16:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I love that perspective and I hope people
listening to this save that LikeI want you to save this moment,
because I think you justarticulated it really really
well to give people perspectiveon on the value that can be
found in failing, you know, andto sort of seek that stuff out.
I think that's really great.
Now, I guess, moving a littlebit away from from failure,
let's talk a little bit about,and maybe you know,
(17:05):
understanding failure is a skill.
But what are some necessaryhigh level priority skills and
abilities you think thatentrepreneurs should have?
Or maybe your answer is well, Idon't think there is a skill or
ability that all, allentrepreneurs have.
That that's fine, and I wouldcurious as to why you would
think that.
But so I guess there's that twopart question Do you think
(17:25):
there are skills and abilitiesand, if so, what are they for
entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Sure, I definitely think there are.
I think there is a certainamount that you can just come
with to the game.
My cousin was alwaysunfortunately he fell more into
the get rich quick kind of guy,so he never really had that
longevity in things.
I think he could have beenamazing.
Unfortunately he's no longerwith us, but watching him was
(17:49):
part of what colored my, mydesire to want to get into
business, because I saw he wasalways moving, always, you know,
moving forward, and I thinkthat is a big part of it.
I mean, the podcast is calledDon't Fear Grit and I did an a
series of interviews with someteachers a while back and I
asked them like I teach allthese kids and it's martial arts
(18:11):
, but it's child developmentclasses what do you need in your
schools in a post COVIDenvironment that you know I
could help your kids have?
And the number one answer wasgrit, resiliency, that ability
to fail a test and move forward.
So being able to look longdistance and yeah, we're failing
right now, but generals formillennia have been losing
(18:35):
battles but winning wars, sure,right.
So that ability to look longrange and keep eyes on the prize
.
Also, knowing where are you nowin our survival classes.
One of the exercises we do is welay out all these different
tools there's a knife andmatches and a compass and a you
know water, straw and all thesedifferent things and we just ask
(18:56):
people, before we even startout, of all these things, what's
the one you would take?
And 90% of people say, oh, ifI'm lost, I want the compass.
And we say, fantastic, do youknow how to use a compass?
Well, I mean I can find north.
So one of the first things youlearn in land navigation is, in
(19:17):
order to get where you want tobe, you need to know two things
where you want to be and whereyou are right now.
If you don't have that, thecompass is useless.
So in business, also, like knowwhere you are, be very humble
about looking at your ownstrengths and faults.
Now, that doesn't mean youcan't have any ego, because I
think an ego is very important.
(19:38):
We need to believe in ourselvesmore than anybody else, sure,
but but having just a littlemoment of humility.
And this is where coaches comein you know, helping us see
those things.
Maybe we don't want to seesomething.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You're a big advocate of mentorship and coaching.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Oh yes, that is that is, if I look back in my life.
You know every time thatsomething bad happened and I got
passed it there was a coachthere.
Yeah, there was.
You know, I started off.
I was almost wrote a book aboutmy life, but I'm not that
interesting.
So, like the first memories Ihave of a major set back is like
(20:13):
I was probably three or fouryears old and it's just very
vague memories of being molested.
But then I had like people in mylife that helped me get past
that and say, well, this doesn'tdefine you, this is something
somebody else did, from theregoing, and you know, if we fast
forward, like, I wanted to be anathlete.
So I had a coach who stepped inand said, well, I know you're a
(20:35):
fat body right now, but I'mgoing to work with you.
And he brought me to the pointwhere I was.
You know, after the Super Bowlwe're talking about this I was
playing football at a nationallevel with PAL.
Because he built us up likethat, I went into the Marine
Corps.
This is going to be my career,yeah, and I got hurt in boot
camp and they were kind ofshrinking the Marine Corps down.
(20:57):
So anybody that got a hangnailthey were, they were out, so you
know.
So, like that plan failed and Igot lost and I had somebody
just in town that came by andpicked me up and said look man,
I know you're a little lostright now I'm going to teach you
my business.
Whether you stay in thatbusiness for now or forever,
that's up to you, but you needto get out of your funk.
