Episode 45: Why The Best Corporate Training and Instructional Design Uses a Jiu-Jitsu Mindset

Most people think success in sales, business, and life is about quick wins or flashy skills. But what if the secret is much simpler—and more accessible than you think? Eric Sperrazza, a black belt in jiu-jitsu and a seasoned corporate trainer, reveals how foundational principles—like patience, authenticity, and dressing for the role—are the real game-changers. His story shows that mastering the mindset in both martial arts and business can unlock doors you never even realized were there.In this episode, you'll discover:

• How the discipline of jiu-jitsu teaches patience and persistence—traits that translate directly into career success.
• The importance of role-playing and dress codes in building confidence and professional presence.
• Why sincere trust-building and active listening outshine manipulative tactics in sales—and how to develop them.
• The surprising connection between working through plateaus in jiu-jitsu and overcoming career stagnation.
• Practical lessons on how to keep working even when you're not seeing immediate results, from a veteran who’s been there.

Eric shares personal stories—from the lessons of his tough Italian mother to legendary UFC fighters—and reveals that success isn’t about talent alone but relentless effort, humility, and consistency. This episode is an urgent reminder: your growth depends on showing up, playing the long game, and doing the little things with care and sincerity.Perfect for entrepreneurs, salespeople, athletes, and anyone committed to continuous improvement. Whether you’re on the mat, in the office, or on stage, Eric’s insights will transform the way you approach your craft—and your life.If you believe in the power of mindset over talent, and understand that real trust wins every time, you won’t want to miss this. Tap in, level up, and remember: success is a habit.

Check Out These Links To Eric's Amazing Work:

https://sjbjj.com/

https://open.spotify.com/show/408YNMbguYSw1IJZu6rXeK?si=z0C4jR4BRb-FCXWjfTvQpw

http://www.tiktok.com/@thattrainingexpert

https://cacophonymedia.com/

https://youtube.com/@thattrainingexpert?si=hdJYvs0m0PMn_-ek

https://www.facebook.com/share/17EBAzW6KK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the Career Jitsu Podcast, where we connect the art of jiu-jitsu with your career. Our mission is to empower and inspire you with engaging conversations and valuable insights from people just like you who benefit from the shared relationship between your workplace and the art of jujitsu, leading you to a more fulfilling and successful life. Hello everybody! Welcome to the Career Jitsu Podcast. Today is gonna be an exciting day for everyone. A lot of great insight is coming your way in this podcast. I am gonna start with a question because I've been recently wanting to start a question to our audience, our listeners and our viewers. My question today is: what are the most essential lessons for people to learn both on the mat and in the workplace? We have an expert that can help us today on that. So the gentleman today is Eric Spiraza. Eric is a black belt and BJJ, um, and he is an entrepreneur. So entrepreneurship and jujitsu go very well together for success. So he is a successful individual in his professional life as well. He is a corporate trainer. So he does some sales training. He also is involved in instructional design, I guess, for corporations. He has done a lot of public speaking and he also has done some MC work for events and promotions. So he's gonna talk about all of this stuff and its connection to the art of jujitsu. So welcome to the podcast, Eric. Hey guys, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Eric, we appreciate your time here. And I am extremely excited to talk to you because in my past life I did a lot of corporate training as well. And I remember that it's kind of like you eat what you kill, you have to go out. You are a salesperson, you have to take a lot of rejection. You have to work hard to make your connections, you have to network. It's kind of like the art of jujitsu. It's it's a hard thing to do. And then after you do all that, you have to over-deliver because you want to make sure that your client thinks I got more than I paid for. So I am so excited to hear about your career development, some of the things you've learned. And as a uh business teacher, I know a lot of my students are gonna be watching this, and I'm excited to get some advice for them as they go into their business careers on how to sell yourself, how to present yourself, and those things really anybody in the workforce is gonna benefit from. So thank you so much for coming in. And let's start off with your professional career. Where did it start? How did it start? And how did you build up to be your own man with your own clientele?

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Uh, let's see. I want to give credit where credit is due to a one, Bob Spirazza. Bob Sperazza, my father, um, is uh a guy that is, in my opinion, too smart for his own good. My dad should have been uh a professor at Villanova or an author or some type of you know roads scholar. My dad spent his career in sales. My dad uh graduated from Villanova University and got into sales and from a very early age supported my family as a road warrior. He worked for a medical publishing company. And I can safely say that almost five out of five days a week, he was on the road driving through the Northeastern Corridor with Blue Cross, Blue Shield, American, you know, Red Cross, um, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Uh his company made um, if you remember back in the 80s and 90s, there were those little colored pamphlets in your school nurse's office that said, all you should know about AIDS or all you should know about Lyme disease. And they had little stick figures on them. That company was my dad's company, and he was just a grinder road warrior. And uh I remember being uh a little kid as a Gen Xer, you know, pop culture was was through the roof, and there was no greater day in school than Show and Tell. Because you got to show what new pop culture tchotchke you got, right? So uh I, you know, all the other kids are bringing in G.I. Joe and She-Man and all of these, you know, strawberry shortcake. And I remember being 6 a.m. in the morning, sitting with my dad at the kitchen table with a coloring book his company makes. Like, like, why we should, you know, be you know more cautious about what we put in our body? Let's talk about unhealthy fats. And like, and I'm like, dad, I just I just want to bring a transformer in. Like, I I don't I don't want to do this. And yeah, I would have to just sit there and you know, he's like, no, this is really important. And like looking back in retrospect, I'm like, was he like lead fielding? Was he just sending me in there to get some warm leads out of that school? But I warm leads. Honestly, that really was the beginning of it. That's when I really started developing the passion for being able to sell a need, or sell, I should say, an end to somebody's need. My dad became my my biggest mentor and tutor in my life. I got into entry-level mortgage sales, like commission only, nine in the morning till nine at night, six days a week. And my dad was the guy that was cheering me on. When I got my first sales team, he bought me a book by Jeffrey Gittimer called The 12 and a half principles for a successful salesperson. Uh, 12 and a half principles is what the nickname is for that. But I he gave me this and he said, uh, I gave this to all of my sales guys when they first started. Because at this point, now he was a regional manager. His territory was like a third of the country by the time by that point. And I just, I just never forgot that. You know, and I remember as I started having kids, my wife and I were on kid number two. That grind was getting old. That six days a week, nine to nine, staying there till one in the morning, you know, on the last day of the month to make sure all my deals closed. If you ask my oldest daughter, my oldest daughter's 27, and you ask her what time was like with dad when she was little, and she'd say, well, Saturday, we'd go to his office. Uh I would watch Wonder Woman movies in a conference room. And if I was really good at like five or six, we'd go get something to eat. So I was looking for a change in how I could take the success that I experienced in sales and my love for bringing people up to the scratch. And what I mean by that is as a sales manager, I didn't like the side of the job that was just chasing Excel spreadsheets. And, you know, Frank, I'm sure you can appreciate just having a go, like, what is your call to app ratio? What is your app to submission ratio? What's your submission to close ratio? Like chasing those micro managing numbers down was not for me. I didn't like that. But what I loved was taking some guy or gal off the street and giving them an opportunity to sell loans and to teach them every positive step that I've made, show them the negative steps, tell them why we don't step there, and then watch them take off. Like that was the part of the management job that I loved. The recruiting, the interviewing, the hiring, bringing people up and watching them succeed. And now I watch people as a sales manager that I'm I'm working basically with and for, and they work for me, and we're all, you know, grinding together. And these people are pulling up suddenly in the MWs and Mercedes-Benzes, and they're buying their first house or a bigger house. And I thought to myself, this is it. This is what I love about this gig.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

You know, I think about- So you do you still give, do you give your people the 12 and a half principles? It's funny that you said that.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

My son uh is now 20, former high school wrestler, jujitsu guy, currently a salesman. On his first day at Verizon, I gave him a copy of Jeffrey Gittimer's 12 and a half principles. I I I recommend it to all of my students. Uh, it's usually on the budget of the person that put me in that classroom on what I can give out. But uh, any person I know in my life that starts a sales career, I always write a little forward from the beginning on the first page, sign it, and I give them a copy.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

And that's what my out of my curiosity, that is a book that I have not read, but I absolutely will be buying it on Amazon after this, after this interview. I'm definitely interested in that. Can you just give me one of the principles that you think was very helpful to you? Sure.

