Episode 201 – Rafael Gomez
Welcome to another episode of The HERO Show. I am your host, Richard Matthews (@AKATheAlchemist), and you are listening to episode 201 with Rafael Gomez – Teaching People How to Find Clarity Through Movement & Breathing.
Rafael Gomez or known as Sifu Rafael is an advanced Mental game coach who has helped thousands of people elevate to a higher level of consciousness. He works with individuals, groups, and businesses and helps them find clarity, purpose, and understanding of who they really are in the world.
Rafael’s mission is to help those who are ready to make a difference in their world and the world of those who matter most. He has been studying Martial Arts for 46 years and has been teaching since 1992.
Rafael is well versed in Tibetan Lama Pai Kung Fu and teaches all aspects of fighting, weaponry, and development. His Tai-chi teaching is based on the Yang system. He also teaches Standing, seated, laying down, and moving Chi Gung.
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
Help People Define Who They Are
In the world of martial arts, Rafael has created a niche for himself as an expert which is what he is known for today. He teaches different types of Chinese weapons and helps people understand movement and breathing.
He is the person that people look up to, to help them define who they are as far as family, business, and personal life. It is his true passion to help people find clarity in their own world.
He mentioned, “We all live in our little bubble, but we all share this big world where we all have to coexist and the best way to coexist with other people is to be in your happy place, to be a person of integrity, a person who gives a damn, a person who wants to live a life worth living. To me, that is everything.”
Movement & Breathing as a Superpower
Rafael’s superpower is movement, movement is everything. Throughout the years, he has truly understood and studied movement.
His breathing, on the other hand, has allowed him to continue that movement for a long time. He understood that his movement is important because of his breath. Those two things tie totally together allowing Rafael to surpass other people with similar skills. Because he honed on it and narrowed it down over the years.
Other Topics We Covered on the Show:
- We talk a little bit about Rafael’s woodworking business and how that relates to making mistakes and failures.
- Then Rafael shared his origin story. How he managed to face adversities at a young age and discover what his real goal is through the help of his mentors.
- Rafael discussed how he helps people through the use of movement and breathing.
- Negative thoughts have been Rafael’s fatal flaw in his business. He was able to overcome this type of flaw by cutting the negative weeds out of his brain and not allowing negativity to creep in again.
- On the flip side, his client’s negative thoughts such as, “I’m not ready and I can’t do it” have also been Rafael’s arch-nemesis in his business. He deals with this by looking for the client’s willingness to change.
- Rafael’s driving force is to empower other people, he believes that the more people he can empower, the more he can change the world.
- Lastly, Rafael’s guiding principle is to learn every day. For him, if he doesn’t learn something new, it is a dead day. And he doesn’t want that.
Recommended Tools:
- Notepad
- Calendar
- Eating Healthy
Recommended Media:
Rafael mentioned the following book/s on the show.
- Holy Bible by Tyndale
- The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill
The HERO Challenge
Today on the show, Rafael Gomez challenged Josh to be a guest on The HERO Show. Rafael thinks that Josh is a fantastic person to interview because he’s a young martial artist, who is hungry to learn, a dedicated, and focused individual. There’s so much you can learn from him.
How To Stay Connected with Rafael Gomez
Want to stay connected with Rafael? Please check out their social profiles below.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/MaxFitness
- Facebook Profile: Facebook.com/SifuRafaelGomez
- Coaching Call Podcast Facebook Page: Facebook.com/CoachingCall
With that… let’s go and listen to the full episode…
Automated Transcription
Rafael Gomez 0:00
So I think it’s the whole thing my true passion is in helping people. And when I talk about helping someone find their clarity in their own world, we all live in our little bubble, if you will, a little world but we all share this big world where we all have to coexist and the best way to coexist with other people is to be in your happy place to be a person of integrity a person who gives a damn a person who wants to live a life worth living. That to me is everything.
Richard Matthews 0:38
Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers, and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what, I can fix that, I can help people, I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers, their success, and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money, and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…
Richard Matthews 1:34
Welcome back to the Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I am excited to have on the line, Rafael Gomez. Rafael, are you there?
Rafael Gomez 1:40
Yes, I am.
Richard Matthews 1:42
Awesome. Glad to have you here. And just to start off, where are you calling in from?
Rafael Gomez 1:45
I’m calling from New York. I’m excited to talk to you. I know you have a great podcast.
Richard Matthews 1:50
Awesome. So you come in from New York City or New York State?
Rafael Gomez 1:54
Long Island, New York.
Richard Matthews 1:55
I got to visit there for the first time this last year, we got to actually take my kids to go the carriage ride around Central Park and whatnot. It was really cool.
Rafael Gomez 2:05
Very cool.
Richard Matthews 2:06
Yeah. And our first New York pizza, which I have decided that all of the people around the country who tell you they have New York style pizza are lying because it is nothing like the pizza that’s actually in New York.
Rafael Gomez 2:19
That’d be the water. I think it’s the water. You know.
Richard Matthews 2:22
I’m not sure what it is. But the pizza in New York is like a whole different category of food that’s elevated beyond pizza.
Rafael Gomez 2:30
I had a friend who lived in Arizona. And every time I visited her and her husband, I had to bring two pies with me on the plane. Because they needed New York pizza. And so every couple of months, I would ship them a couple of boxes of pizza.
Richard Matthews 2:49
Yeah. And I remember we got there and the slice of pizza is not like a slice of pizza. It’s this massive slice of pizza. I like four of them, which I think was like an entire pizza cuz I was like this is so good, I don’t care if I die while eating it. But anyway, I very much enjoyed visiting New York and was surprised to find out that New Yorkers are nothing like they’re portrayed in Hollywood, they were all super friendly and very helpful. Which you get this whole New Yorkers are gruff and mean thing from Hollywood, and it’s just not true.
Rafael Gomez 3:23
Well, it depends on who you talk to or what time of the day.
Richard Matthews 3:27
Yeah, I guess, if it’s traffic hour. But anyway, so what I want to start off with is I want to do just a brief introduction of who you are for my audience who may not know who you are, and then we’ll just dive into your story. So Rafael is an advanced mental game coach who’s helped thousands of people elevate to a higher level of consciousness. Rafael works with individuals, groups, and businesses to help them find clarity, purpose, and understanding of who really is in the world. And your mission is to help those who are ready to make a difference in the world, and the world of those that matter most. So what I want you to start with Rafael is what is it that you’re known for? What’s your business like? Who do you help? How do you serve them?
