Episode 207 – Josh Arcemont

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[00:00:00] And then this is going to sound very grandiose, right? But this is it. It’s literally to make the world a better place. And that may sound like, how are you going to do that with a martial arts school? You got 300 students. What are you going to do? It’s not even a drop in the bucket.

[00:00:15] Well, my philosophy is if we could all just take care of our own backyard, keep the grass cut, all the weeds, plant the flowers in our own backyard. We all do that. We just do our part. We can make the world a better place. I love obviously the name hero, you know, we teach martial arts it’s like a superpower. If you put it in the hands of the right person, they can do good with it. They can help people and help empower other people.

[00:00:47] If you put martial arts in the hands of someone who has a bad heart or bad intentions, they can harm people with this. And what we want to have is a hero factory, we want kids coming into our school, regular kids, they come through our academy three years later, they graduate and they go out into the world, little mini heroes and ready to inspire and take on the world.

[00:01:07] So it’s not only us taking care of our own backyard, but it’s inspiring our students to do the same thing.

[00:01:15] Heroes or 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.

[00:01:22] Every hero has a story to tell, from the doctor saving lives at your local hospital to the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers and the firefighters who risk 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?

[00:01:42] I can fix that, I can help people. I can make a difference. Then 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.

[00:01:52] 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.

[00:02:00] 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.

[00:02:10] Hello and welcome back to the Hero Show. My name is Richard Mathews. And today I have the pleasure of having on the line of Josh Arcemont. Josh, are you there?

[00:02:15] I’m here.

[00:02:17] Awesome. Glad to have you here. I know we were just talking before we got the recording started you’re in Texas. Is that right?

[00:02:23] That’s right. Houston, Texas. So closer to the Gulf of Mexico.

[00:02:29] My audience knows we travel full time. We’ve spent a good while in Houston.

[00:02:33] That’s where my fourth daughter was born. I was in Conroe, just north of Texas, the person over there. And I had my first crawfish boil there.

[00:02:42] Oh yeah. That’s big.

[00:02:44] Which I was like, all of our Texas friends were like, oh, we’re doing a crawfish boil. We got to come. And I was like, what’s a crawfish boil?

[00:02:51] Cause I’m a Southern California person and we don’t eat crawfish or even know what they look like. And we go to this big thing. And there’s just like a truck that is just making hundreds of pounds of crawfish. And you get like a big giant cardboard box. And they just like shovel crawfish onto your plates.

[00:03:12] Is a big deal here. My family is originally from Minnesota. So I’m kind of with you, it’s like a little bit out of my comfort zone. All my friends love it. It’s like this big, you gotta have a crawfish boil. Like every other month here. It seems like.

[00:03:25] Yeah, it’s a thing. I didn’t realize was a thing until I was invited to one.

[00:03:30] And like my Texas buddies are like vagrants through an entire two pounds of crawfish, like really quickly. And we’re going back up for more and I’m still like they’ve gone through an entire plate of crawfish and I’m still trying to figure out how to get the meat out of one of them. I was like, I don’t know how to do this. I’m starving.

[00:03:48] Yup. It’s a skill. It takes time. It takes time.

[00:03:51] Yeah. And then we had four children as well. So you’re trying to eat a crawfish while also trying to help for their children figure out how to eat their own crawfish. So it was cool, but I starved.

[00:04:02] So that’s your experience with Houston?

[00:04:04] Yeah. That’s my experience with Houston. It’s crawfish boils and birthing a baby there.

[00:04:08] That’s not bad. That’s a good story.

[00:04:11] Yeah, absolutely. So what I want to do to get started here is just dive into your introductions to my audience who doesn’t know you, can get an idea of who you are.

[00:04:18] So Josh Arcemont is an accomplished martial artist who holds a sixth degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, the title is Texas state champion in 04, the founder of Hero Martial Arts Academy, which is a martial arts school created to empower children to become the champion of their own lives.

[00:04:34] Routinely does public speaking engagements for kids and adults, as well as free self-defense workshops for his community. So what I want you to start off with for me, Josh, is why don’t you tell me a little bit about what your business is like, who you serve and what you do for them?

[00:04:47] Well, you know, we’re a martial arts school and there’s hundreds of different types of martial arts schools, depending on who they learned from what style they teach.

[00:04:59] What market they’re going after, our martial arts school is specifically designed for kids and families, but you know, every kid’s got parents, so we focus on children and the reason for that is just, I have a heart for children. I have a heart for working with the youth and inspiring them, pointing them in the right direction.

[00:05:21] And so we use martial arts as a platform to really teach more skills that are applicable to life, such as leadership development, money management. I mean, we go into a whole plethora of different concepts that we just feel like, you know, martial arts can take the student so far, but we have their attention for such a short time while they’re with us, let’s do our best to point them in the right direction while we have their attention.

[00:05:46] But yeah, that’s our main focus is just martial arts, teaching children and empowering children to become more confident and just great leaders in life, you know. And that’s why I had the name hero.

[00:05:58] Some of our good friends in South Carolina, all their kids do TaeKwonDo and we stayed with them or for a few months, my son did all the TaeKwonDo classes with them every week for like three or four months.

[00:06:07] And he loved it. And still does. And he still practices his I’m going to butcher this, I don’t know what they’re called. It’s like you go through the.

[00:06:16] Forms?

[00:06:17] Yeah, the forms, tiger form is one. And then like the, I can’t remember what the next one is, but there’s the first three he got through the first three of them in the first three months, whatever. So we still practices those.

[00:06:29] That’s cool. Yeah. And it’s good for memory. It’s good for coordination and focus and just getting kids to move and think, but move with a purpose. And who doesn’t love to kick and punch and yell and all that fun stuff. I fell in love with that at an early age.

[00:06:45] And that’s literally why I’m doing what I’m doing now, because I love that stuff.

[00:06:49] Yeah. And it’s tremendously helpful for body confidence. And, and I don’t just mean like the way you view yourself, but like your actual confidence in what the skills of your body are.

[00:07:02] Because my kid have done gymnastics and martial arts both, and it gives them a tremendous amount of confidence in their skills. And, you know, we live a pretty adventurous lifestyle. So they get to use their body a lot and to see how confident they are hiking and climbing and doing a lot of other things.

[00:07:19] I think a lot of that comes back to the things they’ve learned in gymnastics and TaeKwonDo.

[00:07:23] Yeah. And I think martial arts really is, it’s everything. I mean, really martial arts has meant to be like a way of life. So running, jumping, swimming, climbing, hiking, and self-defense all of those things to me are martial arts in a sense, you know, it’s learning how to use your body and learning how to live in this body and extend our lifespan as long as possible.