(21:17):
So, like every time in my lifethat there was failure, there
was a coach helping me get tothat next step.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Is that because, though, you were intentional of
making sure you sort of weresurrounded by people that, in
these moments, could in fact,advise you, or this was just, it
just sort of was by accident,in a way, that you surrounded
yourself with people like this?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
That's an interesting question.
I don't think early on that Iwas looking for it.
I was totally a nerd, a dork, ageek, okay, all of those things
that you shouldn't be whenyou're coming up and starting to
think about girls and that wasme, but you know, there was
always just somebody there.
So I think probably I was maybeso consciously looking for
(22:00):
who's going to help me get tothe next level, but it really
wasn't until probably 20, maybe2010.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know that I started going to business
conferences and hearing otherpeople talk about their
successes and stories that werevery similar, parallel to mine
yeah, yeah.
And that kind of sparked thatoh, this is how you did it Right
.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Right, you know, I noticed one thing that you know
everyone has a story, right,Everyone.
And as far as entrepreneurs,the more that I get to speak
with them, whether it be on theshow or in personal life and in
my business career, I've noticedthat a pivotal moment in all
entrepreneurs journey is theymention this a conversation they
(22:45):
have with another entrepreneuror another successful person, or
a conference that they went to,a seminar they attended, and
you know, it seems that you know, if we would just humble
ourselves a little bit earlierto bring that sort of support in
, that we can sort of fast track, you know, our success, you
know, and maybe avoid some ofthose you know avoidable sort of
(23:09):
pitfalls early on thatdiscourage us, waste our time,
waste our money, you know.
So here's the question for youDo you think that having those
challenges, though, help toshape us?
Therefore, it's important forus to go through that or, if we
can avoid it, avoid it.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
So I wouldn't say necessarily go seek out failures
yeah, but I wouldn't say avoidthem either.
You know, as we kind of lookback at our paths, a lot of the
things that we get challenged byare similar to the same thing,
same things that other peopleare challenged by yeah, and as a
teacher, one of the things Itell my students is you will be
(23:53):
better than me as martialartists and you're going to do
it in far less time because youhave everything that I learned
from my teacher over decadesthat I'm now condensing down.
You have everything I'velearned over decades that I'm
now condensing down.
You're going to get it allwithin five years.
Now.
Will you have the experienceand maturity and all that?
No, that'll come.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
But, you're, one of the cool things about humans is
we learn generationally.
So you mentioned being able totalk even just to another
entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
We all have our.
It's our passion, it's our baby.
We don't want to tell anybodyabout it because we want to
steal it, and and I'm just notwhere I want to be yet yeah.
But really 90% of any businessis the same malarkey that every
other business is doing.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And one of the first friends that it really started
leading me down this path.
He said you know, what we wantto talk about today at this big
mindset thing is we're going tochop wood and carry water.
And I said what do you mean?
And he's like well, all thethings you're doing right in
your business are the passionateparts, and all the things
you're doing wrong are just thethings you never learned how to
(24:59):
do.
But we're all doing it.
I'm going to show you how totrack leads.
I'm going to show you how tomanage an employee.
I'm going to show you you know,so it was.
It was a big weight lifted offto have that.
Oh, you mean, I don't have todo it all alone.
You know, entrepreneurship canbe very lonely at times.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Not everybody understands, especially those
closest to us.
Yeah, my parents were some ofthe first ones to talk me out,
to try to talk me out of some ofthis stuff.
Hmm, they said if you do, itwill support you.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
But having a paycheck come in every nice is every
week is really nice yeah.
Which, yeah, I do kind of missthat corporate regularity
sometimes but you know, justknowing that, even as we're
working alone, we are not alone.
Right, there's a coffee shopdown in Pachug where a lot of us
(25:56):
hang out and the gentleman thatruns it is he's a wonderful
entrepreneur, a wonderfulcommunity member.
In the space that he's createdIs such that you walk in and you
look around and you feel thevibe.
These are all entrepreneurs Alot of students as well, doing
work, but just being there andhearing the other snippets of
(26:17):
conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
You know, somebody not listening in, of course, but
yeah, it's a public space andyou hear like somebody has that
little snippet of oh, that'sexactly what I'm here to work on
today.
It's just empowering.
