Latest / The Ageless Warrior Lab / 15 BJJ Principles to Outsmart, Outmaneuver, & Outlast Anyone | Ep 47

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15 BJJ Principles to Outsmart, Outmaneuver, & Outlast Anyone | Ep 47 · The Ageless Warrior Lab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Winning isn't usually a single action.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a series of small actions taken again and again on the mat in business and in life.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You have some things that you excel at.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Make those the same things that your opponent tends to not deal with very well.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Don't assume that if someone is strong in some area, that they're strong in all areas, because they're very likely showing you the best they have up front.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Ageless Warrior Lab.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm BJJ Coral Belt and Dirty Dozen member Dave Meyer, here to draw wisdom from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the martial arts and explore how it applies to success in business, relationships, your long-term health, and making the most out of your life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a lifetime in martial arts, including 36 years in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in fights, I've won and lost matches in competition, I've won and lost world titles, and I've used learnings from those experiences to help me build and sell businesses, build a major nonprofit organization, and succeed in a variety of ways.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I've come to believe that winning isn't just one skill.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a collection of patterns, of approaches, all designed to increase your odds of success.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't about overpowering people, it's about positioning, timing, adaptation, and sometimes just psychology.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So today I'm going to share 15 pointers I've repeatedly seen lead to victory on the mat, in business, and in life.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you like the show, be sure to subscribe.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're on YouTube, click the bell to be notified when new episodes come out.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a grappler, these pointers for how to win will have direct application on how you compete.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But for each point I make, I'll also give the application for business.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's worth it to note that in the business world, there are always three versions of winning.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: One is when there's an opponent or opponents, and they're your competitors, and to win means beating them.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty straightforward.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you're the one who gets the job, or your company gets the contract, or your product is the one that people purchase.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: A second way to win is making a partnership that's a win-win for multiple parties.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what benefits you benefits some of the other players as well.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you create what I call a one plus one equals three situation.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And a third way to win in business is to do something hard, to succeed where there's no specific competitor one way or another, or no partner.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you being successful at what you've done.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you have an invention that's the first of its kind, or you just become successful in your business, or you start a successful nonprofit organization.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the pointers I'll share apply in different ways to these different situations, but I think they're all useful.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a lab where we share ideas.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're watching this on YouTube, do let me know your thoughts in the comment section on the video as we go.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, pointer number one, get in the first strike and engage.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in a street fight, getting in the first strike is super important, but that's a whole other discussion.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we had it in episode 30 about real street defense.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: But even in sport fighting, getting in the first strike or making the first move in a grappling match can really matter.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's nothing wrong with being a counterpuncher, literally if you're in a striking sport or figuratively in a grappling match.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it makes sense to examine what your opponent's doing and then respond appropriately to it.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: But as a general rule, it's better to be the person who initiates the action.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a number of reasons for this.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your first move might be successful, which can put you ahead on points or put you in an advantage position or even end the fight if it's a knockout.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or at the very least, it'll make your opponent have to react.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is like getting to be the first person to move in a chess game.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can start a series of actions where the opponent is stuck responding to what you did.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And for that reason, they can't initiate what they want to do, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they're behind the curve and they're having to play catch up from the very start, which allows you to keep pressuring them until they make a mistake.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Also, by making the first move, essentially you're going from where you both have infinite options of what to do to where your opponent now has limited options because they have to respond to what you are presenting them with.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe even more importantly than what they have to physically respond to is they go from being wide open in their thinking or what they are focusing on to now having to focus on precisely what you want them to focus on.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And controlling their focus from the start stops them from doing what they want to do and allows you to plan out how to increasingly get ahead of them because it's their response that you'll be able to capitalize on.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, there are very few things you can do that will instantly win the match, but there are things you can start and build on that will definitely win the match once you get things going the way you want things to go.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I've won many competition matches by being the first to move and score points, and then never letting my opponent play his best game and catch me.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how does this apply in business?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what I'm saying is you should have a bias towards action.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Get in motion.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was U.S.