[00:07:46] Because we can practice for that bad guy we may meet in a dark alley one day, but realistically, that’s not who we’re going to have to defend ourselves against. It’s going to be ourselves. It’s going to be our choices, our lifestyle, heart disease and stress. And all of those things really are make up the component of self-defense.

[00:08:07] So yeah, movement is martial arts and I always encourage my students to just get out and move. You don’t have to throw a kick and a punch to be practicing a healthy lifestyle. Which is in essence martial arts.

[00:08:21] A martial arts educator, friend of mine tell me that movement was life and flexibility was the, what did he call it?

[00:08:30] So movement is life. And he said, flexibility is an indicator of your health. And he’s like, so if you can keep your flexibility as you age, you know, one of the thing you know about babies, they can bend themselves in half. So if you can still bend yourself in half when you age, flexibility tells it.

[00:08:44] Yeah. Everything tightens up as we get older, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s just life kinda tightens you up, you know?

[00:08:50] So every good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. And I want to hear that story. Were you born a hero? Or were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to become a martial artist or did you start a job and eventually become an entrepreneur, basically, how you started in this career?

[00:09:09] Well, you know this career of mine really just started off as a passion. So I was born in 78, kind of raised in the eighties and back then my childhood, I just remember ninjas were everywhere. You know what I mean? On TV and movies and cartoon.

[00:09:26] Ninja turtles.

[00:09:27] Yeah. And even before that, like I just remember, like GI Joe, storm shadow. I think he’s up here, and so ninjas were just everything, but to me, they were like superheroes. They weren’t real, these guys can jump over buildings and throw the smoke ball down and disappear.

[00:09:45] And that’s also like a Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, movie stars were really big then.

[00:09:51] Yeah. Huge on Sunday mornings. I used to get up and they would play martial art movies in the morning on every Sunday. So we have the Sunday morning matinee with some different martial art movies. And that was just my childhood.

[00:10:02] And that is why I like all the martial arts movies. So I was like, they’re nostalgic. I love them.

[00:10:06] Yeah. And we thought it was so hilarious cause they were dubbed over. And so really, but I never thought that was something you could do. Because it was just in the movies until I got home one day from school and popped in this movie, my dad had rented called the Karate Kid. I’m sure you’ve seen it right.

[00:10:23] Come on. Everybody’s seen karate kid. So I watched that movie.

[00:10:26] Yeah, on Netflix.

[00:10:28] Yeah, well now they’ve got Cobra Kai on Netflix.

[00:10:31] Cobra Kai on Netflix.

[00:10:32] And that’s a whole, that’s a whole nother thing. But I watched it and was like, wait a minute. This is like the first time I saw an average ordinary person doing martial arts.

[00:10:43] And it was a kid who had this mentor. Anyway, the story just resonated with me. You know, I was a shy kid. I had a speech impediment when I was younger all the way up until like middle school. I couldn’t pronounce my R’s correctly. So I had to go to speech therapy class while all the other kids went to a music class.

[00:11:03] So I kind of thought of myself as this kid that couldn’t talk right. My feet were angled funny. I couldn’t run well. And I just had this self complex of myself that was just kind of less than average. So when I saw the karate kid, I was like, that looks like something I want to do, you know?

[00:11:19] And so I begged my parents to sign me up for a karate class. And back then in the mid early eighties, now there’s a martial arts school on every corner, but back then, there weren’t a whole lot of them, but long story short, they ended up signing me up for a martial arts class. I fell in love with it.

[00:11:35] I bounced around toying with different other sports and musical instruments. But martial arts always stayed a constant in my life and it really opened up. It really changed the way I looked and thought about myself, the way I looked at myself, I always kind of like equated to a living in a house for the first 10 years of my life. I lived in this house and in this house, there were all these doors, but they were locked and I didn’t have the key. And when I started martial arts training, I remember the first time I got up and in front of the classroom for a belt test and I had to break this board and I was terrified, you know?

[00:12:10] And like here I am the kid who is scared to get up in front of people. And I don’t think I can do it, but you know, I can’t back out. So I go up there to break this board and of course I break the board and at that moment, it’s like, I found this key and unlock this door in my mind. And what I thought to myself was like, man, that’s easier than I thought it was.

[00:12:30] I thought that was going to be hard and it was easy. And literally, in that moment thought to myself, I wonder what else I can do. And it really opened up this door and through that door, I realized there’s more rooms and there’s more doors. And it just really inspired me to keep pressing forward.

[00:12:48] Keep going through those doors, find the keys, find the people in my life who had those keys and really surround myself with the right people and just keep pressing forward. And that’s basically the gift I want to give back to my students now, is to show them there’s things out there that may seem difficult at first because you haven’t done them, but with the right training, the right mindset, you can open those doors just like I did.

[00:13:14] When did you decide to open a martial arts school?

[00:13:17] Well, so this is another part to that origin story. So I ended up moving to a different school, different area, different town. My mom divorced my dad, they split. And 10th grade year I started off at a new martial arts schools, a TaeKwonDo school.

[00:13:32] Originally I’d done karate, went to this TaeKwonDo school while my mom and my martial arts instructor started dating and later would get married. And it became a family business of sorts, you know, so it was this, it was this passion thing for me that started off that way and then became a family business.

[00:13:53] So senior year of high school. You’re kind of deciding what do you want to do with your life. And I’m looking at my soon to be stepdad and my mom running this martial arts school. You know, although back then it was very small operation, but I looked at them, it was like, that’s the life I want to have.

[00:14:09] And so, I started my senior year in high school teaching martial arts classes and just kind of following that path. And I worked for them for 15 years before ever opening my own school. And I opened my own school. That was 12 years ago. So Hero Martial Arts Academy. We founded that 12 years ago. We’ve been open for 12 years now.

[00:14:31] That’s really cool. I liked your story of the first board break. I actually got two good friends of ours and my kids did that martial arts class with, we got to be there for their board break. I don’t want to say, is it a ceremony? I’m not sure. It’s like their tests.

[00:14:45] Yeah, the test.

[00:14:48] I got to film it and their youngest kid. I think he was six and a half, seven. And it was his first time doing the board breaking. And I remember, I got to stand up right. Because I was filming it for them. And he’s doing a down kick on the board.

