Latest / Caught on the Mike... / Eliot Marshall - UFC Vet, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker

Transcript

Eliot Marshall - UFC Vet, Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker · Caught on the Mike...

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: Listener discretion is advised.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: That is the title of a TED Talk given by my next guest not only believed in the MSO to Limited and continues to limit.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Elliot Marshall is a UFC veteran, a podcaster, business owner, motivational speaker, and author.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: But as you will hear in his own words, a distinction he is most proud of is that of a father.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Every action that Elliot has has a foundation of teaching to it.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: Aside from his own personal accolades, you have seen his work with UFC stars Miranda Maverick and Steve Dover, and today he gives us a little insight into the elements that make up what is unmistaking his own.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: So, ladies and gentlemen, I gotta pull the curtain back a little bit on the podcasting world.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I am a nerd.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: I like to do my research, and no matter how frequent I Googled my next guest, there was a phrase about the karate kid associated with his name every single time, and I absolutely love it.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, Elliot Marshall is joining me on the podcast today.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: UFC vet Ted Talker, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, all-around good guy.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: How the heck are you, man?
1:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm good, man.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a dad with some kids, homie.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what I'm that's what I am.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm just a dad with some kids that I love and a bunch of students that I love.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that that's that's how I like to do it these days, I think.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: I I think that's kind of how we live a fulfilled life is just finding our purpose, our why, and leaning into that, and everything else is just shit that we do.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it can get muddy though, right?
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Like I've made mine so muddy because my my why is teaching, right?
2:24
SPEAKER_00: I love to teach, that's my purpose.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm a teacher.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you if you try to teach too much in too many, too many different ways, it's it starts to get like it can still start to weigh on you.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: So I'm you know, I'm we can get into this later.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm really trying to hone in my what does that look like for Elliot right now in his in at 43 with these with the kids that are the age my kids are the age they are with my students and my athletes and stuff like that.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting that you bring that up because throwing sociopolitical crap out the window, because I I don't like getting into that, but with how chaotic things have been the last three years, I I think that's kind of giving us a renewed sense of purpose to hone down our focus and you know figure those things out.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: I know it has for me a lot.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you find that as a leader has affected you in some ways?
3:15
SPEAKER_01: The the last three years?
3:16
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm they have I'm good.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Like uh well, you know, like it's it's uh like the last three years haven't done it.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: My my history has done it in my life, like where I came, like what I came from.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: That's what that's what did it.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: The last three years hasn't done shit.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh like to be completely honest, like it sucked.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: It's not like I was like, like, you know, you know, cupcakes and rainbows here, but like that's just work.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: That's just work.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Right.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: What makes me mad about the last three years is like, look, man, mask, no mask, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Shot, get the shot, don't get just shut the fuck up and get to work.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, go ahead, get wear a mask.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, wear a mask, go ahead, get the vaccine.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: I I'll say I got the vaccine, you know, because the and the reason I did is because my doctor, who I've been trusting for the last 21 years, told me to do it.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh, who the fuck am I to like to say, yeah, you know what?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go a different way on this one with you.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: I I love that, man.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: And and that's the thing.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, grown men and grown adults should not be bothered by the activities of other grown men and grown adults until it's unless it's hurting somebody, right?
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Until it's impeding upon your personal space.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, unless it's hurting somebody, you know.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh now look, you can make that argument with the vaccine thing, but put that aside.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: My biggest thing is I choose the people I trust and I love.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And then I just ride with them.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: But my skills, my like, let's say I'm a black belt at jujitsu, right?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: That's not transferable to politics.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: That's not transferable to medicine, that's not transferable to anything else.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: It is in the realm of Brazilian jujitsu and fighting.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: This is where my expertise lies, right?
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make me all of a sudden be like with the doctor thing.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: He told me to get it.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: I have three friends that are doctors.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: They said, get it.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: I've asked, I've asked them questions for the last, like I said, 21 years of my life.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: So why would I go?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Why would I roll different now?
5:22
SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that you leaned into the whole concept of your life experience actually being more impactful and bringing you that sense of experience and where you're at now in life.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, why don't I just pass it off to you, introduce yourself, and let's start talking about your origin story a little bit.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I said, I'm just a dad with a couple kids right now that's done some shit, you know, but everyone's done some shit.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Like every everyone, everyone has has a life that they live and uh and mine's not mine's not better or worse than anyone else's, right?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Like uh I I've had um amazing luck in my life.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And what I like to call luck uh is that my hard work, the the ability to work hard, which I have, uh has actually paid off, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Because there's so many people who work harder than me, like like, but only for food and water, right?
6:16
SPEAKER_00: For food and water, and that's it, and that's all that their hard work pays is like the bare minimum of survival because of where they're born or their parents, like a whole host of things, you know?