SPEAKER_04 8:20

One of the things that Jeffrey talked about a lot in that book was the disaster that is going in and being uh a presenter and not a consultant. You know, a presenter goes in and presents a little PowerPoint slide or a video and leaves. A consultant doesn't know what you need yet until they sit down and they actually qualify what your issues are. Who knows? You may not even have a product for them, but you don't know until you find out they're needless. Only then can you consult them on the best possible avenue for the two of you to succeed. And Gittimer talks immensely about the downfall of being just the doctor that gives prescriptions without seeing the patient. That's what a presenter is.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

I I love that. And uh I'm sure you've read Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People decades ago. Yes, great. And they all say uh basically that same thing. It's that string theory, right? You can't push a string, you have to pull a string. Yeah, right. And the only way to pull a string is to ask questions and to get to know them. That is a great piece of advice for anybody in sales.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

More than ever, it's important that people know that the old way of sales is done. Like this, the internet, you know, what what we're on now has destroyed the careers of the swindling salesperson, right? Because you can I I take my kids to a car dealership, I can pull up that Kelly Blue book and sit down right there with the VIN number.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

With the VIN number, that one. So you can get it.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

It's not about having the best psychology as far as what can I say, what magic phrase, what honey can I pour in somebody's ear to have them blindly follow beside me, like you know, the pie piper. That thought, that mentality of sales is over. Now it's about building trust. Now it's about, listen, let's forget this whole deal for a second. I want to find out who you are. Who are you guys? What are you into? What is your family life like? Are you married, you have kids, you must be busy. Now I understand why you have a need for X, Y, and Z. That trust building is what is gonna win the day now in sales. It's all about rapport building, it's finding connective tissue, it's building trust on that connective tissue, and only then do you present yourself in the role of a consultant. That is the path to success. That used car salesman way of doing business that died the day they turned on the internet.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Absolutely. I mean, there's still a vestige of that. Like yeah, especially in used cars, but not in everything.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

Where I see it, it's laughable though, right? Because being a sales trainer by day, and uh, you know, not only that, but like coming from like a New York Italian Irish family, like we we tell, you know, I wasn't brought up to full for uh fall for everything that comes down the pike. So like when you see someone still operating both professionally and personally, I find it just sad. I really do. That to me is is a dinosaur of a salesperson.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

Yes, new people that are saying, hey, I don't know your world. Teach me about it. I'm curious. I want to listen. I want to actively listen to what you have to say, and only then will I know if I have something for you or not. And if I do, I'll show you. And if not, I'll tell you. Because hopefully you'll refer me to the next person.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

You know, it's so interesting because my son, one year ago, bought a car. And we did a lot of research. We found a car, it was two hours away, talked to the guy on the phone. I said, I just want to know two things. Has this been how many owners and has it ever been in an accident? And he said, Never been in an accident, one owner. We took a two-hour ride, met the guy. He was gregarious, he had kids in college. I I had a kid in college, family guy, well dressed, really nice conversation. I know nothing about cars, so I took it to a mechanic to do the 100, you know, I paid the$80 for he showed me that car was bent. It was actually bent. I'm like, I didn't see that. He's like, Well, you're not trained to see this, but I'm like, the guy who's selling me this, would he know? He's like, Absolutely. The door doesn't even shut the right way. This car was in a nasty accident. Do not buy it. And he gave me a whole printout. And I went back and I put it on his desk and I said, I'm sure you already know this. You have kids, you have kids. I have a kid right here. Here you go. And then we went to another uh a better place where the guy asked, So why do you need the car? Where are you in your career? Does it have to look good? Is it something sporty? He got to know my son, and then he stayed in the actual budget. Who does that? Crazy. Who does that? Right? So that's the juxtaposition that you just explained. Yeah. In real time.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

It's it's it's a sin. I I took my my son car shopping last summer and I start every conversation the same way. I said, listen, I'm a career sales trainer. Before that, I was a career sales manager. And before that, I was on the floor. All right, treat me with respect, shoot me from the hip, and we can do business. I'll do business. If you're not straight with me and you're not gonna be level with me, then I'm just gonna leave. And it doesn't matter how many managers you bring. I know the whole, you know, second voice thing. Like, I get it. And the guys that chuckle me away and said this guy thinks he's a sales guy, and then tries to proceed to give me a line. We left. I just said that's it. Thank you. And uh the ones that heard me out and said, fair play, let's talk. Those are the guys that I entertained. I bought a car from my son from one of those guys that was like, hey, you know what? I respect what you're saying. I got kids too. This is for your okay, let's let's sit down, let's get real. Same situation, Frank. The guy was really, really, really accommodating. Uh, be and not only that, but talk to me like a peer and not like a mark, right? And that's the difference. When we say pro wrestling, I'm a big pro wrestling guy. I don't know if you guys are into pro wrestling or not, but uh, I grew up in an old school New York uh Italian Catholic family and an Irish family, respectfully. And uh, you know, pro wrestling was big in New York coming up. Bruno San Martino and you know, superstar Billy Graham and all those guys. Uh, and I grew up a big wrestling fan. And I found out as I got older the terminology. There's there's there's there's inside talk within that business. There's there's um a slang within that business that I found pretty amusing. They call fans marks. They call fans marks because they're putting on a show, they're faking a fight, and the person they're faking it for, the person they want to believe the most is you. So just like a pickpocket has a mark, pro wrestling has mark fans, right? And uh I I find it interesting when uh I go into a car dealership and people are salivating like you're a mark, like you're a target. That in any sales capacity is a no-go for me how I teach. How I teach the next generation of professional loan officers and operations specialists, and you name it. The first rule of thumb is sincerity, it's honesty. There's something to be said about being able to shine that sincerity so much that people say, hey, listen, that other guy is actually giving me a better financial deal. But I actually trust you more, I like you more, and that's why I'm giving you the business. That to me is the biggest compliment. Is that my sincerity was enough that even though you could save$3 down the street, you would still do business with me. That's the power of sincerity now in sales.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

I trust consulting, is really what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah, right. Yeah, and and also the mindset, the the um the mindset, the sales training mindset, you know. And you related that to jujitsu too, because like, you know, I can't speak in terms of uh corporations, but I can speak in terms of jujitsu, how important it is to have a great mindset on the mats. So can you talk a little bit about your jiu-jitsu and how that has helped you in your sales uh corporate sales training as well?