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Navy Admiral and pioneer computer scientist Grace Hopper who said it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission, meaning just act and then deal with the consequences if you have to.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I will link to her info in the show notes because she's an amazing person to read about.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I digress.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The point is lots of people talk endlessly about an idea they have, and most of the time they just never get going on it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you have an idea or something you think is worth some effort, get in the first strike and engage.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or as Wayne Gretzky, the legendary hacker player, said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So take your shot.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what happens, you'll learn and you'll get better at something.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Also in business, being the first to do something can really give you an advantage.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: You get to define the terms and create the category.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then your competitors have to play catch up.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there can be some advantages to being a later entrant into a category someone else has already built.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Google wasn't the first search engine, and Apple wasn't the first computer.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you're not the first in business, you do get to see the mistakes others have made, and they may be locked into older processes and ways of working.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can do what's called leapfrogging and start out of the gate with something better because you are more nimble.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that speaks to the slowness of the first business, the incumbent, to be able to adapt.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And doesn't mean that first business didn't make huge profits along the way.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to be the first to act and then remain agile and continue to reinvent yourself or your business to keep being the first and not getting leapfrogged, if that makes sense.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, pointer number two, enter under the radar.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes taking an action that's unseen is the best move.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Something that the opponent's either not aware of or simply can't react to in time to stop it.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of examples of this in fighting.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Strikers can use body angles to conceal setups for punches and kicks.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or in grappling, one example I love is what I call the ninja mount.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I've already passed the guard and I'm on side control, but I focus my weight through my shoulder onto their chin.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that first of all grabs their attention.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And loading up my weight through my shoulder means my foot is not bearing any weight, so I can quickly swing it over to the mount position without them even feeling anything and realizing I was even thinking about mounting.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I will shoot a video of this ninja mount and post it on the YouTube channel, and I'll put a link in the show notes.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea here of entering under the radar is to be stealthy and make a move that your opponent either doesn't see or just cannot counter in time once they realize what's happening.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you I've been caught more than once in competition where I thought I was in a good spot and didn't notice I was the one being set up.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: My opponent set up a choke under my radar, and those are lessons I will never forget.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: In business, operating under the radar can mean operating in a stealth mode.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So not being public about what you're working on with your new product or service until you explode on the scene and it's too late for competitors to quickly catch up.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It can also mean quietly taking the actions you need to increase your success and block opponents until one day they look up and notice what you've done and it's hard for them to catch up or to stop you.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: This can mean quietly staking out new markets and new opportunities and things like that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: A famous example of this is Apple's launch of the iPhone back in 2007.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Apple kept the iPhone secret for nearly two and a half years of development.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Nokia, BlackBerry, and Motorola, who were some of the big players at the time, had no idea what was coming.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when Steve Jobs unveiled it, they laughed.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then they had to spend years scrambling to catch up.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Blackberry CEO reportedly didn't believe the specs Jobs shared were even real.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or another example is Amazon Web Services, AWS, which, if you don't know, is basically the backbone of commerce on the internet today, hosting about a third of all cloud infrastructure.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon spent years of building out its internal service infrastructure for its own website, but then quietly decided to start selling that capacity to other companies.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the traditional tech giants like IBM, HP, and even Microsoft barely even noticed.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time they took cloud computing seriously, AWS had a years-long lead and had locked in a huge number of customers, and now it's over a hundred billion dollar a year business.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there is an advantage for entering under the radar.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer number three, don't give someone too much respect.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I mean by that specifically here is don't get psyched out just because your opponent seems really good at something.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't build them up to be better than they really are.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like a number of the other pointers I'm going to share, this was taught to me by my friend Coral Belt in Australia, John Will.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was visiting me in California many years ago, and we went to a judo school where I had begun teaching a BJJ class one night a week.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the night John came in, the judo instructor from that class came in early and he and I grappled together for the first time.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: John watched as I was fighting really conservatively, holding this excellent judo black belt in my guard because I could feel his stability and base, and I didn't want to take any chance of him getting past my legs and getting me into a control position.