Don't Fear Grit
Rob Taormina, social media marketing expert and award winning entrepreneur, features hard-working business owners from around the world to learn their secrets to success.
How do entrepreneurs get started? What are the hardest parts of starting a business in the first year? Did you ever want to quit your job? How did you overcome the challenges of owning a business? How do you define grit? What are the marketing strategies and advertising technologies being used by the top businesses?
We tackle the real day-to-day challenges actual business owners are facing today and the solutions they came up with to overcome.
Don't Fear Grit
The Resilient Entrepreneur: Mike Evans on Turning Setbacks into Success and Balancing Life's Pursuits
Have you ever faced a setback that felt like the universe was telling you to take a different path? Mike Evans certainly has, and he turned those moments into a mosaic of success across various industries. From the ashes of a martial arts supply company to the heights of co-owning a thriving school, launching into massage therapy, and imparting survival skills, Mike's narrative is a powerful testament to the art of the pivot and the resilience required to thrive in the entrepreneurial landscape.
Join me as I sit down with the chameleon of enterprise, Mike Evans, to uncover the strategic and personal growth that comes from embracing failure and the transformative power of mentorship. We tackle the stigmas around setbacks and discuss the significance of adapting our skills to the needs of the modern world. Discover how raising your rates doesn't just benefit you, but can also create space to support those less fortunate, a lesson Mike learned through personal financial hurdles. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone navigating the choppy waters of business ownership.
Wrapping up, we delve into the impact of effective communication on success, both in business and personal relationships. As Mike shares his journey, we reflect on how important it is for entrepreneurs to find balance, aligning their ambitious goals with their mission without losing sight of family and personal well-being. Be ready to be inspired by Mike's evolution, from weathering the storm of challenges to pioneering new paths, all while keeping his compass firmly set on what matters most.
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Speaker 2:This is, don't Fear Great, with Wabtau-Ramina, marketing strategies and advertising technologies to help you build a better business. Welcome back to DFG. This is literally going to be our first guest interview of the season. As you guys know, I teased everyone, letting them know this is going to be a special season dedicated to guest interviews In the studio. To kick it off, I got my friend Mike here. Mike, why don't you just introduce yourself? Give some context.
Speaker 1:Who are you Sure? My name is Mike Evans. I am a multi-hyphenate entrepreneur. I have a lot of different ventures that I like to do Right now. We have Vision Martial Arts, which is a martial arts school in Patchouge, new York. I'm also a massage therapist. We have, within the Martial Arts School we have a massage therapy clinic, massage Ally, where we also do aesthetics classes for people that want to learn about it. We have Forgotten Skills, which is a survival and community building endeavor that came out of COVID era. A couple of other things Dablin here and there science, communication, writing, another book oh, wow All sorts of good stuff.
Speaker 2:You're a entrepreneur, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You got bit by the buggy and you're not going back.
Speaker 1:He's that Renaissance man, danny DeVito. That's right, rain man. I don't have his money yet.
Speaker 2:So here's the question and this is the question that everyone always starts off with, so we'll just get this one out of the way is how did you get your start? What was your first entrepreneurial experience? And then as far as where you are now, why did you get started? Why did you decide I want to get into Martial Arts, I want to get into massage therapy, I want to get into survival skills, stuff. What got you to where you are today?
Speaker 1:So that is quite the path, Ups and downs, left and right. So I guess the first thing I ever did entrepreneurially is I tried to start a Martial Arts supply business. It was just an opportunity that was there. I was probably 20 years old, took out a person alone, bought some stuff, didn't know anything about business and we went out of business instantly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I did get some cool toys that were left over from that.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're still hanging on my wall. From there, I just had some opportunities as I grew through the Martial Arts, where at a certain point, my teacher wanted to retire from public teaching. He still does teach, but not as much publicly, so he left the school to a partner and I. We failed that business and we lasted a little longer. We lasted about a year, a year and a half. I opened another Martial Arts school just by myself. Thereafter. That one lasted probably about nine years, until 2008,. 2009, when everything collapsed. Our lease was up, everything just perfect storm. I still didn't know anything about business at that point.
Speaker 2:But you're getting better and better and better with each new experience. Each time we got a little better.
Speaker 1:And I had a student of mine who said you know what? This is kind of my thing, we're not going to let you close. Here's a key. And he got a space where we rented a space in another Martial Arts school. It was this gentleman, gene Montalion. He's an Aikido guy and one of the things that he did was he would bring in new Martial Arts leaders and kind of he was an incubator for Martial Arts schools. So there was probably six or seven of us Wow Teaching in his school at a time.
Speaker 1:So when my student handed me the key, I still had to pay the bill. It was that, wow, if somebody believes in me, all right, I'm going to do it just for you guys. And then one thing led to another. We started getting really good at it. I said, all right, I don't want to leave my student who did this initial thing on the hook. I definitely don't want to hurt Montalion Sensei's business. So I better go learn at least a little something. And through a lot of mindset training, I used to be a very negative person.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, one of those as soon as you said. I have this idea, my ADHD would kick in and I would project the 27 different reasons it wasn't going to work.
