Business Kung Fu

Business Kung Fu Modern Strategy | Ancient Truth | Your Success Craig Cooke Copyright © 2023 Craig Cooke ISBN: 979-8-9859524-8-3 Joint Venture Publishing, Blue Sky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, reprinted, or reproduced in any way, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author and/or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

No warranties or guarantees are expressed or implied by the inclusion of the content herein. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages, including, but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Some businesses, including Rhythm® and Rhythm Interactive®, are registered trademarks, and throughout this book, are referenced as such.

For more information, or to book an event, contact: Craig Cooke Craig@csquaredpro.io http://www.csquaredpro.io Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION ____________________________________________________

this book to my family for all the love and support over I dedicate the years, to my business mentors over the years, and to Lyndon Cleghorne, my martial arts instructor, who helped me build a solid foundation for my future. Also, to his instructor, Chief Elder Harry Castel, for his personal teachings with me, and Grand Master Alan Lee, who brought his system of Kung Fu to America.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Scott Duffy ……………

5

Preface: The Decision ………………..

7

1

Building a Foundation ……………….

11

2

Discipline is Key …………………………

23

3

Learning …………………………………….

31

4

Your Techniques ………………………..

41

5

Discipline Techniques ………………..

47

6

A Complete System ……………………

55

7

Training ……………………………………..

64

8

Fighting the Good Fight ……………..

69

9

Winning and Losing ……………………

82

10

The Mind ……………………………………

92

11

The Body ……………………………………

100

12

The Spirit ……………………………………

106

Acknowledgements ……………………

114

About the Author ………………………

116

FOREWORD

BY SCOTT DUFFY ____________________________________________________

would like to start by saying meeting and spending time with Craig I Cooke has been quite an experience. His story, accomplishments, and what he is involved in today are truly inspiring. His unique combination of talents, wisdom, and humble approach has had a true impact on me and helped me feel more empowered. His most recent creation, Business Kung Fu, is not just your standard business book filled with some positive messages. It is unique. It is true, and it completely resonates with me.

I have limited knowledge of martial arts, but I can appreciate the principles Craig shares. I had my own experience of breaking boards during my work with Tony Robbins. And although Craig discusses breaking a harder substance, cement, I understand how he “breaks” down how this martial practice is applied to the world of business.

Another aspect of martial arts I have always admired is its emphasis on discipline and health. It was always apparent that martial artists were the epitome of being disciplined and highly athletic. I completely respect what Craig shares in Business Kung Fu on how 5

discipline and health are essential components of operating a business.

I see Business Kung Fu as a guidebook for entrepreneurs like myself, whether it is at the onset of the entrepreneurial journey or well into the thick of the battle. It’s a book that I can refer to over and over.

Craig writes about the lessons he learned in martial arts and how he applied them to various aspects of structuring and operating a successful business and contending with the grueling journey of an entrepreneur. For me, there are three major takeaways in this book that I strongly recommend people to understand: 1) Craig’s Five Elements of Entrepreneurship. It’s an amazing model of the attributes needed for an entrepreneur to succeed. 2) Discipline … maybe because I admire discipline, but Craig explains discipline in a unique manner and paints a real picture of why discipline is so important in business. 3) The Spirit–his explanation of the warrior spirit required to persevere and win is not only inspiring but spot on from my experience.

Business Kung Fu will serve as an inspiration and source of empowerment. Reading this book and spending time with Craig has been a joy. I noticed an apparent shift take place within myself the more I read this book, along with the more time I spent with Craig.

Despite life’s challenges, I feel my mindset, which was already strong, has improved even more so. I understand the lifestyle of a martial artist is the same as an entrepreneur. It is a hero’s journey. Let this book serve as your guide.

Scott Duffy, Entrepreneur and Keynote Speaker Scott Duffy is listed as a “Top 10 Speaker” by Entrepreneur.com. He is Founder and CEO of Courus, sold his prior company to Virgin, and held leadership roles at FOXSports.com, NBC Internet, and CBS Sportsline. He started his career working for Tony Robbins.

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PREFACE THE DECISION ____________________________________________________

ictory or defeat. In life, whether in a physical altercation or in V the world of business, you normally either win or you lose. The exceptions are interactions with those who conduct business with a win-win attitude, and forging win-win relationships is an approach I highly recommend. My most successful and best business relationships have been based on a win-win approach. At times, I had to engage with other parties and needed to make a win-win-win and even a win-win-win-win scenario. One of my best business relationships even went beyond that. It was simply about having fun together and achieving success after success. It was a terrific ten-year run with two gentlemen who fully trusted me to get the job done, and we had a great time knocking out projects for large Fortune 500 healthcare brands. We experienced victory after victory and celebrated winning along the way.

A long time ago, I chose to be a winner in life, but I knew I needed to equip myself in order to succeed. Two major decisions were made;

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first, to study martial arts and, second, to launch my own business.

This book is intended to provide insight as to how principles of martial arts can be applied to running your own business. Having a deep involvement in both areas, I believe this book will provide upand-coming entrepreneurs and even experienced owners and executives with useful information to apply in their business. In other words, to help professionals kick ass in the world of business. This is my goal.

So why martial arts and business? What’s the connection? Is there real substance here or just allegorical nonsense? Those could be some of the questions running through your mind right now. To quickly address any questions or concerns, I’ll summarize “the why.”

Life can be challenging, and business is no different. Some people have a variety of advantages over others in life and business. It can be physical strength, mental faculties, or resources, such as money and connections. If you are lacking in any of these areas, your endeavors will be challenging, more than you might expect. The connection between martial arts and business is the rigorous journey in how to overcome challenges.

My journey continues as I am starting a new chapter after successfully growing and selling my company. The exacting lessons I learned in martial arts have helped me tremendously in staying resilient and achieving a level of success I am proud of. I hope readers of this book can say the same at some point in their career.

To provide brief context, I started studying Chinese Kung Fu when I was seventeen from a wonderful man, Lyndon Cleghorne. He is mentioned a number of times throughout this book, along with additional details of what I learned. At the age of twenty-five, I went into business for myself. I was raised in an entrepreneurial, small business family and worked from a very young age, an experience I 8

would not trade for the world. Being raised in that environment, it felt natural for me to start a business and have control over my own destiny.

Starting a business is not for everyone. It can be a long, arduous journey, but it is worth it for those who can persevere and overcome all the challenges that come along the way. Even writing this book was a challenge for me as I started it about twelve years ago (as of the time of this writing). It began with writing this preface while traveling on the Eurostar bullet train from Belgium to England during a family vacation with my wife, two kids, and my mother. It was more than just a normal vacation, though. I was able to make my mother’s dream of visiting Paris come true and provide an opportunity for my wife to visit her sister, who resided in London. Thanks to my success in business, I was able to make these things happen. It’s moments like this that help make the trials and tribulations of running your own business worth it.

Keep sight on what you want, go after it, give it your all, and don’t quit. You can succeed.

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CHAPTER ONE BUILDING A FOUNDATION ____________________________________________________

“Things are only hard if you make them hard.”

Daoist Proverb

was taught early on that one must build a solid foundation to learn martial arts effectively. The point to building a foundation first is to get ready for fighting so you don’t get hurt. If one tries to fight before they are ready, there is a high probability of failure and getting injured. So many things can go wrong, especially if your opponent is a trained fighter.

I

The foundation I was taught encompassed a variety of basic skills— how to hold a fist, beginning stances, holding a guard, and a few standard punches and simple kicks. As I was learning these basics, I also had to condition my body. My exercise regimen consisted of stretching (like I’ve never stretched before), strength-building for muscles, aerobic exercises for stamina, and resistance exercises for tendon strengthening.

When I first started my training, I was extremely excited. The idea of learning how to defend myself and learning what I was seeing in 11

Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies captivated me. Then reality sets in—the grueling pain experienced while building a foundation. The muscle burn, the exhaustion, and sometimes just plain boring, repetitious tasks. And worst of all, I didn’t even get to fight—not even simple sparring! I had to wait! How was an American teenager, part of the up-and-coming Generation X, supposed to be patient and wait for things to happen? At times, I definitely grew frustrated, but I had a lot of trust and respect for my teacher, Lyndon Cleghorne.

So what’s the point? Building a foundation in martial arts makes sense, but how does it apply to business? Let’s take a look at the items I mentioned above and form analogies to help make sense of all this. I just ask that you trust me, just as I placed trust in my teacher in the beginning.

PREPARING YOUR MINDSET Preparing your mindset for martial arts is all about getting yourself ready for the fight. I equate this in business as the entrepreneur preparing themselves for their venture. Making sure that you are committed and passionate about what you want. You must have the desire to pursue your business idea and see it through. If doubt exists, extinguish it or decide on another endeavor. Don’t decide to do it because you think it is a cool thing to do or just because your friend just went into business. Go into business because YOU want to. Ask yourself what you want from your endeavor. I chose to study martial arts as I wanted to be able to defend myself and my family from harm—not because it was a cool thing to do. When I decided to go into business, I did so to ultimately earn myself freedom of time and guide my destiny. This meant to be independently wealthy, allowing me the freedom to make decisions on my own without the constraints of external forces (mainly debt). Again, ask yourself, 12

“Why am I doing this? What is my purpose?" If you don’t have an answer, how will you have the desire to see it through? Not having a purpose is being lost in life.

Another aspect of preparing for your venture is to realize how you may have to live for a while. Unless you already have a lot of money and resources at your disposal, you need to consider all your options and determine what you are comfortable with. In other words, what are you willing to sacrifice?

FIVE ELEMENTS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP Through my experience as an entrepreneur, I have identified five key elements that are critical for success in the journey of entrepreneurship. Of course, you can ask a hundred other entrepreneurs, and they will give you a different list and a different combination of numbers, but this is my model. And, interestingly enough, it ties into the “Five Element Theory” that is at the heart of Chinese Kung Fu, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and Daoism.

Five Element Theory transcends across martial, medical, and spiritual systems. The diagram below shows a classic depiction of Five Element Theory, but there are many variations and applications, depending upon the context.

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CLASSIC CHINESE FIVE ELEMENT THEORY

As you can see from the diagram, it not only defines the five elements but also the relationships between each of the elements. It’s highly sophisticated and allows for deep contemplation within the context of how it is applied, whether it is martial, medical, or spiritual. Now, let’s explore how it applies to the world of an entrepreneur.

The five elements I have identified that are essential for every entrepreneur’s constitution include: •

Passion

•

Discipline

•

Expertise (Expert Skills) 14

•

Confidence

•

Faith

In simple terms, passion leads to discipline, which leads to expertise, which then leads to confidence, which finally leads to faith. But let’s explore this at a deeper level and refer to the diagram below:

FIVE ELEMENTS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Let’s start with passion. This is where the process starts. Passion is the fire that entrepreneurs have to take the first bold steps with their ideas. Passion drives us forward and is the enabler of discipline. I elaborate on this in the next chapter and how passion and devotion are tied together, which provides the fuel for discipline.

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Discipline is the next step in the process in which an entrepreneur applies themselves consistently over time. This is so important that the next chapter is entirely on the subject of discipline. Out of discipline, skills are developed to a high degree.

Over time, this turns into expertise. At this point, an entrepreneur is considered a domain expert in their field of endeavor. Once an entrepreneur acknowledges their own expertise, it breeds confidence, the next step in the process.

Confidence is essential in that is facilitates leadership and sales ability, two extremely important activities entrepreneurs must embrace. Finally, out of confidence, an entrepreneur can build faith.

This is faith in themselves and a higher power. Faith is a driver of your spirit and helps you overcome what may seem to be the impossible during challenging times.

Now let’s reverse this. If you start to lose your passion for whatever reason, it can diminish your faith. If your passion leaves you, do you really believe in what you’re doing at that point? A lack of passion will weaken your faith. Once faith is lost, it can then lead to losing confidence in yourself and what you are setting out to achieve on a daily basis. This lack of confidence then leads to questioning your skillset, which then spirals down to losing the discipline needed to maintain and evolve your skill set.

As you can see, the process can move forward and backward in a looping pattern. And it can happen at any point in the process. The ideal condition is to have a balance of all five elements for optimal performance. That’s where the relationships of each element come into play.

Each element exerts an influence on other specific elements in a starlike pattern. Classic five element theory utilizes the terms 17

“controlling” and “insulting.” We’ll stick with those. Let’s explore this deeper. As you can see from the diagram, passion exerts control on expertise. Think of this as a grandparent-to-grandchild relationship.

Passion gave birth to discipline, which then gave birth to expertise.

Passion can restrain the growth of expertise if it starts to subside.

Why? Because they are related through discipline.

Let’s look at how discipline exerts control or influence on confidence.

If our discipline gets out of balance, it can eventually affect our level of confidence as our skill sets become stagnant and competitors become more challenging to deal with. Let’s reverse it and see how confidence can “insult” discipline. Let’s say we are overly confident based on our abilities. This commonly stems from an inflated ego.

The ego may think so highly of itself that it says, “I’m so good, I don’t need to take the time to sharpen my skills.” So then a day lapses in skill development—then another day and another. Eventually, discipline is affected greatly, and there becomes a greater imbalance in the five element constitution.

Let’s look at faith. A classic example is the oversimplification of the law of attraction. When people learn about this law, they tend to think positive thinking and strong faith is all they need to achieve success. They don’t realize that action is required. Sitting on the couch and just thinking positively is not going to do it. Having this mindset detracts from action taken, which is where your expertise is developed. No action, no expertise. It’s highly insulting to yourself.

Throughout this book, I elaborate on these different elements and their importance. The takeaway from this model is that we all need to have a balanced five element constitution for an effective entrepreneur journey. At times, we will be thrown off balance, and that’s okay. It’s natural. We are all challenged at different times during our journey. Just aim to maintain balance along the way.