Rafael Gomez 4:10
Great question. One of the things that I’m known for is that I’ve created a niche for myself in martial arts as someone who is an expert, I teach a lot of different types of weapons, Chinese weapons, and through helping people understand movement. When you’re helping someone understand certain things, and they’re going through different troubles in their lives. All of a sudden, this discussion comes up of, well, I’m going through this at work or I’m going through this at home or how are you so successful at what you’re doing? And I noticed that I’m always getting emails from them and it’s emails I want to read because they have great content. So I guess I am that person that people look up to, to help them define who they are. As far as family, business, and their personal life, it led me on a journey of self-discovery. Because in order for me to help anyone else, I had to find myself. Like they say on an airplane first, put the mask on your face and then help someone else. So I think it’s the whole thing my true passion is in helping people. And when I talk about helping someone find their clarity in their own world, we all live in our little bubble, if you will, a little world but we all share this big world where we all have to coexist and the best way to coexist with other people is to be in your happy place to be a person of integrity a person who gives a damn a person who wants to live a life worth living. That to me is everything.
Richard Matthews 6:05
So when it comes to what you actually do as a business, you do the coaching stuff and you do speaking and you also teach martial arts is that right?
Rafael Gomez 6:17
Right. And believe it or not, I also have a woodshop.
Richard Matthews 6:20
A woodshop?
Rafael Gomez 6:21
Yeah.
Richard Matthews 6:23
What kind of woodworking do you do?
Rafael Gomez 6:26
I do furniture, I can make furniture, I can make buildings, all kinds of stuff tables, beds, and cabinets.
Richard Matthews 6:32
I just did my desk here in the RV.
Rafael Gomez 6:35
Nice.
Richard Matthews 6:36
I spent the summer making a desk and redoing cabinets and teaching myself very basic woodworking stuff and what I have learned is that I’m not a woodworker. I can do it. And it turns out all right, but it’s not my strength.
Rafael Gomez 6:51
The one lesson that I’ve always told anyone, especially an apprentice, someone I’ve helped understand Woodworking is that it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been doing woodwork. Never underestimate a saw, because it will cut your fingers off. And I knew a guy that I was working with. He was doing it for 50 years and he cut his thumb off. And it’s just because he took his eye off. That’s all it takes, one mistake.
Richard Matthews 7:26
I have a, will they call them a plunge saw? For those of you who are uninitiated in the world of woodworking, a table saw is typical, which is where the table is down in the soft pocket out of it. A plunge saw is the opposite where you have the saw on top and you put your hands on top of this to plunge it down into the wood. I really liked that because as long as you’re holding the plunge saw correctly, it would be very difficult to chop your fingers off with it.
Rafael Gomez 7:51
You’d be surprised, you’ll also get a kickback from that especially when you’re not holding the piece of wood correctly.
Richard Matthews 8:02
Yeah. This summer I built this desk, I built two benches, a table, and several cabinet doors when we were doing the retrofit here. I figured that would be my skill that I learned this year was woodworking.
Rafael Gomez 8:18
You know, when I help someone, we’re all capable of more. The problem is fear. We’re afraid of failure. Man, can I tell you how many times I’ve failed? Because that failure allows me to move on. And think about sales, why are people a bad salesperson? Because they’re afraid of debt. No, give me a thousand NO’s. I’m okay with that. I know that one, yes, is going to change my life. So I teach people to get out of their own heads. You can do anything you want, you can do woodworking, you can build a car, you can take it apart, you can go to space, you can do anything. Get that fear out of the way.
Richard Matthews 9:08
Yeah, the mistakes and everything, they’re part of the journey. I tell my staff, mistakes are stepping stones to success. And I’ve been learning this woodworking stuff, and my son was watching me this whole time. And I’d like to make a cabinet door and I measure it two or three or four times and write down all the measurements and then measure it a few more times. And I go out and I cut it into be an inch short. And I’d be like, why is it wrong? And then it comes to find out it’s like I didn’t take into account the offset for the hinge. I’m like, so it doesn’t matter how many times I measured it, I was measuring the wrong thing. And so you just have to learn from those mistakes and then go on and redo things. Though, we managed to get it done.
Rafael Gomez 9:53
Yeah, you managed to get it done because it’s done. But one of the things that you talked about just a second ago was the plan. So you can plan and have more success. But if we just go by, you kind of did it without necessarily drawing it out. So you kind of thought of it. But did you put it down on paper? Did you write it down? Did you account for all the things?
Richard Matthews 10:19
I didn’t account for things?
Rafael Gomez 10:21
Yes. That’s everything right? So planning has to have every little detail in it. Because we can plan. But if we don’t plan for every little thing, we’re not going to succeed. And there are going to be hiccups along the way, no matter how good a plan is, there are going to be hiccups.
Richard Matthews 10:42
In that case, you don’t know what you don’t know, I didn’t know I had to account for the hinge offset. So I couldn’t have planned for it until I didn’t like it, oh.
Rafael Gomez 10:51
Right. Here’s one of the things that we used to tell some of the apprentices when they used to come and work, I would tell them, hey, you cut that too short. Why don’t you go make it longer? And they’re looking like, you can’t make it longer. Once you cut it. That’s it, it’s done. You can glue another piece on it. But it’s not the same.
Richard Matthews 11:13
I lucked out in my inch short cabinets that were the right size for another cabinet that I was doing. So I told my wife at the time, I was like, I didn’t actually cut it short, but I was actually doing was making these other cabinet doors. That’s really what happens. So always a silver lining to that. So I want to talk about your origin story. Every good comic book hero has an origin story. And it’s how you became the here you are today. Were you born a hero? Or were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into martial arts and teach people how to live their best lives? Or did you start in a job and eventually moved to become an entrepreneur? Basically want to know where you came from.
Rafael Gomez 11:56
Yeah, so I did fall, and I built a cape on the way down. To be honest with you, I faced adversity at an extremely young age, I had polio, and I was about three, and my feet turned backward. My legs turned backward. I was in Colombia, my dad was in the United States. And he had come to visit and he was actually in my bed, sleeping. Two, three in the morning, I woke up screaming. My legs had already turned right. And they didn’t know what to do. They took me and eventually they put him back. They put me in braces. I look like Forrest Gump. Remember with the braces and I couldn’t walk. If I was going to walk 10 feet, it probably would take me about an hour. That’s how fast I can walk when I was able to learn how to ReWalk. And here’s a funny story to that. I’m one of 10 By the way, my mom had 12. So my parents decided to come to the United States from Colombia. So they both came and they dispersed us amongst our family. So I was living with my sister who was married, and she was living with her in-laws. And that’s how it was in Colombia. You married and then everybody lived in the same house. And my brother was somewhere else and he came to visit. So my brother is older than me. And so there I am in my crutches, and I got to go to the bathroom. So I said, Cesar, take me to the bathroom. And he’s like, well, okay, he picks me up. And I’m like, hurry up. And I think I waited too long because I peed on them. And can I tell you, he dropped me. And it was the funniest thing, now that I think of it, it was very funny because of his reactions like I’m helping you and you pee on me.
