Episode 926- Feras Alhlou
In today's episode Jeremy sits down and chats with assistant instructor and business advisor Feras Alhlou about his martial arts experience and how it interacts with his business advising.Feras Alhlou - Episode 926
SUMMARY
In this episode, Jeremy interviews Feras Alhlou, a business advisor and martial artist. They discuss the parallels between martial arts and business, including the importance of learning from mistakes, the need for discipline and structure, and the concept of sacrifice and service. Feras shares his journey in both martial arts and business, highlighting the value of continuous learning and the pursuit of mastery. They also touch on the importance of deliberate practice and the benefits of training with different people and in different arts. In this conversation, Jeremy and Feras discuss the importance of having a broad understanding and training in multiple disciplines, both in martial arts and in business. They emphasize the value of finding partners and employees who complement your skills and the importance of discipline and consistency in achieving progress. They also discuss the role of martial arts in self-defense and the importance of de-escalation and avoiding conflict. Feras shares his insights on building a successful business and the importance of being useful, honorable, and compassionate in life.
TAKEAWAYS
* There are parallels between martial arts and business, including the importance of learning from mistakes and the need for discipline and structure.
* Continuous learning and the pursuit of mastery are key in both martial arts and business.
* Deliberate practice and training with different people and in different arts can enhance learning and growth.
* Sacrifice and service are integral aspects of martial arts and can be applied to business as well.
* The road to mastery requires hours of practice, learning from different sources, and applying knowledge in various contexts. Having a broad understanding and training in multiple disciplines is important for both martial artists and business owners.
* Finding partners and employees who complement your skills can lead to greater success.
* Discipline and consistency are key to making progress in any endeavor.
* De-escalation and avoiding conflict are important aspects of self-defense.
* Building a successful business involves more than just making money; it also involves creating a positive business culture and helping others.
* Being useful, honorable, and compassionate are important values to live by.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Overview
13:11 The Parallels Between Martial Arts and Business
29:07 Deliberate Practice and Training with Different People
40:36 Sacrifice and Service in Martial Arts and Business
44:11 The Road to Mastery: Hours of Practice and Learning from Different Sources
46:21 The Value of a Broad Understanding and Training in Multiple Disciplines
48:31 Finding Complementary Partners and Employees
53:49 De-escalation and Avoiding Conflict in Self-Defense
56:33 Building a Successful Business and Helping Others
01:06:15 Living a Life of Usefulness, Honor, and Compassion
Show Notes
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.477)
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. It's another episode of Whistlekick martial arts radio. And on today's show, I'm joined by Ferris Alhulu and we're going to talk. We just had some pre -show. I've got a good feeling. I've got, I often, I usually have a good feeling. I've got a good feeling about this one. And maybe I just need to credit Andrew for always making sure I have great guests, but I've got a good feeling. If you happen to be new to what we do here at Whistlekick, especially martial arts radio, make sure you head on over to whistlekickmarshallartsradio .com.
It's where we keep everything for every show. Anything that Ferris and I talk about today is going to be linked over there. We're going to have show notes, photos, if there are videos that we end up mentioning. All that stuff's going to be there, so don't forget that. Also transcripts. Whistlekick .com is our online home for everything. If you feel like supporting the things that we do, our mission to connect, educate, and entertain the martial artists of the world, that's where you're going to go. You can pick up training programs and apparel and buy registration to an event, things like that.
Jeremy (01:02.333)
For now, back to Ferris, the man of the hour. Thanks for being here. Appreciate your time.
Feras (01:08.69)
Thank you so much, Jeremy. Looking forward to this amazing conversation. I can tell, like you said, the energy is there, bright and early on my end and looking forward to it.
Jeremy (01:14.045)
Yeah, yeah, you're you're you're West Coast you said Silicon Valley. So it's sick. It's a little after 6am there. But you're an early riser.
Feras (01:24.466)
You know, historically we've had clients on the East coast. So I'm kind of got used to getting up early and be ready for taking care of the clients. So.
Jeremy (01:29.181)
Hmm.
Jeremy (01:35.325)
It's funny, in my non -podcasting work, work with clients, sometimes they're martial arts schools, sometimes they're not. And yeah, it's funny that the West Coast has had to defer to the timing of the East Coast. I've never had West Coast people say, no, you need to take this meeting.
on Friday at 7 p 7 .30 p right? Which would be 4 or 4 .30 your time, right? But you all over there have to adjust to us. And I feel guilty about it. I'm not gonna change it, but I do feel guilty.