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FOUNDATIONAL TECHNIQUES/ THE SKILLS YOU NEED Part of building a foundation is starting with the basics. How many of us would like to skip the basics and be able to jump headfirst into more advanced areas of practice? When I first started my martial arts training, I learned the following foundational techniques: •

Stances - Closed-Feet, Universal and Horse

•

Punches - Lunar First, Square Fist and Solar Fist

•

Kicks - Front-Groin Kicking Leg, Front-Through Heart

•

Guard - Long-Range-Short-Range Dragon Fist

•

Blocks - Plum Flower Fist Blocking

•

Movement - Closed-Feet Stepping, Cross-Stepping

I worked on the above for approximately six months—six grueling months of shaky legs, burning shoulders, and physical exhaustion. All of these basics without one bit of the sparring or action I was waiting for. I became frustrated at times, but I had enough patience to see it through.

It’s a funny thing with today’s younger generations, particularly the Millennials (those born from approximately 1981 to 1996). In general (there are always exceptions), their lack of patience and sense of entitlement is extremely frustrating to business owners and managers of all types. This is seen as a unique trait of this generation, but is it? An interesting parallel can be seen with the perception of this younger generation and the typical young Kung-Fu student in a Chinese martial arts movie. How is that? Because the young student always wants to learn the secrets of becoming a great fighter before it’s time. They feel they are entitled to this knowledge and are impatient in learning the basics first. A typical storyline goes like this: the young student desires to learn martial arts and become a great 19

fighter. The student finds a master highly skilled who can provide all the knowledge and skills necessary. The student proves their worthiness, or the master feels they are worthy for some reason, and they begin training. The student is always impatient, wanting to skip certain aspects of training, and frustrates the master. At some point in the training, the student realizes the purpose behind every aspect of the training and now knows that everything has purpose and builds upon itself. Then the student becomes successful at the original goal of becoming a great fighter.

Of course, each story and movie has various reasons as to how this all comes about, but this basic plot has transcended cultures in the American mainstream. Have you seen the movie, the Karate Kid? Daniel Larusso, the main character, begins studying karate and when he starts his training, he keeps asking his teacher, “So when do I get to fight?” “Patience, Daniel-San, patience, you fight soon enough,” is the response from Mr. Miyagi, the wise master. And so the story goes and continues on with its latest iteration, Cobra Kai. It’s a story that transcends cultures and generations.

Are all the previous generations really that much different than the current young professionals coming up in the business world?

Perhaps, but, to me, it seems to be a repeating pattern. I’m sure we will hear the millennials complaining about Get Z soon. I think it is more a function of evolution through the rhythm of life. However, the cycles of time seem to be coming ever-increasingly faster as our planet evolves. Most of this I attribute to technology.

The point here is that it is more challenging than ever to have the patience to develop the skills one needs for building a successful and lasting business. The demands of today’s fast-paced society will continue to apply pressure to all those wanting to succeed. However, the story is the same; you need to learn the basics and develop these 20

skills to a point where you can practically apply them in the marketplace.

When I was in college, I studied business, majoring in Operations Management and minoring in Marketing. During my studies, I became actively involved in campus life to develop my social skills. (I was very shy and knew I needed to make an adjustment.) For five years, I built the basics I needed. Interestingly enough, I now call into question the relevance of the traditional educational system and how it has progressed in terms of the time and monetary investment required of young students today. But that is a topic outside the scope of this book. I did benefit from the education I received, and I have applied a variety of my learnings to my business career.

However, it wasn’t enough.

Once I decided to start an Internet-based business, I needed another set of skills. I taught myself the workings of the Internet—how it was constructed, how it worked, the various communication protocols. I also taught myself the basics of HTML coding. Luckily, I had a good foundation of computer knowledge as I had volunteered my time in the university’s “Multimedia Design Center,” where I taught myself a variety of new applications on the Apple Macintosh. Programs, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Express, PowerPoint, and more. As I learned, I taught other students and faculty, which was another way to continue learning and sharpening my skills. These applications enabled me to create and offer services to others. So, the foundational skills I developed for opening my own business consisted of the following: •

General computing technology

•

Internet technologies

•

Specific computer application programs 21

•

Basic accounting principles

•

Organizational structure

•

Management principles

•

Marketing

•

Social skills

•

Leadership skills

Was I an expert in all the basic skills listed above when I started my business? Absolutely not! But I had developed these basic skills to a level that enabled me to be proficient enough to start a business. I had built a foundation. Now, I was ready to enter the business world and compete. But that is just the beginning. This will become more apparent as you progress through the chapters of this book.

I had to continue learning, just as I did in martial arts after learning the basics. In fact, I am still learning today. Learning is a never-ending process, and we should always be open to learning new things, whether for professional or personal development. As I continued to learn more advanced techniques in martial arts, I became a better fighter. And, of course, as I progressed in business and acquired new skill sets, I became a better business professional and built a stronger organization as a result.

Building a foundation can be extremely hard, but I stress to you, the reader, to persevere. Condition yourself through preparation. Have the patience to develop the skills you need. Consistently work hard on it. You will be better because of it, and the results will show eventually. But what does it take to get to this point and beyond?

That subject is the topic of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER TWO DISCIPLINE IS KEY ____________________________________________________

“Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most."

Abraham Lincoln

ne of the most important, if not the most important, character traits I developed from studying martial arts is discipline. As a child and young teenager, I had the potential to be disciplined, thanks to my inherent obsessive-compulsive nature. However, I lacked a clear direction as to what discipline meant in the context of self-improvement. I was somewhat disciplined when it came to reading, learning baseball, piano and guitar. I naturally spent many hours on my own with these passions. Of course, many people can learn discipline from these types of activities, and I probably did in some ways. But I truly learned what it meant to be disciplined by studying martial arts.

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WHAT IS DISCIPLINE? Let’s take a look at how The New Oxford American Dictionary defines discipline (at the time of this writing): 23

noun 1. the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience: •

the controlled behavior resulting from such training: he was able to maintain discipline among his men.

•

activity or experience that provides mental or physical training: the tariqa offered spiritual discipline | Kung fu is a discipline open to old and young.

•

a system of rules of conduct: he doesn't have to submit to normal disciplines.

2. a branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education: sociology is a fairly new discipline. verb [with obj.] train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience: many parents have been afraid to discipline their children.

•

punish or rebuke (someone) formally for an offense: a member of the staff was to be disciplined by management.

(discipline oneself to do something) train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way: every month, discipline yourself to go through the file.

I’m taking the time to explore what discipline means because it is so important in business and life. Interestingly enough for me, when I started learning Kung Fu, it incorporated all aspects of how discipline is defined above. It involved physical and mental training. Kung Fu 24

incorporated systems and rules of conduct. It had a form of punishment (lots of push-ups when things were not done right), and it modified behavior by instilling habits. It was only through martial arts that I personally experienced and learned every facet of what discipline means. Again, people can learn discipline through many different means, but this was my path, and it helped me tremendously in business.

Even the title of this book, Business Kung Fu, stresses discipline. The real meaning of Kung Fu is not a Chinese martial art resembling karate as the New Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The term “Kung” (Gung or Gong as alternate spellings) means disciplined work, skill, or achievement. “Fu” translates into man (other translations exist, but for our purpose, I am using this one). So the title of this book, Business Kung Fu, means an individual’s disciplined work, skill, or achievement in business. It represents an individual’s development of business skills to the highest level. Discipline is key.

When I see the word discipline, I derive a deeper meaning out of it. I see “disciple” when I “separate “in” and move it to the right. For me, it means to be a disciple in yourself. A disciple is a dedicated and devoted student. Isn’t it wonderful to be your own disciple—to be dedicated and devoted to live in a disciplined manner to continuously evolve and fulfill your God-given potential?

HOW DOES DISCIPLINE COME INTO PLAY WITH BUSINESS? I truly believe discipline is critical for success in business. The most important aspect of discipline is training yourself to form productive habits. And what is the most important habit? It’s simple, yet so challenging for so many. It’s showing up. Right now, you might be 25

thinking, “Well, yeah ... of course, you have to show up.” But what I’m referring to is showing up every day. Every day, especially in the early years of growing a business, you have to show up every day.

And it might be every night, as well. Weekends? You need to be ready to show up. Holidays? You need to be willing to work those, too. You might be thinking, “He’s crazy. I’m not going to work all the time. I’m going into business so I don’t have to work; others will do it for me.”

If you happen to be one of those thinking this way, becoming an entrepreneur and excelling in business isn’t for you. I suggest you put down this book and find another passion. It might sound harsh, but that’s the other aspect of discipline—getting shown in an uncomfortable manner the error of your ways and acknowledging the facts. If you accept what I’m saying here, keep on reading.

Build the habit of showing up every day ready to work. You have to put yourself in play in order to compete in the game. You need to be on the field, on the court, and in the ring. You would be surprised how many people just do not understand this. They would rather be spectators. It might sound comical, and it is, but this is one major factor as to why everyone is not cut out for success in business. I’ve seen it before. If you think having business partners is an exception because everyone will pull their own weight, think again. Listen hard to this important lesson. No one is going to do it for you. You cannot one hundred percent rely on others to create your success. You have to do it. You can’t blame anyone else, either, when things are not going right. You have to show up. You have to do what it takes to get the job done. And when someone else isn’t doing their part, you’re going to have to step up and get it done. How you deal with undisciplined partners and/or co-workers is another issue altogether and outside the scope of this book. The one thing you can completely control is yourself, your actions, and reactions.

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Once you have “showing up” down as a habit, you need to be disciplined with being productive. Out of the people that display the discipline to show up every day, not everyone wants to work. Again, this might sound like pure comedy, but when you experience this firsthand, it is so painful and frustrating. When you show up, you have a job to do. And if you only have a few customers and you’re not that busy, it’s your job to get busy—to make things happen.

There is ALWAYS something to do, something productive to accomplish. There is a system to create, research and development to pursue, products and services to develop, and sales and marketing efforts to conduct. I’ll repeat it again: there is ALWAYS something to do. But it takes discipline to do it, every day, on an ongoing basis.

PASSION & DEVOTION - THE ENABLERS OF DISCIPLINE A funny thing about discipline—if you are pursuing something you love, something you are devoted and passionate about, it changes your mindset. As hard as it is to be disciplined, passion and devotion are enablers for discipline. If you’re passionate about a particular interest, hobby, or other pursuit, consider how you can turn that into a business. You have a better chance of being disciplined in your endeavor, and if it is truly your passion, the work itself really won’t seem much like work. You will be completely devoted to it.

Once you are in this setting, it will become easy for you to recognize others who are just going through the motions and doing the bare minimum to get by, especially with friends. While everyone else is ready to go out partying, taking trips, or doing fun activities that would be nice to partake in, if you’re following your passion, you’ll prefer to keep working.

Passion and devotion will drive you into what some refer to as a “flow state.” This is a mental state where you are fully immersed in an 27

activity with energized focus, being in the present moment with complete engagement and experiencing success. It is an ultimate state of supreme creativity. I prefer to call this a “rhythm state,” as rhythm is everywhere and in everything throughout the universe.

The universe itself is the ultimate rhythm state and representation of supreme, ultimate creativity. Passion and devotion are the catalysts to launch you into a state of rhythm, and with that, discipline will follow.

Passion and devotion will help you have the discipline to develop your skills to a high level. The first part of discipline is showing up.

The second part is being productive, but the last part is striving for excellence. When you participate in sports, a game, or other activity, doesn’t it feel better when you are good at it? Doesn’t it feel awesome when you’re great at it? The same simple concept applies to business. Your passion and devotion should drive the discipline you need to reach new levels of expertise and skill.

MY DISCIPLINE WITH MARTIAL ARTS AND BUSINESS As I mentioned earlier, I truly learned discipline through the study of martial arts. From day one, it hurt. It took discipline to sit in stances for prolonged periods of time. Add punching, kicking, and blocking, along with shaky legs and feelings of nausea, and it was brutally hard.

But I kept coming back for more! I had passion and devotion toward it. I showed up. I was productive, and I worked hard to reach new heights in my levels of skill. I also watched a great number of Kung Fu movies and marveled at the level of discipline portrayed by the actors in developing their skills. This inspired me to apply that same level of discipline. So I kept showing up, I was productive in class, and I practiced on my own to reach new heights. I learned what I could achieve by being disciplined and sticking with something over an 28

extended period of time, more so than with anything else I had ever done. I even recruited my friends to get involved. Some stuck with it; some did not. This was an example for me to observe how passion and devotion varies among people. There was nothing wrong with the people who did not stay with it. There is no judgement. It just wasn’t their passion, and that is perfectly okay. The lesson for all of us is to find our passion so we can devote our time to it, and, in the process, if you are to form a group, align with people of like mind— people who have the same passion and devotion to your subject matter.

So when it came to my business, what did I do? I combined my passion for music and computers into a business model. Living and breathing my passion, I immersed myself into the world of multimedia and the Internet. I conducted research, developed plans, and started to learn new skills. During any down time, I had my nose in books or was online, usually past midnight. I loved what I was learning and creating. I was excited and filled with passion to strive for success. But it took a long, long time. For years, I toiled, struggled to reach a certain level of success. For the first five years, actually, I had a very difficult time for a number of reasons. But with discipline, I showed up and worked through it. I took on various side jobs at times, but every side job purposefully benefited my business.

Because I was living it, I ran everything past the litmus test–would this benefit my business?

Any social life outside of work was limited. As a result, I lost touch with a number of friends. I didn’t have much money to begin with, and I wanted to change that and be successful at my business. So I worked to create the change I wanted.

I remember talking with a friend during those early years about how much of my time the business was taking. His response was, “Dude, 29

you’re stupid.” Obviously, I wasn’t too happy with that statement … and I don’t recall having a response, other than embarrassment. It just didn’t feel good. But 20-plus years later, that same friend acknowledged my success and paid me high compliments and respect.

With all the challenges and setbacks, the discipline I learned from martial arts was directly applied in a conscious manner to my business endeavors. Discipline is a major component of success.

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CHAPTER THREE LEARNING ____________________________________________________

“Learning is a constant process of discovery. A process without end."