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then between rounds, John pulled me aside and said that I was making a mistake and I was being intimidated by the guy.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said, People lead with what they're best at.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So stability and balance was what the judo sensei is best at, and that's what I was feeling.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I was assuming that he was therefore good at everything else.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was afraid to take chances and open up the game.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And John pointed out that I was used to training with Higgin and Jean-Jacques Machado and their brothers, and they really were great at everything.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: But most people, if they're great at all, are great at one or two things, and that's what they lead with.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I trusted John's observation and I rolled a second time with the judo sensei.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And once I realized John was right and what I was feeling was the best he had to offer.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, what he had was strength and stability, but not an entire grappling game that could beat me to match that.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I did open up the fight and I was easily able to beat him.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Often someone will front load their best attacks, their best game.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can survive that, it suddenly becomes much easier to then beat the person, safe in the knowledge that whatever they just threatened you with is the best they had to offer and it didn't work.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's going to be easier to beat them than you think.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Don't assume that if someone is strong in some area, that they're strong in all areas, because they're very likely showing you the best they have up front.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in business, this can mean don't assume just because a competitor is good at one thing or has one good product or one good service that they're good at everything they do.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Google once tried to launch a social media platform, Google Plus, you might remember it, and it flopped.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon tried to get into the phone business years ago with their Firephone, and that also went absolutely nowhere.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So in business, if you're in competition against a stronger opponent, think laterally and find a path forward in a different area that they might not be good at.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You'll likely find the field is open there and the opponent won't be able to beat you in that other area.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So again, don't give someone too much respect.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer four is find the Achilles heel.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I recently interviewed George Saint-Pierre, GSP, and he said part of the goal of his pre-fight preparation for a match was to become the nemesis of his next scheduled opponent.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, to practice things specifically designed to make him, GSP, into the kind of fighter that the opponent will have a hard time dealing with.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: This echoes something the great judo champion in Hollywood stuntman, Gene LaBelle, once told me.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Someone can be a black belt in 10 areas, but if they're a white belt in one area, he gave a footlock as an example, then someone with much less overall skill, but who's even somewhat good at that one area can potentially beat the better fighter.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, no matter how good you are overall, and we all want to be good at everything, you have some things that you excel at, and you should try to make those the same things that your opponent tends to not deal with very well.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's their Achilles Hill.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like GSP said, you can then become their nemesis.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the same is true in business.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Southwest Airlines is a good example.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: The legacy airlines, when Southwest started, like United and American and Delta, they all had fundamental structural problems, including complex fare structures and high overhead.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Southwest built the exact opposite model: no meals, no frills, one plane type, 737s only, which slashed their maintenance costs.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger carriers couldn't compete with this without destroying their own business model, and that was their Achilles heel.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in direct competition, find something your opponent is weak at and do your best to exploit it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a competitive company with a good product, but they're bad at customer service, then you excel at customer service and tout that in your marketing.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, find what your opponent is weak at and exploit it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you get the idea.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer number five is do something very new or something very old.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do I mean by that?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: New fighting techniques, and I'm thinking here of some novel sweep or finishing hold and grappling, can work really well because people don't yet know how to defend against it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: This has been the secret sauce for a lot of world champions in BJJ.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: They pioneer or are an early adopter of a new technique or approach, and they use that to beat opponents who don't yet know how to defend it well.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So finding a new move that people can't defend against is pretty obvious.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But consider that the goal isn't to find a move that's new per se.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's to find a move that people can't defend against well enough to stop you.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that might not just be a new move, but that could be an old move that people have forgotten about or just don't practice anymore.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easier to pull out an old move that's tried and true, but that people have stopped using so people don't know how to defend against it, because we already have a list of those moves to draw from.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to invent something entirely new.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to look back in time and see what people have forgotten.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now that can come from talking to older fighters, looking at older books or films, or in my case, just being old enough to remember back to the things that worked 30 years ago, but that people just don't do anymore.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when I dust those moves off and try them again, I often have great success.