Richard Matthews 14:07
How old is he at the time?
Rafael Gomez 14:09
He’s four years older than me. So he had to be seven. So the funny thing is that I can look back at that, and I can laugh. And I can remember the movements, learning how to crawl, how to roll in order to get to one place faster. What I wound up learning how to do was rolling. So I learned how to roll around to get somewhere because the walking was gonna take me forever. So I was in those braces for quite some time. And then, later on, I became aware of orthopedic shoes. I think I was in those braces for about two and a half years. Then I wore orthopedic shoes till I was about 12 or so. But that never stopped me from climbing, jumping, rolling. And so, because of that, I’ve fallen so many times, one time I fell from a third story. And I wound up in Colombia. In the old days, you lived in this big place and in the middle of the courtyard, and I’m at the top with my brother, and I’m pushing and pushing. And I think I’m counting. And I pushed and I went through the veranda. And I go through and I fall. Now in the old days, they had the big washbasins and it’s where they wash the clothes. Had that not been there, I would have been dead. Thank God it was full of water. The last thing I remember is falling in it, looking up, and seeing red.
Rafael Gomez 15:48
Now, I woke up three weeks later. I don’t remember the hospital. And this is in the lobby of the hospital, leaving the hospital when I recall. Not even getting to it, not even being in the hospital, not waking up in the hospital. I’m sure I did. But I think I was in a coma. The memory I had was being in my dad’s arms with a blanket. And my only concern was, I’m naked. Somebody is going to see my butt, that was it. That was my only concern. Not the fact that I was out, that I had a patch on my eye. None of that. None of that mattered. I don’t want anybody to see my butt that was it. That was the funniest thing to me. So every time I’ve had these things happen to me, there’s always been things that make me laugh. Make me understand that man, I am so lucky, so gifted. I have a guardian angel. Listen, I’m not the one wearing the cape. My guardian angel is someone who looks out for me so many times. And my sisters tell me man, another time you fell and you were like on the floor laying down and you fell from a roof and this and that. But to this day, I’m still not afraid of heights. Why? I don’t know.
Richard Matthews 17:12
You got a guardian angel. So how do you go from polio and not being able to walk as a child to having studied martial arts and being a martial arts teacher for 46 years?
Rafael Gomez 17:25
So around the age of nine, or when I came to New York, I was eight years old. At that time, I could walk, I could move around, I still wore my shoes. But my brothers used to go to a movie theater, which was nearby. And it was dirt cheap back then. And it was Saturday matinees, and it was all martial art movies, and you would see all these cool, kung fu movies, obviously, all subtitled. And then we will go out and play and fool around and beat each other up and all that. Finally, one of my friend’s fathers is the one that taught me. And the way it happened is my friend is leaving a bunch of us hanging out and he’s leaving. And I’m like, where are you going? He goes, I gotta go. I said, can I come? He’s like, okay, I’m going home and like, okay, because I like them. So we went, and his father was going to give them a lesson. His father was a karate master. So his father is like, who’s he? And I’m like, you want them to come. He goes, okay. So every day, for six months, I trained with this kid’s dad. And it was amazing. The guy to me was a legend. Because I actually saw somebody trying to kill the guy. And he was laughing while somebody was actually chasing them with a machete. And he was just laughing at the guy who was actually trying to kill him. And he just pushed them away and got rid of them. And I was in awe. And I was like, yeah, I want to be that guy.
Richard Matthews 19:02
And so you got into martial arts. So when did you get into the actual coaching portion of your business?
Rafael Gomez 19:11
So for a long time, I’ve always wanted to own a gym. One of my passions when I was 12 years old, was to be Mr. Olympia. And I was lifting. I was doing everything. And I did up to 500 Push-ups every day, without fail thousands of situps every day, like crazy. Me and my friends were nuts. That’s how it started. We’ll challenge each other. And what wound up happening is I got pneumonia. And I was in bed for a month. I would literally try to get up out of bed. Like, say, okay, I’m going to get up now and pass back out and wake up hours later. I couldn’t get up. And I was like that for a month. And that took that whole dream away. Because I said, okay, I can’t be Mr. Olympia. But that was a dream. And I said, but I can still work out, I can still do things. So I always would work out, do things that kept my body fit, and still did martial arts. And so my goal was to always own a gym to empower other people. And when I started training in a different martial art, which is the one that I teach now, I got lucky because I called them up. I actually trained in the basement of a church with a guy who looked like Lou Gossett, Jr. If you don’t know who he is, Top Gun. And my teacher looks exactly like him. And I would pay $5 a week to go and train for hours, and just sweat all over the floor. We’d fight in the dark. It was just amazing stuff. From thereon. I went and I found my Grandmaster and his disciples. And I started training with them. And eventually, they put it in my head is, you don’t want to own a gym, you want to own a martial arts school. I was like, yeah, that’s what I want to do. I want to own a martial arts school. And little did I know, it truly became that. I’ve had so many different jobs. At 10 years old, I was cleaning bingo halls, I was selling trischka Bobs, I was selling ISIS, I was selling Puerto Rican flags at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York, which is huge. And anything I can get my hands on to make some money I was doing. So what wound up happening is I was doing interior design architecture at the time. And I said I’m going to stop that because the politics were crazy. And I went into personal training. So I was already a trainer, I was training people. And so what ended up happening. As I said to my girlfriend at the time, I said, I’m ready to open up that kung fu school. I borrowed $20,000 from my sister and opened up. And the rest is history.
Richard Matthews 22:19
That’s really cool. So I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers you’ve developed over your storied career. Every iconic hero has a superpower, whether it’s their fancy flying suit that they made by their genius intellect, or the ability to call down thunder from the sky, or super strength. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with, or you developed over the course of your life that really sets you apart, that lets you help your clients slay their villains in their lives. And the way I like to frame it is if you look at all the skills that you’ve developed, you probably have a common thread that sort of ties all those skills together. And that common thread is probably where your superpower is. So with that framing, what do you think your superpower is in your life?
Rafael Gomez 23:03
I don’t think I know, or movement. I have always moved. And the way I move is because of my ability to see things. When I look at someone else’s movements I can tell by their movements, if they understand a move or not. So my superpower to me is movement, movement is everything. Because I’ve truly understood and studied movement. It’s funny when I have young guys, I’m 56. Now I have young guys come in their 20s or whatever. And I’m doing things and they’re trying to stay up with me. They’re trying to keep up with me. And I’m like, let’s go. And at first, they’re right there. Sometimes they even surpass me. But my movement, my breathing, which is also another superpower allows me to continue that movement for a long time. And so I’ve understood that my movement is important because of my breath. So those two things tie totally together to allow me to really supersede or surpass other people with similar skills. Because I’ve honed in on it. I’ve narrowed it down.