[00:15:01] And the first time he did it, he did it incorrectly and he hurt his foot. And I remember he’s laying on the ground crying about it. Like just seeing the whole class, the whole school sort of like rally around him and tell him, no, you can do this, get up and try it again. And just teaching him how to sort of like overcome that failure and break the board was super cool.

[00:15:19] It is, yeah. It’s a metaphor for life. You know what I mean? I mean, a lot of things are, but this specifically that board, it’s kind of like Tony Robbins talks about it. He said the two things in life that will hold you back are fear and frustration. And I think about it. I was like, that board really represents both of those things.

[00:15:36] You know, like you’re going to be fearful, can I break this board? What if I don’t break it? What if I get hurt? What if people laugh? All these things go through your mind and then sometimes you hit it and it doesn’t break. Right. And then frustration sets in it’s like, what are you going to do now?

[00:15:50] You know, so you have that choice. What are you going to do? You’re going to keep fighting. You’re going to push through, or are you going to give up? And what a great lesson to learn early on in life, you know?

[00:15:58] Yeah. Absolutely. You can see the palpable change in his character after he got over that, get up and did it again and succeeded. It’s super cool to see how that impacts children.

[00:16:13] And that’s why I do what I do, that’s where my heart’s at. That’s why I started doing this. I had no idea, back then didn’t understand anything about business. I wasn’t even thinking about business. I really wasn’t even thinking about money.

[00:16:27] But I came to realize that if you’re going to run a successful martial arts school, you have to run it like a business and you need to know how to market, and you need to know how to train your staff and you need to know how to run a business, the finances of it all. Because if you don’t, you won’t have students to teach and you can’t make a living off of just passion. You know?

[00:16:49] Yeah. It’s an interesting thing that every category of business you have to learn, right? A lot of businesses are started because of passions like that, to change the world and they’ll leave an impact. And you get slapped pretty quickly with the reality that, you also have to know how to run a business and those skills are transferable and you can get them from any industry like train staff run your finances, do marketing, that stuff is universal. But you have to learn that whether you’re picking up trash for commercial real estate or running a martial arts school or, we run a podcasting agency, all those things are required.

[00:17:26] Yes, sir. Yep.

[00:17:28] So I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers that you’ve developed over your career. Every iconic hero has their super powers, whether that’s their fancy flying suit made by their genius intellect or the ability to call down thunder from the sky, or maybe their super strength. In the real world heroes have what I call zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with, or you developed over your career that really helped you to slay the villains in your client’s life, help them come out on top of their own journeys.

[00:17:53] And the way I like to frame it is if you look at the skills that you’ve developed, there’s probably a common thread that ties those skills together. And that common thread is where your superpower probably is. What do you think your super power is in your business?

[00:18:03] Well, I would say initially, I kind of wear two different hats, right?

[00:18:10] There’s the martial arts side where I’m the master instructor, I’m the head honcho. I have all the stripes on my belt and I really feel like in that aspect, it boils down to connecting with people and understanding how to connect with different types of people and understanding how to connect with kids, right?

[00:18:31] Like four year olds, 10 year olds, 15 year olds. And then you’ve got your adults and understanding that to connect with someone in their twenties is different than talking and connecting with someone in their sixties. And someone who’s an athlete and can naturally do anything they want.

[00:18:51] Versus someone who has a disability and how to connect and motivate each one of those types of people in a way that’s going to best move them forward and help them in their journey through life, I feel like that’s the real superpower, I guess if I had to call it that. And I say that because we do have staff and we do have other instructors.

[00:19:14] I have other instructors that teach for me, but I find that part is one of the things you really can’t teach. It’s one of those things that you kind of born with that you have that intuition coming into life with that. You can always make it better, but it’s really hard to teach those things.

[00:19:29] So off the bat, that would be one of the first things I would say, I guess, would be a superpower.

[00:19:34] It’s a great superpower to have, especially being able to communicate with different people, different skill set levels, and different experience in life. And I know like my son was in gymnastics for a while for a number of years.

[00:19:45] And he had a buddy that was in class with him, who was one of those natural athletes that you were talking about and the kid could do everything, just whatever you want to do, he could just do it. And my son had to practice at all of it. And I remember having to have discussions with him about like, cause he could see that difference and it frustrated him.

[00:20:00] And being able to motivate him to still want to practice, even though his friend doesn’t have to. And I was like, listen, talent will only take you so far. I was like, if that kid doesn’t take his talent and also add in the hard work of the practice and everything, you’ll beat it every time. Right. Cause hard work trumps talent.

[00:20:18] But when you mix those two things together, that’s when you get magic, but at the same time learning how to motivate kids through those kinds of things is the superpower in and of itself.

[00:20:28] Yeah, definitely. For sure. Yeah. Some kids you can kinda like, be a little more aggressive and snap at, not snap at him, but kind of raise your voice to kind of motivate them like a drill instructor and they love it.

[00:20:41] Other kids you do that, they start crying. And I think that’s great in life and in business, you know, understanding how to read the room. In sales, it’s important to be able to mirror different people and understand how to communicate with them. And I think that’s just a useful skill in life. And I guess, the other flip side, as I said, that would be my martial arts superpower, but I guess in business, that could probably be the same thing as well.

[00:21:08] But I would say it’s not so much with my students is more with my staff, you know, motivating them, inspiring them, connecting with them because that’s been another challenge on the other side of it is just keeping the dynamic together when everybody’s just so different.

[00:21:24] So this is an interesting question that comes along with the type of business that you’re running, right?

[00:21:29] So you have a business where the person who’s paying for the service is not the one who is like going through the service, meaning generally your customer is the parent, and then you’re providing the service to the kid.

[00:21:46] Right.

[00:21:47] So how does that sort of play out? And how do you make sure that what you’re providing is both giving the parents what they are expecting and paying for and also helping the kid get where they need to go?

[00:22:00] Yeah. That’s a great question because a lot of the times parents will bring their kids to us because the kids are begging to take martial arts classes, maybe they saw it on TV, or they saw us at one of their elementary schools doing a demonstration. So that’s one type of client.

[00:22:18] The other type of client is a parent who heard from a teacher or from a friend that this helps with know hyperactive kids, or it’ll help bring the confidence out in their shy child. So you’ll have a mix and so you’ll have some people who are there because their kids just want to have fun.

[00:22:36] And then you have others who are there because their kid needs help. And this is their last ditch effort to get them the help they need because they heard this can help. So you’ve got the child’s needs and wants, and then you have the parents needs and wants. And even to some degree, I have my needs and wants as far as like what I want from them, what the vision is for this child in the long run.