Yeah, Knowing that, even in mysolitary what's the word?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I'm looking for Solidarity, solidarity,
solidarity In my aloneness.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
I don't blame that on COVID brain or something right.
Even in my aloneness I amsurrounded by others.
You know it's like that missionof warriors, all on a common
cause.
We each have our job and ourduty, but we're all kind of
going together.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, yeah, you know there's a saying that I sort of
like abuse it, you know withpeople that I coach even my kids
and I say that the tide risesfor all ships.
And I think that one of thedangers that I think
entrepreneurs get into is thisidea that what I have and what I
do is I'm the only one and Idon't want anyone else to see it
(27:16):
, because then they get, likeyou were saying before, they're
going to steal my idea.
I actually wholeheartedlydisagree with that mindset
completely.
I actually think you're moresuccessful the more that you
sort of bring people into sortof that journey with you.
Even if it's people and this is, I know, a danger but even if
(27:36):
it's people that are sort of inyour industry, in your space, I
think that you should actuallycome together.
I think that if you can createmarket, you can educate market
together.
If you educate the market, themarket becomes bigger.
There's more than demands forwhat you do, because now you
guys have come together andcreated a demand, and so you
know, that's why I feel like onepiece of advice that I can
(28:00):
consistently try to give brandnew entrepreneurs is to don't
sort of lock your business uplike Fort Knox.
Open up those doors and in facttake the initiative to reach
out to other people in yourspace.
And I'm not saying you have tobecome a partner with them, I'm
not saying you partner with them, but definitely open that
conversation and regularly talk,because you guys can educate
(28:23):
the market, like I was sayingbefore, build demand for your
product.
You could just do a better joband I think there's plus.
There's plenty of money outthere to be made.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yep, yeah, and I wholeheartedly agree.
I didn't used to, but yeah, Ido now.
You know, our niche for kidsmartial arts for years has been
child development and we had tokind of create the market in our
area for that.
Nobody knew, like, if you said,oh, I'm a child development
specialist, they would say, oh,is it a school for special needs
(28:54):
kids?
Well, we can certainly workwith your child, but that's not
what we are.
Once we created this market, westarted seeing like the other
schools in the area were all ofa sudden like, oh, we do child
development too.
And you know some of my friendswould be like, oh, they're
stealing your stuff.
And I said, well, wait a minute.
First of all, I believe sowholeheartedly in what I do that
(29:16):
it will benefit kids, that Iwant every single martial arts
school, soccer coach, danceschool, gymnastics school, I
want them all to take thisBecause, yeah, you know, in
business we are trying to makemoney, but there was something
that we saw that that was needed, you know that from which we're
trying to make that money, yeah, yeah, and that thing for in
(29:38):
that venue for me is giving kidsthose tools that I have now
that I didn't have as a child.
So if I can, through myinfluence, get other influencers
to lead those kids into a venuewhere they have access to those
tools, why wouldn't I want that?
And the second way I look at itis if what I'm doing isn't good
(30:04):
enough for somebody else totake notice, I need to step back
and figure out what I'm doing.
If it is good enough andeverybody's trying to not
necessarily copy it but beinspired by it, then yeah, maybe
I'm right, maybe I do havesomething here and then I just
refine it.
So, it kind of guides me alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I love it.
I love it.
Now, in your opinion, assomeone who's had multiple
businesses, it seems like yougot your hands in a lot of
different things.
You've met a lot of people,tremendous amount of experience
and, by the way, that leads tolots of wisdom.
So I look at you as someonewho's very wise.
No pressure right, no pressureIs.
What do you think is theimportance for a new?
(30:43):
For answering two parts, if youcould, because I think the
approaches are different Someonewho's a brand new entrepreneur
just starting out, and then aseasoned entrepreneur.
What's the importance of marketresearch and zeroing in on a
niche?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, that's a good one.
So, as a brand new entrepreneur, we have these big ideas and I
still fall to it, right, becausewhen I start a new venture, I'm
a new entrepreneur again.
It's new things and shinies, sofinding that niche is really
important.
One of the failures that we hadin one of my previous martial
(31:20):
arts schools is we tried to doit all.
Oh, kickboxing is a cool newthing.
Well, guess what?
We have kickboxing classes.
Kids are a cool new thing.