Richard Matthews 24:35
It’s really interesting because I’ve had a lot of guests on the show, never had anyone say their superpower is movement. So how do movements and your understanding of it? How do you use movement as a way to help other people?
Rafael Gomez 24:50
Excellent. So here’s the thing every day I post videos on Facebook and LinkedIn. So I chose Those two mediums because Facebook has a lot of people on it. LinkedIn is more of a serious type of people, who are business people, people who are focused, not people who are there for, I guess, social atmosphere, that’s what Facebook is for. People are going to post, I went to the bathroom, I ate this, I ate that, oh, look at my friends. On LinkedIn, it’s more like here’s a concept, here’s an idea. Let’s go for it. And here’s a business concept, or here’s what I’m doing or they’re presenting, and LinkedIn is more of a business aspect to the way we do things in life. So every day I post a video on movement, and I’m teaching people that it doesn’t take a lot for us to be healthy. So I’ve always posted but I decided this year 2022 to start posting on January 1, and I’m going to post every single day. But I’m going to do it for seven days and then start again. So they one is three minutes, they two is four, all the way till we get the seven, which is nine minutes. And then I restart again. So that start was January 1, which was a Saturday. So every Saturday, you’re going to see a three-minute video, every Monday, you’re going to see a five-minute video, and so on till you get to Friday, which is a nine-minute video. And so I am there teaching people that it does not take a lot of effort for us to get off our butts and move. So when people say I can’t afford the gym, that’s an excuse. When people say I don’t have time, that’s an excuse. So if we can move for three minutes. If you can wait at Starbucks for five minutes or longer for your coffee, then you can move.
Richard Matthews 27:09
You are using movement as a way to help people improve their health.
Rafael Gomez 27:14
And their lives. If you move, not only does it help your body, it helps your mind. Here’s one of the things I tell some of my younger students. I tell this to the parents, when your children come home, and they’re stressed because they have a lot of homework. And they’re in the middle of a problem and they can’t figure it out. Stop, push away. Now all I asked my students is to practice for 15 minutes, I said, make them practice, put the timer on, and say get away from your homework, we’re going to practice kung fu for 15 minutes, I’m going to guarantee you that not only will they have more clarity when they come back to the problem they had, but they’ll feel better. So it opens up their minds. Because now we’re including the breath, you can’t move without breathing. You know anybody who can hold their breath for 15 minutes?
Richard Matthews 28:13
I do not.
Rafael Gomez 28:14
Me neither. So the breath. And when you start moving and you start moving faster, you’re going to get more breath into your body. So all of these things, the movement, the breath is going to help you to have clarity. And that’s huge.
Richard Matthews 28:31
So one of the concepts we talked about on the show all the time is giving yourself as particular as entrepreneur permission to play. And the concept is that for whatever reason, entrepreneurs are very apt to say that I will work until I’ve accomplished a goal and then I will reward myself with rest and relaxation. And since we don’t really have good goals or good ideas that when we’ve achieved them, we’ve never achieved them. So we never rest to relax, we just work ourselves to death, which is an unhealthy cycle. So one of the things that we talked about regularly is that entrepreneurs should, to put it like you can’t show up and work and do good work unless you are rested. Unless you’re you’ve actually taken time to take care of yourself first. And so I always say start with rest and recreation. And when you do that, then you can show up and actually do good work. So it’s the inverse of what most people think.
Rafael Gomez 29:29
100% agree. Here’s my thing, we all have a purpose in our lives. If you look back in history, everyone’s lives are very short. We should live longer. But we put a stop to it. Why? Because we stop moving. We stop breathing. We stop living. Who cares, if you worked 80 hours this week, but you lived, none, nobody cares. You know who cares? The people you’re working for, they care, oh, you should have done 90 hours instead of 80. But to have a life worth living, you need to live it. That’s it. Money is important. But your life is way more important. So a lot of people, entrepreneurs must learn to live a better life, or they will be entrepreneurs. And they may be great for a short time. I want to be an entrepreneur forever. We have to live a long life, my great grandfather lived to be 113. My goal is to kick his butt and live way longer than him.
Richard Matthews 31:00
I have the same goal, I always tell my wife I’m like, I want to skid into the grave. Like there’s skid marks on the way in. I want to talk then about the flip side of your superpowers if your superpower is movement and helping people move. The fatal flaw is the flipside of that. Every Superman has his kryptonite. And Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. You probably have a flaw that’s held you back in growing your business, something you struggled with, for me, I struggled with a couple of things. I struggled with perfectionism for a long time like I always tweak it a little bit more before I bring it to market. And then you never bring anything to market. I also struggled with, to our last discussion here, lack of self-care, which in my case brought itself out in like having poor boundaries with my relationship to time and poor boundaries with my clients, I let them walk all over me. But I think more important than what your flaw is, is how have you worked to overcome it so that you could continue to grow? And hopefully, your experience will help our audience?
Rafael Gomez 32:01
You know, my kryptonite, to be honest with you, is my mind. When I have had in the past, I’ve had negative thoughts. They stopped me, man. And just that one thought, It’s like planting that seed. And you plant that seed in it and weeds come out. And I wanted to plant a really beautiful plant, but man, I planted it wrong. I got weeds and the weeds they’re taking over. So it’s that negativity, the thoughts that hurt us that once I cut the weeds out. Holy cow. That was my flaw. And when I recognized my flaw, when someone said to me, oh, you can’t do that. I’m like, yeah, you’re right. I’m not good enough. And also, I was a perfectionist. I can’t do this, so I can’t do that. And also, I had a thing at one point where I had to prove myself to everyone I proved myself to no one, the only one I proved myself to is me. I’m the only one that counts. So once I learned to cut the weeds out of my brain, which is those negative thoughts, I don’t allow them in anymore. And it’s been a couple of years that I’ve done that and it’s changed my entire life. It has allowed me to be a really good listener, a really good father, a really good friend, a really good
colleague. Because I don’t allow anyone to plant their seeds in my brain. So if you have something negative, you can bring it to me but it’s gonna bounce right out. There’s nothing coming in. So once I understood that is because it’s so easy to take that negativity in. I mean, our brains want to take that in, especially if it’s comfortable. If it’s going to be easy, which road do you take, the easy road or the hard road? Sometimes the easy road seems so logical. But when you look deeper, it’s that hard road that yes, it’s going to be tough getting there, and nobody’s going to be with me. I’m going to be on this road by myself. And it’s that tough decision that will allow us to get there. So yeah, that was totally my weakness.