Feras (02:08.53)
All good. All good. All good. All good.
Jeremy (02:12.829)
What sort of work do you do?
Feras (02:15.058)
So we have a business advisory and media company that we started about a year and a half ago. So I've been in Silicon Valley for over 25 years now. I got into the startup scene in 2003 after a very dramatic layoff from, I was a VP in a tech company here in the Valley. And then we ran out of money and I was basically asked to.
Jeremy (02:21.821)
Hmm. Okay.
Jeremy (02:36.541)
Mmm.
Feras (02:44.466)
to go home one afternoon. And we can dig into that later if you like. So I got into the startup scene, focused on working with small and mid -sized businesses. This was the dawn of the internet, so online marketing, web design. And then started to specialize and then built another company and sold that one. And in 2019, we sold that last business to Dentsu, the global media giant, and took some time off after.
after a long career and a lot of hard work. And then I figured, let me see how I can benefit the new generation of founders, avoid the mistakes I made. They can make their own mistakes, but I can at least share what I've learned and what others have helped me along the way. So that's what this new company, Startup with Ferris, is to really provide content and consulting to folks who want to start.
have an idea or they have a business and they struggle, they're struggling, they're not sure what to do to build it to scale up.
Jeremy (03:47.965)
Awesome. There's something that pretty strongly parallels, I'm gonna move a little closer to the mic. Just to the audience, if you've been listening to the show for a long time, I recently moved and I never had to worry about echo before, but I have to worry about echo here. So we'll do our best in post to take out the echo, but if you're catching a little bit of it, know that we hear it and we're gonna work on it. There's something that pretty strongly parallels martial arts progression and growing a business, right? You're talking about,
Trying to help people not make those mistakes. Anybody who's been a martial arts instructor knows that's pretty much half of your job. Half of your job is here's what you have to learn. The other half is no, don't do it that way. Well, why not? Because you're gonna get punched in the face. That's usually the mistake you're trying to avoid is getting punched in the face, which, you know, the punches in the face in business, this is not my first business, the punches that you take in the face in business are generally financial and hurt in a...
just as strong, but different way.
Feras (04:51.762)
Absolutely. One of our sensei, one of our teachers, he says, you know, I've been doing this for 50 years and with sensei and he says, it took me whatever technique it is. He said, it took me two years to figure this out. My job is to help you do it in six months. So in business is the same way. You know, every everybody's journey is different, but I think that the obstacles, the types of challenges, the types of opportunities that someone who's new to business.
or maybe they're savvy in business, but they're new to a market, it's a new market, or maybe it's a new vertical or new type of clients. There are a lot of, anytime there's newness to something, I think listening to those who have been down that path before can save us all a whole lot of time and trouble and the punches in the face, as he said.
Jeremy (05:43.677)
Yeah, and you know, there's something that's really interesting that happens again and I see this both in in business with clients I work with as well, whether they're martial arts schools or not as well as students when they're brand new Most of them will listen to you Then they start to learn some things and they don't listen quite as well, but eventually they go
Feras (06:01.178)
Thank you.
Jeremy (06:09.181)
maybe I should have been listening the whole time, right? There's almost, we could almost graph this kind of inverted bell curve of people listening. Because they start to, right? Like if you've worked with people into the audience out there, if you've taught students or if you've been around a while, you've seen this happen. First few days, first few weeks, maybe even first few years, they're listening. And then they're not as likely to listen. And so,
Feras (06:30.066)
Yeah.
Jeremy (06:37.213)
Given that this is your profession now, here's my question. Is that necessary? Do we all have to be able to go through that point of saying, okay, I tried it my own way. I banged my head against the wall. I came to the same conclusions as all these people in front of me. Maybe it's time to learn some, listen to that.
Feras (07:02.898)
Maybe that's a very good point, the way you've framed it. It could be part of just our process to learn as we have to kind of do things on our own. I remember reading an article, I forgot which martial art journal or website, and they talked about the blue belt or the green belt sensei, someone who's been around for six months or a year. And they think now they start to provide advice. Same thing in business.
I think in business, it could be a number of factors. It could be our ego. It could be we're shy. It could be that we don't know that there's help out there. It could be that the grit, that go -getterness that we have as entrepreneurs, we want to figure it on our own, which is to a large degree something positive. But I always say,
at specific inflection points in my journey, and this is my seventh venture, I'm fortunate to be able to do this, and there were a lot of ups and downs, but at specific key inflection points, had I not reached out to folks who had the specific subject matter expertise or they're just there for emotional support, I would have been, I would have made.
wrong decisions, major wrong decisions, it would have taken me much longer to get to where I want to go. So I think, yeah, maybe it's part of our learning process to do things on our own, but I think that, you know, I have, we have in our company, we have these, what I call the black belt principles. And one of them is when I speak with founders, I say, learn, do, then seek. So learn about something.