We have kids now.
Yeah, we had that now.
And it was hard to do.
Even as we scaled the team, itwas hard to say this is who we
are, this is what we do.
It was even harder to say ohman, how do I market my
(31:44):
kickboxing today when I onlyhave ideas for the MMA and I
only have an ad prepped for thekids, and I only have?
It didn't provide me a lot ofclarity, focus, vision.
So we named my business thevision martial arts because in
our biggest failure, it was thatclarity of vision of who we
wanted to be that brought usforward.
So one of the things we like totell newer people is look, you
(32:08):
can always add on a product line, but save it for when that ship
is running smoothly and withoutyou.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Then you can focus on the next thing, For the more
seasoned person, this idea thatwhat got you here is not what's
going to get you to the nextspot.
In martial arts it tends to belike oh, I got to the 150
student or 200 student mark.
Tends to be like the thing andyou got to realize.
(32:38):
Look, when you hit that whatyou were doing keeps you there,
because that's what got youthere.
Now all your percentages arebigger.
So instead of putting on twostudents a month, you got to put
on 20 students a month just tobreak even.
So it's that market research isgoing to allow you to keep a
wide perspective.
(32:59):
It's going to say here areother opportunities I mentioned
I talked to a lot of teachersand one of the challenges in
schools is the things thatthey're preparing our kids for
today.
Half of that won't exist infive years.
Most of it won't exist in 10years.
So we're preparing kids forjobs that won't be there Now.
(33:24):
We can shift that and say,instead of preparing for the job
, I prepare the tools that willallow you to be successful in
any job.
And I think that's what mostteachers do within the confines
of their district rules.
The second part of it is oncethose jobs are gone, what's
going to backfill?
It is things that we haven'teven imagined yet.
(33:44):
So by doing market research andwe do it all the time I'm
constantly asking just randompeople and not just about my
martial arts or my massage or mysurvival, just asking them in
general what's the challenge ofadult life for?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
you right now.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Because we go back to what are we really trying to do
Make money by solving problems.
That's right.
So my perspective tends to bewhat do I have to do today in my
business to be successful?
Not necessarily what's Joe Bobover there trying to do, so he
can just get through his day.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
If I could solve that it makes it all easy.
There's a book it's consideredlike the Bible of advertising
called Breakthrough Advertising.
I don't know if you've heard ofit or read it.
It seems like anyone who'sreally been in business, and
especially in braces marketing,you've read this book, even
though it was written probably,I think, about 50 years or so at
this point ago.
It's sort of timeless In there,as you probably are well aware.
(34:45):
It has.
What is it?
The five levels of marketsophistication.
Yeah, right.
Now, one thing that I think alot of new entrepreneurs don't
understand is that they don'tunderstand adaptability.
They sort of are get a littlearrogant about their product and
their service and they don'tunderstand how, when, maybe, as
the market's evolving in thesense that there's now lots of
(35:08):
competition clamoring right, andnow your market what's it
called?
Your market share, isdecreasing.
That one way is to simply sortof just change a little bit.
A small aspect of what you doand why I'm saying this is
before you brought up is thatwe're all doing what other
people are doing or have done.
(35:29):
We're not really inventinganything or much brand new.
It's just a small littlederivative here.
How important do you think it isfor entrepreneurs to be able to
number one through marketresearch, be aware and then be
adaptable.
Is there a time and a place forhaving that ego and confident?
(35:52):
No, I know what I have willsolve the problem and I'm
trailblazing forward and I'mgoing to bully my way through it
.
Or do you think the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs say hey
, listen, I do have a product,but I need to be able to evolve
as the market evolves with it.
What's your sort of take onthat?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Sure.
So if we look at some of thebiggest corporations that are
entrepreneur driven in ourlifetime anyway, we could look
at Amazon.
Amazon started selling booksand right now they sell
everything.
It became less about hey, Iwant to sell everything, and
more about hey, I have thisplatform on which we could sell
(36:34):
everything.
I don't think that when JeffBezos was sitting there, he said
, wow, I want to sell books andI want to sell detergent and I
want to sell tools, and he saidI want to sell this platform.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Correct.