Richard Matthews 34:54
The thing I find interesting about how you described it is you said when I let negative thoughts in, they stopped me, which is a reference to your superpower of movement. So it stops your movement. And it’s interesting that you’ve recognized that. And that it’s the negative thoughts that keep you from doing what it is that you do.
Rafael Gomez 35:20
And it’s for all of us. And that’s why, when I say I’m a mental game-changer or change coach, I’m more of a change artist. So I’m a martial artist, but I’m really a change artist. I can change my attitude, I can change my behavior, I can change my mood. How often do you see somebody who’s happy becomes sad, like in a split second? It could happen if it’s this tragedy that’s going on. But how often do you see somebody who’s mad? In a split second, get super happy? It takes a little while. It takes a while.
Richard Matthews 36:01
Entrepreneurs do that regularly.
Rafael Gomez 36:03
Yeah. So we need to focus on, you know what? Life is too short for me to be grumpy and unhappy and moody and nasty. You know, what? If you’re nasty, if you’re moody, if you’re grumpy, that’s your problem, it ain’t my problem. Here’s the thing, the minute I allow you to enter my realm, enter my space, and put that negative energy into me. I’ve given you my power, you’ve made me powerless. And you will never, ever take away my power. I will help you with yours. But you cannot take mine away. Because you can do anything you want to me. But you can get in my mind. That’s my power.
Richard Matthews 36:52
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I want to talk a little bit about your students in your business and talk about your common enemy. Every superhero has an arch-nemesis, it’s a thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business, it takes a lot of forms. But when we put it in the context of your clients, it’s a mindset or a flaw that you constantly have to fight to overcome with them, so they can actually get the results they come to you for. And if you had your magic wand, and as soon as someone said, hey, Rafael, I’d like to study with you. You could just bop them on the head with your magic wand and not have to deal with that common enemy. What is that in your business?
Rafael Gomez 37:32
Negative thoughts. I can’t, I’m not ready. I can’t do what you do. But I’m not asking you to do what I do. I want you to do what you do. That is the key. A lot of people. Negativity is truly what stops people from being great. We’re all great. But we stop ourselves. So when I’m dealing with a client, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t take everybody I used to, because I was thinking the wrong way. I was thinking of money. I can’t take that money with me. I don’t want your money. I want your willingness to change. I want your willingness to be better than you were yesterday than you were an hour ago. Because when we’re together, you’re helping me, if you’re not willing to do the work. How can I help you? I had a bunch of women come to me at one time, and they wanted to lose weight. I said, absolutely. I’d be more than happy to help you. And I said how often are you coming to class? Oh, maybe every other week. I said, okay, thank you, have a great day. But I’m not the guy for you. What do you mean? They were offended. I say, well, you don’t want to make a difference. You don’t want to lose weight. You just want to blame me, when you don’t lose the weight. Here’s the thing. I’m not that guy. I’m the guy who’s going to push you, who’s going to challenge you and make you do the things that you’re uncomfortable with. Because to change from ordinary to extraordinary. You have to do the grunt work. You have to do the tough stuff that everybody’s been curving you with and saying, oh, you don’t have to do that. You’re okay. You’re you look great the way you are. Your clothes fit you fine. Here’s the thing. I also tell my clients. If you become my client, you’re never allowed to buy clothes bigger than the ones you are in right now. ever, ever. And if you’re my business client, you better never do the things that keep you down. Because guess what? We can’t work together. If I’m going to give you systems for you to become extraordinary, then you have to follow through. If you’re not willing to follow through, then we can’t work together. Because I’m going to follow through, if I tell you, I’m going to be somewhere, if I tell you, I’m going to do something, you can set your watch to it, you can set your calendar to it. But if I can’t do the same thing with you, and it’s okay, if you don’t know how, I’ll teach you how I’m okay with that, I’m okay with teaching. I’m okay with empowering you. But you have to get out of your own way and allow the systems, the methods, and the craziness to get in there, you got to do the work.
Richard Matthews 40:34
Yeah, in my coaching business, one of the things that I’ve started to really work with clients is like, hey, if it’s worth doing at all, it’s worth committing the next 10 years of your life to. And I’ve noticed that it’s a mindset shift for people because they don’t look at the things that they’re wanting to do. And think, am I willing to put 10 years into this? And so I like to relate it to child-rearing, if you’re gonna have children, that’s like an 18-year commitment, at least really lifetime commitment to everything that you’re doing with them, but it’s worth that, it’s worth the rest of your life. And if anything that you want to put your attention on, should be worthy of that same type of commitment of actually showing up and doing the work. And I like using that as an example because you can’t show up and do the work. It just doesn’t work that way. And for whatever reason, we like to look at our commitments in business or other commitments in life or commitments to ourselves and think, I can show up sometimes, but other times not. And then you wonder, like, hey, if there were child protective services for your business, would they come and take it away from you, because you’re not showing up and doing the work. Neglect.
Rafael Gomez 41:56
Yeah, one of the things that when I go to someone’s business, the first thing I look at is, it doesn’t matter what your business looks like, to you, it matters what it looks like to everyone else. So you always need a fresh pair of eyes. If I come to your brick and mortar, is it inviting? Is it clean? Is it dirty? Are the bathrooms clean? Is it, do I feel at home? Or do I feel like there’s something wrong in this place? Smells, everything. So when I go to someone’s business, these are the things I’m looking for. And yeah, I’ll bring a notepad and paper and I say, wow, I love what you’ve done here. But can we change this? Or how do you feel about this? Being that I know how to draw and I do interior design architecture, I can even help people re-layout their business based on Fung Shui. So how do things flow? What colors are going to be more inviting? Do we need certain things here or there? And when I make a suggestion, that’s all it is. I don’t go into anyone’s business and say you have to do this. Now you have to do nothing. You don’t have to listen to me at all. You choose who you listen to. But just like with you and your coaches, they can choose to listen to you or not. It’s important for everyone to understand that. Coaches and this might come out bad. But like roaches, they come out of the woodwork. There are a million coaches right now. And this is why I started my coaching call podcasts. And yeah, I also do that, by the way. And it was to talk to real coaches who are making a difference in the world, who are making a difference in people’s lives. Because when we have somebody in front of you. Here’s my thing. I want to work with someone who’s done it. Not someone who thinks they’ve done it, someone who claims they’ve done it. I want someone who can show me results. So results are everything. So for me, coaching is everything. If I’m going to show you something, I need to show it to you. That means I’ve done it. I can’t just say yeah, do this, and then I’m a hypocrite because I can’t do it. Or if I say, I want you to hang because your body needs to align. I want you to just hang your feet off the ground. Just hold on with your hands. How long can you hang for? Most people can hang longer than 10 seconds. Seriously, it’s crazy. And I’m holding on for a couple of minutes and people like how are you holding on? I said because I started with a few seconds, that’s the way we start. We start small. And then we advance. So not everybody is born a black belt. Not everyone is born an instructor. Not everyone is born an entrepreneur. You don’t come out of your mom’s womb and you go, oh, yeah, I think we should do this. And we should move this business over here. And we shall sell cars here. And let’s build this site. No, that doesn’t work. We learn everything from a young age. And it’s the people who’ve taught us that make a difference. Now, I told you, I’ve had a lot of adversity in my life. I think a lot of people who’ve taught me to be who I am, are the people who hurt me the most. Wow. To me, that’s huge. Because I never saw them as hurting, I just didn’t understand why they were treating me a certain way. But now I thank them because their actions caused my actions. And this is why I don’t allow anyone in my mind because I have to make my own decisions, right?