Speaker 1:So through a bunch of mindset training, working with a lot of mentors and kind of working my way through the Martial Arts industry, at one point I was the COO of the largest curriculum provider in the industry. So that close mentorship really took my weakness of that negativity and it let me say all right, here's an idea. Yeah, I still have that initial little voice that says what are those 27? Things are going to go wrong. But now it's how do I shoot down those 27 things before they ever even come up?
Speaker 1:so that I can go be successful. So one thing led to another. We kind of made it up to COVID. As soon as COVID hit, we were one of the first businesses to close. We saw the writing on the wall. We pivoted, probably two days before the state shut down.
Speaker 2:We went to Zoom.
Speaker 1:And that went. I'm going to say, well, I mean, that was an interesting time in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but at that time you didn't think that it was going to last as long as it did. You thought it was temporary right yeah?
Speaker 1:two, three weeks were good to go and then 10 months later, we're still closed. When they finally did let us open, it was very small 30% and 50%. So we were going kind of stir crazy and this is where we started getting into those other businesses. We can't be inside doing martial arts. Let's go outside. What could we do outside?
Speaker 2:You have to get creative. Yeah, we started this.
Speaker 1:First it was just like go hiking and clear my mind. And then it was a couple of friends let's go hiking and clear our mind. Then there was a couple more friends and it was, I remember, when we were kids and we would start fires in the woods.
Speaker 2:So we started fires in the woods.
Speaker 1:That led to another business and then we went from there. Everything opened back up. We built the school up to a certain point but we never quite recovered from COVID. We did okay, I think during COVID we were probably one of the leaders in the country surviving and even thriving, is it?
Speaker 2:because you well, maybe you think that you because you embraced the sort of virtual reality sort of aspect early, yeah, you were early adopters of that, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think we'd already been talking with with an account of hours over in the UK and they were starting an online teaching platform, so it was kind of like it's a good thing that spark was already there because when it hit, the fan all right, let's just pivot. We already have this idea.
Speaker 2:Let's just go Right.
Speaker 1:But it just wasn't the same. I mean part of what we do. A traditional Chinese martial arts school was the center of a community. It wasn't just like I'm going to go take karate.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no.
Speaker 1:But it was. You know. They were doctors and healers and scholars that also taught martial arts and they brought the community together in times of, you know, famine and sickness. That that was the hub, so that's what we wanted to be. And even though we did okay during that virtual, it wasn't the same no-transcript. And then when finally the landlord was great, he worked with us all through it. But, he got to a point where he's like all right, look.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we just couldn't do it anymore. Sure, so we stepped back once again.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My story is a story of failure, but I'm always I forget what it was, I forgot what it was on the top of my head, Always talking about failing forward. Yeah Right. So we stepped back and we said, okay, a little heart palpitations going on.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:A little chest pain for a couple of days and then we got together and said, okay, we can't go away with the martial arts. It saved my life mostly from myself so many times. Yeah, changed so many people's lives. I said, all right, let's bring back the other things I'm good at. So we brought back the massage therapy. We brought in a partner who's an esthetician. So half of our school is set up for healing and wellness. The other half is set up for the child development. We were running the skills program and even though I no longer work for the company, I do believe in the product so much and we use it with our kids. For the adults, we brought back a little more of that tradition and then we're like all right, but how do we get the community back Right? So we started, well, going hiking in the woods and we kind of remembered that all right, back there in COVID we had this whole business idea that we just never really took.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We met up with a friend of mine who's a biologist and runs seed out in Brookhaven, new York, and they do wonderful environmental things. Yeah, and to me, like I grew up as an environmentalist, I'm an East End boy.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:He came home from school, maybe did your homework and then you were off in the woods.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, as we chatted, he's like oh, I love the woods here, and we started going out and doing things. Sure, and now we have these survival classes that we're running through seed but it's kind of talking the forgotten skills thing that I do with the survival, and I used to call it primitive skills, but I was informed that that's not a nice way to say it.
Speaker 2:So now we're going with like, no, no and like look, I don't want to offend anybody.
Speaker 1:So now we're going more like ancestral skills To us at survival. You go back two or three generations. Yeah, that's just how they lived. Life was a fight every single day, so that's how I got where we are now.
Speaker 2:I love the journey, but one thing you said that I want to stick to right now a little bit is you quoted, you know, making sure that you fail forward if you fail, and that's something that, like lately I've been reading a lot of books on. You know, mindset, training and a lot of sort of like. The common theme with a lot of the books is this idea of failure and helping people get perspective on it, because they look at failure as this you sort of didn't accomplish anything and now life is over in a way, instead of looking at failure as opportunity. And you know, in the sort of athletes world and the sports world you know, failing is a stepping stone for them. Oh yeah, you know whether it be the greats that everyone knows, like Michael Jordan and whatnot. You know failing, you know 70% of the time, or 60% of the time when taking the shot. You know he looks at these as opportunities to get better and but a lot of people they fall short of experiencing their success because they look at failure as the endpoint, like I and what and I love this.