Do it for a little bit. If you're banging your head against the wall, ask for help. Just go on YouTube and search and make sure it's a good source. But then at times you have to ask help from those who have been to where you want to go. I think that's really important.
Jeremy (09:15.869)
Yeah, you mentioned this is your seventh startup. So I wonder if we can continue to extend this metaphor. What are you doing differently with this startup business versus your first one? Are there lessons you've learned that help you progress even faster? Because and here's why I'm asking this question. Most folks out there who have trained in multiple martial arts, especially if they're dramatically different martial arts.
The first one takes you whatever period of time to reach whatever level of proficiency as you define it. But the next time you go, even if it's a whole different skill set, even if you're going from karate to Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu, which is striking versus grappling, or maybe it's striking versus weaponry or something, you tend to progress a lot faster. And it's not just because you know how to move your body, it's because you know how to learn. So there's my long -winded question.
Feras (10:10.834)
No, that's very spot on. I think you learn how to learn, that's one thing. And also I think some of the principles, you know, I had a female instructor early on and she would say, especially to men, like, you know, a lot of shoulder, a lot of upper body power, said, you gotta use your hips, right? So I think moving from the center, that concept of...
being centered and regaining your center. I think, I don't, I mean, I know, you know, a few arts, not a, I don't think I'm an authority to talk about any of them, but that concept of balance, I think is just universal in general. So same thing, I think in business, this concept of working hard, I always tell entrepreneurs,
Entrepreneurship is five times harder than what you think. And I'm telling you, Jeremy, in my fifth, seventh venture, sorry, and this is something completely different, and figuring out YouTube, figuring out how to grow our newsletter subscribers, figuring out how to make sure the content that we are producing resonates with our audience.
It's something I've done on, in all the other businesses, we've had blogs and we've done some content. That was maybe 5 % of our business. Now this is 100 % of my business. It's like a production line that again, I produce content every week as you know. It is really hard and you have to spend, you have to do the reps. So learning how to learn is important. Learning to go to advisors is important that applies across all. And then I think there is a phase where you just have to do the reps.
And that doesn't change. And whether you are working with small and mid -sized businesses today and you want to penetrate, let's say the Fortune 1000, that's something new. Whether you've done a lot of work in healthcare and now you want to work with, I don't know, the finance sector, there's always new things. And I think the more you have, the more experience and...
Feras (12:20.626)
learning, education in whichever field in business, I think a lot of those are transferable skills that you can take with you to the next venture.
Jeremy (12:32.189)
You said five times harder than people think it is. You know, I've done a lot of, you know, when you start a business, people who also want to start a business tend to come to you for advice. And, you know, there are a number of things that I've told them. And one of my mentors gave me the most succinct way of explaining it. He said, you know, being your own boss is wonderful. You get to make all your own decisions. You decide how things are, you know, how the money is spent and who to hire.
and you only have to work half days, and you even get to pick which 12 hours it is.
Feras (13:11.218)
gonna use that one.
Jeremy (13:11.709)
And I think it's the best summary of what it's like to start a business. But here you're either a glutton for punishment or it's how you're wired. So we're going to keep kicking this can, keep going with this because it's bringing us some interesting stuff to talk about. I will often at the end of an episode ask a guest, why do you keep training? So not only why do you keep training,
Why do you keep starting businesses? And are there things in common between those two desires?
Feras (13:47.698)
So I think, so after we exited, we sold that last business and we were fortunate. It was an eight figure business and we did well on all that. So it's just, and the team and my co -founders and it's just something, they're really positive. So I had a call, I think Tuesday was my last day with that choir. I stayed with them for a couple of years and then I left.
Jeremy (14:08.381)
Hmm.
Feras (14:17.17)
So I think on Wednesday morning, I had a call at 7 a So my wife said, you are absolutely nuts. After 25 plus years in corporate and in startups, why do you schedule a call? I was helping out a nonprofit. They needed some help with marketing. So I said, yeah, and I'm just used to getting up early and scheduling calls. And then I said, I need to slow down just for a little bit, just reflect on what happened in the last 25 years.