[00:22:58] But I think the important thing for us anyway, it was to just build a martial arts school that really just hits all of those points. We gotta make it fun for the kids, we gotta make sure we’re relatable, make sure the curriculum and what we’re teaching is fun because there’s a lot of different ways to teach and a lot of different things you can teach them and then also make sure that’s for the kids and then make sure for the parents, they’re hearing the things that they’re telling their kids already at home.

[00:23:24] Right. Get ready for bed, do your homework, clean your room. These types of things are things that I’m a parent. I know, I tell my kids this all the time. My martial arts communication doesn’t work on them anymore. Cause I’m around them all the time. You know, like, they get used to me, but having that outside influence is really important.

[00:23:43] So I guess the answer is basically just designing a curriculum in a way of delivering that curriculum that hits all of those points with the parents and the kids.

[00:23:53] Yeah. And it’s an interesting thing because that’s not very common in the business space because a lot of times the person who’s buying your product or service is the one who can benefit from it. So you, you have to sort of like have your messaging and your curriculum and everything that you’re doing. Be able to talk to both the parent who’s paying for it and the kid who’s using it. So it’s like an added layer of complexity that you have to deal with.

[00:24:15] Yeah. So like, I go into the elementary schools a lot and we’ll do basically I’m the PE teacher for the day and I’ll teach martial arts and character development.

[00:24:25] And the teachers want us there because we’re going to talk about focusing, discipline, showing respect, working hard, setting goals. That’s why the teachers want us there. The kids don’t want to hear that. You know what I mean? They don’t really want to hear that. They just want to run up and kick.

[00:24:39] They want to pop something.

[00:24:40] Yeah. So there is a mix of like marketing, you know, if we went into the schools saying, hey, we’ll help you with your confidence. And you’re saying that to like an eighth grader, they’re going to be like, ah, you know, this is.

[00:24:52] like, I don’t care about my confidence.

[00:24:54] Yeah, that’s not cool, you know, but if you come in and talking about how you can help them with, whatever else, XYZ for different ages.

[00:25:05] So yeah, it is a little tricky sometimes, but ultimately the buying power goes to the moms. So when we talk about marketing, it’s really marketing to moms. Like what are they going to catch on to, that’s going want them to enroll their child. And I think for us, it comes down to like confidence.

[00:25:23] I believe everybody who signs up and enrolls for martial arts wants confidence or self-esteem or belief in themselves in some way, if it’s like let’s say an older adult who comes in because they want to lose weight, what they really want is they want to feel confident. They want to feel good about themselves.

[00:25:41] Some students come in because they got assaulted. What’s that?

[00:25:45] I said they want to look good naked. That’s a core desire.

[00:25:50] Yeah. We checked that box. It’s on the enrollment sheet. Yeah, some people come in because they got assaulted and now it’s like life or death for them, it’s like, I don’t ever want to get put in that spot again where I can’t defend myself, but they want to feel confident. Right. They want to feel good in their own skin. They want to walk around knowing they can protect themselves. And for the kid who’s getting bullied at school. It’s the same thing.

[00:26:12] So I just believe everybody wants confidence. So that’s our main message. We put it out there that we know will help with confidence. We say that in different ways, right? Depending on who we’re talking to, the kids, adults, teachers.

[00:26:24] How often do you have to field the question about why TaeKwonDo versus jujitsu or karate or whatever does, is that a thing that comes up regularly in your marketing or in your discussions with parents is like, why choose TaeKwonDo over other martial arts?

[00:26:41] Yeah, it definitely can. And we do TaeKwonDo, we do also jiu-jitsu and we do a little bit of everything, but you know, let’s say someone calls in and they say, hey, I want to do jujitsu. Obviously we don’t do just jujitsu. So the next question for us would be well, like, well, what are you looking to get out of jujitsu?

[00:27:00] What specifically are you looking? Well, a friend of mine told me that it helps with confidence or I’m a friend of mine told me it’s the best martial art, you know? And so we kind of get into this conversation and basically, help understand, like, what are their needs, what are their wants?

[00:27:14] How can we fix this problem? And, and also then kind of educate them that, Hey, maybe jiu-jitsu is what you heard works well, and it does, but also we can help with this as well. So a lot of times people will call and ask about a particular martial art because they don’t really know what else to ask.

[00:27:31] They just heard TaeKwonDo, they heard this word karate, but you know, if someone’s specifically looking for a type of martial art, then of course, if that’s all they want, we’ll steer them in that direction. But nine times out of 10, they want the benefit.

[00:27:45] Yeah. So they’re not looking for the specific martial art they’re looking for some benefit. They think some martial arts going to get them?

[00:27:52] Correct. That’s right, yeah.

[00:27:54] That’s interesting. I want to flip gears, so if the superpower is one side and the ability to communicate with people and talk to them, the flip side of that is the fatal flaw, right?

[00:28:04] So just like Superman has this kryptonite or, wonder woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. You probably have a flaw that you struggled with in growing your business. Something that held you back. And for me, it was a couple of things. I struggled with perfectionism for a lot of years.

[00:28:15] It kept me from shipping product and I struggled with self care which really brought a self out in not having a good relationship to time. So I would overwork myself to death or not having a good relationship with clients and letting them walk all over me. But I think more important than what the flaw is, is how have you worked to overcome it so you could still grow and hopefully, our audience can learn a little bit from your experience there.

[00:28:35] Yeah, well, you hit on some good ones. And I think as you were saying those, I raised my hand on a few because I was like, I’ve been through that as well. And in some ways still going through that balance of work life, family rest and relaxation and all those things, because I am passionate about what I do.

[00:28:53] So I tend to like put a hundred percent into everything I do and I love it. So it’s hard sometimes to hit that break when you love what you do, but I understand now as I’m getting older, that it’s important because if I’m going to pour a hundred percent into my passion, I can’t give a hundred percent unless I’m rested.

[00:29:11] You know, so I agree with that one, but really, as you were asking that question, I think for me, it comes down to, and I’ll relate it back to martial arts because that’s what I do. But when I was coming up through the ranks in my twenties, I competed a lot. So I went to competitions, did a lot of TaeKwonDo competitions ended up winning the Texas state championship.

[00:29:33] But through that process, I learned some things. And one of the things I learned was you got to have a good coach. You got to have someone who has been where you want to go and knows what it takes to get there. And then you have to be coachable as the other part. Right. You can have a great coach, but if you’re not coachable and I’ve been on both sides of that chair, I’ve been the competitor.