And now so many like my ownwebsites run on Amazon web
servers, because I was justgoing- to say, aws now is
probably one of their primarystreams of revenue, not even the
products that they're selling.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So the adaptability there was not.
Hey, I need to be able to doall these things.
It's what else can I do with mything?
And if we now scale that backand we can now go into my
business, it was, yeah, I wantto help these kids.
And in the beginning it was.
I helped them by teaching themhow to throw a punch of bully.
And then I became a little morerefined about it and said, well
(37:19):
, okay, that doesn't reallysolve the problem.
Now I want to work with thebullies, and that was something
nobody was doing.
Nobody wants to work with thebully.
I said, well, I want to solvethe root cause and that became.
Well, how do I do that?
Okay, well, if I get into childdevelopment now, child
development led me to well, kidsare not little adults.
They have their own uniquethings, but adults are just big
(37:41):
kids.
Yeah, we just have bigger toys.
So now it's all right.
My products are all aboutimproving people's lives.
It's whether it's through themartial arts, personal
development, child development,parenting classes, massage
therapy, aesthetics, women'sempowerment, learning how to
survive when things go wrong, oreven just the mindset behind
(38:03):
all those things.
They all tie together with that.
You know the what's my why?
It used to be part of thehustle culture until I learned
about alignment Now likealignment isn't one of my
favorite words so that when youalign everything to your mission
, you do see other opportunitiesthat you can then adapt to
(38:26):
without losing focus.
Sure, and I think that's thepart that most people get wrong
is they lose focus.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Oh yeah, all right, in line with that, last two
questions here.
The first one has to do with aquestion that someone asked.
I'm going to go up a post andsaying, hey, I'm going to be
interviewing a bunch of people.
What question would you ask?
And so this is the hot seatmoment.
You never know.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You never know what, it is All right.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Okay.
So the one question that Ithought you would be really good
for and this is actually aperfect transition, considering
what you just said is how, as abusy entrepreneur, you know,
because there are entrepreneursand then there's ambitious
entrepreneurs, right, I look, Icategorize you as ambitious
because you got your dabbling alot of things.
So how, as an ambitiousentrepreneur, this is what that
(39:10):
was the question.
It is, how do you create ahealthy work life?
Speaker 1 (39:14):
balance.
Oh, there's a question of themillennia right, yeah.
So part of it is you do have torealize that there are going to
be times when balance is notstatic.
When I was in college formassage therapy, one of the
first things they taught us wasthe balance between Eastern and
(39:35):
Western medicine.
And in Western medicine we talkabout we have homeostasis,
everything in your body is inbalance and you're healthy.
In Eastern medicine we say,well, you are homeodynamic, you
are on a seesaw and think, youknow, let me go into the camera
for this one, instead of beinglike you know we're balanced and
everything is perfect andnothing's going to change.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Well, I can do that.
We're seesawing back and forthwith in a range of acceptability
.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So we have to recognize in entrepreneurship
there are going to be times whenwe don't have family dinner
together when we have to stay uptill 2 in the morning Getting
that last campaign done.
Yeah when your ADHD Hyperfocuskicks in and you go all light
bulb, I gotta get this done nowand you miss the kids soccer
game.
Yeah, there will be thosemoments.
(40:25):
But I think it is also and thisis where, like, an
accountability partner comes innot necessarily a coach, but I
have people that check in on meand they're like, alright, hey,
are you doing what you'resupposed to be doing?
That reel you back in.
So there's also gonna be timeswhen you say, alright, I'm gonna
miss out on my Valentine's Daycampaign Because it is far more
(40:47):
important to me to go to thedaddy daughter dance you know.
So there's that balance and itdepends on where you are in your
adventure not just your venture, but your adventure With that
as well where you'll have thefreedom to make Decisions as to
how that balance plays out.
In the beginning You're gonna bekind of weighted towards I
(41:09):
gotta get it done, because Ijumped off the cliff and I'm
building the parachute on theway Down.
Later on I could say, alright,I see this opportunity.
Is it time dependent?
Is it dependent on some marketshift?
Do I need to be ahead of it oris this just a little thing that
I want to add on?
So having that long-term visionalso helps, because now I can
(41:32):
see, like what's out there andwhat's going to be more
important in the moment Mm-hmm.