Richard Matthews 46:13
Yeah, I’ve done the hanging stuff with my son, I can do about a minute and a half, depending on how good I’m feeling.
Rafael Gomez 46:20
Good.
Richard Matthews 46:21
My son’s like, 30 seconds, which is pretty good for a 12 year old.
Rafael Gomez 46:27
You know, a lot of kids can actually go on the monkey bars in hand. Kids can do amazing things. Why? Because they don’t know, NO.
Richard Matthews 46:40
They spent so much of their life moving.
Rafael Gomez 46:45
Yeah. Well, here’s the thing, how many times does a kid hear the word NO by the time they’re 18?
Richard Matthews 46:52
A lot.
Rafael Gomez 46:54
Billions of times. No, you can’t do this. No this, you’re no good at this, on and on and on. So later on, when they try to hang for 10 seconds, they can’t. Because somebody said to them, you can’t do that. So they got to get out of their own way.
Richard Matthews 47:15
Yeah, in our house the most common NO is, can I have snacks, Daddy, I want more snacks. No, you already had snacks.
Rafael Gomez 47:26
Yeah, you can have more carrots. No problem.
Richard Matthews 47:29
Yeah, that’s what we do is like you can have as many fruits and vegetables as you want. But they’re like, but I want m&ms. I’m like, that’s good that you want that.
Rafael Gomez 47:38
Here’s a carrot, it has color.
Richard Matthews 47:42
These are just like the orange m&ms. If you cut them up a little around then they’re just like an m&ms. So the flip side of your common enemy would be your driving force. So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. I want to know what it is that you fight for in your business, your mission, so to speak.
Rafael Gomez 48:03
My mission is to empower other people. The more I can empower people, the more I can change the world. And as a kid, I was told I could not change the world. Man, they are wrong, you and I are changing the world right now you have a podcast, you bring in these great guests into your show. And you’re letting the world hear their message. People may hear my message and go that guy’s full of crap. And that’s okay, I’m okay with that, I don’t care. I’m not here to impress anyone. The only person I need to impress is me. So that superpower that we have to empower people with is that they’re awesome. They’re amazing. They have a gift. And let’s explore that gift.
Richard Matthews 49:00
And that’s a great mission. I know. It’s one of those ripple effect missions, where every time you help someone, they help others, and it changes the world. And that’s what we’re doing here. And what I try to do with all of my businesses have some sort of a ripple effect. And that’s one of the reasons I love entrepreneurs is because they bring their value and their value is what changes the world.
Rafael Gomez 49:23
One of the things that I always do is I coach people, at least two for free, no charge, no, nothing, no, what’s in it for me? It’s more about them. And they’re like, you charge a lot of money. I’m like, yeah, that’s fine. But if you don’t see the value in what I’m giving you, and you don’t do what I’m asking you to do, then I’m gonna fire you too even though you’re not paying, I will fire you. If you’re not willing to do the work then we can’t work together. So I give back by helping people. My goal is to empower people. And it’s not the money. Because, look, there are certain coaches that I know a guy who only charges $7, $7 to coach people. And he’s got really good stuff. And the guy’s amazing. But he was homeless. So $7 for him is a lot of money. And gentlemen were homeless, he got himself out of it, and he empowers people. It’s not the money for him, it’s to make sure that they’re at least investing a little bit in order to get his message. And he texts his client every single day. And he’s amazing. And then we have other coaches that may charge $1,000 or $20,000 A month or however much I know of a coach that charges $50,000 a month. Now, is their message less than the person who charges seven? No, it’s perception. Can you and I afford the guy who charges $7? Well, yeah $7 nothing. Can we afford the guy who charges 50,000? There it is. The thought, Hmm, can I afford that guy? Absolutely. Because investing in him will bring you double, triple, quadruple even more money. If he is worth every penny he charges. And guess what? He is, that’s it.
Richard Matthews 51:44
So I want to talk about some practical things, then. We call this your hero’s tool belt. And just like every superhero has their belt with their gadgets on it, things like their batarangs or web slingers or their laser eyes, I want to talk about the top one or two tools or practices you couldn’t live without in your business could be anything from your notepad to your calendar to your marketing tools, something you use for your actual delivery in your classes or your coaching, something you think is essential to getting your job done on a daily basis?
Rafael Gomez 52:15
Okay, so this is my journal. My quick journaling notes, my calendar, one of many, and I even have more books here. Here’s another journal, those things if I don’t put them down on paper, there are so many messages coming into my head, your head, we have about 10,000 messages that come into our brains every single day. And we can accept them or deny them. My thing is, what do I allow in? That’s number one. Number two is, what do I retain? And we retain everything, by the way. The thing is, where did I store it? Hmm. So that’s why these things come in handy. So here’s the thing that I do a little differently. I journal right? I put it in a big book. And each book has different areas. And then I put it in a second book. And then I put it in a third book. Why do I do that? So my journaling allows my thoughts to go through a process of I had an initial thought back to that initial thought, I revisit it. And then I take that one, and I go, let me refine it. And then it goes into my journal. And guess what? Later on, I’m going to look at it and go, what the heck was I thinking? Or I’ll say, wow, I can’t believe I was thinking like that. That’s awesome. So my journaling is important to me. My Calendar allows me to be in control, period.
Richard Matthews 54:22
To control your time.
Rafael Gomez 54:23
Yeah, because when you and I booked this, you asked me if I wanted to be on it. I said absolutely. But then we had to figure out what works for you, what works for me. So that calendar allows us to put time aside for things that we think are going to be important. We have to set it up in a way that allows us to have a day that’s worth living.
Richard Matthews 54:49
Yeah, either you control your time or it controls you.