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: In BJJ, I'm thinking here of the clock choke or pressure passing the guard and things like that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now in business, we see new innovations be successful all the time.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's what drives progress.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can personally remember a world with no YouTube or Instagram, no internet at all, no email, no cell phones, no GPS.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I remember where there weren't even fax machines or answering machines for phones.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am really, really old.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But my point is invent new things for sure, but also try old things.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Vinyl sales have grown for like 18 consecutive years.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Home milk delivery, where someone left the bottles at your front door was pretty standard in the 1950s before I was born, then died as supermarkets took over.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that model was dead for decades.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But then Instacart and Amazon Fresh and other grocery delivery startups essentially revived the same idea.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Regular delivery of perishables to your door with modern logistics.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: The concept wasn't new, but the infrastructure to make it economically viable had finally caught up.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So again, do something very new if you can invent something or be the first one to make it work, or do something very old.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Look to see what's been forgotten and that might work again.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Pointer number six is work for a positional advantage.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's certainly possible to do an isolated move in grappling that comes from nowhere and ends the fight.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of a flying armbar or a flying triangle or catching a footlock.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: But your odds of winning generally are higher if you work to achieve a positional advantage from where you can start attacks that the defender can't easily stop, even if he or she is well aware that those attacks are coming.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So operating from a place of positional advantage increases the odds of success.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It narrows the moves your opponent can do and defend against, so you can select the best moves to try.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it can also tire your opponent out, so any defense they do have becomes increasingly ineffective.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is true if your positional advantage is coming from you being on top and pressuring the opponent, or if you're being on the bottom, saying you're guard, but your opponent is having to expend a lot of energy to try to defend themselves, like you've got their arm pulled across their body.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Positional advantage is also well known in business.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: The company that has a platform that adds value to each new product or even creates user lock-in has the clear positional advantage.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: An example here is, of course, again, Apple.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago, when you bought an iPod to have a thousand songs in your pocket, you could only use it if you had a Mac computer.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then when iPhones came out, you could get more out of them again if you had an Apple computer.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Apple is full of examples of how one product caused you to want to buy another Apple product.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Apple had, and for many people still has, a positional advantage over competitive companies.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course, there's user lock-in, which is where the customer will lose a lot of value if they switch to a competitive product.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Social media platforms are examples of this, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for people to abandon a platform, for example, Facebook or X, if all of their social connections are on that platform and the new social media platform they want to switch to doesn't have any of their friends on it yet.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Facebook and X in this example have a positional advantage.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as users were finally abandoning Facebook as their friends were getting into Instagram, for example, Facebook read the tea leaves and bought Instagram and WhatsApp to maintain their positional advantage.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Positional advantage could also happen in business when you build a factory near some source of parts or power that saves you in costs of production relative to your competitors.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Coors Brewing Company is based in Golden, Colorado.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Coors built its entire early brand identity around the Rocky Mountain water used in brewing its beer and for decades only brewed in Golden, Colorado.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: This wasn't just marketing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: The water source was an important production input that they controlled.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, for years, Coors beer wasn't even available east in the Mississippi, which paradoxically made it more desirable and almost cult-like in the eastern U.S.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: The geographic constraint became its own positional advantage.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So in any business decision in which there's competition involved, ask yourself what would give me a positional advantage here over a competitor, either today or in the future.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then, all other things being equal, do that.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, pointer number seven is take what your opponent wants and use it against them.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do I mean by this?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people have predictable reactions, and if you know what they're likely to do in any situation, it increases your odds of being able to have the right next move ready.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So in BJJ, if you know someone wants to grab your arm, you can be ready to capture their arm when they reach out for you.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you have a positional advantage, you can create situations where you know what your opponent will want to do because you've limited their options and they're trying to escape or remove your advantage.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if you're on the mount and you enter into a cross-collar choke on an opponent wearing a gi, they are likely to defend that in a way that'll expose them to an arm bar.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So knowing what your opponent wants, which is easier when you have them in a situation where their options have been limited and what they want is more obvious, can really help you plan how to win.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also true in business.