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, yes, of course, it's possible that they can get out and all that, you know.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And everyone, you know, in our industry and like uh MMA, everyone goes, Oh, look at Francis Ngana, what he did.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but we don't talk about the hundred dudes that died alongside of him, right?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Like he didn't have anything to do, like the the bullet shot the guy next to him.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: That was nothing other than luck, right?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Like if he happened to be standing next to the other guy, like switch spots, then he's dead.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: That guy's not, and right, like so his hard work, his massive hard work paid off.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: A hundred people died, right?
7:01
SPEAKER_00: He could have easily been one of those people.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's there's just a lot of luck in that.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, so and then he and then he capitalized.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Great, I love him.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: He's the man, he's the greatest heavyweight fighter.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: But that that's what I've had in my life, and a lot of that came out of suffering, right?
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh my dad, my dad's black, and my mom, my her parents, my grandparents, who I spent a massive amount of time with, were Holocaust survivors.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta rewind now.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: So this is 1980.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: So that means my dad grew up in civil rights, right?
7:32
SPEAKER_00: No, not the same water fountains, not safe, all that stuff.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: So this thought that the world isn't safe was super prevalent in my childhood because for every single person that I knew, the world wasn't safe.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Um so and then it started to come true for me.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: I had no friends when we moved to uh when I was eight years old and we moved to the town that I grew up in for the most part.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: We were building in our house, they spray painted our house, Nigers, they yeah, Niger's swastika's kikes go home.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: They they started to get the n-word right after a while, you know.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, and it wasn't just one time, this was constant, right?
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Like my house getting vandalized.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was allowed to go play outside of some kids' houses, but like you know, if everybody went in to play video games, I wasn't allowed to go in the house, you know.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: So uh and this was just my life, but but it's what it's also what was told to me, right?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, like my like they're like, look, they hate us, and and I was a big they because there weren't too many other black Jews, right?
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Like me, Sammy Davis Jr.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: and my sister.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I just didn't fit in anywhere except for one place, and that was my karate school.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And I started karate because I saw the karate kid, I did the dumb crane kick thing, right?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: In 1906, I kicked the lamp, and my parents were like, let's put you in karate.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh you're old enough to remember the yellow pages uh for your listeners.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, so the yellow pages was pre-Google and the internet, like the white pages that had personal people's phone numbers in them, and the yellow pages had businesses.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: So when you know when we Googled, I saw the guy doing a flying kick, and I was like, Oh my god, he can fly.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: That's where I want to go.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: So I signed up and I fit in there.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was good there, they were nice to me.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: That that was like my uh safe space.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: That put a massive amount of pressure on me, right?
9:35
SPEAKER_00: To to get good at karate, and I did.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And then uh, you know, fast forward, I still have no friends.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: It's you know, two friends basically, uh, all came from karate, or you know, or you know, there's one kid in my next door that was next door that I was allowed to uh that I played with.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh fast forward to 1998.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no, 97.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, 1997.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're at the national tournament for my style of karate.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: And my buddy, who uh I did karate with he, you know, we trained at the same school, he dodged our the adult division.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: He did the old man masters division, and I like it was point karate, so like you know, you spy your friends all the time, it didn't matter, right?
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Um and I was like, You scared pussy, you know, what are you doing?
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Going fighting the old man, come on, like let's go.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: You're good.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing this?
10:29
SPEAKER_00: You're 30.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: You just turned 30, you know.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh, you think I'm scared?
10:34
SPEAKER_00: He was like, Yeah, he's like, Come over to my house next Friday night.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Cool, done.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: So I go over his house.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know I didn't know he knew jujitsu.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: He whooped my ass.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Whooped my ass.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, so uh, and then I was like, I gotta learn this.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and mid-90s, mid to late 90s, it was like limited to rec centers and high school gyms, and like there were no schools anyway.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So so they taught me a little bit, you know, like he taught me a little bit.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, he was a bluebelt, just got his blue belt.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: So that was the summer.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I go back to school that fall, I start talking about this a little bit, this jujitsu stuff, you know.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Then nobody knows.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: I said, it's like wrestling, and some high school wrestlers wanted to bully me, and you know, they were good, they were popular, a couple state champions, you know, like all right, let's make this dork feel feel shitty.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I whooped their ass.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: And like in that moment, people were like, oh, Elliot.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, and like a girl kissed me for the first time, maybe, right?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Which is a big deal in your life.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: 17's a little late.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, I got people started to like me.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta, and let's rewind a touch, you gotta understand Holocaust survivors.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Holocaust survivors believe two things.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: One, Hitler, three things.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: One, Hitler's coming again.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: This is a guarantee.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of them believes that this will happen again, and we need to be prepared.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Two, the way you're prepared is you have money is the first thing you have.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is you have friends that you will pay that money to that will hide you from the Nazis, the next Nazis, to get you out and safe somewhere.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, I had no money, I was 17, and I didn't have friends until this moment when I beat somebody up.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I didn't connect beating somebody up with just feeling good and yada yada.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I connected it with like safety in the world because this is what had been told to me since I was six years old, and it was coming true.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: My house was vandalized, I had no friends, everyone left me alone.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: I was an outcast, and what changed that for me was whooping someone's ass.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: So I said I was gonna fight in the UFC.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing, especially how you take that mentality of almost needing a protector to being that protector and flipping it on its head like that, in a sense.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the way it went, right?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, but it it also created this massive uh amount of pressure and anxiety.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I already have, you know, and I've had anxiety my entire life since I was a kid.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh I wasn't fighting for fame and money, I was fighting for safety.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Right?