Rafael Gomez 54:52
Absolutely.
Richard Matthews 54:54
It’s interesting the journaling I’ve never really been able to get into a lot but I have tried several times but like at night I’ll do like a stream of consciousness style journaling, where you just write down all the thoughts that you have. And I’ve always been surprised by like, you look at it the next day, and like nine times out of 10, you’re like, I’m pretty sure I was drunk last night, it wasn’t. But if you look through my stream of consciousness journaling I’m like, some of these don’t make any sense at all. But every once in a while, there’s like, really good nuggets in there.
Rafael Gomez 55:20
Yeah, but you know how many more nuggets would be in there if you did it every day. Here’s the thing, you know how you do it every day. You carry this thing everywhere you go, you have a smartphone, you have a thought, pop, record, you know, I was gonna go to the store today. But then I decided to do whatever, and just write it. You don’t have to write it down, you can speak it out. Because you have a thought in my head, just put it out there. Here’s the one thing with journaling. I also do something a little different, I will write everything, I’m right-handed. But I’ve taught myself as a young kid to be left-handed. So I’m ambidextrous. So here’s the thing, I write it with the right. Later on, I’ll rewrite it with my left hand. How many people can do that?
Richard Matthews 56:07
I can’t get my left hand to do anything. So like my left is a useless appendage that hangs off the left side of my body.
Rafael Gomez 56:14
No, it’s part of you. But here’s the thing, just like thoughts, ideas, if we don’t put them to use, they are useless. You don’t have an appendage, you have a left hand. So here’s the thing, can you write your name the same way with both hands, start with that.
Richard Matthews 56:36
What I’ve been doing with my left-hand stuff is, when I build my desk, if I push my keyboard in, I can actually pull out my piano. I unplugged it. But I have a piano sitting here at my desk. And what I’ve been practicing is learning how to play the same chords with my left hand and my right hand. And then also be able to alternate the rhythms and whatnot. And it’s the thing that I’ve been using to try and train my left hand and not just be a useless appendage hanging off my left side. But also I want to learn to play the piano. So I built my environment. So I have a piano here.
Rafael Gomez 57:17
Yeah, so you don’t have an appendage anymore, you have a left hand.
Richard Matthews 57:21
Well, see, I’m still working on it, it is very difficult to get my left hand to actually follow along with the things I’m trying to do, but it is getting better.
Rafael Gomez 57:31
I saw an interview with Bob Proctor. Before he passed, he passed on February 4th. And I think he was 88 or 87 years old, a brilliant man. He didn’t finish elementary school, or maybe he went up to eighth grade or something like that. But at that age, he was still learning and he was still reading. So if we don’t use it, we lose it. That’s what everybody says. But we don’t have to think that because we didn’t use it at one point we have to necessarily have lost it. We can always pick it up. We can always pick up a new habit, a new tool. And when I talk about habits, oh my god, habits. So you asked me what’s my tool, I’m going to tell you what’s in my tool belt, fruits, and vegetables. And my calendars, all my things. But also it’s my eating habits. If I eat a certain way, my life will go a certain way. That simple, it’s the fuel that we put inside of us that’s going to determine our outcome. When I fuel my body, I’m not just fueling my body. I’m filling my mind. What do we have? Let’s say I have an accident, and I can only use my mind. Do I say okay, I don’t have to worry about my body? I can eat everything I want. I’m just gonna feed junk and junk and junk and junk. I’m going to cloud up that mind that I had such a great time harvesting if you will, that mind that I cleaned that I got rid of all those weeds and plant negativity into it, NO. So eating healthy for us is another tool.
Richard Matthews 59:35
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Richard Matthews 1:01:04
I want to talk a little bit about your own personal mentors, every hero has their mentors just like Frodo head Gandalf or Luke and Obi Wan Kenobi or Robert Kiyosaki has his Rich Dad or even Spider Man had his Uncle Ben. Who were some of your heroes, were they real life mentors, were they speakers, authors, maybe peers who were a couple of years ahead of you, and how important were they to what you have accomplished over the course of your career?
Rafael Gomez 1:01:28
Very important. So some of the mentors I had were my parents, and I did not have a good upbringing, I was abused as a child by my parents. And they taught me so much. And a lot of people like, wow, how can you say that? They abused you, they hit you, they spoke badly to you and all these things. And I’m like, yeah, but they taught me how not to be. So I credit them because you can take two children in the same environment, or even a thousand people in the same environment, they’re all going to come out different. It’s the choices we make that are going to elevate us. So my parents taught me to elevate myself. They were my biggest mentors. I didn’t see it then, I was just in pain. I was a kid I didn’t know, at the young age of 18 is when I forgave them. Because at the age of 18, I also turned around and said, I never want to see them again, be near them. I want nothing to do with my family. And then my sister who to me is like my mother turned around and said you can’t do that. She begged me to not do that. And I promised her that I would think about it. And that was a defining moment for me. Because I realized they didn’t do what they did to me because of who I am. They did to me, what they did is because of who they are. So it took a lot. It was huge. Because I think that’s the day I was truly born. Because I accepted myself. And I didn’t fault myself anymore. And I didn’t fault them either. That was the biggest takeaway. I didn’t fault my parents. I faulted their choices, their environment, maybe they were treated that way. I really don’t know. I’m sure they were, because, in the old days, all you did was hit your children, put them in line and do this and do that. So my parents were my mentors. I’ve had mentors during my martial arts. And unfortunately, a lot of them were in it for themselves. And right now, the mentors I’ve had in martial arts, unfortunately, I’m no longer in touch with, why? Because I’m always a giver. And I’m always like, hey, how can I help you? And they turn around and stab me in the back. And I’m like, Oh, I guess you didn’t want help today? Can I help you tomorrow? And I’m still open to helping them. And it’s the craziest thing and I don’t know why I do it. If any one of my old mentors came back to me and said, hey, I need you to do this or can you shoot this? I’ll say, sure no problem, I will do it. And I’ve even reached out and said, hey, how can I help you today? And they haven’t reached back. So it’s kind of interesting. But then I do have mentors in books. So for example, I grew up Roman Catholic, I got fed up with church with the religion. And then I picked up the Bible. This is my third time picking up the Bible. And now on reading it differently. And listening to a podcast about the Bible, and books, the word, the written word, and the interpretation that we can take from it, is huge, so the other one is books, books have helped me. When I was younger, I used to read fantasy books, and all this kind of nonsense, which is good, but it didn’t plant the seeds in my head. So now I’m reading Napoleon Hill, I’m reading different books on speeches, and working and focusing and all these different things that can build that, which is huge, which is our brain. This calculator, this computer, this machine, that’s our brain. So now all I do is read books on development, those are my mentors,
Rafael Gomez 1:05:38
Books are like their own superpower, you can take the distilled knowledge of generations and just pour it into your brain like Matrix-style, plug it right into the back of your head and download it.