SPEAKER_04 16:50

Sure, I would love that. So I started jujitsu in a different way than I guess a lot of folks my age did. You know, a lot of hobbyist dads came in there and saying, I'm looking for a new way to exercise, or I saw this on Rogan or something, right? But I had this delusion of grandeur, guys. So let's let's break down the white belt mindset for a second, if you don't mind. So I going back to the conversation of those long days in sales, those, you know, bell to bell six days a week to make sure there's food on the table. I wound up eating like breakfast, lunch, and dinner behind a desk. So, with like any good Italian guy, we all start off looking Jersey short and we all end up looking Tony Soprano. So I was fighting bad genetics from the beginning. So come mid-20s, late 20s, like all of those, all of those sandwiches, all of those pizzas that were delivered to my office, they caught up with me. And believe it or not, it was something profound that shook my mindset with regard to my wellness. And it wasn't jujitsu and it wasn't working, it's my mom. My mom was actually sick with stage four angiosarcoma cancer. And uh real tough, tough Italian woman, just you know, just did didn't didn't bat an eyelash at it, just you know, went in shoulder first and uh really fought this thing. I'll never forget, I was sitting um sitting outside as I did in my office. I was outside having a cigarette, as most of us young sales guys were. And I and I I called my mom to see how she was doing. And I said, I said, Ma, how you doing? She says, What are you doing? I said, I'm out smoking. And then here comes the Italian guilt. Fellas, just smoking. I'm over here dying and you're smoking. I didn't take I'd asked Brent when I was pregnant with you, and this is what she do to your plan. All right, so that was the day that I I kind of realized that it was time to change my stars. So I I started, it kind of burled into my head that I was gonna quit smoking and and start taking off some LBs. And during that process, watching a ton of UFC, I was a big UFC fan uh in high school, but it was still like banned in 38 states. Like those bootleg VHS tapes were like gold when I was a kid. Um, and Hoyce Gracie, you know, five foot seven, 175-pound guy taking out Dan Severn live on TV. Like, you can't beat that. How are you not motivated by that? So um, I was sitting with my friends and we're watching, uh, we're watching UFC, we're watching Georges Saint-Pierre, and I remember saying to one of my friends, oh man, I'd love to learn how to do that. And they're like, Eric, you you're you look like Chris Farley. Like maybe you worry about like cutting down on the Swiss and cheddar first before you worry about becoming a player. And like that Italian spite just kind of kicked in. And uh as soon as I was 100 pounds down, I started looking for a jiu-jitsu school. I walked in uh in April, April 8th of 2011. I walked into South Jersey Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It's a Ricardo Almeida Association school under the Hanzo Gracie banner, and uh it was maybe seven miles from my house outside of Philadelphia. So I brought my my oldest child, my daughter Ariana, at the time. I took her with me, and we had walked into an advanced class. So that's kind of a different animal than walking into like a fun fundamentals class, right? Um, because we walked in and Randori was taking place already. So they were already live training, and it's a it's a room full of flat, like you could hear a pin drop, like you didn't hear anyone grunting or or or like owl, like nothing. It was um a sea, a literal sea of bodies just putting in work.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

The coach comes over to Eric and he goes, he brings Frankie Edgar over to him. He's like, There you go, Eric. Uh, we got somebody for you to spa with here.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

Yeah, the Mad Enforcer comes over. No, I listen. I got a Mad Enforcer. It wasn't Frankie. Frankie, although that would have been, I have to tell you, as a UFC fan, it's tough to train in an environment that is very UFC fueled. I mean, because you got to figure at the time, you had not just Frankie was fighting. Ricardo had his last fight when I had just started. You had Dante Rivera was on just coming off of the heels of Ultimate Fighter. Drew Pouzon was still fighting in Ring of Combat. I mean, there's just a ton of people. Tom DeBlass, famous Tom DeBlass, you know, had just opened up his school in Tom's River. So it was a small community. And because it was still small, we were going to other people's schools. We were visiting other schools in the community, and people were coming to our school to do clinics. So we got on a first name basis with all these people. And I have to tell you, starting at the beginning, having Ricardo Almeida walk into a room and start teaching a class. Like you're kind of like, Yeah. What do you do with that?

SPEAKER_01 21:27

You're like, wait a minute, there's a legend here.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Yeah. And that happened more time. It happened with Frankie. Like, you know, I'm kind of like the first time I get to train with one of these guys or take a clinic, and I get like, forget it. Like, let Frankie say, like, hey, that's a good position. I become like the vulture in Looney Tunes. I'm like, but I, you know, I walk into this place and you could hear a pin drop. And I look at my daughter and and I'm like, we're gonna do this. Like, you and I are gonna do this. And we signed up that day. My daughter. Made it through to just about high school, sporadically through college. And now she comes the day before she needs to ask me for something. It's like, hey, can I come to jujitsu with you? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. But my two little girls, my Sophie and Evie, who are now 17 and 16, trained all the way through middle school. My son Michael, different story. He got in at five, started competing in jujitsu at six, started doing both jujitsu and uh like club wrestling at seven, and just didn't stop and kept doing jujitsu and wrestling through high school, uh, through his senior year, and now he's at college and he still hits the mats when he can. He's a kid that, you know, similar to myself, was able to figure out the code in bringing stuff out of jujitsu into the real world. And uh, I like to say that he got that from just like, you know, having the smartest old man on earth, but he's a pretty smart kid himself, and he probably didn't need me for that.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Frank, you because this is interesting for our listeners to hear, Eric, because you, uh, both Eric and Frank, they have had sales training and proper mindset for sales training before they started jujitsu. So can you give a perspective on that? Because, you know, I think a lot of times we talk about applying the principles of jujitsu to people's careers, but like in this situation, I think I talked about this in Frank's podcast. If anybody wants to look back at Frank's podcast, um, something like uh maybe number 12 or somewhere around there, 11 or 12 episode. But I asked Frank this same question. You know, do you do you think that your experience in sales training helped you on the mat?

SPEAKER_04 23:40

I want to say, I want to say yes, but I think it's more of the social aspect that it helped with. I think it built the community around me. I brought to jujitsu was this initially this thought that like somehow I was gonna like learn in two years to be like a hobbyist fighter, and like that would be my thing. And then I get to tell all my friends I'm a hobbyist fighter. And what happened was throughout that pro, first of all, you find out that there is no such thing as a hobbyist fighter, right? Those guys that compete in MMA, amateur and pro, that's a seven-day-a-week job for them. That is everything they put in their body, every day is training, it's three-a-day trainings. They work to train, they train to live. So I realized early that just even that notion was disrespectful, that you could just be a hobbyist fighter, right? What I learned more so than anything was the rules and principles of jujitsu that I could parlate back to learning and development, how I could take things that came in clearer, you know, and closer than the horizon line all of a sudden, that I was seeing, and all it took was a different environment, right? Like making those mental connectors. If your mind, I'd love to give you guys an example of this from something that happened this week, if you guys humor me.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