13:18
SPEAKER_00: So, like uh the next layer lower.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: So uh that's why I didn't fight well.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: That's why uh that's why I couldn't get past the winning, like the like, you know, you can't think about the winning and the losing when you're actually doing any activity.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: You have to just do what you're supposed to do in the moment.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't get past that.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: It was very hard for me to get past that.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: I could find it in moments, you know, this like clarity, this flow state, but I couldn't call upon it because I always had this overlooming pressure of, well, no one will like me, I'll have no friends, blah, blah, blah.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, so so did you make that move from because you grew up in New Jersey predominantly.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh, did you make that move for college or to Colorado?
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Yep, and then I met Amal Easton, who's now my business partner, but then was my jiu-jitsu coach.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I met him in a mall, like just walking through a mall.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I cleaned so and then I look, I went from cleaner to owner uh throughout this process because I had no money.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: I was broke, I was 18 years old.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh I heard he opened a school, I went down there.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: He said the cleaner quit two hours ago, and I said, My man, let me let me clean.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Hell yeah.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: You gotta hustle however you can get it, right?
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Look, hard my hard work paid off.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: This is again, right?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Like there's there's plenty of janitors in the world, right?
14:42
SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of janitors in the world.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: My janitorial duties massively paid off.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: So what was it that attracted you to Colorado and making that move?
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I hated New Jersey, like I said.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Nobody liked me, I had no friends, uh, and I I like to ski.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Really?
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So they were the number 31 math school in the country at the time.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: So I convinced, and that's what I was good at, and I convinced my mom that, like, hey, look, blah, blah, blah, you know, I went as far away from New Jersey as I could.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: I hated it.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: You've been partnered with Amal since 2011?
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Business partner since 2012.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Going into the UFC, competing for that many years, and then making that transition to business owner and instructor.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: How did your mentality shift in regard to that?
15:34
SPEAKER_00: You just switch the focus, right?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: You just switch the focus.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, I'm all in on fighting.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm all in on this.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, 80 hours a week, stay up all night, work.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: But okay, so the teaching piece I already had.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Because the teaching piece I've been teaching karate since I was 13 years old.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: So I could I could already teach martial arts.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I was teaching the whole time for the most part while I was fighting.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd still teach a couple classes a week.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Because I like, I love to teach.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's just it's just a switch, uh, a switch of gears.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you put all your energy in one thing and then you put all of your energy in the next.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And and look, I got lucky.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Again, I got so uh my last fight was Brandon Vera October the 27th or 29th, something like that, uh of 2011.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: And I looked at the building that Tuesday.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So let's call that the 30th, 31st, whatever, whatever that was.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, on whatever the dates were.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: I looked at the building that I purchased to move the Denver school into four days after my last fight.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: So I had no downtime.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Because most fighters have downtime because they don't know what the fuck they're gonna do next.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And what they end up doing is what?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Taking another fight in a smaller organization, and then they win that.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: They're like, Oh yeah, I still got it.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And then you fight again, and then you get beat up, and you're like, I can't go out like this, you know.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And the other piece is I whooped Brandon Vair's ass in my last fight, and they said I lost.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I didn't I didn't have this feeling of like, oh man, I woke up all beat up.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, I whooped them, you know, I whooped them.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: So, whatever.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you weren't uh chasing a past season of yourself.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wasn't like I wasn't sad about like I was sad that they said I lost, but I wasn't I didn't have this emotional, like I got beat up thing that I needed to, you know, you talk to fighters, like they want to fight as soon as possible because you just can't handle this feeling, right?
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: Do you find that a lot of fighters do that?
17:28
SPEAKER_01: They kind of chase ghosts of their former selves a lot, of course.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Or or of something that is not true currently, yes.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but a lot of athletes do it.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: The difference in every other sport.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna ask me?
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, I was just gonna say, what do you think is the resolution for that if there is one?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, you gotta get real good on who you are as a human, and it's gotta have some definitions past it that are not just fighter, like shit.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm a fighter, but I have six things that I am.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm very clear on them.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: I state them to myself every single morning.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I didn't have this when I was fighting.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Like I had to crumble first.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: I had to crumble all the way, like down to the bottom, uh emotionally.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: So, but when you're super clear on who you are and it's your identity isn't wrapped up in one thing, it's easy to move to another thing.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Makes a lot of sense.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: So, what type of fulfillment do you get now as an instructor mentor?