So why do we train? I think once you have the bug, you know, it's in you, once you have this, you know, you want to learn more, at least for me, kind of reinventing yourself. There's, you mentioned, you mentioned earlier, you're humbled. I think no matter how hard you train, I think martial arts is very humbling that you'll train with someone who's been around. I was just actually at an event, martial arts event, just this weekend and...
sat down next to a gentleman, the kind is the nicest person. And he has 35 years of experience in Aikido. And he just got his black belt in Jiu -Jitsu, which is not an easy feat. And I'm like, my God, like, wow, can I just sit down and take notes and just, it wasn't a place where we can train, get on the mat and train, we're doing other things. But I just wanted to train with him and just get a feel of just,
Jeremy (15:29.405)
No.
Jeremy (15:34.973)
Yeah.
Feras (15:45.842)
this amazing person that probably my age or maybe a bit older and he just got his black belt in Jiu Jitsu, in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So I think we, you know, they're always...
Jeremy (15:47.517)
Hmm.
Jeremy (15:56.093)
And in fact, if I may ask, because the majority of our audience listens rather than watches, roughly how old are you?
Feras (16:04.434)
I am 57. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. So turning 58 soon. Yeah. So, so, you know, just, just, I think there's, you're learning new things. you can always refine and, and, and, and do the technique sharper, smoother. you can see even when I train with beginners and I'm, I'm an assistant instructor and I, I have a youth class I teach on Friday nights.
Jeremy (16:06.685)
Okay, okay. Please continue.
Feras (16:33.97)
And just, you know, the youth, like younger youth, not teenagers. And sometimes they drive you nuts because for me, it's Friday, end of the week. They just want to come in and have fun. But even like the way the questions they asked, I never thought about Aikido this way. So I think there's this learning opportunity every time you get on the mat, you forget about them. At least for me, I forget about the whole, you know, messy day I've had maybe.
and then just get on the mat and I leave, maybe my body is aching, but my mind, I'm ready to go for another couple hours of work. So I think that ongoing learning, that kind of reinventing yourself, meeting nice people, amazing people, new challenges, I think those are all, at least for me, they drive me to train and also to stay involved in business.
Jeremy (17:31.389)
It's, I had a feeling you'd get somewhere with the word challenge or a similar word because for people who don't run their own businesses, they may not realize, they may just think it's, you do this because it is a more efficient way of earning an income. And it's not, it's because when you start out, pretty much whatever you do, there's less money. You know, you could, when you start a business, you could go get a minimum wage part -time job and make more money.
Of course, there's hope that it pays off and certainly sounds like you have a good track record there, but it's about solving a problem. There's a very martial arts, as I see it, a very martial philosophy to running a business. You're looking for that iteration. You step back on the mats. How do I get 1 % better today? How do I make my business 1 % better today? How do I avoid the pitfalls of before? If I step in and I spar or randori with someone, how do I make sure that goes better than the last time I did it?
Feras (18:33.746)
Yeah, 100%. And I think in business, and I speak to maybe one to two founders every week, someone I was speaking with yesterday, and they're, like some people, I think sometimes people think that they're born, some people are born entrepreneurs or they're born salespeople. And obviously, obviously in business, when you have your own business.
you are likely to have an area of expertise, your domain knowledge, the technical, whether it's HR consulting, whether it's you help people improve their dojos and get more members, whether it is you're a financial advisor, whatever that case might be, you have some technical expertise, so that's needed. A lot of times people who have that domain knowledge, they're concerned or they're afraid of starting their own business because, we don't know how to sell.
We don't know how to market. We don't know how to hire. Of course, most of us, in my experience, we were not born, we were not born amazing salespeople. But all of those skills are learnable. When I was laid off, as I mentioned, and I was out, I joke about it. I said, I couldn't find a job for seven, eight weeks. I didn't get, I didn't get one interview. I was hitting the pavement. I was sending resumes out.
But it was a dry market similar to what we're seeing today with these waves of layoffs around us in almost every sector. I spoke with a friend of mine and he had said, hey, you know, I'm thinking to start a business of starting a business. What do you think? And we joined forces. So I was in a way forced into entrepreneurship. I, it wasn't sort of the first thing on top of my mind. I had a, I had a young family at the time, three children, my wife. So, so.
I had to learn sales from the ground up because I never, never sold anything to anyone. I didn't know how to market. I didn't know. So I picked up that, that was a classic, maybe at the time, the guerrilla marketing and, and figure out because we had a very, very tiny budget. So, so I think for those out there who are, maybe want to get into, into martial arts, or they want to try maybe different art or, or, or maybe they want to start a business.