My professor, my head instructor is Steve Bongiorno. He uh is uh a black belt under Ricardo. He received his fifth stripe on his black belt on Tuesday, um, which is like a 20-year promotion. So everyone came out for that. And Ricardo came out for that. And I hadn't seen Ricardo on Mayday in years. Like I said, as the school system builds and more people have schools and the community grows, it's less likely that I'm gonna rub elbows with these people on a weekly basis. Sometimes it's more like a bi-yearly basis at this point, you know. So I was just intrigued. I wanted to tell Ricardo everything that he had missed, you know, like from the last time I saw him up to and including my black belt ceremony, which took place in December of 2024. So I was just waiting with bated breath. And, you know, I knew I didn't want to, I didn't want to crowd him before his seminar, before his promotion that he was doing. Uh, so I waited. And I'm glad I did, because what wound up happening was I'm sitting, you know, crisscross applesauce on the mats, as you are wont to do with your peers when someone that's a higher belt is talking. Ricardo began to speak. And what he was basically addressing to my peers was a sales training that I perform for people right out of college. And it's it's mind-blowing. It's nothing I ever put on video, it's nothing that I ever talk to him about, but it speaks volumes to the psychology of both jujitsu business, just success. How about that? Let's just talk success, right? And what he was saying is that something happens when you go into that locker room and you take off whatever gear you came in with. You unbutton your shirt, you undo your tie, right? Now you put on your rash guard and it's like a rubber band, you're fighting it down to your waist, right? And now you're putting on your pants, and how do these strings go? Crazy string is popping out wrong. And as you're going through these permutations, layer by layer, you're stripping away the guy that came in, and you're building the best person you can be on the mats. With every piece of uniform you put on, it's a layer of your mind that gets flipped. Okay, I am no longer Eric, the casual guy listening to the Ramones in my car. I'm a black belt. I'm a black belt, and I have, there's what, eight new people in class today? It's time to act as if. And to do that, you get yourself mentally prepared. You know, ironically enough, in sales training, I talk about dressing for success. And I say, listen, it's easy to throw on a shirt and sweatpants and come into a call center. It's a lot harder to dress up. But like, you and I could go through the annals of uh studies that they talk about, like, you know, just by dressing up, you feel more confident, your back strains, your voice is more articulate. There's a ton of psychology, a ton of research uh that's gone into that. But what I stress is the role. That's important to me, the role. The role of being a professional in this business. You are no longer a kid, you are no longer in a frat house, you are no longer in mom and dad's basement, you're in a Fortune 100 company. That's a hundred thousand dollar sales scene I'm about to give you. Act as if. Act as if you belong here. Act as if that you're going to come in every day and chase the dragon and hit your numbers and be a success. Do that. It starts with putting on the successful mindset. And for me, it's always been putting on a shirt and tie. Even in learning and development, I've had bosses, I'll never forget, I had a boss at Freedom Mortgage used to tell me, like, why are you wearing a tie? Like, take the tie off. You're making me uncomfortable. And I would say, I have a class today. And for me, I not only wanted to dress for success to feel like I belong up here, but from a facilitator standpoint, I want to dress a peg higher than my audience just for the attention aspect. You know, when you think about it, you're in a conference room full of people, everyone's in in uh in throw overs and jeans, and a guy walks in in a three-piece suit, it's instinct. Everybody shuts up. They think that guy has something to say, right? A man first.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

I'm gonna Eric, Eric, I'm gonna chime in. There's a book, Tia Dini's Power Persuasion. And in this book, he talks about experiments that they've done with people dressing in suits crossing the road versus people dressed in sweatpants crossing the road. And it's basically if you're dressed in a suit and you cross when you're not supposed to, the majority of people will follow you. If you're dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt and you cross when you're not supposed to, most people won't. And they don't even know it. They don't even know it because for some reason, when you dress in a suit, people feel that there's an authority and a sincerity there subconsciously.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, yeah. And I can speak about jujitsu on that, Frank. Um, the mindset of having putting on a gi. You know, it's a different mindset for me. I I mean, I don't some people, you know, they prefer to train just in no gi, um, and other people prefer just the gi, and some people don't mind both. But I have conversations like this with my students all the time. How even if you don't enjoy training in the gi, get into the gi, anyways, because it's a completely different mindset. When you put the gi on, you feel different. You know, you step on the mat with more charisma, more confidence, more I feel better that way. And most of the time when I explain it that way, um, a lot of my students actually stop and think about it and they say, Yeah, actually, you're right. I do feel so much better when I put that gi on. So it's interesting. Just wanted to give my little perspective on the jujitsu. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

Even if you were taking for your example with Nogi, right? I come into I come into SJ BJJ dressed in my suit and tie. I just got finished teaching a class of 50 people. Just the process of taking this gear off and putting on my nogi trunks and getting my rash guard on and putting maybe my knee brace on and maybe taping up my fingers and getting my map mouth guard and rinsing, all of that are steps in preparing myself to be the best guy that I can be. I'm not just a casual hobbyist guy at SJB JJ. I run the fitness program there three days a week. For everyone from people cutting weight for fights all the way down to soccer moms and golfer dads that just want to, you know, work out in a different place than a gym. I'm a black belt there. Uh, I run open mats and fundraisers there. Um there's a responsibility that comes with that belt. And that responsibility is perception is reality. So act accordingly, you know. So that's something that I brought back and forth between sales and jujitsu, and it came full circle for me this week, thanks to Professor Ricardo Almeida. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Well, we love that inside peak, you know, we love that inside peek into that seminar. So we we we definitely thank you for sharing that. That's that's big. And I think it's something important, especially for the younger generation, especially for them, because everything has become so casual that formality is out the window. And it is nice to be comfortable, but I do agree with you that the way you dress and also uh uh right professional posture and posture in jiu-jitsu. They have also done studies where they have they check your testosterone if you're slumped for five minutes versus if you sit up straight, straight back, chest out, shoulders back, your testosterone actually goes up from your posture. Wow. So talk so think about that. The way you dress, the way you posture, it all comes together. Yeah, right. And and and Jason, you teach us a lot about posture and jujitsu.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, and the older we get, the more testosterone we need to naturally give ourselves right.

SPEAKER_04 32:50

That's facts. If if all it takes is just posture it up, I that's I'm good with that. I I have to say, one of the greatest things that I got from jujitsu that I do bring to business every day is patience. I'm an impatient guy by nature, instinctively. I don't like to wait. I don't like being stuck in traffic. I'm a big nudge to my wife if she's taking too long to, you know, like, come on, we gotta go. We got to be late, I don't want to be late. That's that's kind of my mentality. And what jujitsu teaches me and refreshes my memory with weekly, it's breathe, man. Just breathe. There is a black belt named Jay Riggle Buddh, who uh was famously Nikki Rod's manager when he first got onto the scene. He was on Joe Rogan with Nikki. And uh Jay, I believe currently is uh but the judges reps for the above. I don't know. I have to get the the the lockdown where he's at lately, but he's just taken over the world in jujitsu and he used to train, um, not only train, but teach at SJ BJJ at my academy. And one of the things that he taught me early on is a phrase that I actually use with my students when it comes to like assessment taking. I'm like, life is filled with moments that all you can do is breathe through. Jiu-jitsu just happens to be one of them.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Like this is just something you're gonna have to breathe your way through.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Right, keeping that composure, right? Yep. Eric, I have a question for you. So I was thinking a lot about connecting the corporation world, you know, the corporate world, corporate America and jujitsu today, and because I knew we were gonna be meeting today. And one of the things I thought of was the word complacency. So in the workplace, people can sometimes become complacent where they just kind of like go through the motions, they go to work, go through the motions, you know, punch in, punch out, you know.