Speaker 2:This is sort of like the fortune cookie sort of piece of advice is is is the true failure. I guess the way that they're defining it is is really when you give up. When you fall down, you stay down, you know, but failing is you just get back up and you try something else, you know. And so I'm interested as an entrepreneur, how important do you think that that is? I mean, I could sort of guess what you're about to say, considering what you just shared about your journey with multiple businesses. Right, but for entrepreneurs that listen to this and right now are experiencing struggle and they're looking at it like I'm done, this is not, I can't do this anymore. Clearly I failed, right. So what sort of advice would you give them as far as failure for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1:So the first thing is you didn't fail. The thing that you were trying failed. You know we can't let it define us. That's something that I used to do is I'd say, oh, I suck, and you know I'm horrible and I'll never be good at something, and that's that old negative person, right. So when we realize, well, it wasn't me that failed, it was the thing I was doing failed. That provides me now a couple of things to think about. First, when I price things. You know, if we go into the business aspect for a moment, when I price things, I used to be well, I have to keep it cheap. I grew up pretty broke, right, I don't like to say poor, because my grandmother would say poor is a mindset. So even as a child, yeah, right, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So we grew up without much. At the time I didn't really realize it, because my parents did a wonderful job of making sure we were loved and taken care of and fed, and sometimes fed meant like hey, we don't have anything for dinner. Go across the street and catch something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, real, real quick on that point. People need to realize this that kids don't understand sort of like lifestyle at such a young age. And I think parents put so much pressure of lifestyle on kids like, oh, my kids need this bow, mowing their kids into, into into life. And I think you know the more you share about your growth, your sort of upbringing. I had a very, very similar. You know. We had that zero dollars, we didn't have two nickels to rub together. And I remember when I was telling my dad I'm like, hey, I would love a pet, my dad would be like, yeah, go catch one. That was, and I didn't look at it as a bad thing. I didn't be like, oh, my dad's telling me to go catch a pet because we're poor. I was, I loved my life. Oh yeah, I loved it. Now we were very, very poor, we had no money. But that's what I mean, like kids don't know and they can find joy, they can find growth, they can find stability and success.
Speaker 1:Even in those moments we don't have to fomo kids into things, and that's actually required, you know, as part of what we do, is the whole child development aspect. Yeah, kids need boredom.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:It's required for their mental growth, for their emotional resilience. They need to be able to say like I'm bored, and for dad to say, hi, bored, I'm dad and you know, and then to be kicked out of the house or kicked into the other room and you'll see that very quickly they're creating. And that creativity goes to being able to get past failures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Be creative.
Speaker 1:So you know, as we now start pricing things in our business. I was taught that you have to raise your rates first. That was lesson number one. And I had that pushback because we didn't have much and I wanted it to be accessible.
Speaker 1:Sure, and with working with the mindset coach and the business coaches, it was the more you charge, the more money you'll have coming in, the more people you can help, but also you'll have more freedom to truly help the person that can't afford it. You know, when I had everybody paying me $20 a month, I couldn't afford to help anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point, when we were, you know, the most expensive in town and somebody legit came in from a shelter or something and they would say, oh, you know, I always wanted to do this. I said, good, so do it, let's go. Well, how much? I didn't ask you, let's go Right, you know, because I had that freedom. So, as you're pricing things, you keep raising those rates, as you're supposed to, and you know you have the right price because you're getting about a 30% pushback. If you're not getting 30% pushback, you could have done better, you could have done more. So, in essence, I'm seeking that failure, that failure to sign up 30%, to tell me I'm doing the right by 70%. Now, if I'm failing all the time and my sign up ratios are like in the toilet, all right, it's time to reassess.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The second thing is when we hit that failure that says, well, something was too hard for me or I didn't quite understand it completely, as I am now and like I've been in this game for a long time. So when something I don't completely understand or I'm not good enough at it, that means it's probably something pretty difficult. If it's difficult for me, it's difficult for someone else, and what is the purpose of an entrepreneur is to find that pain point that people have and solve it. So my own failures kind of direct where my next steps will be. Sometimes it's for my own edification, you know. Oh, hey, wow, I got to go learn how to do taxes or go how to learn how to do AI. Now, and sometimes it's for the people around me.
Speaker 1:And that's how I originally got into coaching, because we had some really old guys not old in the sense of age but old in the sense of mindset where they just wanted to teach martial arts the old ways. They didn't understand how to market, how to get their school going, and there were great mentors out there but there was nobody in the middle saying all right, look, let me show you the first couple steps so that you understand what the big guys are saying and that became my niche, you know that that how do you get over that first step of getting into getting help? So that failure on my own helped me find that opportunity Right.
Speaker 2:I love that perspective and I hope people listening to this save that Like I want you to save this moment, because I think you just articulated it really really well to give people perspective on on the value that can be found in failing, you know, and to sort of seek that stuff out. I think that's really great. Now, I guess, moving a little bit away from from failure, let's talk a little bit about, and maybe you know, understanding failure is a skill. But what are some necessary high level priority skills and abilities you think that entrepreneurs should have? Or maybe your answer is well, I don't think there is a skill or ability that all, all entrepreneurs have. That that's fine, and I would curious as to why you would think that. But so I guess there's that two part question Do you think there are skills and abilities and, if so, what are they for entrepreneurs?