Bruce Lee

earning is so important. I don’t care if you are five years old or fifty. At any age there is always something new to learn, which makes ongoing learning so important. No one has all the answers to the mysteries of life. All we can do is help each other through it all by learning and sharing what we have learned with others.

L

AN OPEN-MINDED APPROACH TO LEARNING When I started training in martial arts, it opened me up to a world of knowledge. It wasn’t just about fighting. It was about health– physical, emotional, and mental—and the development of the mind, body, and spirit. I was also fascinated by the history and philosophy of eastern cultures. I was seventeen at the time, and I was completely intellectually stimulated by this new world of knowledge. I had an 31

open mind to take in whatever I could, and having an open mind is a great approach to learning.

Interestingly enough, when I started martial arts training, it was completely focused on Chinese Kung Fu. My instructor, Lyndon Cleghorne, studied under Elder/Master Harry Castel, who studied under Grand Master Alan Lee at Alan Lee’s Kung-Fu Wu-Su Association in New York City. A couple of years into my training, Harry Castel made a departure from Kung Fu as he was on a journey of exploration of various martial arts. He formulated his own martial art that he termed WOTSFA (Warriors of the Sun Fighting Arts). He combined the essence of different arts such as Kung Fu, Karate, Penchak Silat, Capoeira, boxing, wrestling, and more into a single fighting system. This was long before the term “mixed martial arts” became popular. He exemplified the American experience of learning and innovating to create something new. However, if he hadn’t had an open mind, it would not have happened. If all his students hadn’t had an open mind, as well, the learning and sharing would have stopped.

I remember my instructor, Lyndon, telling me about the changes to come in what I would be learning. At first, there was a little skepticism as I really learned to love Kung Fu—not to mention all the old school Kung Fu movies were always dogmatically stating how Chinese Kung Fu was the best fighting system, period. But I had an open mind, as well, and I’m glad I did.

By having an open mind, you can continue the learning process, which will benefit you greatly. In business, you must have a similar approach to learning with an open mind. Don’t think for a second that you know it all. You might know more than many of your peers, but you can always learn something from someone. I am

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continuously learning all the time in all endeavors. Industries are constantly changing with new things to learn.

However, my learning isn’t isolated to the core of my business. I am always learning how other businesses operate and function, how others run their business, and the challenges they face and achievements they’ve had. By having an open mind and through active listening, I am always learning from others.

Many years ago, I learned a specific lesson from a client turned mentor. One of my employees had completed a project, but it was not functioning as it should. As I was discussing the issues with my client, I explained that I was sorry, but it wasn’t really my fault—my employee made the mistake. That’s when he let loose a thunderstorm of criticism that I will never forget. “You are responsible for everything that comes out of your business. I don’t care if your employee made the mistake. You are ultimately responsible for everything!” He went on for five or ten minutes, but it felt like an hour.

It was a good lesson—one I needed to learn. The lesson being that I am truly responsible for what happens in my business. I can’t do everything and be everywhere at once, but I am the one who hires and trains the people who take care of the duties I cannot tend to. So ultimately, it comes back to me. I could have been a jerk and not really listened and learned that lesson, but throughout our conversation, I kept an open mind to what he had to say. I also enjoyed talking with this client and highly respected him, so much so that he became my first business mentor. For many years, he was willing to give me advice, and I was always open to listening.

LISTENING I know it sounds basic, but it needs to be said. You have to listen to 33

learn. Believe me, few people possess this skill. Instead, they like to hear themselves talk and pontificate on what they think and how they have all the answers. I’ve been a natural listener all my life, so I’m lucky that I didn’t have to learn this skill. And I didn’t learn it from martial arts (although there were good drills that accentuated listening).

Let me explain how it applies in the context of this book. Listening, true active listening, is how you learn in all aspects of life, whether it is in martial arts, business, music, or relationships—the list goes on and on. Taking the time to pay attention and listening to what others have to say is how you learn. It is also how you can help solve problems.

In my business, I have to listen to my clients and learn what their goals and objectives are. What requirements do they have and what resources are at their disposal? If I don’t actively listen and learn about my clients and their business environment, how am I supposed to come up with solutions to address their problems? I can’t.

Listen and don’t just listen, actively pay attention. And with your team members, combine empathy when listening. It goes a long way.

Your team feels valued when a leader takes the time to listen and understand their perspective. This leads to team members forming intentions to be more productive, which ultimately creates more value in the organization.

ASK HOW AND WHY When learning, it’s great to have an open mind, but you also need to apply critical thinking skills to what you learn. Otherwise, you lack a true understanding of what you are learning, and in some aspects of life, you risk the chance of being brainwashed. As I was learning 34

martial arts, I constantly asked how things worked and why they worked the way they did. “So how does this punch work if you’re in this position? Why should I move this way, instead of over here? How do you counter this technique?” These were the types of common questions I routinely asked. Lyndon, my instructor, was always patient and took the time to explain things from his perspective.

Through this dialog, I gained a greater understanding of the techniques and skills learned during each lesson. Having an open mind and actively listening is great, but it’s even better to apply critical thinking skills by asking how and why in order to gain a true understanding of purpose behind what you learn.

In business, there are many forms of why. Why are we in business?

What is our purpose? Or why is this happening? Why did this project turn upside down? Why did a client leave? Why did an employee quit? Or why did this work out so well? Why have our clients stayed with us for so long? There are positive and negative aspects to the why question. It’s always a good practice to explore the “why” behind things, followed by “how" the “why” is to be addressed.

FIND A TEACHER Finding a teacher is extremely important, as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. No one has it all figured out. That includes you and me. We all need help at one time or another. That’s why it is in your best interest to find a mentor—someone you respect and feel you can learn from. Over the course of time, multiple mentors will cross your path, providing you with the insights you need at the moment you need them. Just be open and ready to receive.

I was seventeen when I met Lyndon, my martial arts instructor. My mother owned a small continental dining restaurant, about fourteen tables or so, and Lyndon was hired as the chef. My mother started 35

the business, and she had great discipline. A single mom, she showed up every day to grind it out. Lyndon was a skilled executive chef working in various high-end clubs out of New York City, and I worked in the restaurant as a waiter. I started washing dishes on a regular basis when I was around ten, started bussing tables at thirteen, and became a waiter at sixteen. Not long after Lyndon started his employment, the subject of martial arts came up when we were working together. My eyes got really big when he said he knew Kung Fu. I mentioned I had wanted to study martial arts since I was ten, but my mom wouldn’t let me. In her mind, she had a good reason for her refusal. A cousin who had lived with us had taken martial arts, and he beat up all the kids around the neighborhood. Of course, she didn’t want the same thing to happen with me, although I like to think I wouldn’t have done the same. That’ wasn’t the reason I wanted to learn martial arts.

Hearing about my interest, Lyndon offered to teach me Kung Fu, and out of respect, I asked my mom if it was okay, and she said fine. So after work, usually around 9:30 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and sometimes on Saturday mornings, Lyndon would instruct, and I would learn. I was so excited that I wanted to get some friends involved, and there were some who participated but didn’t last long.

As I look back at that experience, it was quite foreshadowing for my professional career.

For eight years, I studied martial arts under Lyndon’s instruction. We started a martial arts club at the college I attended and had many students over the course of approximately five to six years. It was really fun and a great period in my life. To this day, I am forever grateful to Lyndon and what he did for me.

In my professional career, I have had several mentors. Looking back, I wish I had sought a mentor earlier. However, at that time, the 36

thought of a mentor didn’t come to mind, maybe since the Internet was so new and everyone was really busy learning about it. During this time, I had some limited consulting services from a couple of different non-profit business organizations, but I didn’t have a true mentor in the sense and type I had in studying martial arts.

My first business mentor, Steve Herring, was a successful entrepreneur who had started a security systems company, built it up, and sold it after a certain point. After that venture, he became active in the online marketing world. My business partner had met him during a business meeting to discuss a potential project. After he hired us and we performed successfully, he started coming to our office frequently and learning more about us and what our plans were. He then offered—or sold us, depending on how you look at it— his consulting services. We had an open mind, and even though we barely could afford it at the time, we took a big risk and hired him to be our consultant.

The year was 2004. He worked with us to rebrand and reposition our company based on an earlier vision I had back in 1998 for where the world of marketing was headed. The rebrand was an evolutionary step toward that vision. Steve helped us a great deal as we modified our name to Rhythm Interactive® and produced a new website that clearly positioned us as a full-service interactive marketing agency.

Shortly after all that work took place, things really started to take off.

We were getting better clients and all types of projects related to digital marketing. I am highly appreciative to Steve for all the years of advice and mentorship he provided.

My next mentor was a gentleman by the name of Mark Hartsell. Mark owns a consulting firm, CEO Advisors, and he approached me in late 2008, just before the economy was about to take a big dive into the 37

“Great Recession.” His services sounded appealing, but I decided the time was not right as we had some big things to focus on, such as purchasing our first commercial office space. I felt that effort was going to require a huge amount of time and effort (which it did), and I wanted to make sure we had the time to not only learn from someone else’s advice, but to also apply it. By the way, this was a habit formed from martial arts. It is not good enough to know a technique, but knowing how it gets applied in a practical situation is also a necessity.

We purchased our building during the height of the credit crunch, using one hundred percent of other people’s money (Tony Robbin’s and Robert Kiyosaki would be proud). And during that year, 2009, we had the most challenging year ever. Going into 2010, we started making ground in our attempts to get things back to normal. During that entire time, from first meeting Mark until May, 2010, he called me once a month, asking if I was ready yet. He walked the talk and is someone who personified discipline and perseverance.

One day, I surprised him by calling him and saying, “It’s time for you to come in.” Mark provided his consulting services and mentorship for more than nine years and brought tremendous value. His objective and no-nonsense approach helped us in areas of sales, operations, and evolving our business to new levels. Every time we met, I learned and gained valuable insight and advice that brought positive results.

We continued working with Mark until we sold our business, and he assisted us with that, as well. I am highly thankful for everything Mark has done for me. A portion of my success is attributed to his mentorship.

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My third mentor was a very nice man named Mark Dorian. Mark has an interesting background with successes in infomercials, real estate, and investment banking. He is full of experience and stories that are extremely interesting and insightful. His knowledge in real estate is extremely impressive; and since I had an interest in real estate, I always found his insights valuable. I am highly appreciative of all of Mark’s counsel over the years.

My fourth mentor was a wonderful man by the name of Russ Anderson. Russ is a qigong practitioner, spiritual healer, and gifted intuitive. He entered my life during a time of extreme stress and fatigue. My familiarity with qigong through Kung Fu made me comfortable in experiencing his talents. As I visited him for qigong healing sessions on a monthly basis, I gradually became more centered and balanced. One day, he asked me if I would like to learn his skills and said that he would be willing to teach me. I instantly said yes, and a new chapter began in my life, especially in accentuating my spiritual development. Remember, Kung Fu is about developing the mind, body, and spirit. I am forever grateful for everything Russ has done for me.

My fifth mentor was Ric Franzi, a successful professional with a background as an executive, entrepreneur, and author. Ric runs an executive peer group under a global organization, Renaissance Executive Forums. Ric’s exemplary passion inspired me to join, and I have been a member for at least seven years. Ric loves what he does and always engages with his clients and other professionals with enthusiasm and positivity. Throughout the years, whether it is in group meetings or one-on-one meetings, Ric always has something of value to share. Learnings I have gleaned from him I brought back to my staff, especially in working with my management team. Ric

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continues to be a mentor and friend, and I always value our interactions.

As you can see, it’s important to find mentors. Take my word, it will help. It may take a while but be patient. There is an Eastern saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” In the meantime, be open to learning from your peers, whether they are your coworkers, employees, clients, vendors, or anyone you interact with in your professional career.

I do have to give credit to some others I’ve learned from over the years, mainly Chris Hung, Tony Brinton, Hannes Meyer, Paul Mastracchio, Chuck Morton, and Eric Morley. Eric owns an advertising agency, and I partnered with him on a lot of big projects which were instrumental to the success of Rhythm®. Paul and Chuck were clients who I formed a close relationship with, Tony is an outstanding former staff member who worked at Rhythm Interactive® for over five years, and Hannes is another outstanding former staff member who worked at Rhythm® for close to twenty years. Chris Hung is a great guy who was instrumental in propelling revenue growth in the first five years of business. He worked at a CD/DVD replication factory and eventually started his own business.

We formed a strategic alliance that helped me reach a whole new level in my business.

There has been a tremendous exchange of knowledge with these people, which brings me back to the beginning of this chapter.

Whether you’re the student or the teacher, regardless of your role, none of us have all the answers, and we all need to help each other through the journey of life.

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CHAPTER FOUR YOUR TECHNIQUES ____________________________________________________

“Remember … you are expressing the technique, not doing the technique."

Bruce Lee

hink of your techniques as your skill set. As I was learning Kung Fu, each kick, punch, block, movement, etc., was an individual technique to learn, understand, and gain experience through practice in how to apply them in real-world scenarios. What you have to offer in terms of knowledge, skills, and talent will help drive your business model. But do remember, techniques are only techniques in and of themselves. The human spirit expressing techniques to make them your own is where mastery begins to form.

T

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO GIVE WITH YOUR TALENTS, KNOWLEDGE, AND SKILLS? Ultimately, it is best to have a service-to-others mindset in defining your business. What you have to offer should serve a higher purpose, ideally a societal benefit perceived as value given, not only to find 41

deeper fulfillment for yourself, but to inspire others to experience fulfillment, as well.

In developing my techniques in Kung Fu, I had the higher purpose of being able to defend myself and others from harm. It was not driven by nefarious intentions. It was grounded in a positive mindset. As I entered the world of business, a higher purpose came into existence—to help others, specifically independent musicians and music fans to level the playing field against the mass industrial control system of the music industry. This was 1996, and the music business was entirely different from today. Once the purpose was established, the skills needed to fulfill this purpose had to be developed quickly.