SPEAKER_04 34:42

Quiet quitting, as they said.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

And and I think in in jujitsu, we also kind of sometimes get stuck on plateaus. You know, you get your blue belt and you're, you know, working on going from blue belt to purple belt. And it can sometimes be, you know, it's a longer journey for some people than it is for others to go from one belt to another. But the plateauing, when you the feeling of plateauing, you know, you get your blue belt, and then it's like you get that plateau of like, am I gonna really get any better? Or you start rolling with purple belts and you start thinking, man, maybe I'm not really getting better. Maybe I'll never be really at purple belt level, you know?

SPEAKER_03 35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Um, so I wanted to get your perspective on that concept of plateauing on the mats, plateauing in jujitsu, and plateauing in your career.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

And what you thought and what and how you think the mindset there of jujitsu can kind of help with that.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

So jujitsu is an interesting sport just in general because it doesn't have a belt system that either one of us grew up with in like your karate, you know, your 80s, 70s, you know, early 90s karate schools. Like it just seemed like when I was a kid, every six months we had to pay a thousand dollars and you got a new belt. Like that's kind of how that went. And then there were like 14-year-olds walking around saying, I'm a seventh-degree black belt, and you're like, like jujitsu, jujitsu is like uh jujitsu is not for the person that needs immediate gratification, right? Jiu Jitsu is a long process, it's eight to twelve years of grinding, two, three classes a week, every week, to get a black belt. There's only a few things about the promotions. You got blue, purple, brown, and black. There's four belts. There's no rainbow, there's no cascade of colors here. It takes you 12 years to get through four promotions, right? Like it's it's no.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

So me wearing all those colored belts haven't matter.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

It really is for the person that that at the very least, it teaches you that you have to, that you have to just stay in the grind. And one of the things that I I get again, I have to give doing proper to Steve Bongiorno. I don't want to, I don't want to use a line that's his and then get scolded for tomorrow on the mats. Steve Bongiorno always says to me, he said, whenever you feel like you're plateauing, he said, ask yourself, could you beat you six months ago? And if the answer is yes, then you're still making gains forward and you need to respect that. And I feel the same way in sales. You know, sales is a law of averages, right? At the end of the day, good leads, bad leads, cold leads, Glengarry leads, it's about the effort. It's about the time you put into the calls, right? And the person that puts the most time into their craft comes out successful. Maybe it's not today or tomorrow that I beat that purple belt that I've been training with, right? But if I stay at it, then maybe Friday's my day. Well, I've got a hundred leads in front of me and I'm gonna start calling them. And the first 10 people told me to go pound sand. But if I stay on that list and I keep grinding, by Friday I may have a book of business. That consistency is what jujitsu teaches and what you have to bring to that sport. Because, like I said, if you need like a little tchotchke every two months, this is not the game for you.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

No, yeah. And the funny thing is, Eric, even when you get your new belt, well, at least me. Uh when I get it, when I got my blue belt and when I got my purple belt both times, I was like, I I don't even want it. I don't even feel like I'm here yet. I don't even feel like up here.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

It's an every belt is an existential crisis for me. Every single belt. You feel my pain. I don't deserve this. I'm only getting this because I work here. Because I stretch the floor. Like I will give myself, forget the fact. Wait, forget the fact. Two pros, ten amateur tournaments, I MC for three different promotions, I've run 10 fundraisers. Like, I've been a fixture in my local jujitsu community, in this little microcosm community. And I will still find every reason in the world to say I don't deserve what stipend I'm getting on my belt. I'll tell myself, and the worst was black belt, guys. The worst imposter syndrome I've ever felt in my life. And I felt it a couple times in business. I can't lie to you. The very first time that I got promoted to a management role in sales, I thought, ah, I'm just a, I'm just a I'm just a drone. I'm just a guy in the foxhole. I shouldn't be watching, I shouldn't be responsible for other humans. Oh, didn't do this to me. And then the next time I felt it was, ironically enough, was Black Belt. Black belt was when I really was the hardest. Actually, that's wrong. Let's me rewind that. I think learning and development was the next. Because I spent so much time in a branch sales world that once I started working for corporate, now it's coming back to me. I have memories of calling my dad from California, from Pasadena, where like my onboarding was for this bank at the time, who was hiring me as their first corporate trainer from the field. And I'm like, I'm like, dad, all these people have like double doctorates. Like, what am I a kid from Queens? What am I doing? Like, I need to get out of here. I need to get on the first plane out of Pasadena. That imposter syndrome hit me again right after I got my black belt in 2024, like going into 2025. Um, I wanted it, I knew I was close to it. I was a fourth-stripe brown belt, and I was salivating at the mouth. And I'm thinking about the party I'm gonna throw and the family that's gonna come down from Connecticut and New York. And I I'm I'm looking at friends of mine that are four-striped brown belts. I'm like, hey, we should do a thing together when this like I got way over my knees. And then what wound up happening was is that be careful what you wish for, because I got it. And as soon as I got it, there was. To be fair, there was a big party. A couple of my really close training partners were getting promoted with me that day came, families, hugs, you know, toasts, everything you can imagine. And the next class, the very next class where I had to tie that black belt on, I was like, I suck. Terrible. I should never wear this again. And that was probably, I think, and I don't want to I don't want to overstep again, but I want to say that that feeling just started going away recently. Now I say that and I'll have anxiety tomorrow, right? But for now, I could say that I'm just starting to feel like I have a place, you know, up on the wall with the other, the other black belts. But that imposter syndrome is real and it's real in business. It's real in teaching the recreational sport.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

It's it's it's in everything. Absolutely. Uh, and and I I feel the same thing when I went from business to teaching. I remember standing in front of a class, like, I don't belong here. What am I doing here? Like, I'm not a teacher, I'm not trained for this, I don't know this. And that is just part of the growth process. It's just part of the process. And I think everybody feels it.

SPEAKER_04 41:37

I think that the same rule applies in jujitsu that applies in life. And that rule is sometimes you get the belt that you've earned, and sometimes you get the belt that you still have to grow into. And I think sometimes I've gotten the roles that I've earned, and I think sometimes I've gotten the roles that I've had to grow into.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah, but being careful of what you wish for, you know. Um, you you strive for that promotion, you know, because you know, you go from every every belt rank is uh in jujitsu is like, oh, I'm gonna strive to become a blue belt, I'm gonna strive to get to purple belt, I'm gonna strive to get to brown belt. When you have that kind of mindset where you have you think that there's like an end where you're like, okay, if I once like once I get my purple belt, I'll be able to do this. Yeah. You know, there isn't an end. It's a journey, you know? It's a journey, you know, it and it needs to be that kind of mindset, even in the workplace.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

It's funny. One of the last things Ricardo said at that seminar this week was as he was putting the fifth stripe on Steve Bongiorno, and he looked at all of us and said, remember, a black belt that doesn't keep training, can they really consider themselves a black belt?