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in a competitive environment and you look closely at what your opponent or even your potential partners want, you can predict what actions they might take and use that as you decide what actions you're going to take to make the outcome happen that you want.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you know that electric car manufacturers will want easy ways for their customers to charge their cars.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of starting a new electric car company, maybe you want to create a company that builds electric car charging stations or convenient charging for people who live in apartment buildings.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you build something fun or useful to do while a car is being charged.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or you invest in the materials or processes that go.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Into making batteries and try to control that.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, take what your opponent wants and use it against them, or in any case, use it to your advantage.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer eight is avoid traps.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: This seems obvious, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: No one wants to get caught in a trap.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, people do get caught in all kinds of traps all the time.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: In grappling, a trap could mean leaving an opening for your opponent to grab you or move in such a way that you then catch them and they can't back out.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: A basic rule here is if something seems too good to be true, like if your opponent seems wide open for you to do some move, beware that it may be a trap.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So just take a closer look.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: An example in BGJ is when you've passed your opponent's guard and they're stuck under you inside control, but they're not really defending the mount very well.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it looks like you can easily mount them.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: That may be true, but they may just be baiting you, trying to trick you into stepping over so they can catch your foot and get back to the guard.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: In business, generally the trap to avoid is likely not intentionally set by a competitor, but it's situational.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the trap is you fully tie your business to some other business that if they fail, you fail.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like your business is built around some single ingredient or single part.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is a trap.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hershey's, the chocolate company, had historically been vulnerable to cocoa price spikes because chocolate is so central to their identity, they can't easily reformulate away from it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they diversified into things like skinny pop popcorn and pirates booty, cheese puffs, and other things like that, other snacks, to avoid the trap of being too reliant on a single ingredient.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could be trapped by your own beliefs.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before smartphones, there was an industry around PDAs, personal digital assistance.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the most successful was Blackberry, and it had a physical keyboard with these little buttons for letters and numbers.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Blackberry's identity was so tied to this physical keyboard that they genuinely couldn't psychologically accept that customers would ever be typing on a glass screen.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when competitors like the iPhone showed up, by the time Blackberry accepted the shift to screens and not keys, it was just too late for their company.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Blackberry executives were trapped by their own beliefs.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the way to avoid traps is to leave open some optionality.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Always make sure you can move laterally a bit and don't have a single point of failure, if it's at all possible, and keep an open mind.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for pointer number nine.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let me start this moment with a story.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: A town is getting flooded, and a guy named Marvin is out on his porch and someone comes by in a jeep and says, Hey, hop in.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I can get you out of here.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Marvin says, Oh, no, thanks.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: God will save me.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then the floodwaters come and someone comes by in a boat and says, Hurry up, hop in.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Marvin says, No, no, no, I have faith.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: God will save me.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the waters keep rising and he climbs onto his roof and a helicopter comes by with a rope.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the pilot says, Climb up.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Marvin says, No, thanks.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I trust that God will save me.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then the waters keep rising and Marvin drowns.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then he wakes up in heaven, all confused, and he looks up and he sees God.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, God, I had faith in you.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: When the flood came, I knew you would save me, but you let me down.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, Marvin, I sent a jeep.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I sent a boat.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I sent a helicopter.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: My point is that people look for miracles when the key to solving a problem is often much more basic.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: In grappling, when you're trapped, stop looking for miracles.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you look for a small opening.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a little space somewhere, and there's always some part of your body that you can still move.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: It could involve bending your knee or changing the placement of your hand.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So pointer number nine is move what you can and look for 5% improvements.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I got this from John Will, and this one of his ideas is absolutely golden.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: John says, first off, move what you can.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: You might discover that you can make a small improvement in your situation that gets you closer to a path to escape.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or your movement might just elicit a response from your opponent that opens up a new path, or at least lets you know how they'll react when you make that movement, and you can then plan your next move based upon that.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: More about that in the next pointer.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal in moving what you can is to not focus on some massive escape.