I already had some base skills that I had developed in college. They encompassed strong computer skills across a variety of subjects. from simple word processing and spreadsheet skills to more advanced design and presentation skills. I also had the knowledge of business principles, and I was putting my skills and knowledge into practice in my parents’ small business, gaining experience, which is the best way to ultimately learn. In determining the purpose and vision for my business, I researched what additional knowledge and skills I needed to develop. I had my base foundation, but now I needed to learn and develop a whole new set of techniques/skills, one of which was HTML programming. I bought a couple of books and started to teach myself at night, going through each page and practicing the instructional exercises to develop the needed skills. I also had an appreciation and natural talent for design and creativity, but that needed to be developed, as well. Lucky for me, my girlfriend at the time (who became my wife) was a talented and skilled graphic designer (and on top of that, very beautiful. Lucky me!). I absorbed everything I could from her design aesthetics to improve upon my 42

skill set. These skills would help form the basis of services and products I would be offering in my business, even as it evolved over the years. I am fortunate and extremely blessed to have met someone I was able to truly partner and grow with in different aspects of life through our journey together.

I ask that you take an inventory of yourself in the categories of talent, knowledge, and skills. Talent being something you are naturally good at which normally coincides with a passion. Knowledge being mental—what you know from an intellectual standpoint. How much information do you have on subject matters relating to your talents?

And finally, what skills do you have? Skills being how you can practically apply your knowledge and talents to produce something of value.

For example, let’s take a look at the profession of design. One could be talented in visual arts. They might have a natural ability to work with shapes, forms, and colors. It is an innate talent that is expressed naturally. That person might have even studied past artists from various time periods in history, perhaps even peers of the day. And finally, this person might be skilled in the use of computer applications that are commonly used by designers to produce creative works. Do you see the difference?

Again, I ask you to take inventory of yourself. Be honest. Stand outside of yourself and look objectively at your makeup. What do you need to develop? Figure it out and attack it with discipline. Be organized about it. Below is an example of how you can use a simple chart. It’s brief but gets the point across. Once this is completed, you can see what roles best suit you and where you need others to fill in the gaps. Entrepreneurs in startup mode have to wear many hats. It’s best to figure out the best suited roles as early as possible.

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Talent

What you naturally excel at

Knowledge Acquired information on a discipline

Skills Your proficiency with tools and means for applying your knowledge and talent

Rating Scale of 1-5 with five being best

What I Possess Visually creative

Modern design trends

Design Software Sigma, Photoshop, Illustrator

4

Seeing the big picture

Business management

Organizing, creating systems and processes

5

Communications

How to sell ideas

Speaking, presenting and writing

4

Areas Needing Development No real talent

Basic Accounting

No real skills

1

Team player

Human Resources

Limited HR management skills

2

This is a continuous process. More than ever, the world of business evolves at a rapid pace. Just as the martial art student needs to continually hone existing skills, he or she needs to evolve by developing new techniques. Even when the level of mastery is reached, we never stop learning and the opportunity for improvement always exists.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS In developing one’s talents, knowledge, and skills, the practical 44

application of all of these components always needs consideration.

Without the ability to practically apply your techniques, they are essentially worthless, other than the egoic satisfaction of supposed knowledge of a topic.

In martial arts, every technique I learned had a purpose. It also had a method of application. For example, a technique called “square fist,” which is a medium-range punch. I learned the technique through its proper form—the starting position, how the arm extends, how the fist turns, and the proper end point and angle of 120 degrees. Then, I practiced this technique slowly, just working on the form. Then I practiced punching from different stances to develop the technique and get a feeling of how it is executed. However, this did not involve the practical application. The next step was to execute the technique while incorporating movement, during stepping, shifting, and transitioning in and out of stances. Finally, I learned how to practically apply the technique against an opponent while in movement.

Here is an important lesson … in Kung Fu, techniques are learned and can be practiced in forms (referred to as katas in karate), which are a pre-planned series of movements. It’s choreography but in a martial context. However, in order for any technique to work in how they are practiced in these forms, the opponent has to move in the exact manner as the form implies.

However, life doesn’t happen like this. Opponents may shift just slightly, move a couple of inches to the left, etc., rendering the execution of the form useless. So in learning your techniques, you must practice the practical application of your techniques. You can’t expect your career in business to be one hundred percent predictable. Projects will not arrive on your desk neatly packaged in a bow with everything you need. There are always surprises, certain 45

shifts and movements that are unexpected. Nothing really goes one hundred percent to plan. How will you spontaneously adapt and deliver your techniques in these situations?

Let’s take the design example again. One might have learned how to design a web page using their talents, knowledge, and skills. It might even look beautiful. But what happens when that design is applied to an actual website? When a programmer implements the design, it might not work well. Some aspects of the design may not make sense in the context of the entire site. There might be design elements that do not work well across different devices that access the website. The designer might think they know how to design a web page, but do they really know how? Will someone continue to pay them if they truly do not know how to practically execute the design? Being able to practically apply your techniques is how you begin to establish value. It enables you to be compensated in consideration of the expertise you bring to the table, the value you have to offer to your customers. If there is no value, customers will not pay; and in the end, what value is it to you and your business if you cannot be compensated for the techniques you apply to your products and services? Remember, techniques are only techniques. You need to own and express them in your unique way.

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CHAPTER FIVE DISCIPLINE TECHNIQUES ____________________________________________________

“Master technique and then forget about it and be natural."

Anna Pavlova

hen you combine techniques with high discipline, you take these techniques to higher and higher levels. If you can be so disciplined to work on a set amount of techniques every day, day after day, day in and day out, without fail—you get my point?—this is where you take your techniques to the highest level.

W

THE STRIKE WITH THE BIGGEST IMPACT After a few months of starting Kung Fu, I started working on some discipline techniques. The idea was to develop these techniques to a level where I could deliver maximum impact and inflict damage to immobilize an opponent and diffuse a situation. This was

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demonstrated and proven by the breaking of materials, such as concrete and bricks.

I worked on conditioning specific areas of my hand with discipline by striking bags filled with sand, pebbles, and rocks. As I graduated from the sand bag to the pebble bag, to the rock bag, my hands started to become used to shock and impact from striking a hard object. I then moved to actual concrete slabs and red bricks. I learned the technique of specific strikes using the conditioned areas of my hands.

By the way, I avoided conditioning my knuckles as it was not advised by my teacher, thankfully. It’s unnecessary as it can cause visible damage to the hands. Today, my hands are fine, and I am able to play guitar and piano without any difficulties. This is just a point of information to consider for any of you getting inspired to study martial arts.

Anyway, I continued to practice the strikes with proper form and conditioning of the hand. Then came the day when I had to break a brick. Little did I know that I only had half the battle down through physical conditioning. The other half was in the mind. My teacher, Lyndon, instructed me in preparing for the strike. He showed me how to use coordinated movements and breathing to build “qi/chi” (energy) to enhance the strike. He then also told me to focus past the object, the concrete slab. “Do not focus on the slab; it won’t break,” he said. He also instructed me to believe in myself—to know with certainty that I can break the slab. This was the other half, to use the mind properly with focused intent and belief. I did as he instructed, and with great joy and amazement, I broke my first concrete slab.

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Breaking materials, such as concrete slabs and red bricks, demonstrated discipline techniques. In order to break the material, one must focus past it on the other side.

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This is another important lesson, actually a critical lesson. I often explain to others the analogy of breaking materials to dealing with life’s problems. It takes discipline to be prepared, but once you encounter problems, you cannot focus on the problem or obstacle in front of you. You need to focus past it. Focus on creating a solution and have belief in yourself. Obstacles in life come up all the time, personally and in professional life. If you focus only on the obstacle or challenge at hand, you will never “break the brick.” Focusing on the problem breeds disdain and causes a downward spiral of negativity that creates a whole other challenge to overcome.

You might ask, “Why should I believe in myself?” My response is that you should be fully equipped to handle the challenges you face due to the extreme discipline you have applied to honing your techniques. Believe and know with certainty that you can overcome, and you will. Then focus on the solution and break through your obstacles. The joy derived from overcoming is always exhilarating.

Faith

Our Focused Mind

Focus

Problem/Challenge

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The Solution/Goal

With the techniques you have developed, choose which ones you want to develop to its highest level. Start with one. You can develop more than one discipline technique. Eventually, your discipline techniques become your core service or product offerings. Back to my design example—the person that thought they could develop a web page but found a rude awakening now decides to bring that technique to a high level. Suddenly the designer is able to offer the service of creating the interaction design for an entire website.

He/she has become so proficient that they are able to offer interaction design as a core service offering and is paid for this service on a daily basis. Interaction design has become a discipline technique.

YOUR CORE COMPETENCIES In business, you can’t be all things for all people. There needs to be specialization. This can come in many forms. First, let’s use the analogy of martial arts. As I was learning Kung Fu, I was amazed with the vast array of techniques to learn. Alan Lee’s Kung Fu Wu-Su is a complete fighting system. It incorporates external and internal striking, locking, grappling, throwing, breaking, and on and on. Harry Castel’s WOTSFA is also a complete fighting system with a cornucopia of techniques to choose from. However, one cannot learn every single technique and take it to its highest level of discipline. There is simply not enough time. Also, some techniques do not resonate with a person as compared to other techniques that are favored. For example, there are a few punches I really like: square fist, buffalo horn, and diagonal hammer fist. But those are just three out of a set of twenty-six different punches. I also gravitated to certain kicks, stances, blocks forms of grabbing, open hand strikes, and more. Over time, I developed a core set of techniques that I could combine naturally with ease. This led me to eventually find my own rhythm.

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Every business needs to also find their own rhythm.

With that in mind, I will use Rhythm®, the company I started, ran, and sold as an example. In the early years, website design and development was our core service. Over time, I learned other skill sets, such as CD-ROM authoring, package design, printing, email marketing, and more. As more employees were added to the team, they brought their own set of skills which expanded upon the expertise within the organization. This allowed us to go to deeper levels with clients in providing solutions to their problems. We were able to go beyond just a web design company to a digital agency that provided integrating marketing solutions with a digital core focus.

Our byline was “Integrated Marketing. Digital Core.” Our philosophy was to create integrated marketing solutions that utilized our core services with digital technology serving as the central hub. Our core services were modified over time, but eventually we landed on a set of services comprised of custom web design and development, search marketing, email marketing, digital paid media, digital content production and analytics. These core services reflected our core competencies. They were areas we were highly skilled in that could provide tremendous value to our clients.

This is where you must take inventory of yourself and your team— the resources you have at your disposal, any intellectual property you may have, and the areas where you can provide the most value to others. And don’t be surprised if this changes; it should. It takes time to evolve to landing on a model that establishes a rhythm for your organization. Even then, the song eventually ends, and a new rhythmic pattern is needed. The business world is dynamic and constantly changing. Over time, your organization should continuously evolve through constant learning, the addition of new team members, and technological advancements in society. It helps 53

to conduct a periodic review of your core competencies. The cadence will need to be determined by you and your team. It is different for everyone. Every business is unique and dynamic in its own way.

Always strive to identify and develop your own unique expression of core competencies to provide maximum value to the market you serve.

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CHAPTER SIX A COMPLETE SYSTEM ____________________________________________________

“A system is never the sum of its parts; it’s the product of their interaction.”

Russell Ackoff

very business needs a holistic view of how the organization is structured and perpetuates its existence.

A solid business model that reflects a complete system is needed to compete effectively, especially when facing large and more equipped competitors.

e

A COMPLETE FIGHTING SYSTEM In this section, I will explain how the martial arts systems I was exposed to are complete fighting systems. A lot of detail exists here.

In the next section, we’ll apply this thinking in a business context.

Let’s explore what it means to embrace a complete fighting system.

As previously mentioned, Alan Lee’s Kung Fu Wu-Su and Harry Castel's WOTSFA are both complete fighting systems. Both systems 55

incorporate various aspects of combat, including: •

Closed Fist and Open Hand Striking

•

Kicking

•

Blocking

•

Movement/Stepping

•

Grabbing, Manipulation, and Throwing

•

Locking and Breaking

•

Floor and Air Fighting

•

External and Internal Strengthening, Conditioning, and Development

•

Weapons

But wait, there’s more … drills, self-defense, training methods, and on and on. It’s outside the scope of this book to go into a deep dive on the items listed above. However, imagine how each line item contains numerous techniques and applications to learn and develop a comprehensive understanding of how it all works together. It is not enough to just learn how to throw a punch—or several punches, for that matter. That may work against an untrained fighter, but not against someone with skilled expertise in a system. Also, it’s not just the individual items listed above that make up a complete fighting system. What makes it complete is how each of the components work together in an integrated manner. One must develop each component with its many sub-components but also make all the components come together in a flow state of rhythm. Only then does one “own it” and is able to utilize any of the tools in the complete system.

You may ask, “What does an incomplete system look like, and so what?” I’m glad you asked. Let’s consider the extremely popular 56

sport and art of western boxing. Boxers use their fists, their knuckles essentially, to deliver blows, along with their arms for blocking and covering. They have solid stepping and movement but there is no kicking, grappling, or other various components mentioned earlier.

However, let me state, that skilled boxers are highly dangerous and can succeed against all types of martial artists and other fighters.

But let’s say a boxer and a wrestler with equal skill and development come across each other. Each has their advantage over the other. But what situation do they end up in? What happens when the boxer lets the wrestler get too close, and the wrestler picks up the boxer and body slams them on the cement? Or what if both the wrestler and boxer come across someone who is a skilled martial artist that pulls out a weapon, like a knife or lead pipe? How will they adapt to the situation?

This is one of the most important aspects of a complete fighting system; it enables you to adapt to all situations. Through adaptation, individuals, families, communities, and nations survive and thrive.

Those that don’t dwindle and fade away with the passage of time.

This applies to businesses of all types, as well.

A SOLID BUSINESS MODEL I advocate thinking of your business model as a complete system.