[00:29:57] I’ve also been the coach to my students. And I’ve seen some really amazing kids with talent who just don’t listen. Or they take that talent for granted. It’s like you said, talent isn’t everything, consistency and hard work beats talent. So I relate that back to business.

[00:30:16] And I think when I started Hero Martial Arts Academy, I kind of was like, hey, I’m going to do it my way. I’m going to do it the way I want to do it, and I don’t want anybody’s input or advice. I’m just going to do it my way, put my blinders on and go. And that was great. And I made it pretty far, but I didn’t make it all the way to where I wanted to go.

[00:30:35] So I guess my thing would be finding some sort of coach or a mentor or a group of people or a network of people who can help you and not have this ego that you have to do it all and you know it all. And if you didn’t, then this business doesn’t mean as much because you didn’t do it all on your own.

[00:30:56] And so through this process, I’ve learned to kind of swallow my pride a little bit and hire coaches and surround myself with mentors and kind of get out of the industry and talk to other people and really opened my mind. That has helped tremendously. And it was kinda like one of those moments where I was like, yeah, come on martial arts instructor, you say this stuff all the time, you got to relate it to life in business as well.

[00:31:19] So that would be my kryptonite if there was one in the beginning is just being too shortsighted not to look for coaches and people who could help.

[00:31:28] So I have an interesting thought on that. And it comes out of like, I literally just got off the call that I mentioned, because we were a couple minutes late recording this interview.

[00:31:35] I was on a mastermind call with my business buddies. And one of the things that we’ve learned over the couple of years of developing this mastermind is that in order to get the most value out of it, you have to be willing to be selfish. And I think a lot of times as business owners, that whole thought process, if I’m going to do it all myself sometimes it’s pride, but sometimes it’s also just that misguided concept of like, if I ask for help, I’m taking instead of giving.

[00:32:03] And like you have that whole giving attitude that like, hey, I’m just going to give all the time and never asked for anything in return. And it’s a weird mentality that we have that you realize that sometimes you need to ask for help and you need to ask for someone to give to you, which requires you knowing what it is you need and asking for it and being a little bit selfish, be like, hey, I need help in this area.

[00:32:29] And it’s weird sort of like mental block we seem to have as entrepreneurs about asking for help.

[00:32:35] It’s true. But what I found is most of the time when you do ask, people want to help. You know what I mean? Like, I love it. This is fun for me. Just being asked to be a part of this.

[00:32:45] Like, this is so fun. I get to talk about what I love to do. I get to kind of provide some input. Maybe someone will listen to it and take something away from it. So anytime someone is an up and coming entrepreneur thinking about starting a business and they want to talk, I’m always available because it’s fun for me.

[00:33:01] I want to help people who are coachable. You know what I mean? So, yeah. I feel like there’s a lot of people that want to help.

[00:33:07] Yep, absolutely. And so like, once you realize that then you sort of have to work that muscle of like learning how to look at what you’re doing and think to yourself, what do I need help with like, what is going to help me grow and where can I go and find somebody who can help me do that?

[00:33:21] Yeah. And then to your question, like you asked, what is your kryptonite? That’s kinda like that question, right? It’s like, do you even know what you need help with? Do you even know where your weak points are and where your blind spots are? That’s a great question for people to ask themselves, you know?

[00:33:36] Yeah. And then having a coach, they really help you see those blind spots. And a lot of times it’s a perspective thing. Right? Cause you mentioned someone who’s been there and done that and got the t-shirt right. They have a different perspective on whatever the process is than you do because you haven’t done it before.

[00:33:51] And I have a story I tell regularly about in one of my masterminds, one of the guys who was running it pulled me aside after the end of the mastermind and he’s like, hey, when you get back, I need you to go and do this thing. Like hire this person, give them this job and do these things.

[00:34:04] And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, I can’t afford to do that. And he was like, I know you think that, but just do it anyways. And I vacillated on that for a few months and then finally did it because he told me I had to. But I was like, I can’t do this. I don’t understand why he’s telling me I need to do this.

[00:34:21] And I did it and within the first 60 days, it completely paid for itself. And then you have that new perspective. And now you see what you didn’t see before, because you have those blind spots because you haven’t been there. You haven’t done that. You don’t have the perspective that they’ve got.

[00:34:35] Yeah. That’s so important. Because I mean, think of how much time you saved by doing that. We only have so much time in this life and we’re trying to get so much done. And yeah, if you can talk to someone or take someone’s advice and they can save you like a year’s worth of time or longer, and you can miss all these landmines along the way, why not do it?

[00:34:57] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:34:59] But you gotta be coachable. You gotta take that in. Sometimes that’s scary, but once you do it and you see the results, now you have that. Oh, okay. I see. This is going to work.

[00:35:08] Yeah. So speaking of being coachable, I want to talk about a common enemy that you fight in your business.

[00:35:15] We say here, every superhero has their arch-nemesis. And it’s the thing that they have to fight against in their world. And we like to put it in the context of your clients. And I guess we mentioned this earlier, cause you have two clients, you have your students and you have the ones who are paying for the students.

[00:35:31] And it’s a mindset or it’s a flaw that you have to fight to overcome with your clients. So you can actually get the result that they came to you for. What is that common enemy that you have to regularly fight against in your bussiness?

[00:35:44] I think it would be, you know, early on I needed every new client and I tried to be everything to everybody.

[00:35:53] You know what I mean? I tried to, hey, you want this? I’m going to deliver, you want that? I’m going to deliver, oh, you want this? I’ll start a class in the morning. I’ll start a class in the night. What about Saturday? You know, I was always just trying to be everything to everybody. And I really didn’t boil it down to like, what is going to be our niche.

[00:36:10] What’s going to be our theme. What are we going to be known for? And so I think for us, the thing we have to fight always is sometimes we’re not going to please everybody. We can’t be all things to everybody. And we may have a client that we really love, and they may want us to go a certain direction with maybe changing the curriculum or changing the schedule or whatever, but we have to stay the course and say, no, this is what we’re going to do.

[00:36:36] We’re on a mission. We have this vision of where we’re going. And we can’t let certain clients change that for us. And that can be difficult, especially in our business because we’re so emotionally attached to the kids and to the parents. And some of these families are with us for years, 3, 4, 5. I mean, we’ve had some families 10 years, you really feel part of the family.

[00:36:57] And that can be very, very difficult too when a client leaves, for their own reasons or whatever, but feeling that loss. So trying to stay attached to them as individuals, as an extended family, but also, running a business and run it the way it’s supposed to be ran and learn how to say no when it’s appropriate. Does that make sense?