SPEAKER_03 42:42

And I went, ooh, gut shot. I better never quit.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I man, this is so this is so much valuable insight. Um, I feel like before we get before we leave today's podcast, there was something that you talked about in the pre-interview when we talked about the Dropkick Murphys. Because I told for our for our audience, for our listeners and our viewers, uh, we are based out of the Boston area. So I told Eric that's where we were, and then he gave me a story about Boston and his story about the famous rock band, the Dropkick Murphys, that are out of Boston. So, Eric, can you tell our listeners about this? Sure.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

So I I don't I'm sitting still is not something I'm good at, right? I have uh a lot of a lot of things that I I I play around with. I like to say that I'm I'm a jack of many digital trades and a master of none, right? So one of the things that I do part-time is I write for a music magazine. Um there's a little magazine in Philadelphia in my demographic that I've written for. There's a more national magazine called Soundcheck magazine that I write for. And then I have my own little media site that I kind of archive my stuff on. It started off honestly. I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I really, really wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write screenplays and I wanted to write comic books and I wanted to write. And um one of the last things that my mom did before she passed away from cancer in 2013 was she wrote me a note that was to be given to me after she passed. One for my sister, one for my dad, one for myself. And in that note, she said, you know, I'm proud of you for, you know, supporting your family and doing what you have to do and growing in your career. But I really wish you'd start writing again because I know that that was a joy of yours. And um, that got me right in the fields, as I'm sure you can imagine. And I started just picking up, just ad hoc, just writing gigs, like covering a show, covering, you know, doing an album review here and there. I'm a big music guy. I spent my teenage years hanging out in Greenwich Village, you know, over by CVGB. I'm a big um punk and metal fan, bigger punk fan than metal fan. And one thing led to another, and I started using talking about sales skills. Let's tie this all together to the dropkick Murphy's, shall we? All right, sales skills. One of the things that I learned is that my particular friend of skills works really, really well in the music industry. And I found this out because my editor-in-chief for the uh smaller magazine in Philadelphia a few years back was going through some health issues, and she had asked me to step up and help out with the magazine. Now, this wasn't for pay work, this was just being a good soul. Initially I said yeah, and what I realized is that booking gigs to cover and albums to review and people to interview requires meeting a gatekeeper, pleading your case, getting past a gatekeeper, pleading your case, finding a need, showing what you have to offer that could suffice that need, right? All of that plays in the music industry. And I learned that when I was helping my editor book gigs for the magazine. I'm like, I'm really, I'm really kind of good at this, like getting interviews with rock stars. Like, how how did I get here? How did I a Gen Xer that is now talking to like Matthew Sweet, like in an hour and a half long interview? And I'm like, how did this happen? It happened through my sales skills, guys. So when I started booking my own, my own shows that I wanted to cover, my own albums I wanted to review, and my own interviews I wanted to do for myself, I started leaning towards what I know. And I started just tapping the punk scene because that was officially where I left my music career off, right on the doorstep of CDGs in the Bowery of New York City. So I picked up right there. And the Dropkick Murphys were wildly responsive to me in a way that I am still baffled by. I have been tapped to cover their Philadelphia shows, their Atlantic City shows, most importantly, their stops for their St. Patrick's Day tour in Pennsylvania every year. So if you don't know the Dropkick Murphy's famous St. Paddy's Day show is at the House of Blues in Boston every year, good luck getting a ticket. They're on sale now for next year. All right. But what people don't know, it's like it's like a six or seven-stop tour that they do to get to Boston on St. Paddy's Day. And unlike their summer tours, they tend to stop off in very blue-collar neighborhoods. They're a big union supporter band. I love that about them. I come from a hardworking, you know, like blue-collar family, you know, aside from my dad, who was a sales guy, like my grandparents, my uncles, longshoremen cops, you know, up in New York. So I really, I love, I love their the work that they do for the community in Boston for firemen, police, uh, any union workers who's, you know, lost their, their, their breadwinner and their family. They do fundraisers for. I just always got a kick out of that. So I tap them and I wind up getting on this, this, this journey that leads me to these bull-collar towns once a year, every year for the St. Patty's Day show, whether it's Reading or Wilkes Barry, Pennsylvania. It's like some like hardworking town that they stop off in as like a tip of the hat on their way to Boston. And I've covered them, I want to say, for the last five years or so. So I am the only New Yorker that loves singing Tessie, which is unapologetically and aggressively Boston Red Sox song. Don't tell anyone. We'll sing it in the New York subways. Yeah, no, we don't know. No one's allowed to know that in my family. But Tessie's a favorite on my playlist. So uh that's I wound up putting myself in a position where um I get the privilege and the honor of seeing that band two or three times a year and doing write-ups and taking photos and just kind of helping their PR along. They've never not done right by me. It's just weird, man. It's weird how sales skills open up all of these different doors. You know, I mean, here I am as a sales trainer by day. And now I use that same energy and that same passion and that same focus to teach, you know, fitness classes, wellness classes at my academy to rooms of 15, 18 people three times a week. Well, that's the skill, that's my day job skill that I bring with me to jujitsu. And then I steal from jujitsu and I bring it to training and development. Well, then you have writing, and writing was something that is artistic to me and has nothing to do with business until it does. And now I'm using my business skills to do what I want to do with my writing. So in every facet of my life, that skill set that I learned, was successful with, and then now teach to others has opened up all these different doors for me. Where on any given weekend, it's like, well, we go into the fights to cheer on one of my teammates, or are we going to see the drop Tick Murphy's in Atlantic City because I have two press passes. And it all comes from that time grinding on a sales floor and learning how to build trust, have conversations, create common denominators, and move forward.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Yeah, the benefits of skill stacking. I think we could do a whole entire episode on skill stacking.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

Skill stacking and pivoting. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah, we could do a whole episode on that. Maybe we'll have Eric come back on and do a whole episode on that.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

Yeah, I think we're gonna have to do that because it's very inspiring.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

Oh, I have I have I'm humbled by you guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Our pleasure completely. I have a quick question for you. Um Jason, I don't know if you have any more, but I definitely want to get this in. Because a lot of my students, I teach business, are going into business. And in business education, there's not a lot like we teach marketing, we teach investings, investing, accounting, business law. We have a lot, it's like a mini MBA, but not a lot of people talk about sales careers. And I think it's really important, and I do talk about that because I worked with a lot of salespeople and I did it. So I guess my question that I'm gonna throw out to you is what do you think, Eric, is one of the greatest benefits of going into the sales industry? And what is one piece of advice you'd give my kids looking to get into that?

SPEAKER_04 50:56

Oh my gosh. Um, what a great question. And I'm flattered that I get to address your students with it too. Um, I think that the greatest reason to get into sales is the ability to bet on yourself. You know, any nine to five job, you know, you always say, boy, if I had the power to do X, Y, and Z, boy, if I was in charge of the budget, boy, if I was in charge of marketing, and then you go back to, you know, your Marlboro light outside and your smoke bright go shifts over and you go back inside with sales. Every day you have the opportunity to change your stars. What career do you have that you could go in and give yourself a raise every day with just a little bit more elbow grease? Brian, I'll tell you a story about my time on the sales floor before I got promoted to sales manager. It was a late night, it was a Thursday night. All the boys were leaving the office. Jason to my industrial complex was a little bar, and in that little bar, uh the Philadelphia Flyers like to hang out sometimes because their training facility was around the corner in Voorhees, New Jersey. So the guys would finish up their cold calling and they'd want to run on down there and see if they could catch Dejardin or somebody in the bar. And I'll never forget this one night. Everyone's packing up laptops or, or actually, this is prior to laptops, this is just packing up our portfolios. Um, and one guy stayed on the phone, and I and I I don't forget his name, I won't forget his name. His name was Joe Lanzolotti. Shout out to you, Joe, if you're watching. Joe Lanzolotti watched all of us get up and start packing up our stuff and kept calling. And as we were walking towards the door, we looked behind us. He's making his money. And one by one, all of us walk back to our desks and log back into our computers. We're like, we're not gonna be the ones that leave when this guy is showing us that there's still money to be made, that there's still an opportunity to build a better day, to give ourselves a raise. I never forgot that moment. And I talk about that moment with my students. You have the ability to just commit to dropping the negativity at the door, betting on yourself, marketing yourself, and and not being confined to somebody else's perception of what you are worth. That is phenomenal. That is the only reason to get into sales. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

It's powerful. Freedom. Freedom.