Take a holistic view of your business—not just your products and services, but various components of your business and how they interact and come together as an integrated system. The best example I can provide is how my company, Rhythm®, evolved and refined its business model.

Rhythm® was born as a “digital first” company back in the ancient days of the Internet, 1996. We set out to market independent music 57

online to disrupt the industry. After struggling a couple of years with this focus and a sequence of events, we branched out to provide web design services to companies. We produced complete websites start to finish and provided hosting services through our partners.

However, this was not a complete business model. At the time, I realized the future would entail an integrated approach of the digital and physical world. So I started learning a variety of additional skills, such as traditional print design and printing processes. This enabled us to add service components of print design in areas of business stationery and package design. But that wasn’t enough. Additional digital components were explored and added. I learned how to develop CD-ROMs through specialized software and even developed a proprietary methodology of updating CD-ROM content and tracking user behavior utilizing Internet technology. It was highly unique in the industry and enabled us to land large projects with Fortune 500 brands. But again, that still wasn’t enough. We had developed other skill sets and components, as well, but we needed to define our philosophy and holistic approach to our business operations.

Defining our approach was an evolving process, but we eventually landed on a solid business model. It started with our philosophy, “Integrated Marketing. Digital Core.” This was our byline and was coupled with our tagline, “We create effective brand experiences.”

We further explained our approach through our brand promise statement. This statement defined our business, what made us different, and how we delivered superior value. The brand promise evolved over time through continuous refinement. Here is an early iteration from 2007…

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Rhythm Interactive® is a full-service interactive marketing agency in Orange County. We are the change agent for clients who are looking to develop brand-building experiences that result in heightened revenue. By developing sophisticated marketing programs that are interwoven with today’s latest interactive media tools and marketing tactics, we are able to transform our clients’ market objectives into tangible results.

Our proprietary RI-5 framework for success (Insight, Innovate, Immerse, Implement, and Impact) insures that measurable business strategies are incorporated into all of our clients’ on and offline marketing activities. Our clients bond with us in a rhythmic, strategic partnership because our marketing programs attract, engage, and convert clients’ prospects into lasting business relationships.

The quality of our work, combined with our attention to detail, creativity, innovation, accessibility, and accountability, make us masters of our craft. We are accountable for our work, and we deliver what we promise, on time, every time.

The brand promise statement and byline were components of an overarching brand strategy. Our brand strategy started to be loosely formulated in 2001 and then took a more concrete form in 2004.

Then in 2007, we started to develop a comprehensive brand strategy.

The two major components of this strategy were the verbal expression and the visual expression of the brand. The verbal expression defined what our brand stood for, as well as the services and products we offered. The visual expression defined the visual style of our brand, including our logo, typography, color scheme, and other visual components. Once the brand strategy was completed, it 59

was shared with the entire organization to gain internal alignment.

From that point on, we were better equipped to deliver a customer experience that was congruent with our brand strategy.

In thinking of your business model, you need to consider how you derive revenue. The brand promise statement above provides guidance, but further elaboration is needed for a comprehensive business strategy. Continuing the example above, Rhythm® was positioned as an interactive marketing agency and was continually evolving. Below is a breakdown summary of how the business model was constructed and evolved over time.

Rhythm®, an interactive marketing agency providing integrated marketing solutions with a digital core.

Three Pillars: 1. Strategy 2. Design 3. Technology Core Services: 1. Custom Web Development 2. Email Marketing 3. Search Marketing 4. Digital Display Advertising 5. Digital Video 6. Social Media 7. Apps

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Revenue Streams: 1. Fee-based revenue for services provided on a project and hourly basis 2. Media - Brokering digital display, CD-ROM replication, and printing, etc.

3. Automated and recurring revenue - website hosting, Delivery Process: 1. Insight - Client discovery is conducted.

2. Innovate - Strategy is formulated.

3. Immerse - Solutions are designed.

4. Implement - The solutions are built with technology.

5. Impact - Performance measurement takes place and refinements are made.

This model is displayed in the following diagram. In my opinion, diagrams are an excellent tool for conveying information at deeper levels.

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Organization Structure: 1. Executive Management 2. Departmental Management A. Strategy B. Design C. Technology D. Account Services E. Project Management F. Administration 62

Again, to convey this organizational model at a deeper level, the following diagram is displayed.

At this point, we truly had a solid business model with a complete systematic approach to competing in the marketplace. Every team member had their unique role and set of responsibilities. Together, we operated under a delivery framework guided by our brand principles, establishing a true organizational culture.

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CHAPTER SEVEN TRAINING ____________________________________________________

“I hated every minute of training, but I said don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

Muhammad Ali

raining is one of those things that is overlooked by many.

In business and many areas in life, proper training can enable one to produce extraordinary results. Even those with natural abilities benefit by growing their potential for success. Typically, not only is training overlooked, but often a lack of desire to put in the time and effort required exists.

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TRAINING HOW TO FIGHT It is one thing to develop the body, learn techniques, and even bring certain techniques to a high level of disciplined skill. It is a whole other thing to know how to put it all together and apply everything you know in a given situation—in other words, to know how to fight.

This requires training. This type of training is different than the strength and conditioning training discussed in earlier chapters of 64

Building a Foundation. It requires more than just the individual. It requires two or more people … and the more, the merrier.

I’m talking about training how to fight encompassed drills, drills, and more drills—from basic to advanced. You can think of it similar when military recruits go through boot camp. Recruits are led by a drill sergeant. The U.S. Army defines a drill sergeant as “a symbol of excellence in initial entry training, an expert in all warrior tasks and battle drills.1” A martial arts instructor can be seen as a type of drill sergeant.

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And for those leading and managing people, it is your responsibility to train your staff to be warriors in your organization. Fortunately, I had fantastic instructors who guided me through a multitude of drills to hone my skills. A small sample of drills include:

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Stepping

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Fighting with no touch

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Fighting with spacing

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Fighting the imaginary opponent behind the person in front of you

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Fighting within geometric shapes

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Basic combination

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Advanced combination

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Fighting within compartments

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Fighting undesignated, designated, and multiple opponents

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And the list goes on and on…

U.S. Army website - https://www.army.mil/drillsergeant/ 65

What these drills do is enable the individual to combine everything they know and apply it creatively in spontaneous situations. It allows one to experience the intersection of theory and practicality. It demonstrates how one must adapt as the drill progresses and opponents react in unexpected ways. It teaches if you are being effective or not. Ultimately, as you become effective, it builds confidence, which is a necessity in fighting.

Training how to fight is critical in order to become an effective fighter. Without training, one cannot function properly and get the job done. In the business world, we all have a job to do, and it needs to be done right.

SHARPENING YOUR BUSINESS SKILLS In the chapter on techniques, we discussed that it is necessary to build a level of competence with a number of business skills. From the perspective of being an owner, you have to wear multiple hats, meaning you need to execute on a wide variety of tasks. This is different than the five elements every entrepreneur needs, as those are more inherent in the individual and are the skills that make up the offerings of the business itself.

Listed below are essential overall business skills that are required in order to be successful.

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Oral and Written Communication

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Presenting/Speaking

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Selling

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Organization

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Financial

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Strategic Planning 66

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Leadership

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Management

There needs to be at least a base level of skill in these areas. You might have learned some of these skills in school, perhaps through books you picked up along the way. As you apply this knowledge in business, first-time applications of your skills will quite often be filled with mistakes and maybe even failure. But through failure and mistakes, as long as we acknowledge our shortcomings, we can learn in this manner, as well. However, it can come at great expense.

Through a training mindset, you can sharpen your skills through numerous means.

A big takeaway here for you is that, through training, you learn how to apply your skills. That goes for both overall business skills and the skillset that is the basis of your products and services.

For example, industry conferences are a great resource for finding workshops in a particular area. Throughout my career, I’ve loved attending conferences and trade shows. One of my favorites was organized by an email marketing vendor I used, ExactTarget. It provided an opportunity to network and learn about new developments, but also to get specific training on how to utilize particular features and functions of the software, also learning how those features and functions were applied in real-world scenarios.

They also provided training on how to sell the software. It truly was worth the time and expense to attend.

Industry associations are another great resource. Often, there are periodic meetings and events that provide educational and training opportunities specific to your field, especially in areas of running your business. Nowadays, there are a multitude of training courses available online; you can find them by performing simple searches.

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But I also encourage you to look for workshops. A workshop format allows you to learn but then practice what you learn during the course of the event. This is important as I want to draw a distinction between learning and training, since attending conferences and other types of events is a combination of learning and training opportunities. You don’t want to get stuck in a learning but no training mode. Remember, training involves taking what you know and applying it in life-like scenarios. It involves interactions with others so you can gain feedback on your performance. It allows you to refine your execution as you apply your skills.

Another way of sharpening your skills is to train your team members.

Even if a particular topic is new to you, it is beneficial to share your knowledge of how to apply a skillset. For example, if you just attended a workshop on strategic planning, it would benefit you to lead your key team members through a strategic planning exercise.

The more practical experience you get, the more you will embody the skill, so it becomes natural. Ultimately, that is what you want—to operate at such a high level with your skillset that it is effective while being completely natural for you. When you reach this point, you can be confident that your skills are as sharp as a katana (samurai sword).

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CHAPTER EIGHT FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT ____________________________________________________

“Better to fight for something than live for nothing."

George S. Patton

ighting is ugly. That is what my martial arts teacher, Lyndon Cleghorne, conveyed to me early on. It isn’t pleasant. It hurts, and one has to be responsible when it comes to fighting. In a combat sense, it is a last resort. There are things in life worth fighting for, such as your family and loved ones, inalienable human rights, and freedom from oppression. It is these things worthwhile in life that make the fight “a good fight.”

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But the good fight can also be the battle raging within ourselves, the adversity we must overcome based on circumstances, or the fight to stay true to our authentic selves, to live our truth. In the world of business, there are many battles to be fought.

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FIGHTING WITH INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS First of all, the biggest opponent we face is ourselves. It seems we are in a constant struggle with ourselves. It presents itself in the form of negative self-talk, as well as bad habits, over indulgences, wasting precious time, and being distracted by unimportant things. Most of the time we have is spent with ourselves, and this is why we have our biggest challenge and opportunity.

When I started studying martial arts, it was a huge step in the right direction for me. I was distracted by many things, partying with friends mostly. I developed a number of bad habits with alcohol and drugs at an early age. I wasted a lot of time. Although I did work a lot for my parents, outside of work, I could have been much more productive for myself. I had a strong interest in music and had talent.

But I didn’t spend enough time to develop mastery. I could have applied myself more in school and planned for the future, as well.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but we go through our lessons for a reason. In my journey, I was able to experience what a negative path is like, compared to a positive path.

From this firsthand experience, I can relate to those going down a negative path and provide testimony as to the importance of changing direction. For those already on a positive path, I can emphasize the need to stay on path and not allow oneself to become distracted. And for you, the reader, I can attest to the struggle within yourself in the battle for self-improvement. I encourage you to dive deeper into whatever your passion is.

When I discovered martial arts, it ignited a fire within and provided me with the fuel and direction I needed to empower myself.

Everyone is different. Martial arts worked for me. It may or may not work for you. Again, whatever it is that lights your fire, go deeper.

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Stay on path. It is part of the good fight to overcome the darkness within and become a radiant existence that can be of service to others.

Once we have overcome ourselves, we need to hold our own to others that oppose us. In a martial context, this is where all our practice and training is put to the test. This is where the rubber meets the road. We are either going to come out of the situation physically well or badly hurt. There is a huge responsibility for martial artists in knowing restraint, when to act, and what degree of force to use.

This same responsibility applies to business leaders, which I will address later in this chapter. I have had my altercations with individuals and groups in the past. Fortunately, I never was severely hurt and really wasn’t hurt much at all. Then again, I also wasn’t one out and about looking for fights. However, when it mattered most in the defense of others, my skill and training paid off.

In squaring off with individual opponents, there are a number of things a martial artist keeps in mind. Some examples include: •

Always keeping your eyes on an opponent, maintaining a full view of their body

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Utilizing angles for attacking and evading

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Identifying your strengths to utilize and challenges to overcome when facing an opponent

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Identifying threats and opportunities in engagement with an opponent

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Knowing when to use direct hard attacks and soft redirection movements

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Conserving and expending energy

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Maintaining and concealing one’s own rhythm and disrupting the opponent’s rhythm

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An awareness of weapons that may be concealed or wielded by an opponent

The most important thing to keep in mind, though, is when to engage and when to walk away. Is it truly worth fighting for? Or is it superficial and just serving the ego? There are all kinds of people out there, and all of us get tested in a wide variety of ways. We pass or fail these tests depending mostly on if we did the work with ourselves. Did we practice and train? Did we overcome our own ego and negative behaviors? Have we become the best version of ourselves? If we have, then we are prepared to take on any adversary. But do realize, even if we are at our best and doing our best, sometimes it isn’t good enough. It’s an important lesson to learn, and we’ll discuss this in a later chapter.

As a martial artist, I also had to learn how to fight multiple opponents in a group setting. Whether it be by yourself or with others on your side, it is a completely different fight than one-on-one. It is fast and furious. One must be at the absolute top of their game in order to come out on the other side safe and sound. It is where our weaknesses are exposed but our strengths are relied upon the most.

In group settings, a martial artist needs to keep the additional aspects of fighting in mind: •

High awareness of the surrounding environment (i.e., walls, furniture, objects, escape paths, etc.)

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Constant movement and stepping. The warrior knows danger lies in stillness.

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Proper use of covering the body

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Using angles and circular movements to separate and group opponents

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Assessing the most efficient and effective means of striking to get out of the situation

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High awareness of the location of foes and friends in the fight

Fighting in group situations requires an even higher degree of confidence. It is scarier and more dangerous. There are so many factors at play where things can go wrong. However, with the right training and practice, one can be prepared. Through preparation, we are more likely to avert disaster than fall victim to it.

Now let’s see how all this is relevant to the world of business.