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Because you're dad.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: So it has similar parallels.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: What type of fulfillment do you get from that versus competition?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay, with my kids, first of all, when my kids ball out, it's the greatest feeling in the world.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Like it's better than winning anything, like with without a doubt.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: With my students, and I call everyone my students, it's uh like let's say, okay, the two that you know, Drew and Miranda.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're in the UFC.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Man, I want them to win fights.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: I want them to win fights really, really bad because they want to win fights.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: But I really hope that we're solid in 10 years.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Like if they win, if they win fights and they're not solid in 10 years, I did something wrong.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: That's how that's how I see this this journey, right?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not, I mean, great fighting is a vehicle, okay?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Fighting is a vehicle, but look, I talk to them about their finances, I talk to them about their emotional selves, talk to them about what uh about uh their person about health.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: I talked to them about you know their relationships if they need help with that, like, you know, like how to how to view that and move through that with another with another human.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, Drew just became a dad.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: We had a big discussion.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to take a fight right away.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Like uh he wanted to take a fight four weeks after the child was going to be born on short notice.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, hey man, look.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And I had to call him like, look, just one dad to another.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, first of all, are you broke?
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're broke, then okay, I I could see that we have to take the fight.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: So the answer was no.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was like, then you're about to have a life-changing moment.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: You're about to have a life-altering moment.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: You you're you're not gonna remember this fight.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're you're you're gonna remember missing out on your daughter's uh initial time in the world.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, and if you miss that, you can't get that back.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing you can do to get that back.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have to, you have to, right?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: If if the gun's to your head, I get it, you gotta make different decisions.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: But the gun's not to your head.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: The UFC loves you.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: The UFC loves you.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: One, two, you just made a good chunk of money, okay?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the birth of your daughter.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: And you don't know how bad it can go.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: It could go awful.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: It could go awful.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And then what are you gonna do?
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: That plays into something that I share with people that I mentor anecdotally all the time is that time is this world's most valuable currency, and once you've spent it, you can't get it back.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: You're only going to experience firsts once.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to miss them.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's one you don't want to miss.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Like that is so much of a bigger deal to me than like marriage, for example.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is cool.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: I love my wife, she loves me, you know.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: But the birth of a child, like when that child comes into the world, like, man, especially your first one, because it alters your it alters who you are as a human.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I don't love my second child any less than I love my first, but my second child did not change me, right?
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Because I was already a dad.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: I already had to make all these shifts with who I was in my life and all, you know.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: The first one, man, you know, they give you that baby, you walk out of the hospital, and you're like, yo, you fucking sure?
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dude.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: Holy shit.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, whoa, whoa, are you sure?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Dude, seriously, just listening to you, I'm kind of getting lost in this because it's it's almost the same exact speech that I give.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: I I get it all the time.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I've got I've got four kids, um, twin stepdaughters, they're 17, my daughter's 16.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: So I've got essentially got three girls that are the same age.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: And then and then my son's 14.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: And you know, all the time they're always like, ah, Liz is your favorite, she's your favorite.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, she's not my favorite, but she was my firstborn, and she was the one that changed how I view everything, how I view this world, how I view responsibility, how I view my behavior in this world, and the fact that she's also she was also a girl, and not to like genderize the whole situation, it churns up a different level of respect that maybe I didn't have before.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: The girl dad thing.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh, I have a student one and I've she's been my student since she was like 15.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And then uh she's she dated my other really close student this whole time.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, she just moved to Texas, okay, to train with Donnaher.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: And I set that whole thing up for her.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: It's great still, right?
23:15
SPEAKER_00: She and I are amazing.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but this is she's a four-time world champ.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: She needs to this is what she needs.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, she broke up with her boyfriend, who I also love, you know.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: But she's a uh she's a single female in the world for the first time as an adult.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Like she hasn't had to deal with this.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like a father to her.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Like her dad's in Spain, like you know, so I'm I'm the father figure.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: And I was on a plane the other day, and somebody sent me a picture of her hanging out with some dude, and I was like, Holy shit, you know, like fuck.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, I was like, no, keep your shit together here, Elliot.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Keep like the dude actually is the one who sent me the picture, you know, because he he knows that like I care about her a lot.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And I think he was trying to say he was protecting her, and I was like, yo, like, you know, because like I was like, because he trains at the same school, and I was like, Anna, keep this out of the school.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, I know you're gonna date somebody, I know you're gonna have sex with somebody, right?
24:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that, but don't do it in the school, right?
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, but that just gets so muddy, and so I'm like on this plane, and I'm like, I'm losing it, I'm tripping, I am tripping for like five minutes, you know?
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And then she sends me a text on the plane and goes, We're hanging out in a social setting.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, like it just got, you know, like because it was like a group of people, you know.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I like, but like, dude, this this girl dad thing, man, fuck my life.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: I right, oh right, that protective anxiety, you want to get up and pace around, or at least that's how I react.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when I get shitty news or something, I get up, I like storm it.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I just did this last night.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: My wife is like, Why are you so pissed off?
24:59
SPEAKER_01: She goes, What the hell happened?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Did you go in the other room and text some chick or something?
25:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, No, I just got bad news from work and I'm fucking pissed, you know?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Dude, this was like, and like I'm going through my head, I like this guy, right?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: He's my friend now.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And I'm but I'm going through my head, I'm like, man, he can beat me up.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: He's 22 years old, he's 290, he's better than me, right?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: He carry, I was like, so I can't beat him up.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: He carries a gun, you know.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: He lives in Texas, so like I can't do that either.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I gonna do if this goes south?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And there's no reason for me to think that it's gonna go south, right?
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's like there's no evidence of this, like you know, like none.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: This is all like my head, and I was just losing my mind.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Stuck on a plane, I couldn't even get up, right?
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like I could get up, but I'm stuck in this tin thing flying in the air.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: So is there a certain like attribute that you know, taking the the negative side of things out of it, but is there a certain attribute that kind of surfaces when you are mentoring somebody because you mentioned that this guy is better than you, where you do hit the pinnacle of like teaching or coaching somebody that has exceeded your skill level to a certain degree?
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, she's better than me, right?
26:16
SPEAKER_00: She's she she's but she's she's better than me, you know.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: All like that's but and this is where I think a lot of teachers just mess up is they let their own egos get in the way, you know?
26:27
SPEAKER_00: They let their own egos get in the way, and then they just like look, I'm 43 years old.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have butchered my body, I butchered my body for 20 straight years.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I am an ex-pro athlete.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: That means you're not you're you're not what you were.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: If I can't take someone that's young, 20 and make them better than me, then I suck.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: I suck.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I'm I'm a terrible teacher.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, most people I won't say suck, their ego gets in the way that they don't they don't like, but in my opinion, they've created a culture in their martial arts school, for example, that is dog eat dog, where whoever's the toughest top guy is now like the top dog.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, look, I'm the I'm I'm Amal's the top dog, I'm second.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's my he's the original teacher, he's my teacher.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: And then, but that doesn't mean we're like almost 53.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: He ain't he's not beating up the 20 year olds.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm not beating up the 20-year-olds, right?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're his he he just hurt his neck, he's not gonna train for five weeks.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Who who like no?
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like but we you need to foster an environment where I can still go train, they can be nice to me, we can train hard, all that stuff, right?
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And uh we do work and and and we make people you make them better than you, yeah.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: That's how this whole thing grows.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and you can take that and you can apply it to business as well, because so many bad leaders will suppress their subordinates for fear of them walking away or exceeding their skill set.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: If I'm mentoring somebody else, I take that same exact mentality.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm mentoring them up for their purpose to walk away from me and have a better shot at life than even I had, or else I'm failing.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: If they need you all the time, if they like like if they stay your mentee in like you know, you start with you know twice a week, blah blah blah, you know, what however you're you know, if they still need that in six in six months, six years, like you suck.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Right, yes, like you know, like everyone that I want to mentee or or mentor, like you get them to not they they call you when they need you, right?
28:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, now it's not the best business model, right?
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Because but they call you when you need you now.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: Like in business, I I think we have the most successful martial arts schools, definitely Brazilian, jujitsu and muay thai, probably in the country.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, we we own eight of them, and you know, with 200 employees, 5,000 members, eight schools, profitable, uh CEO, COO, all that stuff.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, we we have a whole chart.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: But that's because we at the top have to let go, be like, oh, look, but the the the again, this goes back to what I was talking about earlier with like my doctor a little bit, and you know, being really good at jujitsu doesn't make me good at marketing.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make me good at admin, it doesn't make me good at general managing, it doesn't make me good at any of those things.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm a terrible manager, Mike.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm an awful manager.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm good at creating ideas, I'm good at seeing the at like pushing towards the future.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: I can work really hard and all this stuff, right?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: But it but I'm an awful manager.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I understand.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't do it.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't do it.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: We hire, we hire someone else, we teach them how to be managers.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Look, this is where this is where martial artists make the biggest mistake with this transferable skill idea.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: You think that being good, being a black belt in jujitsu means that you teach jujitsu well.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even mean that, right?
30:07
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that at all because it all comes down to how you can inspire and how you can communicate.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it has nothing to do, it hasn't your your ability on the mat has nothing to do with making somebody else good.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Your words of leadership and such that I've already heard so far are fantastic.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: They are icing on the cake of some of these content videos that you create pretty frequently on Instagram.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Anytime you pop up and I'm doing an Instagram fame that I'm shit, Elliot's got another one.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: I gotta, I gotta stop and listen.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: What has led you to public speaking and sharing this mentality, this mindset with the world, and then creating those one minute, two-minute videos on a semi-regular basis?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: So it's all teaching.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, like, look, uh in 2016, I had a breakdown, a mental, I call it a mental breakdown, so that spiritual awakening, massive anxiety episode, panicking and and and you know, making some adjustments in my life, um, or how I approached my life a little bit.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I talked about earlier is I had to come up with like, man, what does it mean to be Elliot?
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not just this fighter anymore.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, so so who the who the fuck am I?
31:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I came up with six things.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm a father first and foremost, I'm a husband, I'm a teacher, I'm a student, excuse me, I'm a fighter, and I'm a survivor.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: So these are the six things, and I say them every morning.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: I wake up, I meditate, uh, do my little gratitude thing, I pray, and then I do the my my I amps, and then I pray again.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: But the praying thing, I don't pray to anything in particular, I have no fucking clue who I'm talking to.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:41
SPEAKER_00: I I call it God still, you know.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: I I think that God word has been uh sabotaged or stolen, you know, by every religion, you know.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, great, God, whoever, whoever, whoever that is, whatever that is, the universe, call it what you want.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I pray to it.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Um and I try to just focus on these six things.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't really have to focus on fighter and survivor too much anymore, right?
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Like uh they're kind of there, but I I hold them very close to my heart when they need to be there.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Fighter rarely needs to be there, right?
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Like very, very rarely.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but father is a very important one, student uh husband, because it's so attached to father, right?
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Husband and father are so tied for me that that's another very, very important one.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm a teacher.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: So how what are the best ways that I can teach?
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And I like making these videos.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: And for a while, like for a while, I was trying to like monetize and you know, do all the you know, be this grinder that's always working and grind, you know, and I just don't care anymore.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: I spend the money, like I don't edit them.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: I go to my dude's house, I go to my dude's apartment complex, we sit down, we bang out 30 for the month, he edits them, I pay him.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And like, look, if I see a return, amazing.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: If I don't, I don't really care.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm just stoked because look, I'm stoked because of what you just said.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Like, man, I'm scrolling Instagram, there's Elliot, and he gave me, he he made me, he inspired me, he gave me something to think about, whatever, right?
33:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't gotta monetize everything.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, dude, this is exactly where my mindset is anymore.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you start off on these little missions where you hope you get some sort of immediate reward or immediate gratification, but realistically, it's a long game and you're just putting things out in the world.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm very much like you.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what God's spiritual creature is in the world, but I do believe in karma.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: And I do believe, undoubtedly, if whatever you put out in the world, eventually you're gonna get back in return.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: So if you're putting something out that's good, helpful, get a piece of yourself out there because sometimes it's therapeutic for me, as much as like, yeah, you're talking to yourself.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 50% of what I'm saying is to remind myself.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, you know, yeah.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, all right, make sure you're make sure you're doing this shit still because this is what make, you know, and this this whole concept of ROI, you don't know what it's gonna look like.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: We we want this immediate ROI, right?
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Because we're talking and it, but it's and again, it's it is important because you need money, like you need money to make it in the world, like that, like that's just what it is.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: And the more you have, uh, as long as you keep it in a in a good lens, right?
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Then your life does get a little easier.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make you happy, it doesn't make you have a good life or any of that, but it definitely makes makes life a little easier.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: So if we if we lie about that, say, oh, I don't need fucking money.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you do, you know, yeah, you do.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: You don't need money if you're in if you're a single, no kids.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Add a kid, add a kid and talk to me if you need money.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: You got four.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: How much money do you need?
34:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, right, but at the same time, uh, like I said, I've been super lucky.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: My hard work paid, you know.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a billionaire, but like if you added a little bit of money to my life, it's not gonna do that much at this point, right?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Like I I've moved beyond that, right?
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, when you're young, you know, if if you're making 30 grand, you double that shit to 60 grand, you're like, yo, I'm I'm rich, rich, right?
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Right, but you know, if you added 30 grand to what I make right now, I wouldn't do anything different, right?
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't do anything that there's there'd be nothing that that would change in my life.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: So why the fuck do I have to monetize everything?
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: But there is another leg of this that you know we've kind of touched on, but as dads, there's also a legacy component to some of this as well.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I mean I had this talk with my daughters, just the two of us were in the car, 45-minute drive from Omaha to Lincoln, where I live.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: And you know, we were listening to Lincoln?
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so sorry.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about it.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: I was going to play a basketball tournament over the summer.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: That place sucks, dog.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's amazing.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we're we're listening to a podcast episode, and I asked her, I said, I said, you know, part of the reason I do this podcast.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Yeah, so we have something later on in life.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, how she came to that on her own is amazing because it's something that she can share with her kids, their kids can share with their kids, and so on and so on and so on.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: And it's not something I always directly think about, but it's always on the back of my mind to some certain degree what type of lessons we're paying forward to our kids through our history and through our biography.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: For me and my kids and the kids, uh they have to be kind.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, like this this will be my legacy with them in my from my perspective currently, and this can always shift, right?
37:02
SPEAKER_00: They have to be kind.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh they have to be stewards to the world because uh it's super important.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: We we we have to be, you know, that that's very important.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then like on the personal side a little bit, life ain't fair, baby.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, it ain't never been fair, it ain't gonna be fair, and you have two choices you can be a victim or you can be a victor.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh you you can find a way to either one, you know, you can find a way to hire one.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, I was just talking with somebody uh, you know, about basketball, and they're like, what do you say to your kid if if uh if he's not on the top team?
37:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, like if if you're if you're like a boss of the program, what do you say to your kid?