[00:37:18] Yeah. It’s interesting because you’re almost building a family within your business and it’s hard to tell mom, you’re not going to be there for the Christmas holiday this year. Right. Cause you’re doing something with your own family.

[00:37:31] It’s the same kind of stuff. Where you’re like, no, we can’t actually put together that class at that time. Cause it doesn’t align with our business goals. And that can be a rough thing, I would imagine with how close you get to clients over the years.

[00:37:45] Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve just learned that when you do that, you stress yourself out.

[00:37:50] You can’t be all things to all people, and it’s okay, if you’ve got to tell someone, no. I think that’s important in any business, it’s just got to know your market and you got to go after what are you going to be known for? Who are you going to be?

[00:38:04] Yeah. And I’ve actually found over the years of growing my business that saying no, actually had the opposite effect that I thought it would. Right. Cause you always fear that, like, if I say no, I’m going to lose clients or I’m not going to be able to grow the way I wanted to grow. And what you find out is when you start being more aggressive with how you say no and saying yes, only to things that are exactly right for your business, it actually helps your business grow and it helps your clients and your referral partners know how to better refer you because you have a very clear, like, this is what we do and who we help people and what we help people with because you get better at saying no.

[00:38:41] Yeah. It’s like having a compass, you know where north is all the time. And once you have that internal compass. Every decision you make in your business is easy. Once you know where you’re going. In the beginning, you’re just like, I’m trying to get everybody.

[00:38:55] You’re just trying to get any client you can. And I think that would have been one of the things that early on, if I had known that early on, I think that would have helped.

[00:39:02] Yeah. Absolutely. So the flip side of your common enemy, if your common enemy is what you fight against, then your driving forces is what you fight for.

[00:39:09] So just like Spiderman, fight to save New York or Batman fight to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it you fight for with the Hero Martial Arts Academy.

[00:39:19] This is going to sound very grandiose, right? But it, this is, it’s literally to make the world a better place.

[00:39:27] And that may sound like, how are you going to do that with a martial arts school? You got 300 students. What are you going to do? It’s not even a drop in the bucket. Well, my philosophy is if we could all just take care of our own backyard, keep the grass cut, pull the weeds. Plant the flowers in our own backyard.

[00:39:44] If we all do that, we just do our part. We can make the world a better place. And I love obviously the name hero, but I mean, we teach martial arts. It’s like a superpower. If you put it in the hands of the right person, they can do good with it, right.

[00:40:03] They can help people and help empower other people. If you put martial arts in the hands of someone who has a bad heart or bad intentions, they can harm people with this. And what we want to have is like a hero factory. We want kids coming into our school, regular kids, they come through our academy three years later, they graduate and they go out into the world, little mini heroes and ready to inspire and take on the world.

[00:40:27] So it’s not only us taking care of our own backyard, but it’s inspiring our students to do the same thing. As they go out and they grow and they raise their kids and their families. So spreads the message.

[00:40:39] I have a philosophy about how you make the world a better place. We have four kids and I was like, people ask me all the time, why do you have four kids?

[00:40:50] And I always respond with essentially is, four kids or whatever the number is, doesn’t really matter. You make the world a better place by raising kids who are better than you are, and their message is essentially that you you’ll send to times and places you’ll never see. And so, there’s almost nothing better you can do in the world to impact the future than to raise up good children. And that’s really what you guys are doing.

[00:41:18] Yeah. And there’s a lot of kids out there who need positive role models. And in our line of work, we’ve got obviously really great families who bring their kids to us because they can afford it. They have the disposable income and they make the right decisions, but there’s so many kids out there who don’t have that opportunity.

[00:41:38] And so what a big part of what we do is to give back to the community is to go around to some of the schools in our area who are underprivileged and work with those kids for free. And like I said, we’ll go in, be the PE teacher for the day, mentor the kids, give back to the schools, donate money, donate time, because some of these kids they’ll come up to us after fifth grade or come up to me after a class and say, hey, what do I do?

[00:42:01] My mom’s on drugs, my brother’s in jail and I don’t know what to do with my life. How do I make it better? And you’re sitting there talking to this kid and you have two minutes to say something to them and they’re literally reaching out. They need somebody. And in an essence, it’s heartbreaking sometimes, but I’m like, hey, we just got to do our best to point them in the right direction and to make a difference and to keep our doors open.

[00:42:26] But I mean, that’s the real ultimate mission is just to make the world a better place. That’s it. All I know how to do is martial arts. So that’s how I’m doing it.

[00:42:34] Yeah. And it’s a great thing to do for people. And I was just thinking in my head while you were talking, I was like, I wonder if there’s ways that you can get other businesses or other thing to like sponsor students as part of their marketing is like, hey, you purchase a thing and we’ll sponsor. You know, they have the whole programs for it’s like, if you buy this product, you’ll sponsor a entrepreneur in Africa or whatever.

[00:42:57] Right. You could set up a local community thing where you could, I dunno, get some of the other business owners involved. And their clients buy they’ll sponsor a student or something.

[00:43:06] That’s actually a great idea. The trouble we find is that having a support team at home that will actually.

[00:43:14] Yeah, like take them and bring them to the classes and that kind of stuff.

[00:43:18] That’s the hard part, man. That’s where it’s at. So like some sort of afterschool program where they can maybe stay after school and do something there. We’ve done that a few times.

[00:43:28] But that’s the challenge, you know?

[00:43:31] Yeah, cause that’s where you go from, you know, we have a business that’s running profitability. How do we take some of that profitability and turn that into giving back to the community. And it’s something that you find a lot of businesses are trying to figure out ways to do that.

[00:43:45] And so it’s just an interesting aspect of business. So I think a lot of people who aren’t entrepreneurs don’t realize how important that is to most entrepreneurs is figuring out a way to give back.

[00:43:55] Yeah. I mean giving back it’s a great feeling, but it’s good for business because look, people want to do business with businesses who are giving back and doing something bigger than just making profits for themselves. So I think it’s a win-win for everybody when you do that.

[00:44:13] Absolutely. Yeah. So I want to switch gears and talk about some practical stuff. I call this the heroes tool belt. And just like every superhero has their tool belt with their awesome gadgets, like their batarangs or their web slingers or their big magical hammer that they can fly with.

[00:44:24] I want to talk about the top one, maybe two tools that you couldn’t live without in your business could be anything like your notepad, your calendar, something you use for marketing, or for your service delivery, something you think is essential to actually getting your job done on a daily basis to run the martial arts school.