Jeremy (20:41.661)
Hmm.
Feras (20:57.17)
they're on the fence, is it time to take the leap? I think plan for, you know, before you sort of make a reckless decision and say, I'm quitting today, I'm starting, no plan, you know, plan for starting a business, but everything else, just like you've learned a technical skill or a specific profession that you're in, every other aspect of the business, I think is learnable. You can learn about it. You can go out and pitch and get a whole lot of rejections, but then...
You'll figure it out. You just got to do the reps.
Jeremy (21:29.789)
We learn by making mistakes. You know, it's something that I think the world is finally broadly embracing. And I started hearing it, this conversation coming out of your world, out of Silicon Valley and the tech sector, talking about, okay, great, you got it right. That teaches you a way to do it. But is that the best way? You may not know, but when you get something wrong, maybe it's only in a certain circumstances, but you can cross it off. And that's a lot more definitive.
And there's something to be said for looking for what is wrong, what is broken, what did I screw up? And if you take a look and when I, when I give seminars, I often use this, this anecdote, this metaphor, how do babies learn how to stand up by falling over a lot? How do they learn how to walk by falling down a lot? How do they learn how to run by falling down a lot? And we never look at the baby and say, you're a terrible baby.
Stop trying to stand up, stop trying to walk, stop trying to run. No, we recognize that that's part of the learning process. And it's something that I think we are slowly getting better and need to continue getting better at embracing is mistakes or I don't like the word, but failure.
Feras (22:35.73)
Yeah.
Feras (22:46.226)
It is, I mean, resilience is the thing, is a real thing in martial arts and in business. And it is basically the mindset of not when, not if I fail, when I fail, because you will fail, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you will fail in different ways. But exactly what you said, Jeremy, is that we learn from this. So I'll give you an example. When...
Jeremy (22:48.893)
Mmm, that's a great one.
Feras (23:14.866)
early on, again, since we talked about sales, I didn't know how to sell. And my partner and I, we sat down and came up with a business plan. And we, okay, here's the segment, you know, we, we listened, we read some books on this stuff and here's the segment of the market we want to go after. And here's how much we want to price this. And I think for two, three weeks, we kept delaying the actual act of, of selling and we started kind of
planning and doing spreadsheets and business plans and budgets and it's going to look rosy and three, like look at this much revenue we will be doing in, you know, in three years from now. But it was really hard for us to take that step to go out and knock on doors and tell people here's what we are offering. So, we kept delaying it because it's hard. It's not easy, but then, you know, add, add.
bring food to the table, not maybe literally that week, but you got to do it. So the first day, I kid you not, we went and had five pitches and we figured we would pitch to those they know us. So they're more likely to say yes. And so we said, you know, let's go to restaurants where we eat. We've been giving them money for all these years, so they'd better give us, you know, buy from us, right? So.
we go to five restaurants and we ended up having to have five meals, just to be nice. And then, cheaply I would go to pay the bill. And then, like, hey, we have this new business where we build websites for companies. Now, this is 2003, remember, websites were not a thing at the time. So all these small business owners, they look at me and say, what?
What's a website? I'm a small, I'm a restaurant. Exactly, exactly. So it's just like, you know, a few years ago, like when you told people you need to have a mobile app and they didn't understand. So, I kid you not, five rejections that very first day when we went out to sell. And so we went home devastated.
Jeremy (25:08.765)
Why do I need a website? I'm a restaurant. People aren't gonna buy meals online.
Feras (25:33.874)
It took us a couple of days to bounce back. And we said, do you know what? That's just part of, and I was listening to some CDs on sales and, and okay, here's how you handle objections. And, and, and then we sat down and said, okay, here, here are like the 10 things they objected, all these sales, all the business owners, like everything they told us. And we had answers for all these objections. And that was sort of in the, in my back pocket. So when we went, the funny thing is.
Jeremy (25:37.021)
It hurts?
Feras (26:03.378)
the first client we had ended up being a restaurant, a sixth restaurant that we went to. It's called Athena Grill, still a thriving restaurant down the street in Santa Clara. So, you know, we got him a website. It took us two months, I don't know, three months to build a four page website. It was really hard at the time and we did not know what we were doing. But, you know, we sold it for $1 ,400. I always say, this is the...