SPEAKER_04 53:12

Now, my advice to your students, my advice to your students is simple. When it comes to sales, remember one thing. Hard work kicks talent's ass every single day. You could be the best talker, you could be the most articulate speaking the king's English, you could have a double doctorate in business and finance. But if you're not willing to grind, which is what it takes, you have to commit like jujitsu, because you're not going to get the big deal today or tomorrow. But if you keep grinding, it may be Friday, right? We talked about that an hour and a half ago. If you commit to it, you will be successful. I've seen hard workers lap talent every single week that I've been in sales since I've started. There's a guy at Freedom Mortgage when I first started in 2001 as a salesperson there. His name was Maurice. Maurice had a speech impediment. True story. He had a phone salesman selling quarter million dollar loans with a speech impediment. And yet, how was he the number one salesman every single month? I'll tell you how. He was the first face we saw when we got there, and he was the last face we saw when we left. That guy knew we had a bigger law of averages. Hard work beats talent. That is my advice.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

That is great advice. And I am going to make sure every one of my students listens to that advice because it is empowering. It is empowering. It is your habits, not your innate skill.

SPEAKER_04 54:38

Yeah. That's an Aristotle quote. We are what we repeatedly do. Success is not an act, success is a habit.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

And that is exactly what you need to think when you go into jujitsu, right? Right. You have to, right? So if I'm ever gonna escape from Big Wan's side control, I have to keep this in mind. Yeah, right, Jacob.

SPEAKER_04 54:58

You keep shrimping and one day you'll get the exit. I promise.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

Okay. I know Big Juan's gonna hear this. He likes it, he likes his shout-out, so I gotta give him a shout out.

SPEAKER_04 55:06

I have a big floor in my school too.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

I think it'll be a lot, it would be a lot more fun than if we were rolling instead of me trying to escape from a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon.

SPEAKER_03 55:16

So lay him on top of me.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Big One is a big man, but he's solid as hell. And he knows how to use his pressure. Yeah. So I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep your your uh your advice in mind and keep working hard on my shrimping and see if I can get out one day.

SPEAKER_04 55:34

Listen, we are all just walking each other home, right? Like you take everything from everyone you come into contact with because there's something there that can help you tomorrow. That is my mantra when it comes to training. I learn from everybody.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

That's it. You do. And uh if you showed up, you're a beast. If you showed up, you're a beast. You can't forget that.

SPEAKER_04 55:53

Yeah, yeah. Right. That's that's it. Listen, fortune favors the ones that show up. Even when it comes to fitness, I tell my fitness students, forget sales students, forget talking to Marky Ramon of the Ramones. Let's just talk about the people in my exercise class, right? It's the kind of mindset that you have to have where you didn't get unwell or unfit in a day. It took time. This is the kind of commitment that you put in to grinding and not giving up, and then you get to reap the rewards, not just aesthetically, but mentally, emotionally, and internally, physically, wellfully for the rest of your life. You know, it's that mindset of, hey man, I'm not gonna give up. This sucks. And the hardest thing about this gig is showing up, right? That's jujitsu, that's the gym, that's work, that's everything. The hardest part of your day is the drive to those places.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Dead on, dead on. I preach that every day to my students. You have to be here. That's half the battle. Come here, show up. That's what makes you a star. Get out of bed on time and get here. Show up and growing. The results will come. There you go. Students, see, it's not just your teacher. This guy's a savage black belt, successful entrepreneur. If you're not gonna listen to me, listen to him.

SPEAKER_04 57:21

I want to quote Steve Pajora one last time when he says you don't have to be invincible, you just have to be indestructible.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's your favorite time of the program. It's tap out time, where Frank DeMilio, also known as the clock burner, gives you all the golden nuggets from this amazing interview. And there are too many to mention. I will do my best to keep it clear, concise, and cogent. Here we go. I want to say, Eric, two things I love that you did. You mentioned your dad and how amazing he is, and what a role model he is. And I think that's a beautiful thing that you mentioned that on here. Is he still alive? He's my guy.

SPEAKER_04 58:08

He's my he's still alive.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Okay. I want him to look at it.

SPEAKER_04 58:11

I think that's that he's active with the jujitsu school. When we do our New Year's Day open mats, he comes with bagels. When we have a fight night, he comes out, he comes to promotions. He's kind of like our resident mascot, my dad.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

How old is he? 74. 74. Man, he must be an awesome guy. Let make sure he listens to this. And I know your mom has passed. I like the way you kind of closed your whole thing talking about the letter she wrote you. And I think that is a beautiful thing, too. I think it's very, very sweet that you opened with your dad, you closed with your mom, and I'm sure wherever she is, she's proud of you. And for taking her advice from that letter, that that is just something that is sweet, it's beautiful, and that's the real essence of life that you shared with us today. That was personal, and we appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 59:01

You know, Frank, I never told my dad what was in my letter until one day. Well, he's gonna know now. Well, it's all one day. I was covering, so my dad is a soulful, bluesy rock. He's like, you know, like he he likes that those, those, those, those, those Nashville, deep, deep, you know, mournful.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

Deep and gritty, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:21

So uh I wound up covering uh at the famous Stone Pony in uh in uh Asbury Park, New Jersey. That's where the Stone Ponies were Springsteen started, Bon Joby started, right? I wound up covering Nathaniel Raitliffe in the night sweats, which is a bluesy band from Denver. And I say, you know, Dad, why don't you come with me? Why don't you be my plus one? And uh we get to the Stone Pony, and the outside stage is packed. Like there's thousands of people pressed up against the stage. And even if I got him close to the press pit, he was gonna be wildly uncomfortable at his age. And so I go to the manager of the, because you know, I I'm not I'm not above like looking to uh use my sales skills to try and make a new friend, right? So I'm like, hey, who's the manager here at the Stone Pony? I said, listen, I'm a writer for that music mag in Philadelphia. That's the name of the mag in Philly, that music mag, if you want to see my archive stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

We're gonna put, by the way, we're gonna put all your stuff. You're gonna send Jason all your links for all your writing. It's gonna be in the bottom. Awesome. But continue your story. Continue your story.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:21

I I talked to the guy at the Stone Pony. I said, listen, I'm I'm a writer. I have my dad with me. He's a senior citizen. A lot of people, he's not comfortable being so close to the stage. Can you help me out here? Can I put him someplace? And he said, My wife's a writer, writer for Rolling Stone. He goes, I get it. He goes, Let me help you out. Put my dad in the sound sound booth, I guess it would be. Like whatever that booth is, where they they adjust the sound for the concert. They put him in the vet above the audience, like like his chest was above the heads of everybody. He could see to the stage. So I was standing there with him, and here is this battle-tested sales veteran, and his son, who just got him the greatest VIP seat of all time. And I put my arm around him and I said, You know, Dad, we're here because of mom. So he stops, he looks at me, he goes, What'd you say? I said, We're here because mom told me I should start writing again. And it led me to the music industry, which led me to bringing you here. You are here in this moment with this amazing, I it's not even a seat, this amazing position on the Jersey Shore, watching this concert because of one little note that was left to me. And that moment was the closure of that full circle moment. That was like big hug and then horns to the sky. And then we were, we were that was a full.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