DAILY BUSINESS BATTLES As a leader running an organization, whether you are an owner or a top executive, you have to show up every day and be ready for a battle. As mentioned earlier, the biggest daily battle is with yourself.

Even though you might have that under control, there are a number of battles we face internally and externally on a daily basis.

Internal battles are ones that you face with your colleagues. More often than not, everyone is well intended within an organization when working toward achieving goals and objectives. The battles that surface internally normally have to do with differences in opinion, communication styles, leadership styles, and personality conflicts. Sometimes there are individuals who are selfish and only care about themselves, but I found that is the exception, not the norm.

External battles are those that you encounter outside of your organization. It could be your competitors, a challenging client, a 74

vendor, or something more abstract, such as economic conditions and industry trends. In many cases, you cannot control the circumstances of these battles, but you can manage how you react to them, personally and as an organization.

In managing these daily battles, it’s beneficial to take a step back and analyze the battlefields, the business landscape, internally and externally. This requires a strategic mindset and making the time to conduct strategy workshops with your key team members (your management team, your generals). Then the outcomes need to be shared and communicated effectively with the rest of your employees. A common framework used by organizations is a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats, and Opportunities. This framework is organized as follows: Strengths - These are internal to your organization. It is anything that adds value in how you operate and deliver on your products, services, and brand promise. Strengths can include intellectual property, staff talent, proprietary processes, technology and tools, financial resources, even your customer and prospect database. It could be many things; these are just common examples.

Weaknesses - These are also internal to your organization. They detract from the value of your organization. A weakness could be a lack of anything mentioned above in strengths. It can also be inexperience, lack of industry knowledge, lack of brand awareness, and many other aspects that make it a challenge to operate and deliver.

Opportunities - These are external to your organization. They can be anything that you take advantage of to gain an edge in the marketplace. Some examples include new technology platforms, strategic alliances, new markets, demographic trends, a robust 75

economy—essentially anything outside of your organization that you identify as being a chance to grow or improve your business.

Threats - These are also external to your organization. Think of this as anything that can cause damage to your organization from the outside. Examples include new competitors, commoditization of your products or services, a recessionary environment, new laws and regulations, disruption in your industry by outside forces, and any other outside influence with a negative impact.

Every year in my business, I would run a SWOT analysis as part of annual strategic planning efforts. However, I modified the name of SWOT to “SCOT,” substituting the word “Weaknesses” with “Challenges.” I started doing this sometime in the early 2000’s as my martial mindset kicked in while conducting some strategic organizational planning. Although this may seem minor, it creates a conscious shift in the mind. Think about it. When you are faced with a challenge, what do you want to do with that challenge? Almost 100% of the time when I ask this question of someone, they respond with, “I want to overcome it.” Then I say, “Exactly!” This is a critical mindset to have. It is the mindset of a warrior to overcome challenges. It is a great way to rally a team behind initiatives to break through obstacles in your path.

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Here is an example of a SCOT analysis I conducted in the past for my company: Strengths: •

Talent

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Experience

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Knowledge

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Reputation

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Business model

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Strong client base

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Development system

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Vendor relationships

Challenges: •

Workload

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Quality assurance

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System development and adherence

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Communication

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Client satisfaction

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General infrastructure

Opportunities: •

The economy

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Orange County, California Business Environment (where we were located)

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Strategic alliances

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Business marketing shift from traditional to new media

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Threats: •

Overseas competition

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Increased agency competition

You may have noticed that this analysis correlates with principles in martial arts combat mentioned earlier…

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Identifying your strengths to utilize and challenges to overcome when facing an opponent

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Identifying threats and opportunities in engagement with an opponent

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High awareness of the surrounding environment

Once you have these items identified, a plan of action needs to be formulated in order to address all the items in the analysis. For example, another martial arts principle mentioned above is to always keep your eyes on your opponents. As you can see from the “Threats” defined in the example above, “overseas competition” and “increased agency competition” were listed and can be considered as “opponents.” A way to address this threat is to identify your primary competitors and study them. Know them, as in “know your enemy.” As Sun Tzu stated in the Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Where do your competitors excel? Where are they weak? Who are their clients? How do they execute their work? There is a lot of information you can dig up and utilize to your advantage.

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For example, in one case, I was working on taking business away from a competitor with a new client. I knew from inside information I’d gathered that they utilized an antiquated Content Management System (CMS) and that they outsourced work overseas. I also knew that they were only trusted to do development (programming) work.

During an initial meeting with the client, I mentioned that we did not outsource our work overseas, that we had full control of the work with our in-house staff, and due to our experience and processes, we could deliver at a competitive budget. The two people on the client side looked at each other, and their eyes lit up. I could practically hear their thoughts, “Ohh, this could save us big headaches!”

Following that meeting, I would take them out for lunch time to time, and I reinforced the fact that we could be trusted to do design and development work and execute all aspects of a website project. It took some time to gain that trust, but once they gave us an opportunity to prove it, we excelled. Not to mention we utilized a modern CMS framework, and eventually, we took all the work away from that competitor. This client turned out to be one of our biggest clients over the course of a decade.

From this example, I knew our primary competitor and understood their weaknesses. I utilized angles of attack (a martial principle mentioned earlier) to gain entry, combined with a softer circular approach over time (referring to lunchtime conversations about our superior capabilities) to chip away and take all the business.

In your business, you will be faced with many battles. It will be relentless at times, battling with forces within yourself, within your organization, and from the outside. But if you follow the path of a warrior of light and build upon the principles detailed in earlier chapters, you will succeed.

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But success is a journey consisting of wins and losses. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough, and you have to be able to cope with defeat—which leads us to our next chapter.

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CHAPTER NINE WINNING AND LOSING ____________________________________________________ “Thus we may know that there are five essentials

for victory: 1. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

2. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

3. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.

4. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

5. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”

Sun Tzu

f you have not heard of the Art of War, I recommend picking it up.

You can download free versions online. It is the preeminent book of military strategy authored by Sun Tzu, a Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher. Thinking strategically is critical in leading an organization. Any chance you have to gain knowledge

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in formulating strategies, take it. Look for leaders in business and other areas in life who inspire you. There are always lessons and tidbits of wisdom to gain.

In this chapter, we look at winning and losing. Winning is great … losing, not so much. In the world of business, you might face one opponent or many. And unlike sporting and gambling competitions, second place in the world of business pays you nothing. It pays absolutely zero! And in a competitive setting with multiple competitors, second place can really hurt. I would tell my team members, “Second place sucks. We need to be first!” But we don’t win all the time. We win and we lose. How do we continue on, especially when we have been knocked down?

HANDLING WINS AND LOSSES IN MARTIAL ARTS AND BUSINESS As the saying goes, “I don’t mean to beat a dead horse…” but in this case, I do. I have already mentioned that your biggest competitor is yourself. It’s a daily battle, and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. You win by getting better than you were the day before. It is something to feel good about. Continuous wins can call for a reward. Hitting a goal or objective deserves a personal celebration.

That doesn’t mean celebrating in a way that sets you three steps back for your one step forward. It means taking some time for yourself and doing something constructive you find joy in. You need to determine for yourself what that is. Everyone is different and finds joy in different ways. I find joy in the act of creation, such as writing this book.

But what does losing to ourself look like? It’s when we give in to our negative self-talk and, instead of taking action, we sit on our butt doing nothing to make progress toward our goals. It’s when we feel 83

sorry for ourself. It’s when we start to blame others for our misfortune. It’s when we lay in bed and decide not to get up in the morning. It’s apathy, laziness, and sadness. All of us experience these moments. How do we deal with them in productive ways?

One is to make sure you get up to show up. It’s like when a boxer gets knocked down on the canvas. They need to get back up or they’re done. You dig in with everything you’ve got, and you stand up. Life will continually knock you down with all kinds of sucker punches and blows to the gut. You may be down for a bit, but you need to stand before the count is up.

You can find all kinds of inspiring stories in popular culture that reveal how martial artists or other types of warriors deal with wins and losses. The pattern you will notice is the inner battle they contend with to move on after experiencing some sort of struggle, setback, or loss. Then they train to further develop their skills and themselves.

Finally, they face their adversary and overcome. Here are some examples from across the ages…

The Karate Kid (1984) - This classic film tells the story of a young boy named Daniel who moves to a new town and gets bullied by a group of karate students. He meets Mr. Miyagi, an elderly Japanese man who teaches him karate and helps him find the strength and confidence to stand up for himself. He eventually triumphs over his rival, Johnny Lawrence.

Rocky (1976) – This movie tells the story of Rocky Balboa, a smalltime boxer who gets a chance to fight for the heavyweight title.

Despite being an underdog, Rocky refuses to give up and trains hard, eventually going the distance in a grueling fight against the champion, Apollo Creed.

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) – This martial arts epic follows the story of Li Mu Bai, a skilled warrior who must confront his past and overcome his own personal demons in order to defeat the ruthless Jade Fox. Along the way, he befriends and fights alongside a number of other skilled martial artists, including the mysterious and deadly Yu Shu Lien.

Ip Man (2008) - This biographical martial arts film is based on the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun. The film follows Ip Man as he fights to preserve the traditional art of Wing Chun against those who seek to destroy it.

Fearless (2006) - This drama is based on the life of Huo Yuanjia, a Chinese martial artist who became the most famous fighter in all of China at the turn of the 20th century. The film tells the story of Huo's journey to overcome personal tragedy and become a national hero.

The Fighter (2010) - This biographical sports drama tells the true story of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward and his older half-brother, Dicky Eklund.

The film follows Micky as he tries to overcome personal and family struggles to become a successful fighter.

Kung Fu Panda (2008) – This animated movie follows the journey of Po, a clumsy panda who discovers that he is the prophesied Dragon Warrior and must defend his kingdom against an evil snow leopard.

Along the way, he learns to embrace his weaknesses and harness his inner strength to become a true hero.

And the list goes on and on. But whether cartoons, scripted dramas, or real-life biographies, the classic human story remains the same.

It’s because we all have varieties of this story in some way. It does not have to be in a literal fighting context.

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In the world of business, there is no escaping this story. You will be challenged. You will struggle. You will need to dig deep to find the divine spark that helps you overcome your ego. Then, you will overcome.

As you scale your business, you work with a team. Handling wins and losses as a team is critical in both situations. Let’s examine winning.

Of course, winning is great, but how do you and your team handle success? Do you win with grace? Are you thankful for the blessings bestowed upon you for your efforts? The danger that lurks with winning continuously is acquiring a sense of arrogance. An abundance of pride can cause blindness in your operations.

Expectations of winning can develop within you and your team that hinder your organization’s efforts and further development. For those reasons, it’s best to operate in a humble nature. Do not take things for granted. It keeps you striving to be better and to not underestimate anyone.

I’ve had my own battles with these issues personally and seen it with other team members in my organization. If you’re not humble, eventually you get humbled. Did you catch that? Let me say it again, “If you’re not humble, eventually you get humbled.”

Now let’s examine losing. Even when you’re humble, losing sucks. In my business, the nature of the industry was to compete for clients in competitive pitch settings. Not every time, but quite often, we would be responding to an RFP (Request for Proposal) and through a long arduous process, eventually present a final pitch presentation to win the business. Initially, there could be a dozen or more competing companies, and normally it would be narrowed down to three, sometimes up to five in total. It is an ultra-competitive environment as you are pitted directly against your competing peers with a single client with a clear winner and many losers.

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The amount of effort put into the process varied from time to time.

But when you go all in and lose, it hurts bad. Even if you do your absolute best, sometimes it isn’t good enough. It’s a hard lesson, but it happens. It is so important to dust yourself off and keep moving forward. Work to win the next one. I’ll share with you a personal story…

In this particular situation, we had started working with a local client that was quite large and filled with opportunity for us. We were very excited to have successfully finished our first project with them, along with a couple other assignments. We quickly learned that they liked to put out an RFP for every project across all their divisions. They invited us to participate in an RFP opportunity, and the set of competitors was going to be limited. We were happy to participate.

We put forth a solid effort in estimating the project, formulating a strategic approach to meeting their needs for a website and producing a set of “comps” (comprehensive designs) to demonstrate our capabilities. We did our best to prepare and deliver a winning proposal and presentation.

During the pitch presentation, we presented all of our wonderful work, but the meeting went south quickly. The key decision maker started to lecture us on his philosophy on how to properly market his division. It was quite insulting, actually. We left that meeting disturbed and later learned that we were not awarded the project. It was a big disappointment, but it got worse. We eventually saw their finished website, and it turned out that it was a copy of our design!

They only changed the fonts and a couple minor embellishments. But the vast majority of the layout, look, and feel was our design.

It just so happened we discovered this right when we were in the middle of participating in two more RFPs for this client. My Creative Director was so incredibly angry about this blatant rip-off of our work 88

and rightfully so. However, he was so angry that he wanted us to withdraw from the current RFP opportunities. This was a critical moment. We could walk away and maintain our sense of pride, or we could go to battle again and prove our value. It was quite a discussion between me and the Creative Director, who, by the way, was exceptional—a truly incredibly talented individual. He was really stuck on not moving forward. I finally had to say I would get someone else to work on the presentation. He thought for a moment and said, “No, I’ll do it.”

He reluctantly moved forward but understood the importance of what we needed to do. I commend him for his ability to set pride aside, be humble, do his best work, and overcome the challenge facing us. We put together two beautiful presentations, and at the end of the day, lost again! Our best was just not good enough. It was Brutal, with a capital B! However, we picked ourselves back up and went for it again at the next opportunity, and we won. Then we won again, and again, and again. It started a streak of high-paying projects for a notable client that helped us excel our business to new heights. What if we had let our pride get the best of us? What if we decided to give up after the second brutal loss? We would have been our own worst enemy.

Instead, we eventually proved our value to this client and reaped the rewards.