Speaker 1:Sure, I definitely think there are. I think there is a certain amount that you can just come with to the game. My cousin was always unfortunately he fell more into the get rich quick kind of guy, so he never really had that longevity in things. I think he could have been amazing. Unfortunately he's no longer with us, but watching him was part of what colored my, my desire to want to get into business, because I saw he was always moving, always, you know, moving forward, and I think that is a big part of it.
Speaker 1:I mean, the podcast is called Don't Fear Grit and I did an a series of interviews with some teachers a while back and I asked them like I teach all these kids and it's martial arts, but it's child development classes what do you need in your schools in a post COVID environment that you know I could help your kids have? And the number one answer was grit, resiliency, that ability to fail a test and move forward. So being able to look long distance and yeah, we're failing right now, but generals for millennia have been losing battles but winning wars, sure, right. So that ability to look long range and keep eyes on the prize. Also, knowing where are you now in our survival classes.
Speaker 1:One of the exercises we do is we lay out all these different tools there's a knife and matches and a compass and a you know water, straw and all these different things and we just ask people, before we even start out, of all these things, what's the one you would take? And 90% of people say, oh, if I'm lost, I want the compass. And we say, fantastic, do you know how to use a compass? Well, I mean I can find north.
Speaker 1:So one of the first things you learn in land navigation is, in order to get where you want to be, you need to know two things where you want to be and where you are right now. If you don't have that, the compass is useless. So in business, also, like know where you are, be very humble about looking at your own strengths and faults. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have any ego, because I think an ego is very important. We need to believe in ourselves more than anybody else, sure, but but having just a little moment of humility. And this is where coaches come in you know, helping us see those things.
Speaker 1:Maybe we don't want to see something.
Speaker 2:You're a big advocate of mentorship and coaching.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, that is that is, if I look back in my life. You know every time that something bad happened and I got passed it there was a coach there. Yeah, there was. You know, I started off. I was almost wrote a book about my life, but I'm not that interesting. So, like the first memories I have of a major set back is like I was probably three or four years old and it's just very vague memories of being molested.
Speaker 1:But then I had like people in my life that helped me get past that and say, well, this doesn't define you, this is something somebody else did, from there going, and you know, if we fast forward, like, I wanted to be an athlete. So I had a coach who stepped in and said, well, I know you're a fat body right now, but I'm going to work with you. And he brought me to the point where I was. You know, after the Super Bowl we're talking about this I was playing football at a national level with PAL. Because he built us up like that, I went into the Marine Corps. This is going to be my career, yeah, and I got hurt in boot camp and they were kind of shrinking the Marine Corps down.
Speaker 1:So anybody that got a hangnail they were, they were out, so you know. So, like that plan failed and I got lost and I had somebody just in town that came by and picked me up and said look man, I know you're a little lost right now I'm going to teach you my business. Whether you stay in that business for now or forever, that's up to you, but you need to get out of your funk. So, like every time in my life that there was failure, there was a coach helping me get to that next step.
Speaker 2:Is that because, though, you were intentional of making sure you sort of were surrounded by people that, in these moments, could in fact, advise you, or this was just, it just sort of was by accident, in a way, that you surrounded yourself with people like this?
Speaker 1:That's an interesting question. I don't think early on that I was looking for it. I was totally a nerd, a dork, a geek, okay, all of those things that you shouldn't be when you're coming up and starting to think about girls and that was me, but you know, there was always just somebody there. So I think probably I was maybe so consciously looking for who's going to help me get to the next level, but it really wasn't until probably 20, maybe 2010.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:You know that I started going to business conferences and hearing other people talk about their successes and stories that were very similar, parallel to mine yeah, yeah. And that kind of sparked that oh, this is how you did it Right.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, I noticed one thing that you know everyone has a story, right, Everyone. And as far as entrepreneurs, the more that I get to speak with them, whether it be on the show or in personal life and in my business career, I've noticed that a pivotal moment in all entrepreneurs journey is they mention this a conversation they have with another entrepreneur or another successful person, or a conference that they went to, a seminar they attended, and you know, it seems that you know, if we would just humble ourselves a little bit earlier to bring that sort of support in, that we can sort of fast track, you know, our success, you know, and maybe avoid some of those you know avoidable sort of pitfalls early on that discourage us, waste our time, waste our money, you know. So here's the question for you Do you think that having those challenges, though, help to shape us? Therefore, it's important for us to go through that or, if we can avoid it, avoid it.