[00:44:40] It’s this thing I’m on right now, my laptop. I mean, I use this thing obviously every day. I mean, I couldn’t tell you how many times I’m on this thing. Everything’s on here, it’s on my Google drive. I’ve got every document I need. I can run remotely. I can run my martial arts school from this computer.

[00:44:59] Last year, I decided to take the month of July off and travel and have my team run my school. And I just kind of helped with them and train them remotely from this very computer I’m on right here. And 15 years ago running a business, we couldn’t do this. You know what I mean? We couldn’t run it like this with the technology that was out then.

[00:45:22] So without a doubt, the number one thing on my tool belt is this computer I’m on right now.

[00:45:28] It’s amazing too, because you look at like the tools that we have access to today versus 10 years ago. And then like 10 years ago was like 2012, but like you go back 15 years ago, that’s like pre smartphone.

[00:45:39] Yeah.

[00:45:40] And there was no online tools and the startup costs for a business to just get access to like basic stuff. Like the cost that it would be to buy like Microsoft word all by itself costs more than like all the tools you need now that you could run your whole business from. It cost of less than what Microsoft Word costs 15 years ago.

[00:46:00] It’s crazy. And not to mention just the information, like what is out there, the podcast you can listen to and the video YouTube and I mean, there’s so much information. I just don’t know how anybody could fail nowadays.

[00:46:14] It’s like, I remember 15 years ago when you couldn’t get this, you had to really seek it out. You have to read the books, you got to go to the workshops and the seminars, you gotta take the notes and now you can do it just right here on a computer, you know, there’s this

[00:46:27] Aywhere you want.

[00:46:28] Yeah. Anywhere you want.

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[00:47:54] See you there. And now back to the hero show.

[00:48:02] I want to talk to them about some of your own personal heroes. So every hero has their mentors, Frodo had Gandalf, Luke had Obi Wan Kenobi, Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad, and even Spider-Man had his Uncle Ben. Unless you watch the newest movie that one’s Aunt May.

[00:48:13] So who were some of your heroes? Were they real life mentors, were they speakers or authors, maybe peers were a couple of years ahead of you. And how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far in growing your martial arts school?

[00:48:24] Great question. Most of my heroes are people who are directly connected to me, family members.

[00:48:31] I can think back when I was a kid, my grandfather, he owned his own business. It was a twine company in Minnesota. And I just remember as a little kid going into his office, looking at it at his desk and a stapler and him talking to me about his employees and it was over my head.

[00:48:53] But at that time, I just remember like, wow, this is really cool. And it really set the precedent to me is like, hey, one day I’m going to have my own business too, because I had that role model to follow. And then as I got older, my mom married my martial arts instructor and we ran a family business.

[00:49:09] So I’ve always had like entrepreneurs in the family. I had another stepdad before a martial arts stepdad who owned a business as well. So my brother was an entrepreneur before I was so it’s always been in the family and those people have really inspired me. I guess I’ve been heroes in a way to help kind of like shine the light or have the flashlight like pointing the direction to go and like, if they can do it, I can do it.

[00:49:36] And really just like almost expected, like, Hey, I got to do it, they’ve done it. I can’t be the only one not to do it. So those people in that way have helped me tremendously. My mom, just being there for us throughout my whole entire life, sacrificing, what she could throughout our lives to make our lives better.

[00:49:54] And that’s been inspiring so on that front, but I think there’s so many different heroes just throughout life. Some I’ve never even met, they are in the books I’ve read or the seminars I’ve attended you know, when I graduated high school one of the people I tested for my black belt with his name was Buddy McCaig and at that time he was 40.

[00:50:14] So he was much, much older than me. I was 18 and he gave me a graduation gift. It was a box set of cassette tapes. And I remember on the front, I said, Les Brown. I was like, oh great. I got cassette tapes. I’m 18 years old. I’m like, what am I going to do with these cassette tapes? So I threw them in the trunk of my car and they sat there for a year, year and a half.

[00:50:36] And one day I was on a road trip and I was like, what is this? I popped it in. And it was Les Brown motivational speaker. And he just spoke to me for the next hour, hour and a half. And I’m like, man, where are these tapes been my whole life? And the answer was, they were in my trunk, you know? And so I just think back to like how many of these heroes that we have are there in our lives, but we’re not ready to receive the information.

[00:50:59] So I decided at that point, hey, I’m going to go out and I’m going to seek these people out and read the books and listen to the podcast. And so there’s so many people, but it’s so important to have those role models in your life.

[00:51:09] Yeah, absolutely. And it’s always amazing to me to hear who those role models and the heroes are for everyone.

[00:51:16] Cause it’s, it’s always so interesting. Cause there’s always the big names you hear, like Les Brown or Tony Robbins or whatnot, those pop up, but how very frequently it’s mom or dad or uncle or friend, or, older confidant who has been there, done that as helping us get somewhere.

[00:51:35] And always just reminds me to act in the kind of way that, you know, when someone else asks, who’s your hero? That if they say my name I’m actually worthy of it.

[00:51:47] That’s right. Yeah. And that’s what I tried to do. Like I said, for my students in a way, I want them to say, because of you, I did this, I want them to be on a podcast one day saying, because of my instructor, he told me this and helped me.

[00:52:05] I mean to me, that’s what life’s about, man. You got to make a difference. And because when we’re gone, we’re gone and can’t take anything with us when we’re gone. And I just want to leave a legacy, my little small way.

[00:52:19] Which I think is a great transition to my last question for you, which is about your guiding principles. One of the things that makes heroe heroic is that they live by a code, for instance, Batman never kills his enemies. He only ever puts them in Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up, I want to talk about the top one, maybe two principles that you use regularly in your life. Maybe something that you wish you’d known when you started out as a entrepreneur.

[00:52:40] Wow. That’s another good question. And I got to think about that for a second. There’s many, I guess my number one thing would be transparency. I think it’s important to be open and honest. Number one with yourself. I think that’s really important. I think a lot of people lie to themselves because of insecurity, where they’re afraid of putting in the real work or they’re afraid of the real answer.

[00:53:08] And so they’ll come up with an excuse or a victim type mentality of, it’s not my fault. It’s someone else’s fault. Here’s why I can’t succeed. So I think being open and honest with yourself, and that takes a lot of big degree of like emotional intelligence and introspective thinking.

[00:53:27] So that’s the first level. And then of course, beyond that in order to be sustainable in life and your family and your relationships with your friends or your marriage and in business, you have to be open and honest. And I think that’s always a good place for people to start from and that served me well is just being honest, but being honest with yourself, that’s the hard part.