I love that. I love that. That is that's deep. That's I I you know what, and I just gotta give you another shout out because just today in my marketing class, I told my kids two things. I said, always ask, always ask. When you go to a restaurant, if you want that table, just ask. They might say no, but ask. When you go to a hotel, ask for that upgrade. It's okay. And if you really want something, if you have a legitimate story behind your ask, most people will do anything they can do to help you. But you're not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:08

And that's one of the exact shots you don't take.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:10

And that's exactly what you did. A, you decided to ask, and B, you had a legitimate story behind you. You told a little bit about your past, you talked about your dad, and and they're like, Yeah, of course we're gonna help you. Case in point, right there. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:26

Most people want to help other people, right? Like they do. By nature, like in big masses, you know, people are a lot, but individually, you find that people are just as kind-hearted and sincere as you know you wish they were. And that's the one thing that I can say from jujitsu, which has a mat filled with doctors, lawyers, construction workers, unemployed people, students, right? And they all come together for a common goal. And in the music business, these are all, at the end of the day, these are all human beings, they're all just guys and gals that just are doing what they love to do. You find out at the end of the day that all these people, again, we're all just trying to walk each other home, man. If someone can do something nice for you, nine times out of ten, you'll find they will. There's a price to pay for that. And the price to pay for that is the law of reciprocity, which means that when you are the one that has the power to do something nice, it's your divine responsibility to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Dead on. Amen. This is this is too much wisdom in one short, you know, this is too good. This is too good.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

I'm just going to say we're in so deep, we can't even climb out, right? We can't.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

No, there's wisdom after wisdom. It's like being in a buffet, a wisdom buffet. That's what we're at. Um, a couple of other things. I'm going to be very short, uh, very crisp here. You you talked about what a lot of our guests talked about. Find out what you love. Even if uh even if you're doing something you don't like, if there's something that you love to do, extricate that, call it out, pivot, and do that thing, which you did. I like the advice about it's a disaster to be a presenter, instead be a consultant. And I would say that even goes for conversations. When you're having a conversation, don't just spew, listen and ask questions. That is just great interpersonal. Active listening. That's great interpersonal. You talked about the importance of high trust consulting, being sincere, being honest doesn't always pay in the short term, but it always pays in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:33

Always. And and you can go to sleep and feel good about yourself. Dr.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:38

Peterson talks about that. If I don't know if you guys follow Dr. Jordan Peterson at all. He's kind of I know a little of his stuff. Yeah, I mean, I've seen him on Rogan a few times, and you know, just being a jujitsu guy, it kind of like it comes with your membership to the Joe Rogan podcast as uh getting your first white belt. And uh I I I love being motivated by other people. When I read The 12 Principles for Life uh by Jordan Peterson, and then I read another 12 principles, I'm like, all right, I'm all out of principles. I have enough principles. Uh, but I I I love what he says about uh just that. It's it's about showing up, it's about believing in yourself. Most importantly, Jordan Peterson says it's about honesty. That's he has his biggest advice to when whenever a young person in one of these public speaking sessions that he has asks him, give me some advice on my future, on my success, on my life, on my marriage, right? Don't lie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

That's a great, that's a great takeaway, and that's a great call to action, right, Frank, for for our listeners. You know, there's so there's so much insight in this episode that we can talk about that we can say is a call to action today, right? So our big call to action is to get our listeners and people who know Eric, people who have had an ex uh chance to experience Eric's knowledge in in the corporate world as well. Share. This podcast because uh it's very empowering.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

This is just something great to listen to on your ride home and inspire you in so many different ways and so many different directions. Uh, this is something that people are going to listen to once, twice, three times because there's so much in it. We I really appreciate it, Eric. Eric, ma'am, thank you so much for like I mean, you really opened up your heart and your soul on this one. And uh we appreciate this. I hope we get a chance to meet you face to face at some point.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:31

Well, it turns out that I may be coming up your way with my day job in the not too distant future. I'll be heading up and down the Northeast corridor doing trainings for my day job. And I'm always looking for places to roll, so I'm gonna have to look you guys up when I'm in the Boston area.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:46

Team Link Webster in Webster, Massachusetts. You come in and uh if you want a light roll, I'll roll with you. But uh if you want to try to see if you can do anything with Big Juan's pressure, you could try that too.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

I'll have to just tell our listeners.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

Just keep shrimping, just keep shrimping.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

I don't know if the I don't know if no our listeners are or our viewers can't actually see Frank's name on this podcast right now, but he has his title or his name on this podcast, the clock burner. So just so you know, Eric, the reason why he has the name clock burner is this is a reputation that he has in the school. So if you come to our gym and you roll with Frank, he's gonna find he has a lot of different skills and techniques on how to burn the clock.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

I'm 58 years old. And so when Jason hits the go button, obviously I need to tuck in my ghee. I need to retie the belt, I need to make sure everybody else has a partner. You burn 20 seconds off just like that, and I've got a lot of strategies. I'm gonna write a book on it on how to burn clock and survive the cardio.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:50

Can I can I can I add can I add a quiz? Of course, of course. Because honestly, the best way that I've ever run the clock is I really like the way you did that. Can I show you something with regards to mid-row?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

Can I show you something real quick? I like it. I like that was really good. Let me show you something. Yeah. I'd love to show you how we can escape that. Can I can I show you?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:10

I know the clock's running, but let me just show you something real quick. I I know. Did you tap to that? No, I was just I just wanted to say something.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

I just want to show you something real quick.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:19

I should have booked on how to survive being a new black belt, right? When everyone's gunning for you, how to run the clock.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:26

Wait, my belt is just Yeah. Yeah, yeah, gotta get the belt. And then you ask them, this is always really polite, too. Hey, so tell me, how are you feeling? Do you have any injuries I need to worry about? While the clock's running.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:40

How's the knee? Is the knee okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I just want to make sure I respect you. And what are you trying to work with on your game? What are you trying to work with? I want to be a good training partner here. Yeah. You know, we're gonna we're we're gonna put this book together. All of that. That five minutes goes like that. You get the you get the five minutes to three, and I can go like a normal person. Now you're dealing with a real person, right? So that's the whole strategy. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:11

Yeah, I would like to come up a train with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

I love visiting schools, I love I love visiting different environments because we want to do a whole podcast episode on on exactly what you guys are talking about. So we'll come up with like a top 10 ways to burn the clock or ideas of how to burn the clock.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

Yes, and by the way, our listeners, please write in the comments how you like to burn clock for that episode. We'll use some of your ideas too.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

For all you two Jason.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:39

Make sure you're right there in the notes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

I love that. All right, Eric, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate this. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:46

This was so much fun. And uh there's definitely something wrong on my end. So I I'm gonna just leave this because I can't hear anything. I can't hear Eric at all. Jason, just make sure he stays online. Yeah, all right, no problem. We'll just edit out this part of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:00

Yes, I don't know. I can't wait. I'll do some I'll do some editing. It will look it will still look good. So we all have to kind of say bye one more time. Yep. Big hug, big hug. Thank you. Big hug. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thanks, guys. All right, have a great day.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:16

Thank you guys. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

Well, there you have it. As we wrap up today's episode, let's take a moment to reflect on the powerful connections we've explored between the art of jujitsu and your career. In your workplace and in jujitsu, you learn to adapt and navigate challenges. So remember that persistence and the courage to embrace the lessons you learned are the keys to your growth, both on the mat and in your career.