Winning is awesome, and losing sucks. I love to win. As I would say, “Let’s crush our competitors.” But we all win some, and we lose some. For the long run, we need to handle all these situations with a balanced perspective—a perspective that allows us to celebrate our victories and not agonize in defeat. There is an old saying, “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” is very true. Either way, we need

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to find our balance and come back to center. Having this mindset payoffs in the long run.

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CHAPTER TEN THE MIND ____________________________________________________

“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable."

Seneca

of the greatest appealing aspects of the martial arts is how O itnedevelops the mind, body, and spirit. When I started studying martial arts, this was one of the great points that attracted and drew me in. To this day, it still is. That’s why the final three chapters of this book are dedicated to the mind, body, and spirit.

We’ll start with the mind, as it is incredibly powerful. In esoteric circles, it is said that “all is mind.” And if you haven’t noticed yet, this book is really all about mindset—particularly the mindset it takes to be successful in business. It all starts with the mind. Nothing happens without the thoughts in our head. Everything in existence was once a thought that eventually took form in the material plane. Your mind provides you the power to manifest your reality, and it all starts with a single thought in your mind.

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THE MIND MAKES YOU WIN A winning mindset. It’s a common term and is used often by all kinds of professionals across industries, and for good reason. Having a winning mindset is critical to success. However, it takes time and effort to build and maintain a winning mindset. Even for people that tend to naturally have a winning mindset, it can be a challenge to maintain due to all the challenges life brings us.

Some people equate a winning mindset to simply mean positive thinking. But it is more than that. The mind is incredibly sophisticated, and when utilized to its fullest, it makes you win.

In martial arts or any form of fighting, one must develop confidence in order to win. Without confidence, one falls apart and can even freeze in fear. Confidence is activated in the mind. From an energetic standpoint, the energetic frequency of confidence resides in the solar plexus chakra and kidneys, but the mind activates this energy. It is a state of being, of thinking, a mindset of confidence that helps this energy to build and be carried with you day-to-day.

Confidence leads to courage. Courage leads to action. To start your own business, it takes courage and confidence to take action. I’ll share another story from a martial perspective that equates to courage and confidence.

Many moons ago, I was at a festival watching a band perform with my girlfriend (now my wife). It was out in the open and there were no seats, so everyone was standing and bunched together. I noticed some commotion about twenty feet ahead of us. A group of three guys and their girlfriends were making a scene. The guys were giving some other guy a hard time for no apparent reason. The victim was an older gentleman who was attending with his wife (assuming it was his wife due to their age). Two of the antagonists were quite big, 93

probably around 6”3’, 240 pounds. At the time, I was about 190 pounds and 6 feet in height.

The commotion went on for at least twenty minutes, and everyone around was getting upset and irritated at the group causing the trouble. Everyone could tell the older gentleman just wanted to be left alone and didn’t even know what the problem was. But the group continued taunting and taunting him. No one did anything about it.

After about thirty minutes, I started getting pretty angry. I was 28 years old at the time, and I was really stressed out from the struggle of getting the business going. You could say my fuse was short. I thought, “If these guys get near me and they are still doing this, I’m going to kick their ass!” Sure enough, within five minutes of having that thought, through the shuffling of the crowd, they ended up right in front of me. This demonstrates the power of the mind to influence reality. Clearly, the universe responded to my thought and presented the group to me in order for me to handle the situation.

Now they were in front of me, and they again started taunting the other gentleman, who was about ten feet to the left of us. So I drew my right hand back in a fist, and I punched the biggest guy in the face.

He stumbled back about six feet, almost falling. The crowd immediately separated, forming a circle around us, and one of the other guys tried to hit me with wild punches. I calmly utilized my Kung Fu stepping to evade and covered his face with my left hand and hit him with a hard right. Then I grabbed the back of his neck and kneed him in the face and threw him to the ground. I looked up and saw the guy I punched coming toward me with the look of a demon. He was so angry that his nostrils were flaring. I thought to myself, “Well, that was stupid. There are three of them and only one of me.” But then I thought, “Let’s go!”

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At that point, my memory is vague as I blacked out. It’s not the only time that I have experienced this blackout in a fight where I don’t remember the entire sequence of events. Long story short, though, I took care of the situation. I didn’t even get hit. Event Staff came over while I was kicking one of the guys in the face multiple times and yelled, “Stop!” I replied, “Kick their ass out of here; they’re drunk!”

He said, “Okay, stay right here,” and I said, “Okay.” Then I looked to my right and my girlfriend (now wife) was standing right there. I asked if she was okay, and she said, “Yes, are you?” I quickly said, “Yes, let’s get out of here.” We quickly made a straight line to the back and left the crowd.

The reason I relay this story is to help illustrate how the mind plays such an important role in a confrontation. First of all, no one was taking action in the situation. It took courage to stand up to three bullies in defense of a stranger. This courage was activated by my mind with the confidence in my abilities. The thought to take action was initiated in my mind, and then courage moved me into action. At the point I thought, “That was stupid…” a confident and courageous mindset took over with the belief I could handle it, and I did, coming out unscathed. It was the mindset I had that activated all my abilities to prevail.

A quick disclaimer, though, I do not advocate fighting; remember, it is always a last resort.

A proper mindset sets you up for success. It provides the confidence and courage to seek opportunities, to engage in sales conversations, to ask for the close, and win new business! It provides the confidence and courage to engage at networking events, to lead a team to victory. It also provides the mental fortitude to persevere in dire conditions.

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In addition to discipline, courage, and confidence, perseverance is a quality you need in order to succeed. Your perseverance is essentially the power of your will. This energy also resides in the solar plexus chakra and kidneys, but again is activated and sustained in the mind.

And when I say mind, I’m not necessarily referring to the physical brain. I’m referring to your consciousness—the energy that resides within you facilitated by the physical brain and the “second brain,” the gut.

I’ll share another story to demonstrate how the mind makes you win.

It was late summer or early fall of 2009. We had just completed the purchase of our office building in the spring, earlier that year at the height of the credit crunch and great recession. We built out a custom office space and moved into the new office in July. That is its own story of courage and determination as we were able to acquire the building with 100% financing while the economy was in disarray.

It just so happened that by the fall, we started feeling the effects of the recession, and our cash flow was dwindling. We had at least a dozen employees, and we reached a point where we only had about $5,000 left in our bank account, not enough to cover the next payroll period. I remember saying to my business partner, “We are going to do whatever the fuck it takes to get through this!”

It was such an incredibly stressful time, but through determination and perseverance, we prevailed. We landed some new work, had some payments come in, and we were managing our line of credit well. We did not miss any payroll periods, nor did we lay anyone off.

It was a scary time as we had just bought the building, moved in, and company morale was strong. But all of that momentum could have gone downhill fast if we couldn’t make payroll.

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Rather than freezing in fear, action was taken through a lot of conversations with clients and potential clients to move things along.

There was strong determination and perseverance activated in the mind that enabled us to overcome.

I do want to convey, though, that there are times when the mind needs to make difficult decisions, such as laying off employees. We had to go through that during a couple periods of rapid growth. But the mind is what is utilized to determine when to take various courses of action. It is the mind that evaluates the situation, formulates a strategy, and determines the best path to take. It all takes place in the mind, and it is what makes you win. When the mind is combined with the heart, it is even more powerful. More on that later.

THE MIND MAKES YOU MONEY In business, the mind is utilized in so many wonderful ways. The creative side and logical side can be used independently, but they can also be combined for intense problem solving. In problem solving, we formulate solutions. When we have solutions to shared persistent problems in the marketplace, we have a means to make money. It really is that simple. A problem needs a solution. When you create a solution to fill that need, solving the problem at hand, you have an opportunity to generate a revenue stream. Solve a problem, fill a need. The mind is essential for this process.

Another application of the mind is in creating effectiveness and efficiencies in your business. How do you execute operations in the most effective and efficient manner possible? The quality of your solutions provides the effectiveness, and the speed in which you deliver indicates the efficiencies existing in your operations. In order to be highly effective and efficient, an organization needs defined 97

processes. A systematic approach to operations is comprised of defined processes. The more systematic your organization becomes, the greater efficiencies are realized.

From a martial perspective, I learned that one must operate in an efficient and effective manner. We have a finite amount of energy to sustain the body in a combative situation. Energy must be expended in the most efficient means possible and should not be expended in wasteful ways. The breath must be controlled in order to conserve energy and not experience fatigue. Even the manner in which the body moves in stepping, striking, and defending is based on geometric principles to maximize force and utilize energy. In business, not only do you need to deliver effectively and efficiently as described above, but you need to conserve your resources as best as possible. Think of your cash reserves as your breath. If you run out of breath, the body falls apart. If you run out of cash, your business falls apart.

The manner in which one moves in a fight is the equivalent to how a business operates through processes. The systems that drive operations are similar to fighting styles (which can be referred to as systems). Your mind directs all of this. It is the conductor. It is the master strategist. It is the General.

I encourage you to make it a pursuit to develop your mind. Always be learning. Through learning, we create new neural networks in the brain, keeping it healthy and strong. Also, be sure to get adequate sleep. The mind needs rest. Time to “defragment the hard drive” so it can be alert and operate at full capacity the following day. In general, I recommend staying away from the “mind changers,” substances that alter the mind. I say “in general” as there are circumstances in which some plant-based medicines are proving to be effective in treating certain conditions. However, there tends to 98

be an over indulgence in utilizing these medicines for recreational purposes or to have continuous mind-altering experiences for other purposes. This is a whole other topic, one that is outside the scope of this book. I just recommend being cautious. There are great ways to develop the mind through meditation practices that can provide similar benefits but in a much safer way.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN THE BODY ____________________________________________________

“It is through this physical body that the highest and greatest purpose of life is achieved. A person only calls it the physical body in ignorance. Once the knowledge has come ... he begins to look upon it as the sacred temple of God." Hazrat Inayat Khan

he human body is incredibly amazing. In my view, it is the most highly sophisticated machine in existence. It can perform incredible feats of athleticism and strength. Yes, it is delicate and easily broken. The body is comprised of so many components and systems all operating in a synergistic manner, consciously and unconsciously. Through martial arts, I learned to develop the body in order to perform as an athlete. I also learned how to develop and maintain health. I experienced the benefits of pursuing a healthy path and how incredible it can make me feel. However, I also experienced how the body starts to suffer when it is neglected over time.

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The body is amazing in that every aspect serves a purpose. There is no waste. From large body parts down to microscopic levels, everything serves a purpose. It is my belief that there is no such thing as “junk DNA” and that we have not yet discovered the full potential of what is stored in our DNA. It is also my belief that we did not evolve by random chance. There is too much order and purposeful design.

When it comes to your business, I recommend emulating the amazing creation of the human body. Every component of your business should serve a specific purpose. There should not be any waste. Whatever waste develops needs to be thrown out, just likely the body excretes its waste products. Let’s draw some analogies.

The body has a number of systems, such as the skeletal system, the muscular system, the cardiovascular system, the nervous system, the digestive system, the lymphatic system, etc. In your business, think of the departments or divisions within your organization as these bodily systems. They are each composed of various parts, people, and equipment that carry out specific tasks to serve various functions, just like our bodily systems.

In the previous chapter, we already discussed the mind as the General, the leader. Let’s consider the nervous system as your executive management team. The brain, spinal cord, and vagus nerve (second brain) are responsible for communicating and directing the body to perform tasks. For example, it directs the muscular system to move and generate force through the body. You can create all kinds of analogies on your own. The point here is that the body is an integrated machine that is highly efficient and effective in survival.

Think of it as a high source of inspiration in developing your business model and organizational structure.

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The body itself gets stronger through training and repetition. Your organization improves its effectiveness and efficiencies through training and repetition, as well. Once the mind establishes systems and processes, other people need to learn these systems and processes through training. Then, as your team continues to perform tasks and activities within these defined processes and systems, they get better and better. They become stronger, just like the body.

Another way to think about it is this: I can read about martial arts or any sort of physical sporting activity, but that doesn’t mean I would be good at applying it in real life. There is a high probability that I will just get hurt.

Only through training, repetition, and experience can one truly get better. The same goes for business. You can have many wonderful ideas, but your organization needs to work together as an integrated machine in coherence. The more natural it becomes, the better the performance. This really goes for any activity.

It’s imperative that you spend time developing your organization, just as you would develop your body. In other words, you “embody” what you know and understand through the experiences you put your body through. Once your systems, processes, and behaviors are embodied, everything is natural and your organization is in homeostasis, an ultimate state of balance and stability.

Once a body is developed to a strong degree, it needs to be maintained properly. Otherwise, components start to break down and not function as well as they should. This was a hard lesson I learned and an important one that I share with you in order to avoid complications down the road.

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When I started my company, I was still active in martial arts.

However, I became so immersed in my business, I stopped taking time to take care of myself, which was mostly through martial arts and strength training. I become much more sedentary, sitting for long periods of time, designing, programming, researching, planning, and doing all the other day-to-day activities that it takes to get a business going. Also, I got very little sleep. During my first five years in business, I would get about three to five hours of sleep a day. Over time, my sleep increased to four to six hours, then five to six hours, and it stayed at that level for a long time. I don’t recommend this. I ended up gaining weight and eventually developing a challenge with diabetes. Once this condition set in, it affected my performance and life in general. I ended up getting foggy brain at times. After dinner, I would find myself passing out on the couch, which I would never, ever do before. I would feel a crash in the afternoon. I just let myself go. Looking back, that was a big mistake.

There are times in business when duty calls and you have to do what it takes to get the job done, even it if is pulling an all-nighter (I did a number of those). But it should be the exception. It is just too easy to fall into the trap to just keep going, day after day, night after night, non-stop. It will catch up to you. It caught up to me. I was quite unusual in this respect that I could pretty much outwork anyone in my circles. But my obsessiveness got the best of me. It is a very fine line to balance.

If I had to summarize a recommended approach, think of it this way … it is better to be of service to yourself so that you can then be of service to others. If you spend all your time putting everyone else before yourself, you will eventually burn out through a damaged mind, body, and spirit. But by taking care of yourself first, you can last a lifetime in service to others.