Speaker 1:So I wouldn't say necessarily go seek out failures yeah, but I wouldn't say avoid them either. You know, as we kind of look back at our paths, a lot of the things that we get challenged by are similar to the same thing, same things that other people are challenged by yeah, and as a teacher, one of the things I tell my students is you will be better than me as martial artists and you're going to do it in far less time because you have everything that I learned from my teacher over decades that I'm now condensing down. You have everything I've learned over decades that I'm now condensing down. You're going to get it all within five years. Now. Will you have the experience and maturity and all that? No, that'll come.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But, you're, one of the cool things about humans is we learn generationally. So you mentioned being able to talk even just to another entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We all have our. It's our passion, it's our baby. We don't want to tell anybody about it because we want to steal it, and and I'm just not where I want to be yet yeah. But really 90% of any business is the same malarkey that every other business is doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And one of the first friends that it really started leading me down this path. He said you know, what we want to talk about today at this big mindset thing is we're going to chop wood and carry water.
Speaker 1:And I said what do you mean? And he's like well, all the things you're doing right in your business are the passionate parts, and all the things you're doing wrong are just the things you never learned how to do. But we're all doing it. I'm going to show you how to track leads. I'm going to show you how to manage an employee. I'm going to show you you know, so it was. It was a big weight lifted off to have that. Oh, you mean, I don't have to do it all alone. You know, entrepreneurship can be very lonely at times.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not everybody understands, especially those closest to us. Yeah, my parents were some of the first ones to talk me out, to try to talk me out of some of this stuff. Hmm, they said if you do, it will support you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But having a paycheck come in every nice is every week is really nice yeah. Which, yeah, I do kind of miss that corporate regularity sometimes but you know, just knowing that, even as we're working alone, we are not alone. Right, there's a coffee shop down in Pachug where a lot of us hang out and the gentleman that runs it is he's a wonderful entrepreneur, a wonderful community member. In the space that he's created Is such that you walk in and you look around and you feel the vibe.
Speaker 1:These are all entrepreneurs A lot of students as well, doing work, but just being there and hearing the other snippets of conversation.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:You know, somebody not listening in, of course, but yeah, it's a public space and you hear like somebody has that little snippet of oh, that's exactly what I'm here to work on today. It's just empowering. Yeah, Knowing that, even in my solitary what's the word?
Speaker 2:I'm looking for Solidarity, solidarity, solidarity In my aloneness.
Speaker 1:I don't blame that on COVID brain or something right. Even in my aloneness I am surrounded by others. You know it's like that mission of warriors, all on a common cause. We each have our job and our duty, but we're all kind of going together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know there's a saying that I sort of like abuse it, you know with people that I coach even my kids and I say that the tide rises for all ships. And I think that one of the dangers that I think entrepreneurs get into is this idea that what I have and what I do is I'm the only one and I don't want anyone else to see it, because then they get, like you were saying before, they're going to steal my idea. I actually wholeheartedly disagree with that mindset completely. I actually think you're more successful the more that you sort of bring people into sort of that journey with you. Even if it's people and this is, I know, a danger but even if it's people that are sort of in your industry, in your space, I think that you should actually come together.
Speaker 2:I think that if you can create market, you can educate market together. If you educate the market, the market becomes bigger. There's more than demands for what you do, because now you guys have come together and created a demand, and so you know, that's why I feel like one piece of advice that I can consistently try to give brand new entrepreneurs is to don't sort of lock your business up like Fort Knox. Open up those doors and in fact take the initiative to reach out to other people in your space. And I'm not saying you have to become a partner with them, I'm not saying you partner with them, but definitely open that conversation and regularly talk, because you guys can educate the market, like I was saying before, build demand for your product. You could just do a better job and I think there's plus. There's plenty of money out there to be made.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, and I wholeheartedly agree. I didn't used to, but yeah, I do now. You know, our niche for kids martial arts for years has been child development and we had to kind of create the market in our area for that. Nobody knew, like, if you said, oh, I'm a child development specialist, they would say, oh, is it a school for special needs kids? Well, we can certainly work with your child, but that's not what we are.
Speaker 1:Once we created this market, we started seeing like the other schools in the area were all of a sudden like, oh, we do child development too. And you know some of my friends would be like, oh, they're stealing your stuff. And I said, well, wait a minute. First of all, I believe so wholeheartedly in what I do that it will benefit kids, that I want every single martial arts school, soccer coach, dance school, gymnastics school, I want them all to take this Because, yeah, you know, in business we are trying to make money, but there was something that we saw that that was needed, you know that from which we're trying to make that money, yeah, yeah, and that thing for in that venue for me is giving kids those tools that I have now that I didn't have as a child.
Speaker 1:So if I can, through my influence, get other influencers to lead those kids into a venue where they have access to those tools, why wouldn't I want that? And the second way I look at it is if what I'm doing isn't good enough for somebody else to take notice, I need to step back and figure out what I'm doing. If it is good enough and everybody's trying to not necessarily copy it but be inspired by it, then yeah, maybe I'm right, maybe I do have something here and then I just refine it.
Speaker 1:So, it kind of guides me a little bit.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. Now, in your opinion, as someone who's had multiple businesses, it seems like you got your hands in a lot of different things. You've met a lot of people, tremendous amount of experience and, by the way, that leads to lots of wisdom. So I look at you as someone who's very wise.