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, better do something.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Him, better work harder, you know.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: You you you you obviously aren't adding enough, you know, and look, everyone, everyone at some point gets aged out or skilled out or something, right?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: But like, so and you have to make those choices along the way, but like, homie, I never met a coach that likes losing, right?
38:14
SPEAKER_00: So, like, uh, if you get better and you help the winning, well, guess who's gonna see the court more?
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, guess who's gonna see?
38:25
SPEAKER_00: I ain't talking to a goddamn coach about getting you more playing time.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Get the fuck out of here.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Right, you know, right, right.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, I love this.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: We've covered the past, we've covered the present, we've kind of covered our mindset a little bit.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a little bit about the future.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: If you were to look at your life five years from now, where do you see yourself and where do you see the progression of things?
38:47
SPEAKER_00: All right, so my kids, uh so I have this written out, so yeah, this is this is done already.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh my kids are still gonna be in high school.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, my my oldest will be a senior, my youngest will be a freshman.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm hoping that we're going on recruiting trips.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if we're not already signed to a college that he would like to go to, my oldest, my my youngest.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: I hope I have our basketball club to the point where we have tiers of teams, um, so that there is a combined top team in Colorado that will uh be a nationally recognized team uh for us that I would love for him to be playing on, or if not, uh he'll be on uh like a tier tier two team, let's say, where he's getting like D2, D2 school looks.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: I hope I have that set up well uh for uh both of my children okay.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: I would like to be taking uh at least one to two short vacations with my wife per year, just the two of us, no children.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: I would love to be teaching how I'm currently teaching in Denver.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then as far as my athletes go, uh like Drew and Miranda, that's up to them.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's up to them.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking on no more athletes.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: I I am taking on no more athletes.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: My focus is on the ones that I currently have, my children and uh and and my wife.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm really trying to focus hard here, like uh and and and simplify my life, you know, and really simplify.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple kids that are on the basketball program right now that I truly love that are in some tough situations.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to help those kids as well.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: I you know, uh, I call them my athletes too, kind of, or my however you want to picture that, but um I'm trying to do a little less.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: It's a magical thing that kind of happens as you start to hit your stride in your 40s because I'm 45, I'm only two years older than you, and it's crazy because whenever you're in your 20s and your 30s, you're always like more, more, more, more, more, more, more, and then life just kind of smacks you at a point, and you're like, I need to focus on the things that are important, pare down the things that bring me joy, bring others joy, and bring them fulfillment in life.
41:04
SPEAKER_01: So I totally understand all of that, and I totally appreciate all of that.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: When I was getting Anna, my student set up in Texas, I went down there.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And uh John Donhar, he's by far, he, you know, he is he's the Einstein of our industry.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Right?
41:21
SPEAKER_00: He is he we are living in the time of Einstein.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: I've known him for 20 years, so I have some access to him.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: That's how I was able to get her in there.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, I trained with uh have you seen the jujitsu giant Big Dan?
41:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you fought anyway.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: He's 290.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: He's the guy, he's he's the guy I was talking about.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: He's 290, he's 21 years old, he's strong as fuck, and he's a monster, right?
41:45
SPEAKER_00: He asked me to train.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: And so we we were there, he's like, Hey, can we train?
41:48
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Look, man, yeah, I'll definitely train with you.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: I have no delusions of grandeur though.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, I am not gonna beat you.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, and I'm totally okay with that.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: Please don't train with me in a way where you're like, yo, I gotta smack, you know, and he didn't.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: He took great care of me.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: I've not had my ass kicked so nicely before, but he's still 20 and 290.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: So I was super like sore afterwards.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: So I don't train like when I try, I can't really train with the best in the world that much anymore because it's just the pace is too fast.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, at the next class, John was teaching.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting on the wall, I was like, John, do you mind if I just watch?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I was like, I can't do this anymore.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't train back to back like this twice in a day.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Elliot, you never have to fight another battle again on the mat.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You did your time.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm trying to realize this.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, I did my time.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've done my time in a lot of places, like the schools are great.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: We have great opportunities for people, both as students and as employees.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: I like uh I've done my time on the mat, like like John was saying.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: So it was a very poignant thing for him to say to me because I'm trying I was already trying to move my life in this way, but it's a hard realization, right?
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And you're yeah, because like it's tough sometimes.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: And so uh, you know, I did my time.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: I did my time.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: I've I I've given back.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: I've gotten a lot too.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: I've gotten way more than I gave, but than I've given back.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I'm always gonna try to give back.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: And just trying to realize that like I'm I'm allowed to like focus on my wife and my kids and and the people that I really love and want to spend time with.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's cool.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: So coming from a place of influence, this is always one of my most favorite closing questions.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: I ask it every single one of my guests.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: What is your advice from the point of view of what you can control?
43:46
SPEAKER_01: What is your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you find your passion, man.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: You discover your passion, right?
43:56
SPEAKER_00: I I have a phrase that I end all my stuff with, right?