[00:53:51] And I may still be working on that to be quite honest, you know?

[00:53:54] Yeah. And integrity is such a, such a. Thing. And it’s also, it’s probably, you know, I said, we’re, we’re a little past 200 episodes on this podcast and it has surprised me a little bit how consistently that question is answered with some version of honesty and integrity being the number one, guiding principle for entrepreneurs.

[00:54:14] And it’s interesting to me because the reason we run this show is because we have this cultural sort of understanding that entrepreneurs are the villains. Like you can’t watch a TV show or a movie with healthy, bad guy being some variation of bad guy pouring oil on ducks for money.

[00:54:34] And then like when you actually talk to entrepreneurs, the ones who were actually moving and shaking and doing things in this world, it’s completely different, it’s almost always honesty, integrity, how are we getting value to the world and making a difference?

[00:54:49] Yeah. That’s interesting that you say that. I mean, it doesn’t really surprise me, but I know I could see how it would surprise other people, you know? And I think the key is not having that victim mentality and just understanding that you are the hero, and you may need the guide to kind of help you, but you can be the hero of your own story and you can pull yourself out of it.

[00:55:09] But if you remain the victim, there is no change for the victim. You cannot move forward if it’s someone else’s fault. So you got to take responsibility for your act and go from there.

[00:55:21] One of my early mentors when I was a kid. Tell me that if it’s not your fault, you can’t fix it.

[00:55:27] That’s right. You got to wait for someone to save you. And if that never comes, I guess you just sit there until the end.

[00:55:34] And It’s interesting from the whole hero show perspective that I almost think that that mentally. The, if it’s not my fault, I can’t fix it is a type of superpower all on its own, right?

[00:55:47] Because if you realize that, hey, if I take responsibility for this, then I can fix it. Then you can change it and get different results. And most people don’t know that. So you can get such dramatically different results than other people in the world, by just knowing that one thing.

[00:56:01] And it’s that belief of who you are and the world around you and how things work.

[00:56:08] And I think at the core is if you can change someone’s belief about those things, you can change everything. Belief is so powerful, it’s in all the books, it’s said over and over again, but that’s really the key. If you can change how someone perceives themselves in the world, you can get them to do great things. And it starts with that.

[00:56:29] Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s a good place, I think, to wrap our interview on that note. So I do finish every interview with a simple challenge. I call the hero’s challenge and I do this to help get access to stories. I might not otherwise find on my own cause you know, not everyone’s out doing the podcast rounds like you and I do.

[00:56:44] 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 share their story here on the Hero Show? The first person that comes to mind for you.

[00:56:56] Well, this one’s easy for me. And you know, in my world, it’s the martial arts world, but I’m going to try to steer it into another direction, but honestly, it’s my brother, Jason he’s inspired me so much. He’s my younger brother. He started his companies before me and I say companies because I really look at him as like a true entrepreneur.

[00:57:16] He’s built and sold numerous companies throughout his career. During the pandemic, he actually had to switch directions and actually started a company, making a PPE gowns and became I think number two PPE manufacturing company in the United States in a matter of like six months he’s in the process of building other companies right now.

[00:57:40] So he just inspires me. And I think from an entrepreneurial standpoint I think he would be a great interview because I kind of have the more small business, you know, a passion business and him it’s different. It’s not a passion business. It’s how can we build this thing and sell it and make money and move on to the next.

[00:57:57] And so although we’re both entrepreneurs in that realm, two very different ways of looking at it.

[00:58:05] Yeah, absolutely. Well see if I can get an introduction to Jason. See if he’ll come on the podcast, to hear his cool stories.

[00:58:12] So in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism.

[00:58:16] So are analogous to that here on this show, as we wrap up is where can people light at the bat signal, so to speak and say, hey, I’d love to get your help, or maybe get my kids enrolled in martial arts or something like that. And I think more important than that is who are the right types of people actually reach out and do something with what you guys offer.

[00:58:35] So to clarify the question who are the right kinds of people to reach out ?

[00:58:38] Yeah and where can they reach out?

[00:58:40] Oh yeah. I mean, obviously you guys social media is a great place. I’m on Facebook, I’m on Instagram. Of course, it’s Josh Arcemont, you can look me up on Facebook. Our website is www. HeroMAA.com.

[00:58:54] So that’s HeroMartialArtsAcademy. MAA.com. You can definitely look us up there. I love connecting with people and obviously like-minded people as well, because it helps me just as much as it helps them. And yeah, any questions anyone ever has, I’m more than willing to help and share. And if you want martial arts classes and you’re in Houston area, definitely look us up.

[00:59:13] We’re looking to expand very soon, going to open a second location in the next 6 months.

[00:59:18] You guys had to do or try to do any of the virtual learning?

[00:59:24] Oh, yeah, we definitely went through that. We had to go virtual. Here in Houston. It was only about three months. I know some of my other friends that lasted for years.

[00:59:33] But we went virtual and that was a really cool moment because a lot of our students who moved on and moved to different parts of the country and the world were able to tune in and train with us for awhile. And it was fun, but it’s a band-aid, you know what I mean, for what we do?

[00:59:45] Yeah. For martial arts.

[00:59:47] Yeah. You need to be there, you need that sweat, you need that hand on your back.

[00:59:51] You need to show them the technique. And I think that human connection with what we do will never be replaced with AI or any kind of virtual that’s unique to martial arts, you need human connection.

[01:00:03] Absolutely. So we’ll make sure we get the links to your academy in the show notes for the episode.

[01:00:10] And so if people are interested in that, definitely. I know my kids got a lot of value out of it when they were. And if we weren’t traveling, we’d probably still be doing it, but we’re in the midst of going around places it’s difficult to have a grand master whatever that you’re going to regularly if you’re all over the place.

[01:00:23] Yeah. That’s okay. They’re getting better. They’re getting a life experience that not many gets. So that’s really cool. I admire that.

[01:00:31] So my last question for you is, do you have any final words of wisdom for our audience before I hit this stop record button?

[01:00:39] Words of wisdom, guys, just surround yourself with the right people. Look for mentors, find the coaching you need. If there’s something in your business, be honest with yourself. If there’s something in your business that, you know you need help with, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s relations, whether it’s finance, be honest with yourself and then go find someone who can help with that, or surround yourself with a network of people who can help, because it can save you a lot of time, a lot of heartache and get you to your destination way quicker.

[01:01:07] Absolutely. Josh, thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate it.

[01:01:09] Yes, sir. You’re welcome.