Speaker 2:No pressure right, no pressure Is. What do you think is the importance for a new? For answering two parts, if you could, because I think the approaches are different Someone who's a brand new entrepreneur just starting out, and then a seasoned entrepreneur. What's the importance of market research and zeroing in on a niche?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one. So, as a brand new entrepreneur, we have these big ideas and I still fall to it, right, because when I start a new venture, I'm a new entrepreneur again. It's new things and shinies, so finding that niche is really important. One of the failures that we had in one of my previous martial arts schools is we tried to do it all. Oh, kickboxing is a cool new thing. Well, guess what? We have kickboxing classes. Kids are a cool new thing. We have kids now. Yeah, we had that now.
Speaker 1:And it was hard to do. Even as we scaled the team, it was hard to say this is who we are, this is what we do. It was even harder to say oh man, how do I market my kickboxing today when I only have ideas for the MMA and I only have an ad prepped for the kids, and I only have? It didn't provide me a lot of clarity, focus, vision. So we named my business the vision martial arts because in our biggest failure, it was that clarity of vision of who we wanted to be that brought us forward. So one of the things we like to tell newer people is look, you can always add on a product line, but save it for when that ship is running smoothly and without you.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Then you can focus on the next thing, For the more seasoned person, this idea that what got you here is not what's going to get you to the next spot. In martial arts it tends to be like oh, I got to the 150 student or 200 student mark. Tends to be like the thing and you got to realize. Look, when you hit that what you were doing keeps you there, because that's what got you there. Now all your percentages are bigger. So instead of putting on two students a month, you got to put on 20 students a month just to break even.
Speaker 1:So it's that market research is going to allow you to keep a wide perspective. It's going to say here are other opportunities I mentioned I talked to a lot of teachers and one of the challenges in schools is the things that they're preparing our kids for today. Half of that won't exist in five years. Most of it won't exist in 10 years. So we're preparing kids for jobs that won't be there Now. We can shift that and say, instead of preparing for the job, I prepare the tools that will allow you to be successful in any job.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what most teachers do within the confines of their district rules. The second part of it is once those jobs are gone, what's going to backfill? It is things that we haven't even imagined yet. So by doing market research and we do it all the time I'm constantly asking just random people and not just about my martial arts or my massage or my survival, just asking them in general what's the challenge of adult life for?
Speaker 2:you right now.
Speaker 1:Because we go back to what are we really trying to do Make money by solving problems. That's right. So my perspective tends to be what do I have to do today in my business to be successful? Not necessarily what's Joe Bob over there trying to do, so he can just get through his day.
Speaker 2:If I could solve that it makes it all easy.
Speaker 2:There's a book it's considered like the Bible of advertising called Breakthrough Advertising. I don't know if you've heard of it or read it. It seems like anyone who's really been in business, and especially in braces marketing, you've read this book, even though it was written probably, I think, about 50 years or so at this point ago. It's sort of timeless In there, as you probably are well aware. It has. What is it? The five levels of market sophistication. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Now, one thing that I think a lot of new entrepreneurs don't understand is that they don't understand adaptability. They sort of are get a little arrogant about their product and their service and they don't understand how, when, maybe, as the market's evolving in the sense that there's now lots of competition clamoring right, and now your market what's it called? Your market share, is decreasing. That one way is to simply sort of just change a little bit. A small aspect of what you do and why I'm saying this is before you brought up is that we're all doing what other people are doing or have done. We're not really inventing anything or much brand new. It's just a small little derivative here.
Speaker 2:How important do you think it is for entrepreneurs to be able to number one through market research, be aware and then be adaptable. Is there a time and a place for having that ego and confident? No, I know what I have will solve the problem and I'm trailblazing forward and I'm going to bully my way through it. Or do you think the most successful entrepreneurs say hey, listen, I do have a product, but I need to be able to evolve as the market evolves with it. What's your sort of take on that?
Speaker 1:Sure. So if we look at some of the biggest corporations that are entrepreneur driven in our lifetime anyway, we could look at Amazon. Amazon started selling books and right now they sell everything. It became less about hey, I want to sell everything, and more about hey, I have this platform on which we could sell everything. I don't think that when Jeff Bezos was sitting there, he said, wow, I want to sell books and I want to sell detergent and I want to sell tools, and he said I want to sell this platform.
Speaker 2:Correct. And now so many like my own websites run on Amazon web servers, because I was just going- to say, aws now is probably one of their primary streams of revenue, not even the products that they're selling.
Speaker 1:So the adaptability there was not. Hey, I need to be able to do all these things. It's what else can I do with my thing? And if we now scale that back and we can now go into my business, it was, yeah, I want to help these kids. And in the beginning it was. I helped them by teaching them how to throw a punch of bully. And then I became a little more refined about it and said, well, okay, that doesn't really solve the problem. Now I want to work with the bullies, and that was something nobody was doing. Nobody wants to work with the bully. I said, well, I want to solve the root cause and that became.