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: If someone is good enough to put you in a bad position, they're probably good enough to keep you there if your only answer is some big Hail Mary escape attempt.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal, as John puts it, is a 5% improvement.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Make some change in your situation that advances you just a bit.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were able to get your arm sucked back in so it's more defensible.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you turned a bit onto your side and now you can breathe a little easier under your opponent's weight.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the next step is then do that again.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Repeat.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Move what you can and look for another 5% improvement, and then another.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe now you were able to snag their foot and limit their movement a little bit.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take many 5% improvements in grappling to deteriorate an opponent's position so that it completely falls apart.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as John points out, this is also true in business and in life.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Growing your revenue by 100% starts with growing it by 5%.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Losing 40 pounds of fat starts by losing five pounds, and before that, one pound.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, ask yourself, what is the 5% improvement here?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I do that?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: I should also mention the psychological benefits of this approach.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in a bad situation and you put all your effort into that one hail mary escape, whether it's in grappling or if you're in debt and looking for a quick fix, often your one big move fails and you take an emotional hit.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can lose confidence and even lose your will to fight.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: But focusing on moving what you can in 5% improvements increases the likelihood that you will have at least a small success.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: It helps you find your power in a position when you could otherwise feel powerless, and it gives you hope that you are headed in the right direction.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And those little emotional and mental successes matter a lot, especially when the chips are really down.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever has you trapped in grappling or in life, move what you can and look for that 5% improvement.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, pointer number 10, be the puppet master.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked in an earlier pointer about how a positional advantage sets you up to do things that causes your opponent to react predictably.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can use that against them.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So in this way, you're like a puppet master pulling on strings that cause reactions in your opponent.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: The realization I want you to have here is it's good not to just focus on what you are doing, but also to focus on what you can cause your opponent to do that you can then be ready for.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I practice this all the time when I'm grappling.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: It might be so simple as me slowly reaching out from my opponent's collar or neck so I can watch them move and avoid it and then grab my hand.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just pulled a string.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was the puppet master.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I made them move, and I'm learning how they will react, and then I'll use that against them.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea of being a puppet master is not only when you're in a neutral or an advantaged position, even from a disadvantaged position, you can make moves that the opponent predictably needs to respond to, and then you can have responses ready to deteriorate their position.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: For grapplers, going again to the mount analogy, if someone is mounted on top of you, making a high bridge and roll can cause the person on top of you to spread their knees wide for stability.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: But then you can drop your hips from your bridge and on the way down, press with your hand on their knees and clear space for your hip escape.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll link to the video in the show notes and put it up on our YouTube channel to show what I mean.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, they were on top and they are in control.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: But you made a move that caused them to correctly respond, but that opened the door for you to then begin a different escape that they might not be able to stop.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you were the puppet master here, even from the bottom, even from the disadvantaged position.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is true in business as well.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even if a company is bigger than you and they're beating you, you could, for example, oh, I don't know, start making moves that indicate you're expanding into a new geographical area or a new product line.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: This might cause concern in your opponent.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so they start taking actions that will cost them time and money and pull away their resources from where you really are operating.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever you can, do things that make your opponent react and see how you can use that against them.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Be the puppet master.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer number 11, remove obstacles for your opponent.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what the heck do I mean by that?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean remove obstacles that might be preventing them from doing what you want them to do right now.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So a grappling example, you're standing and you want your opponent to shoot in for a takedown so you can sprawl and end up on top.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: But they aren't shooting because the obstacle for them is you're too far away.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you carefully come closer to remove that obstacle and get them to take the shot.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you do your sprawl and counter.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe someone is in your guard and you want to enter for a leg attack from the bottom, but they just aren't stepping up in the way that you need.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: The obstacle might be you're putting too much of a threat on them, so they're being super cautious.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if you remove that obstacle by lightening up and making them feel less pressure, they might then just step in the way that you want.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is true in life and in business as well.