43:58
SPEAKER_00: My emails, everything.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Discover your fashion passion, find your power.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: That's that thing that you go, that that makes that the thing that makes you amazing.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And then you just go give that to the world.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: You just give it away.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: You just give it away.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: You just give it away.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Watch what comes back to you.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: The the world pays.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: The world pays for truth.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: So like when you when if if they like people pay to come to the school and learn from me, you know, 70 people, 60 to 50, let's call 50 to 70 people every class I teach.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: They're not just paying for the jujitsu.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: They're paying for the experience that they get when they walk in those doors, how it makes them feel, how I can make them feel, how the community makes them feel, what all of it is like.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: But that started with passion.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: That started with like from my perspective, let's say me loving martial arts.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: That started when I was six years old.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: And I can't do anything else.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: I can cook a little bit.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm a decent dad.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm a decent husband.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: But that's for other people to decide.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't get to say I'm a good dad.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: I can only work at it, do my best.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: My kids will say so, right?
45:04
SPEAKER_00: So uh but man, I put everything I have in my life into these three things.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, I can cook a badass steak too.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: But uh so, you know, but I and I and I try not to worry about other shit.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, I try uh like that.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: So do that.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Find this thing that you love, and you have to realize how hard you're gonna have to work at it.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: You have to realize how much difficulty there's going to be.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy just because you love it.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: Good for fucking you, man.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: You fucking love it.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need to love you back.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: It's like everyone wants this two-way street, like it loves you back.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Fighting hates you, for example.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Fighting's the dirtiest whore that you have ever met.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: It's got all the venereal diseases, right?
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Like all of it.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not healthy for you.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Like it's bad.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: But if you love it so much and you can figure that figure it out, it pays.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily pay with with this right away.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: And that, but again, this this comes back to this shift.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I heard ICU say this uh he's like, Man, can you work for five years for nothing?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Can you work for five years for nothing?
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Because that's where it starts.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: It starts at the five-year mark.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, year one's fucking simple.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: You're not expecting anything.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Year two, if you start to expect some things and you still got nothing, now you start to get frustrated.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Most people quit.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: Or just go get a job.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: So where can my listeners find you online?
46:41
SPEAKER_00: Man, the best place is Instagram, FireMarshall205.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: So please don't make fun of me.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not 205 anymore.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh so uh, but that's the best place.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: I try to I try to answer all my DMs.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: So if you DM me, I do answer.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh please don't be rude.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, I I don't I don't engage in that.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: I will I will I will just not engage back.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: So uh but yeah, firemarsh205.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in having me speak or something, my website, elliottmarshall.com, I do love to speak.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's you know, that's that's part of what I do.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: But uh and then uh yeah, if you're a hooper and you're in Colorado, come check us out.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: Hard to guard Colorado.com.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: Sweet.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think it's hard for any of us guys to stay at 205 if we're Traeger owners, right?
47:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dude, I just bought a new one.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: Hold on, bro, hold on.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this for a second.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, which one did you get?
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Hold on, I didn't get the big daddy.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: No way, can't spend four grand.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't like the I don't like the the I don't need the stove thing on the side.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's what that's what most of the uptick in price is there, right?
47:46
SPEAKER_00: It's like the little extras that I don't I don't I just want that bitch to smoke well.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: So uh we have a vacation home in Maui and we were going for Thanksgiving.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, I still got to cook a turkey, so I gotta get a Traeger out there, right?
47:58
SPEAKER_00: So I bought the Traeger out there, I get out there, and then uh I was like, God damn it, this the new the new models with all the you know, it's better than the one I have.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: I was like, son of a bitch, I gotta go home and sell my old one now.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: So literally the day I got back, I fucking went on Facebook Marketplace, put it for sale, sold it so I could buy myself the new one that I was like, I can't have a better one.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: I can't have a better one at my vacation spot than I have at my house because I'm not gonna I'm at my house more than my, you know.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I cooked it.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I cooked three meals on that thing this weekend.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: Ah, that's amazing.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: Second Thanksgiving, ham, uh, and then it's my kid's birthday today.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: He wanted steak, so done.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, tell him I said happy birthday, Elliot Marshall.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: The world's a much better place with you in it, my friend.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for doing the show.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: Man, I appreciate it.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: And uh man, uh, every opportunity I get to talk and share a little bit of my time.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I greatly appreciate the platform and everyone who wants to listen.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic conversation with hell of a good guy.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to connecting with Elliot in the real world and firing up the Traeger and smoking some meat.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: Make sure you give Elliot a follow on social media at the handles he mentioned and follow Easton Training Centers as well, elliottmarshall.com.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: While you're being generous with the follows, make sure you're following Caught on the Mike on all social media platforms.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Visit me www.cotonthemic.com or shoot me an email, caught on the mic at gmail.com.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for sponsors and opportunities to grow the show.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: So if you have ideas, send them my way.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: I would appreciate any help I can get.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: Make sure you give that five star review on your favorite podcasting platform.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm Michael Clark.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you.