Speaker 1:Well, how do I do that? Okay, well, if I get into child development now, child development led me to well, kids are not little adults. They have their own unique things, but adults are just big kids. Yeah, we just have bigger toys. So now it's all right. My products are all about improving people's lives. It's whether it's through the martial arts, personal development, child development, parenting classes, massage therapy, aesthetics, women's empowerment, learning how to survive when things go wrong, or even just the mindset behind all those things. They all tie together with that. You know the what's my why? It used to be part of the hustle culture until I learned about alignment Now like alignment isn't one of my favorite words so that when you align everything to your mission, you do see other opportunities that you can then adapt to without losing focus. Sure, and I think that's the part that most people get wrong is they lose focus.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, all right, in line with that, last two questions here. The first one has to do with a question that someone asked. I'm going to go up a post and saying, hey, I'm going to be interviewing a bunch of people. What question would you ask? And so this is the hot seat moment. You never know.
Speaker 1:You never know what, it is All right.
Speaker 2:Okay. So the one question that I thought you would be really good for and this is actually a perfect transition, considering what you just said is how, as a busy entrepreneur, you know, because there are entrepreneurs and then there's ambitious entrepreneurs, right, I look, I categorize you as ambitious because you got your dabbling a lot of things. So how, as an ambitious entrepreneur, this is what that was the question. It is, how do you create a healthy work life?
Speaker 1:balance. Oh, there's a question of the millennia right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So part of it is you do have to realize that there are going to be times when balance is not static. When I was in college for massage therapy, one of the first things they taught us was the balance between Eastern and Western medicine. And in Western medicine we talk about we have homeostasis, everything in your body is in balance and you're healthy. In Eastern medicine we say, well, you are homeodynamic, you are on a seesaw and think, you know, let me go into the camera for this one, instead of being like you know we're balanced and everything is perfect and nothing's going to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I can do that. We're seesawing back and forth with in a range of acceptability.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:So we have to recognize in entrepreneurship there are going to be times when we don't have family dinner together when we have to stay up till 2 in the morning Getting that last campaign done.
Speaker 1:Yeah when your ADHD Hyperfocus kicks in and you go all light bulb, I gotta get this done now and you miss the kids soccer game. Yeah, there will be those moments. But I think it is also and this is where, like, an accountability partner comes in not necessarily a coach, but I have people that check in on me and they're like, alright, hey, are you doing what you're supposed to be doing? That reel you back in. So there's also gonna be times when you say, alright, I'm gonna miss out on my Valentine's Day campaign Because it is far more important to me to go to the daddy daughter dance you know.
Speaker 1:So there's that balance and it depends on where you are in your adventure not just your venture, but your adventure With that as well where you'll have the freedom to make Decisions as to how that balance plays out.
Speaker 1:In the beginning You're gonna be kind of weighted towards I gotta get it done, because I jumped off the cliff and I'm building the parachute on the way Down. Later on I could say, alright, I see this opportunity. Is it time dependent? Is it dependent on some market shift? Do I need to be ahead of it or is this just a little thing that I want to add on? So having that long-term vision also helps, because now I can see, like what's out there and what's going to be more important in the moment Mm-hmm. And I think the more you mature is both a person and a business person. It will balance more towards that family, to the point where it's not just how can I make people's lives better, it's how can I make my life better and my family's life better by making other people's lives, you know, and that that kind of shifts your perspective a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah the point where now you can say All right, I need more time at home so I can make my family better. Maybe I put on a team member, you know, yeah, delegating. Yeah and you get it out like that yeah, and it does.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't have to be one or the other, and I love that seesaw saw sort of visual. I think that really, really helps, you know. And another thing is, I think, communication, because you know you might have this great understanding and approach and but unless the family understands that as as well, there's still get, there's gonna be a breakdown, right? So I think that communication element is so, so important, you know. But but you're right, I mean one thing that I've learned and I've done a lot like. I've got, like you, I got my hands dabbled, you know.
Speaker 2:You know in a lot of different things, and there are, there are times where I'm gone before the the family's up and I'm back at home before and when they're already sleeping and I don't see them for a couple days, and and and I'm and I realized as much as like I would love to delegate everything. You know, there are moments in new projects and new ventures. It needed my time, though, and what what's great is communication is the family Understanding that. You know dad's dad's doing something. That's that's important. He's trying to create something great, solve problems or even create a better lifestyle for my family, and they understand that. I think that communication is important.
Speaker 1:Sure, and you have kids so yes you know the under the importance of getting them to understand it, because they are our next generation, oh yeah, Just real quick on that.
Speaker 1:This is another opportunity for a positive failure. If I go home and I tell my partner you know, hey, this is this idea I have and it's gonna require a lot of time and attention or maybe money or whatever, and she says, no, that's important to me because that means I don't yet have it fleshed out, I haven't and haven't defined it well enough to explain it to her. She's not necessarily Entrepreneur minded, so if she doesn't understand it, it's not ready yet. You know it doesn't mean no, it just means alright, let me go back to the drawing board, like Wiley Coyote in my little cave, you know, let me go back to the drawing board until I can come back and say, okay, now, here's the idea. And when she says, yes, well, now I've got something. You know, it's a sounding board, market research at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean listen, it's a great filter. You know, being sensitive to that stuff and understanding that, and I love what you just said, even if, let's say, our partner or wives, whatever are not, maybe sort of you know, experts in our, in our fields. They do represent someone, though, and that when we do run it by in the, from that perspective, this is what I'm gonna be doing and it's a no, they don't understand it. We should be paying attention to that. That's really interesting. I'm gonna pursue that a little bit more. I love that.