When we got the first 50 % deposit on the project, that first check was probably the sweetest moment in my business life. It sort of proved that we have something going, I can sell it, clients believe in me. I mean, it's just similar to like when a technique, I think on the mat, hopefully not off the mat, you don't need to do it off the mat, on the mat when a technique works effortlessly.
and when it sort of flows and you feel good about it, that was the feeling we had when we had that first sale, but it took us a whole lot of rejections, a whole lot of knocking on doors to get that first sale. It didn't get a whole lot easier for the next few months, but the confidence was there. And then later it became more of a second nature and you figure out that this is what you have to do to build that business.
Jeremy (27:25.661)
And again, where's the parallel with training? And I'm going to ask you in a moment why you started training because we haven't gotten there, but you get out there, you're screwing it up, but you're willing to learn from your mistakes. And eventually it gets easier and you start to build some confidence and it builds momentum. You know, for those of you out there in the audience, think about if you remember your first days of training, you were probably terrified to even pull into the parking lot and open that door.
Feras (27:32.146)
Yeah.
Jeremy (27:55.005)
and step through the door, you're probably not wearing a martial arts uniform. You're probably wearing sweatpants or shorts and you're out there with everyone else and you're feeling like you're the only person in the world who has never known what they were doing when they started a martial arts class. Just as you're pitching websites and you're in those first five, you're probably doubting yourself. Should I even continue doing this? The, cause I think I heard you say,
These were businesses you'd already done business with and you thought they were layups. You thought.
Feras (28:25.042)
Yeah, local restaurants we go to all the time. Yeah.
Jeremy (28:29.053)
So, yeah, of course they're going to say yes, but no, they say no. And now you're, you're, you would assume the wind and now you're dejected. And I think most of us can relate to that feeling, but no, I think no matter what it is, if you're pushing, if you're challenging yourself, if you're in a place of discomfort and learning doesn't come from a place of comfort, it is logically impossible. You only learn when you are uncomfortable.
You have to make mistakes. Part of being uncomfortable is making mistakes. If you're never making mistakes, you're lying to yourself about your own discomfort.
Feras (29:07.826)
If things are going very smoothly, if you're not making mistakes, you're not working hard enough or you're not trying new things. And I think it was, who was it? The founder of the Virgin Atlantic brand, Richard Branson. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, early in the morning.
Jeremy (29:16.509)
Yeah.
Jeremy (29:23.517)
Richard Branson.
Jeremy (29:27.997)
It's, you can, I mean, you can chalk everything up to early morning for a few hours here.
Feras (29:33.074)
No, no. So he says, while the brave will not live forever, the cautious never lives. And he tries all these obnoxious things that he does. It would be amazing what he's done in his life and he's getting older and he still challenges himself physically, so that's from the business success that he's had. And I think you...
Jeremy (29:45.501)
Hmm.
Feras (30:01.746)
You know, the first time maybe you got into sparring or randori, as you mentioned the first time, you know, you, I don't know, Akira there, they're falling, falls and you take a high fall, especially at an older age, you know, but that, I think that builds more resilience that builds in business. We say competence builds confidence. So initially again, you might be very competent in one thing.
Jeremy (30:23.549)
Hmm.
Feras (30:29.842)
in that technical expertise that you have, but how do you apply that? How do you deliver? Let's say you provide leadership coaching and you've maybe worked with first time managers and now you want to go and teach executives. So you're going to deal with something like, wait a second, these C -level CEOs and CFOs and CTOs and how do I work with them? And they know a lot and they make a lot of money and they're established and they're managing.
groups of hundreds. So I'm pretty sure the first time you do it, it's going to be nervous when you pitch it. It's going to be nervous when you deliver it. But as you do more of it, as you get better at it, as you get positive feedback, as you make mistakes and you learn from those mistakes, then it becomes more of a, you know, hopefully, you know, deliberate experience. It becomes a habit, a good habit. And that, that...
that gets you closer to that perfection level that we aspire to get to in business and in martial arts.
Jeremy (31:35.325)
So here we've been chatting with 30 minutes in, we've barely mentioned Aikido, but we haven't talked about how you even got started. We know more about how you got started in business and how you got started in martial arts. So why did you start training?
Feras (31:51.314)
Yeah. So I, you know, I probably more of a sensei in business that I'm a sensei in martial art, just, just to be clear here. So, so I started, I got into martial arts when I was in high school. So I did a show on karate, almost got my black belt, but I wasn't doing, I got, I think it was a brown belt and got very close to, to test for black belt, but then I was not doing great in school. My father said,
Jeremy (31:55.677)
Hehehehehe
Feras (32:21.266)
Okay, gotta stop, gotta focus on study. So.