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As I described taking care of yourself and your body above, the same applies to your business. It needs maintenance. You also need to put your business first over vendors, strategic partners, and even clients at times. If your business gets damaged through your various business relationships, does it really allow you to be of service to as many people as possible? Will your products and services continue to scale and reach and fulfill the needs of large amounts of people?

Every situation is unique and needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. At times, you need to go the extra mile, or as I would say, “go beyond the extra mile.” But your business needs to be managed in that it is maintained properly and receiving the proper amount of cash (just as the body needs proper nutrition) in order to sustain itself. There are so many things that can go wrong. Burned-out employees that quit, unhappy vendors that suddenly turn their time and attention elsewhere, and eventually unhappy clients that feel the effects of this breakdown.

Your body is amazing, and your business can be amazing, too. Take the time to develop and maintain both. And remember to be of service to self so you can be of service to others, for a lifetime.

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CHAPTER TWELVE THE SPIRIT ____________________________________________________

“All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.

The fight to the finish spirit is the one ... characteristic we must possess if we are to face the future as finishers.”

Henry David Thoreau

he human spirit is extraordinary. It is ultimately what gets you through it all. I saved this topic for the last chapter as it is normally when you are at your wits end, against the wall, at the end of your rope that your spirit gets you through it all. It is what breaks through the wall of fear. It is the spirit that can only truly be understood through the experience of being put to the test.

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The spirit can be thought of as our thoughts and emotions combined.

It is not only our thoughts—not only our emotions. It is the combination of the two—the combination of the heart (emotions) and mind (thoughts).

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There is another, higher esoteric aspect to spirit, but that goes beyond the scope of this book. For our purpose here, we need to examine how our thoughts and feelings combine to shape our will, t drive us forward. How are our thoughts and feelings working together when everything is easy and in flow? Most likely, they are highly positive. But then negative forces hit us, whether they be external or internal. An internal negative force could just be a negative thought, such as the negative self-talk that enters into the mind and tells us that we are not good enough. Even though our feelings at the moment may exude happiness and joy, the negative thought enters and changes our emotions to one of trepidation, doubt, and fear and eventually detracts from your spirit. Your heart and mind have now entered a dark place.

The more you can retain heart and mind coherence within a positive framework, the more your spirit is fueled to perform. The heart/mind connection can help you accomplish anything.

The interesting paradox, though, is that when we are put to the test, we truly discover “what we’re made of,” which really translates to how we discover our innate power of the spirit within. It is at these times when our sprit learns lessons that nourish the soul.

In martial arts, we see vigorous tests of the spirit within. As the body takes a beating and takes damage, the mind starts to malfunction.

The body and mind start to separate, instead of working together.

Oxygen is depleted, and the legs weaken. Breathing gets shallow, and the mind doesn’t react as it should. It is here where the spirit rises and takes over. It continues to push the body to do more, to go beyond its limitations.

Many of us have observed this in the final rounds of a boxing match, when a fighter seems to have nothing left but still keeps standing. Or 107

as they get knocked down, they keep getting up. It’s also a common scene in martial art movies. It is the rise of the human spirit that inspires us and others, as well. It is what keeps us going when the going gets tough. I’ll share a story of one time in particular when I was close to quitting, but my resilient warrior spirit kicked in and kept me going…

The time was somewhere around 1999, after about three years of being in business. It was late at night, probably around midnight, and I was working alone in my office. And this will sound a bit odd and funny, and looking back it is … it was freezing cold in my office. We had moved into an industrial office park to share a small industrial building with my parent’s fire sprinkler company, which was struggling, too. We were able to split the rent and save money for all of us.

There was the entryway with a desk, then one office, and the rest was warehouse space. A quarter of the warehouse space was converted into a pseudo-office by a wall my dad and brother-in-law built. But the wall did not reach the ceiling, and there was no heating and air conditioning. So it got really cold in the winter and really hot in the summer. On this particular night, it was freezing. I believe the thermostat in the small office read 48 degrees Fahrenheit, which meant it was even colder in the pseudo-office/warehouse space where I was working. I had a heavy jacket on and was wearing gloves.

I was banging away at the keyboard, working on a project and having difficulties with it. Up to this point, it was a brutal struggle of surviving and trying to gain traction in the business. With the difficulties with the project at hand and the overall challenges, I started to reach a breaking point mentally and emotionally. I was tired and started feeling so depressed. I thought, “What am I doing? This is stupid.” I felt like I was going nowhere and was falling behind in life. Many of 108

my friends had good paying jobs, and I was stuck with not much to show for it. Entertaining the idea of giving up, I thought, “Maybe I should just quit.” I became so upset, my eyes started welling up, and I’m sure some tears fell down my face. Feeling defeated and miserable, I buried my head in my arms on my desk and wallowed in despair.

Then for some reason, I decided to check my email and saw that I had just received an email from one of my vendors, a web hosting company. The email was from the owner of the company, and it was a thank you message. He was saying thank you to all his customers and how it was such a struggle for him for years. He shared that he was moments away from quitting at times and how suddenly things turned around. He went on to mention that he would never take vacations (which I hadn’t, either) and now is able to take plenty of vacations with the only struggle being to make time for them. The email went on with a number of positive messages.

That email arrived right at the moment I needed it. I had a divine nudge to check my email, and there was a message I needed to take in at that very moment. That email got me through the night. It reignited my spirit. I went home shortly afterward and came back the next day with a better state of mind. The struggle continued, but I had a much better mindset—one filled with optimism and hope for the future.

Another aspect of your “fighting spirit” that you need to keep in mind is that once you experience growth in your company, you need to nourish the spirit of your team. You and your staff will be faced with immense challenges from time to time. And even though you may have what it takes to get through it, you also have to lead others through it. This is a whole other level and test of your spirit. If you can’t do this, you will end up being alone as all your employees leave 109

you. I have seen it happen to others. This is where your investment in your team pays off. By training your team just as a martial arts master develops their students, the team becomes strong and resilient. They will step up to the call of duty when needed and push through with the will of their spirit. When the spirits of many are combined, great things can be accomplished. What may seem to be unsurmountable challenges can be overcome.

In running my company, I made it through the dot-com crash, 911, the 2008 financial crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic. In times like these, team members get scared. Nothing detracts from the spirit like fear. It binds the spirit in chains, locks it in a prison cell, and throws away the key. Luckily, chains can be broken, and there is a key to every lock. It takes leadership and the spirit of light within to spark the flames of your team’s spirit, so they can break the shackles of fear and move forward with determination and the will to overcome. I’ll share another personal example…

Rhythm® was experiencing a stage of high performance in many areas. Our team was growing, revenues were increasing, our profit margins were being maintained at strong levels, and we had even been awarded with Best Places to Work and made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies multiple years in a row. However, we got a little ahead of ourselves. We suddenly hit a revenue wall and bounced backwards off of it. With the company’s finances heading in the opposite direction, we had to take action to course correct and reduced staff by approximately fifteen percent. It was a very hard decision and an extremely unpleasant process.

Once our layoffs were complete, we held an all-company meeting to address the current situation. Various members of our management team were briefed beforehand, and we took turns speaking to the team. The last one to speak, I was expressing my views. It was 110

difficult, and I wasn’t flowing as normal. One of the other managers interrupted me to cut the meeting short, but I said, “No, hold on. I have more to say.” Then I reached within and expressed to the team how we would get through this challenge—that we had been challenged numerous times in the past, and we had always come out of it and become even stronger.

I delivered this message with passion. The team felt it, and even though it was a somber situation, I could feel the emotions in the room change. I could see the expressions on the faces of our team members start to relax and be relieved. Afterward, team members thanked me for reassuring them. In the end, the team stayed intact.

Only one team member resigned later on due to their concern about the future. Although a solid performer and another challenge, it worked out fine.

In times like this, you need a team of believers. It is through the combined efforts and beliefs as one mind of a team in complete coherence that great things can be accomplished. Shortly after we were faced with this challenge, we were able to get our operations back on track. We continued our growth and success, which led to the eventual sale of the company to a world-class agency. It was the capstone of success. But it took the entire team to get there. And it required strong leadership to get the team through the struggle, rise to the occasion, and become the heroes of our journey.

I hope you can appreciate and understand how important the fighting spirit is within us. It is our ultimate battleground. We need to nourish and develop our spirit to evolve and grow. At times, we need to experience an entire self-transformation to breakthrough to new heights.

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There are many practices to help nourish the spirit. From a martial perspective, enduring physical tests of the body also nourishes the spirit. Various meditations also nourish the spirit. Other spiritual practices based on one’s belief systems obviously help. Exposing yourself to positive experiences through people, places, situations, and media can help. Even the act of reading this book can help nourish the spirit, along with other self-help and personal development material.

There really is no one path that is the only way. There are many paths up the mountain, but the top is the top. Explore what works for you.

It is your journey. You are a unique, divine expression of the Creator.

You have your unique path to the Dao, the way of all existence. Keep moving forward in the pursuit of what makes you happy and fulfilled.

Now go out there and kick ass!

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ____________________________________________________

of all, I would like to acknowledge the people I dedicated f irst this book to … my wife, children, parents, and other family members for their love and support. And, of course, Elder Lyndon Cleghorne, Chief Elder Harry Castel, and Grandmaster Alan Lee. I would also like to acknowledge teachers in my practice of qigong.

This includes my first medical qigong instructor, Russ Anderson, for helping me get back to center. Also, Dr. Jerry Alan Johnson for all the amazing qigong (and Kung Fu) teachings in his doctorate program for Chinese Energy Medicine. Also, his teacher assistants, Dr. William Welch Jr., Dr. Diego San Miguel, Dr. Chris Holder, and Sifu Harinder Singh Sabharwal. Everyone has contributed to me gaining a deeper understanding of martial arts, qigong, and the principles that carry over to all aspects of life.

I would also like to thank all my colleagues, clients, strategic partners, and vendors who contributed to the journey at Rhythm®. A big thanks to Ryan Polite and Peter Bohenek for embarking on the entrepreneurial journey with me and the lessons we learned along the way. A special thank you to Karene Haeseker for her long114

standing service and dedication. I believed in you, and you proved to everyone that you could handle being a part of the management team. Another special thank you to Daniela MacLeod for her longstanding dedication, hard work, and for defending Rhythm® at times of need. I would also like to acknowledge Rita Kelly for her amazing service as part of our management team and helping us grow to new levels. A big thank you to Steve Zehngut for his technical wizardy that helped us gain momentum with our proprietary technology framework. And, of course, the people at Code & Theory for recognizing the value of Rhythm® and fulfilling my goal for selling the company.

I need to acknowledge the people who made this book possible and brought it to life. This includes Greg Reid for being willing to bring me into your publishing world, Patti McKenna for her incredible editing and interior design work, and also Wesley Bryant for the awesome design work on the front and back cover of this book. Also, big thanks to Scott Duffy for his advice and making the connections to Greg Reid.

All of these people helped me cross the finish line to fulfilling a longtime desire to become a published author. Thank you.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR CRAIG COOKE is a successful entrepreneur who had the foresight to start a “digital first” company utilizing the Internet long before “digital first,” “digital transformation,” and other buzzwords of today were created. With extremely limited resources of $1,300 and an Apple computer, he started RhythmNet.com with a couple friends from college. Over the years of struggle, adaptation, and repositioning the brand, “Rhythm“ was sold to a world-class digital creative agency in 2019. Craig stayed with the company for just over 3 years, completing a 26-year marathon of running the company as CEO. During his tenure at Rhythm®, Craig worked with middle market to large enterprise companies, such as American Honda Motors, Beats by Dr. Dre, ZO Skin Health, Irvine Company, The Travel Corporation, Segway, U.S. Bank, FivePoint, Online Trading Academy, Allergan, Abbott Labs, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and many other B2C and B2B brands.

During the course of leading Rhythm® to success, numerous organizational achievements were attained, including, but not limited to, the following: •

Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies, five years in a row, 2013 through 2017. Only seven percent of companies on this list achieve this feat.

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Best Places to Work in Orange County by Orange County Business Journal, 2013 and 2014

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Top Places to Work in Orange County by Orange County Register, 2015 and 2016

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Listed in the top 15 Advertising and Marketing Agencies in Orange County by the Orange County Business Journal

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Honored by American Honda Motors as the first company to be designated as a Premiere Partner after the first year of service

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Purchased a commercial office building in 2009 at the height of the credit crunch

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Being acquired by a world-class strategic buyer

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Numerous industry awards for our portfolio of work

In addition to the organization achievements above, Craig was honored with the following personal awards and recognition: •

40 under 40 of Orange County Professionals by OC Metro Business Magazine, 2009

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40 Under 40 of American Indian Professionals by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, 2008

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Top 100 Marketing & Advertising Leaders, 2021 by Marketing, Advertising and Retail Summit (MARsum)

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Member of the Golden Key Honor Society reserved for the top 15% of graduates in their class (College of Business Administration at California Polytechnic University, Pomona)

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Member of the Forbes Agency Council

Craig has also participated as a speaker in many conferences and seminars, including “Connections” by ExactTarget, The “Res 117

Conference” by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, The Integrated Marketing Forum, and numerous other events. He has also served on the boards of the California American Indian Chamber of Commerce as Vice-President and the American Advertising Federation as Interactive Chair.

Today, Craig shares his business wisdom, experience, and expertise in three key areas: executive leadership, brand development, and marketing communications. He continues his training in martial arts, continuously learning and evolving his skills. Also, he has studied and served as a practitioner of Chinese Medical Qigong since 2015, bringing energy healing to hundreds of people. Currently, he is pursuing a doctorate of Chinese Energy Medicine from the Temple of Change and Transformation. Craig incorporates his skills, knowledge, and expertise in energetic practices into the world of business to provide a truly unique perspective and method in working with professionals across a wide variety of industries.

Outside of his consulting and qigong practice, Craig enjoys spending time with his wife, two kids, and two dogs in Southern California.

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