Speaker 2:Your wife will think You're gonna be getting a little message. By the way, you know, it's Valentine's Day. You just say you just saved my day. Thank you, all right. So last question for you here and like in, just like a, like a one sentence thing. Like all of a sudden you got this genie. He sends you back to your life 20 years ago, 25 years ago, and you got 30 seconds with your prior self. So you got this limited window here. What's one piece of advice that you're giving to your younger self before you had this incredible journey?
Speaker 1:You know, I think about this a lot and, man, I think that just the thing I would say is like it's gonna be okay. It's not even an idea or a mindset. I'm a pretty emotional guy. I get it from my dad. We're not afraid to show our emotions and I'm sorry, but you know me, I can't do just one sentence. It's the fact that I've had so many failures, big ones, even recently that were life altering, heart-shattering, debilitating at times, but I've always gotten through it, and I think the challenge as a younger man was that I didn't have the experience Of knowing that I could get through it. So if.
Speaker 1:I could go back in time at 49 years old and talk to my 15 year old self and just say look man, it's gonna suck but it's gonna be okay. You know, to have that Trusted word from, hopefully, somebody that I I can rely on, I think that would mean a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's actually. It's interesting. That's the first time that I have gotten that as an answer. You know, cuz, normally and I think it's fine you know, people try to find what is that? So one defining advice that'll help me make more money, right, like, can I? Can I tell myself this? But I think that's a much healthier sort of piece of advice, especially given that you have this short window, like you've got just a small amount of time with your younger self. What's that one thing that's gonna help them? And I think you're right, I think confidence. I'll admit it to you with you here. You know, you know everyone has various insecurities at various moments in life. No one is confident 100% of the time and everything that they're doing. We all have those moments. So those moments of self-doubt, you know, and sometimes those moments of self-doubt, we give in to those moments because of fear. Yeah, you know. So if, if, if we can give ourselves that advice when you're younger I you know you're probably right it makes a world of a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no matter what's going on like, no matter how bad your life has been. Yeah here you are right. You. You survived every challenge. Maybe not the way that you would have wished or hoped, yeah, but you've survived every single challenge this far. You know, like one of the things I Mentored my students with is what's the worst that could happen? Yeah, you know, you get punched in the face, you get a free-nosed job. That it's. You're still here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gonna be okay, right and you still have that thing that nothing, nobody could take away from you You're, you're, you're who you are on the inside, that mindset, the mentality, yeah, and if you've done it once, you could do it again.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, absolutely, mike. I can't thank you enough for being here. Honestly, you are just like just, and I'm have an enormous amount of wisdom. You're like like the modern-day encyclopedia of wisdom for everyone, really walking mansplainer.
Speaker 2:You know and I and honestly I can't endorse you enough. You know anyone who's out there. I my recommendation is to seek you out and because you know, just having a brief conversation with you I know helps a lot of people because you do have a really profound understanding of things and and those that have an understanding have the ability to help people through stuff. And and I think that's why you've had great success and you're able to Do a lot of things and people trust you. You know in various elements whether trusting you in the survival, trusting you you know At your martial arts school, you know, and that's because they trust your level of expertise. So I want to definitely encourage everyone to seek you out. Do me a favor, if you can, let everyone know how can they find you. Whether it be a website, phone number, it doesn't matter. How can they find you, sure, easiest?
Speaker 1:way is, our school's website is not karatecom, because it's not karate, it's kung fu, something my dad built for us way back in the day after. I told him 20 years later, like it's not karate, yeah, so you could find the school phone number, email addresses, all that good stuff all that good stuff and you're.
Speaker 2:You operate out of Patchog, but if people don't live in patchog, I'm sure they can still seek you out, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, you know. We do projects all over Long Island and it's a digital world. Yeah, you know, so hit me up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good. Well, there you guys have it. I'm sure a lot of you guys were inspired by Mike here. You learned something brand new and you're definitely walking away like jazz right now. I got because I am.
Speaker 1:I'm like I got work to do now.
Speaker 2:So definitely seek him out, because he's got so much more to offer than even the conversations that we've had here today. We could probably talk for hours, an hour and hours, and we'll definitely have you back again. You know, just real quick. I first met you in this studio, yes, but someone else who was recording their, their podcast, and I remember I sort of like like you're marked you. I was like I'm like this is a guy I want to talk to you again. This guy is smart, he genuinely cares about people and he understands that. You know what I need to be a good steward of my information here and I'm like we need to talk. So I'm glad I was able to have you my show here, which is awesome and I love all the stuff you put out.
Speaker 1:I followed. It is very impactful for me, so to have this opportunity today was wonderful, and it's definitely got my own gears thinking awesome, self-inspired, awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, there you have it, guys. Thanks again for joining us and until next time, guys, remember, don't fear the process and don't fear grit.