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you want someone, either a person or a company or whatever, to do something, ask yourself, what would cause them to want to give me what I need right now?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or what's stopping them from doing what I want already?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: The example I give here is you want to move a big boulder out of your way.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: For most people, they just start pushing on it or try to figure out how to get more people pushing on it or get machines to push it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: But if you ask yourself, why isn't the boulder moving already?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is it's on flat ground.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe all you need is a shuffle and just start digging out just a little trench beneath the boulder to get it to move in the direction you want.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: You've changed the direction of the ground.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: So once you do that, the boulder will move itself.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So again, look to remove the obstacle that is preventing your opponent from doing what you want them to do already.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're finding these pointers interesting.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I guess if you're still listening or watching, you must be.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, then here is pointer number 12.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Aim for the tipping point.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: So in grappling, I mean that literally, the tipping point.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to sweep someone from your guard, meaning flip them over, you don't need to drive them all the way to the ground once they're flipped over.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to get them to that tipping point where they're falling and gravity now has control.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep pushing them towards the ground, which I call over sweeping, you run the risk of both of you crashing to the floor together and a scramble happening where they might be able to recover some or even all of their position.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can see that tipping point and once you reach it, they're falling and you change your position to plan for where they'll be when they hit the ground, you can now spend that critical moment as they're falling to move to your control position and land in a stable control.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And similar to the 5% rule, aiming for a tipping point and not the end point is generally more attainable.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's more doable.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: You understand what's the more proximate or closer thing that's doable, that if you can just do that, your problem will be solved.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the joke about the friends who meet up to go for a hike in the wilderness.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: When they take a turn to go up a mountain, one of the hikers sits down, takes off his hiking boots, and puts on his running shoes.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And his friend asks, why he's doing that.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the hiker says, Well, I've heard there are bears up there, so I want to be able to run really fast.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And his friend laughs and says, Bears can run faster than people can run.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to outrun a bear.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the first guy says, Well, if a bear comes after us, I don't need to run faster than the bear.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to run faster than you.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: My point here is sometimes there are some things that are closer than the final goal, but that will get you what you need to succeed.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So a tipping point in which all you need to do is shoot for that.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer number 13, add more steps.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: This yet again is something I learned from John Will.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know adding in more steps sounds counterintuitive.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: In virtually any activity in life, we naturally want to streamline things, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: We want to make it easier.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: We want to make it faster.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: We want to do less work.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: We want as few steps as possible to reach our goal.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: But any engineer or anyone who's responsible for building something complex will tell you having more steps is often better.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: It means more attention to small details and less chance of missing something that can then become a critical flaw later on.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly in grappling, if I tell a first-day beginner to just get past somebody's legs to pass the guard, they'll just wildly jump and end up in a bad position.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's obvious that for a beginner, you need to break things down into clear, attainable steps.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if they will do each step, they'll eventually be able to get where they want to be.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: But why then would that be any less true for an advanced grappler?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a funny thing because, of course, as you get better, you can move faster and you can cut corners, and of course, you can be more efficient.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: But steps give you small, attainable things that then add up to the result that you want.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: As John says, your grandmother could climb Mount Everest if you just put in enough small steps and maybe dropped in a few Starbucks along the way, he says.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: The analogy I like to give is you're on a hike and you need to get across a stream, and you find a spot where there are a few stones and you can hop from one stone to another stone.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: But even better is to find a spot where there are a lot of stones closer together.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can even throw in more stones.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: The more steps there are and closer together, the more likely you're able to get across the stream without falling in.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you get to a wobbly stone, you can just take your foot back off and walk back.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: The more frequent and smaller steps you have means the more safely and reliably you can get where you want to go.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, of course, related to 5% improvements.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's about smaller, more attainable goals.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, it's not just for getting out of a bad situation, it's for achieving anything hard.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And to keep my analogy going, once you've crossed that stream a few times, you could start skipping over stones to make fewer steps and move faster because you actually know what to expect.