Jeremy (32:24.253)
Were you prioritizing karate over your schoolwork?
Feras (32:27.474)
I probably just not studying now. I don't, it wasn't the case. It wasn't like, no, no, it was just, you know, you know, young and silly and just not, not, not, not focusing on studying and homework and all that. But, so, so, and so that's, that's what got into it. And then we had, we had a very, very strict coach. I somehow I like, maybe I'm left brain. I don't know, but the, the, the discipline, the structure, that, that.
really something I've always admired and aspire to have that in my life. So, I mean, it was a pretty, those are the old, this is, you know, 40, I don't know, four years ago, plus when we were younger and when we were not doing things right, he would say, he would take his belt and this is something you don't hear about these days, but that's, those are the oldest. And it wasn't in the U .S. different times, different places, but he, I mean, he cared. He wanted us to,
to train hard, he wanted to be very serious about it, especially when you're writing. And if he complained to your parents, they would call him and say, yeah, do more of it. That's how it was at the time. So he turned in Japan, and I think this is how they did it in the old days. So then got into college and got busy with college, and then I got into judo for a little bit, about a year and a half. Again, nothing I can speak about with authority.
Jeremy (33:27.261)
It was tough love.
Feras (33:55.538)
And then we ended up moving to Salton Valley after, no, we moved to Florida. I did a little bit of judo there too. And then got here, got into the startup scene, as I said, got really busy with life. And then when we, after the layoff and starting my own business, there was just no time and there was no money to be frank. And then it was 2009 when I said, okay, now that we were, the business has...
Now we were starting to do well. We had some profit and we were growing. And I said, okay, now I want to get back that black belt that, that, that I, my, you know, my own mistake and my own not focusing on my own studies, you know, my, I didn't blame my dad. I said, I want to get that, that black belt again. That was sort of my motivation. And I think I was, I think I was 41 by that time. no wait. Yeah. Yeah. So I said, okay. So what I.
Jeremy (34:45.661)
Yeah, and 20 plus years since you started, right? So a few restarts.
Feras (34:50.546)
Judo, all that, you know, when you get older, it's not easy on the body. So I said, is there something a little bit maybe less easier on the body? So I searched online and then this thing called Aikido and I haven't heard about Aikido. I think I trained once in Aikido before. So I checked out some dojos around and then I ended up.
sign up with this I Kido of Silicon Valley. And I've been there for the last 15 years now, pretty committed three, four times a week, week in, week out and fell in love with it. And.
Jeremy (35:30.973)
Why? Why did you fall in love with it?
Feras (35:35.57)
So there's the whole discipline aspect of martial arts that always inspired me in so many different ways. So that part I love, I enjoy. And then Aikido specifically.
Feras (35:50.418)
I mean, the concept of harmony in Aikido, you know, Aikido, the way of harmonizing energy where you're not starting the attack, when we train, someone is attacking you and then you are re -channeling that energy. So in all of our training, someone is starting the attack. So you're, okay, the person attacking you, they're grabbing their hand, they're punching you, they're grabbing, you know, whichever way they grab.
So I liked that concept more as I got more into it. And I'm not too much into philosophy and the spiritual aspect of it, but more that concept of re -channeling the energy, the redirection of aggression. And that part sort of resonated really well for me. And then as I started to train more into it, there are parts of Aikido I think that are maybe softer on the body and there's...
I hear that really hard on the body, depending on your intensity in training, depending on many other factors, maybe the dojo that you train at. So later I figured I can, depending on again, if there's an injury or whatever, but at different, some phases you train really hard and you find training partners who want to train really hard. And at times you take it easy. And...
Jeremy (36:50.013)
Hmm.
Feras (37:14.866)
And yeah, so that's sort of the highlights of, or the summary of how I got to this point.
Jeremy (37:22.461)
And you know any anytime somebody comes on and they talk about I've I Kept coming back to martial arts. It tells me that there was something I'm gonna use the word missing Doesn't necessarily mean it was missing Consciously, but there's something that kept pulling you back to martial arts. Was it as simple as Craving more structure and discipline in your life as a young man? I
Or was it something more than that?
Feras (37:54.738)
I think it's probably a number of factors just like everything else in life. The discipline just...