And I think the more you matureis both a person and a business
person.
It will balance more towardsthat family, to the point where
it's not just how can I makepeople's lives better, it's how
(41:52):
can I make my life better and myfamily's life better by making
other people's lives, you know,and that that kind of shifts
your perspective a little bit.
Yeah the point where now you cansay All right, I need more time
at home so I can make my familybetter.
Maybe I put on a team member,you know, yeah, delegating.
(42:12):
Yeah and you get it out likethat yeah, and it does.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
So it doesn't have to be one or the other, and I love
that seesaw saw sort of visual.
I think that really, reallyhelps, you know.
And another thing is, I think,communication, because you know
you might have this greatunderstanding and approach and
but unless the familyunderstands that as as well,
there's still get, there's gonnabe a breakdown, right?
So I think that communicationelement is so, so important, you
(42:38):
know.
But but you're right, I meanone thing that I've learned and
I've done a lot like.
I've got, like you, I got myhands dabbled, you know.
You know in a lot of differentthings, and there are, there are
times where I'm gone before thethe family's up and I'm back at
home before and when they'realready sleeping and I don't see
them for a couple days, and andand I'm and I realized as much
(43:00):
as like I would love to delegateeverything.
You know, there are moments innew projects and new ventures.
It needed my time, though, andwhat what's great is
communication is the familyUnderstanding that.
You know dad's dad's doingsomething.
That's that's important.
He's trying to create somethinggreat, solve problems or even
create a better lifestyle for myfamily, and they understand
(43:21):
that.
I think that communication isimportant.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Sure, and you have kids so yes you know the under
the importance of getting themto understand it, because they
are our next generation, oh yeah, Just real quick on that.
This is another opportunity fora positive failure.
If I go home and I tell mypartner you know, hey, this is
this idea I have and it's gonnarequire a lot of time and
attention or maybe money orwhatever, and she says, no,
(43:47):
that's important to me becausethat means I don't yet have it
fleshed out, I haven't andhaven't defined it well enough
to explain it to her.
She's not necessarilyEntrepreneur minded, so if she
doesn't understand it, it's notready yet.
You know it doesn't mean no, itjust means alright, let me go
back to the drawing board, likeWiley Coyote in my little cave,
(44:10):
you know, let me go back to thedrawing board until I can come
back and say, okay, now, here'sthe idea.
And when she says, yes, well,now I've got something.
You know, it's a sounding board, market research at home.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean listen, it's a greatfilter.
You know, being sensitive tothat stuff and understanding
that, and I love what you justsaid, even if, let's say, our
partner or wives, whatever arenot, maybe sort of you know,
experts in our, in our fields.
They do represent someone,though, and that when we do run
(44:41):
it by in the, from thatperspective, this is what I'm
gonna be doing and it's a no,they don't understand it.
We should be paying attentionto that.
That's really interesting.
I'm gonna pursue that a littlebit more.
I love that.
Your wife will think You'regonna be getting a little
message.
By the way, you know, it'sValentine's Day.
You just say you just saved myday.
Thank you, all right.
(45:01):
So last question for you hereand like in, just like a, like a
one sentence thing.
Like all of a sudden you gotthis genie.
He sends you back to your life20 years ago, 25 years ago, and
you got 30 seconds with yourprior self.
So you got this limited windowhere.
What's one piece of advice thatyou're giving to your younger
self before you had thisincredible journey?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
You know, I think about this a lot and, man, I
think that just the thing Iwould say is like it's gonna be
okay.
It's not even an idea or amindset.
I'm a pretty emotional guy.
I get it from my dad.
We're not afraid to show ouremotions and I'm sorry, but you
(45:46):
know me, I can't do just onesentence.
It's the fact that I've had somany failures, big ones, even
recently that were life altering, heart-shattering, debilitating
at times, but I've alwaysgotten through it, and I think
the challenge as a younger manwas that I didn't have the
(46:09):
experience Of knowing that Icould get through it.
So if.
I could go back in time at 49years old and talk to my 15 year
old self and just say look man,it's gonna suck but it's gonna
be okay.
You know, to have that Trustedword from, hopefully, somebody
that I I can rely on, I thinkthat would mean a lot.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, I mean, that's actually.