Rafael Gomez 1:06:37
Wait, I know kung fu.
Richard Matthews 1:06:39
Yeah, if only it worked that way, though, interestingly, I had a guest on my podcast maybe a year ago now that he does invest in education technology. And they’ve got companies that are working on education, that way, not like directly plugging into your brain and downloading stuff. But just, we don’t really know what the brain is capable of, in terms of learning, because we only know what we’ve done so far. And like, the way that I had it explained to me is like, you have human potential. It’s like two boxes, you have the box that we know about that we’re all in, and we can see the edges of that potential of like, here’s what we know we can do. And then outside of that is what our actual potential is. And it’s some other box like we have limitations, but we don’t really know what they are. We don’t know how big the box is outside of the one we’re in. And he’s like, they’ve been doing experiments and things where they’re seeing kids able to pick things up 10, 15, 20 times faster than like current education methods. And learn it faster, learn it better, learn it more deeply, with some fancy technology stuff they’re working with now, and it’s crazy. So maybe at some point, we’ll be able to, hey, I know kung fu.
Rafael Gomez 1:07:58
You know, if I had a magic wand, I would change the way our children learn, period.
Richard Matthews 1:08:05
Yeah.
Rafael Gomez 1:08:06
I think that a lot of it is useless, because in your current job, how often do you use trigonometry?
Richard Matthews 1:08:20
Never.
Rafael Gomez 1:08:21
Oh, but didn’t you have to go through it?
Richard Matthews 1:08:24
Yeah.
Rafael Gomez 1:08:26
What if financial class has been better for you?
Richard Matthews 1:08:29
I would have been taking financial classes. I remember, I have used trigonometry a couple of times in some extracurricular work that I was doing around the house or things, but never for work.
Rafael Gomez 1:08:47
So if we took the education system, and it was based on the individual, some kids that are going to use trigonometry, some are going to go into the sciences, some are going to go into the arts. And we kind of allow them at a certain age, obviously, because if we give them a choice in fifth grade, they’re going to choose like the silly stuff. But if we give them a choice when they go to ninth-grade 10th grade, and say, okay, what do you want to do with your life? Here are your choices, you can go into the sciences, you can go into these things and then I think we would have a way better potential for our children, than what’s mandated now. Just my thoughts.
Richard Matthews 1:09:43
Yeah, so I got one more question for you before we wrap up, and that’s about your guiding principles. One of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, diamond never kills his enemies, he only ever puts them in Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, I want to talk about the top one, maybe two principles that you live your life by now maybe something you wish you knew when you first started out on your own hero’s journey,
Rafael Gomez 1:10:05
Learn every day.
Richard Matthews 1:10:07
That’s a good one.
Rafael Gomez 1:10:08
I have to, if I don’t learn something, then today was a dead day, I was dead. I don’t want to have that.
Richard Matthews 1:10:15
My metaphor for that is a fruit ripening. And as long as it’s ripening, it stays on the tree, and it continues to grow. But as soon as it’s ripe, when it’s done, then it rots and dies. I was like, so you kind of choose to continue to grow, or you die. And to your discussion earlier about your superpower being a movement. My son’s really into animals. And one of the things I learned about sharks, sharks have to constantly move, if they’re not always in movement, they die. And I think our minds are the same way. If we’re not constantly using them and educating ourselves and learning things, it starts to die.
Rafael Gomez 1:10:55
I guess I’m a shark. Here’s the thing, when we think about animals. And then, I’ll let you go as well. Humans were not meant to sit down and watch TV. We were meant to move. In order to eat, you had to move. It wasn’t getting in your car to go to the supermarket. Use a walker, I call that a wheelchair, use a walker, put food on it. Sometimes bad choices come back, putting it in the microwave, sitting, watching TV, and eating. That’s not how cavemen survived. They survived through movement. So this is my thought. The last ending thought. If you move every day, your life will be worth living.
Richard Matthews 1:12:08
I get that. Well, I think that’s a great place to wrap up our interview. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge. I call it the hero’s challenge. And I do this to help get access to stories that I might not otherwise find on my own because not everyone is out doing the podcast rounds as you and I do. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine, and why do you think they should come to share their story on our show here? First person that comes to mind for you.
Rafael Gomez 1:12:35
I have so many, some martial artists, some are not.
Richard Matthews 1:12:42
First person that comes to mind for you.
Rafael Gomez 1:12:46
I’m going to say Josh, he’s a martial artist.
Richard Matthews 1:12:51
Why should he come and share his story?
Rafael Gomez 1:12:53
I’m gonna invite him to send me a link. I will invite him to join you. He’s just a young, hungry and dedicated, and focused individual.
Richard Matthews 1:13:07
Absolutely, it will be cool to have another martial artist on the show and know what they’re doing. So in comic books, there’s always a crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for acts of heroism. So as we close, I want to know where people can find you if they want your help in the future? Where can they light up the bat signal so to speak and say, hi, Rafael, I’d love to get your help to change my life. But more importantly, than that is who are the right types of people to do that?
Rafael Gomez 1:13:31
Well, I’m on LinkedIn. It’s Sifu Raphael. And that’s probably the easiest one. If you’re not on LinkedIn, you can look at Sifu Rafael on Facebook as well.
Richard Matthews 1:13:48
Okay, cool. So Sifu Rafael on LinkedIn and I assume if they followed you there, they’d be able to get your daily movement videos. Awesome. So that’s a wrap on our interview. Do you have any final words of wisdom for my audience before I hit this stop record button?
Rafael Gomez 1:14:05
Get up and move.
Richard Matthews 1:14:08
Absolutely. Thank you very much, Rafael. Have a great day!
Rafael Gomez 1:14:10
Bye, my friend, enjoy. Thank you.
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Richard Matthews
Would You Like To Have A Content Marketing Machine Like “The HERO Show” For Your Business?
The HERO Show is produced and managed by PushButtonPodcasts a done-for-you service that will help get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger after you’ve pushed that “stop record” button.
They handle everything else: uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research, graphics, publication, & promotion.
All done by real humans who know, understand, and care about YOUR brand… almost as much as you do.
Empowered by our their proprietary technology their team will let you get back to doing what you love while we they handle the rest.
Check out PushButtonPodcasts.com/hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with them and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving awareness, attention, & authority in your niche without you having to life more a finger to push that “stop record” button.
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A peak behind the masks of modern day super heroes. What makes them tick? What are their super powers? Their worst enemies? What's their kryptonite? And who are their personal heroes? Find out by listening now
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