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it all started with adding in more steps for small and safe incremental movements forward.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, small steps can lead to big outcomes.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Doing something great is often doing a series of very small things again and again.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: So add in more steps.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pointer 14, separate the zebra from the herd.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: This again, you guessed it, comes from Coral Belt John Will.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: John has been very influential in my martial arts, as you can see, and you can see why.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you're attacking someone and grappling, and they are skilled, they're good at keeping their arms and legs close to their body so they can control their limbs and defend them.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: So as the person attacking, you want to find ways to cause them to extend their limbs in a way that you can isolate the limb and then they can't get it back.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's under threat.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is like lions who charge at a herd of zebras to find a slower or older one who they can isolate and keep away from the larger herd.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Zebras, when together, can support each other and kick and injure the lion, but a lone zebra is more defenseless, and that makes it safer for the lion to attack.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: So when attacking your opponent and grappling, try to use positions that open up ways to first separate your opponent's arms or legs from their body in ways they can't then get back.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can focus your attack on that single indefensible limb.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: A business example of this would include weakening a competitive company by selectively poaching their best talent.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: This separates one small part of the company's attributes and then removes it.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or specifically target individual clients of the company to get them to switch over to you.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is separating the zebra from the herd and slowly chipping away at your competitor strengths.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, pointer 15.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Don't confuse activity with progress.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's cliche to say work smarter and not harder, but it is often true.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sometimes you're doing everything right, and what you need to do is just do more of it and do it harder.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be true even in fighting.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: You may be doing everything right, and you're pretty evenly matched against an opponent, and it just takes some time and effort to wear them down.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: But almost always what's really needed is better technique.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And while it's great to push the action, being super active doesn't necessarily mean you're gaining an advantage.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the key is to stay calm and take the right actions, the correct actions.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is a key learning for anyone starting a company.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: One of the benefits of being good at goal setting is to know what are the important actions and milestones to be moving towards and how to know if you're headed in the right direction.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: That and not simply how many actions you're taking or how hard your team is working, is how you can define whether you're actually making progress.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Company founders who don't understand that wake up one day and find they've run out of money.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even as their team has been hard at work in making what seemed like progress, their company is now failing.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: So don't judge how well you did in martial arts or in business by how hard you worked or how tough your effort is.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Find objective measures of success and pay attention to those.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: You might just find that choosing the right milestones and the right goals ensures that you make better progress by actually putting out less energy and not more because you're focused on the right things.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you've listened to all 15 of these ideas, you may have noticed something.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: None of them require you to be the strongest person in the room.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: None of them require you to have the highest IQ.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: None require you to have the most talent.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Although if that's all true, that's great.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what they require is awareness.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: They require patience.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: They require strategy.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps most importantly, they require taking the correct actions.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Winning isn't usually a single action or a single moment.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a series of small actions taken again and again on the mat in business and in life.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So how about you pick one of these principles, just one, and find a way to apply it this week and see what happens?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: I will list out all of the 15 principles as a blog post on our website, AgelessWarriorLab.com.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll have it there if you want to check it out.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have dozens and dozens of pointers like this, and I will cover them in shows as we go along.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a lot of stuff that I've learned from martial arts and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu that's been so central to any successes I've had in life.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the real core theme of this podcast is I want to share them with you.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps me to understand if you're interested in this and if there's some better way I can communicate it.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: So please do let me know.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I hope you find this all useful.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: You should also check out our podcast episode four, The Secret to Winning, for more cool ideas.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, leave comments in the comments section of the video on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's much appreciated.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: I will be back next week with more lessons from the lab.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, keep developing your strength, your wisdom, and go out and do good in the world.