It's interesting.
That's the first time that Ihave gotten that as an answer.
You know, cuz, normally and Ithink it's fine you know, people
try to find what is that?
So one defining advice that'llhelp me make more money, right,
like, can I?
Can I tell myself this?
But I think that's a muchhealthier sort of piece of
advice, especially given thatyou have this short window, like
(46:53):
you've got just a small amountof time with your younger self.
What's that one thing that'sgonna help them?
And I think you're right, Ithink confidence.
I'll admit it to you with youhere.
You know, you know everyone hasvarious insecurities at various
moments in life.
No one is confident 100% of thetime and everything that
they're doing.
We all have those moments.
So those moments of self-doubt,you know, and sometimes those
(47:17):
moments of self-doubt, we givein to those moments because of
fear.
Yeah, you know.
So if, if, if we can giveourselves that advice when
you're younger I you know you'reprobably right it makes a world
of a difference.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, no matter what's going on like, no matter
how bad your life has been.
Yeah here you are right.
You.
You survived every challenge.
Maybe not the way that youwould have wished or hoped, yeah
, but you've survived everysingle challenge this far.
You know, like one of thethings I Mentored my students
with is what's the worst thatcould happen?
(47:49):
Yeah, you know, you get punchedin the face, you get a
free-nosed job.
That it's.
You're still here.
Yeah, it's gonna be okay, rightand you still have that thing
that nothing, nobody could takeaway from you You're, you're,
you're who you are on the inside, that mindset, the mentality,
yeah, and if you've done it once, you could do it again.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Yes, yeah, absolutely , mike.
I can't thank you enough forbeing here.
Honestly, you are just likejust, and I'm have an enormous
amount of wisdom.
You're like like the modern-dayencyclopedia of wisdom for
everyone, really walkingmansplainer.
You know and I and honestly Ican't endorse you enough.
You know anyone who's out there.
(48:28):
I my recommendation is to seekyou out and because you know,
just having a brief conversationwith you I know helps a lot of
people because you do have areally profound understanding of
things and and those that havean understanding have the
ability to help people throughstuff.
And and I think that's whyyou've had great success and
you're able to Do a lot ofthings and people trust you.
You know in various elementswhether trusting you in the
(48:51):
survival, trusting you you knowAt your martial arts school, you
know, and that's because theytrust your level of expertise.
So I want to definitelyencourage everyone to seek you
out.
Do me a favor, if you can, leteveryone know how can they find
you.
Whether it be a website, phonenumber, it doesn't matter.
How can they find you, sure,easiest?
Speaker 1 (49:07):
way is, our school's website is not karatecom,
because it's not karate, it'skung fu, something my dad built
for us way back in the day after.
I told him 20 years later, likeit's not karate, yeah, so you
could find the school phonenumber, email addresses, all
that good stuff all that goodstuff and you're.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
You operate out of Patchog, but if people don't
live in patchog, I'm sure theycan still seek you out, right?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Oh, absolutely, you know.
We do projects all over LongIsland and it's a digital world.
Yeah, you know, so hit me up.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, very good.
Well, there you guys have it.
I'm sure a lot of you guys wereinspired by Mike here.
You learned something brand newand you're definitely walking
away like jazz right now.
I got because I am.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
I'm like I got work to do now.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
So definitely seek him out, because he's got so
much more to offer than even theconversations that we've had
here today.
We could probably talk forhours, an hour and hours, and
we'll definitely have you backagain.
You know, just real quick.
I first met you in this studio,yes, but someone else who was
recording their, their podcast,and I remember I sort of like
like you're marked you.
I was like I'm like this is aguy I want to talk to you again.
(50:13):
This guy is smart, he genuinelycares about people and he
understands that.
You know what I need to be agood steward of my information
here and I'm like we need totalk.
So I'm glad I was able to haveyou my show here, which is
awesome and I love all the stuffyou put out.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
I followed.
It is very impactful for me, soto have this opportunity today
was wonderful, and it'sdefinitely got my own gears
thinking awesome, self-inspired,awesome.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Well, there you have it, guys.
Thanks again for joining us anduntil next time, guys, remember
, don't fear the process anddon't fear grit.
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