I love this plan, just in life. I try my best to walk the talk as well in business. I told folks, one of my motto is work hard and play hard. So as a boss, as a business owner, you're gonna be the first one coming in, the first one to leave, if that's what you tell people, to work hard. If you tell people to be responsive to your clients,
then you should be responsive to your employees when they have issues as well. If you're telling people, I want to take care of you and we are building a business and this is the family, then you got to treat them as family. You got to share with them as you become more profitable. So in a way, that structure and discipline and that authority and systems, it really resonates with me. And then I think,
the concept of, you know, we say in one of our black belt principles, we say passion is optional, sacrifice and skills are not. So when we can talk about this at length, but the idea of, you just to learn and evolve and become better at what you do and provide for your family and provide for your community. And you just got to learn skills and you got to sacrifice. And I think in martial arts,
In a way, when I'm training with someone, again, in Aikido, it could be where if someone is testing for their Nidan, their second black, you know, second degree black belt or their third degree, there, there are a lot of throwing around and there are a lot of hard throws in there. So when someone asks you to be their uke, their partner for that test, in a way, you're giving your body for them to throw you around. And then.
Feras (39:59.058)
And then when you bow at the end of the test or at the end of when you really trained hard and you bow and you thank them, like it means a lot to me now where like thank you for allowing me to throw you around and thank, you know, you're thanking me for me, you know, offering, you know, my body for you to punch and throw around, right? So all these, these concepts of, of sacrificing, of learning new skills, of that discipline to me.
Jeremy (40:19.877)
All right.
Feras (40:29.298)
They're fascinating. They're, you know, they're just, I don't know, resonate very well with me. It's conscious, it's conscious.
Jeremy (40:36.829)
There's a service element to what we do to our training pretty much no matter what you train. You know, you're talking about the very physically demanding aspect of getting thrown around and sacrificing your body to a certain degree for the benefit of someone else's education. You know, and I've been training a long time as well. And over the last few years, I've become really enamored with this idea that
education in the martial arts isn't what I started and most people would think of it as okay there's an instructor and they convey knowledge to the student and you get a little bit deeper and you start teaching and you realize my students are also teaching me but more recently I've been coming to realize that not not necessarily the direct education from student to student
But that sacrifice or some might call it service or submission that the better quality people who are more willing to sacrifice for the good of the all, right? You know, we're getting into some kind of deep philosophical principles there. There's some utilitarianism and worked in there.
I've trained at schools where the instructor was okay, but the people I trained with were phenomenal, so I learned a lot. I've trained at schools where the instructor was wonderful. My peers, maybe less so. I didn't learn as much. And I'm wondering if that's something that you think about or talk about as well.
Feras (42:19.794)
Yeah, that's a very, very interesting perspective. I think after a while, you know, we talked about this concept of learning how to learn. So, so I think once you make progress and I don't know, I don't know, I always say, you know, black belts, maybe their high school and then and the different in different arts, right? Some arts takes longer to get to black belt, but but there is progression in learning. And I think at least.
Jeremy (42:28.637)
Hmm.
Feras (42:48.05)
For me, my black belt, I think high school, maybe my second degree black belt is maybe, I don't know, junior college. My third degree black belt is masters and maybe if I get to fourth degree, then that's sort of like a PhD. You know the curriculum really well. So I think if you're serious about making progress, I think that road to mastery, I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who said,
or maybe made it popular is that 10 ,000 hours, the 10 ,000 steps, whatever the case might be. It's not just of any practice, is the deliberate practice. Because as one of our census says, like if practice makes perfect, no, bad practice makes awful. Good practice, deliberate practice. So I think as we learn how to learn,
Jeremy (43:20.701)
Sure.
Jeremy (43:37.021)
you can get worse.
Feras (43:44.114)
you start reading about it some more and you reflect on what other people are doing, are saying. You see, I love going to other dojos. I used to travel a lot before COVID. And if I'm in DC or if I'm in Utah, I'd find a dojo and I would email them ahead of time and it'd be respectful. I'm here for, can I come and train? In Aikido, and even if they're of the same lineage, they're always different flavors.
And I'm used to pin this way and then while they move that way and it throws you off and it shouldn't because you should not anticipate as we know, you should sort of follow the energy. And that is a learning moment, humbling moment for sure. So I think learning.
It's education plus application. So you have a sensei or you watch something on YouTube and take note of it or you go to a seminar. You take some notes and then, okay, how do I put this to practice? When I'm driving, okay, how does this work really? And then when you go on the mat after class, maybe you and a training partner, let's check this out and let's see if it works. Let's see if there are holes in the way I'm doing it.
Jeremy (44:33.341)
Hmm.
Feras (44:59.698)
So I think that road to mastery in business and martial arts and in any art is the hours are required and that the greatest artist, I think the greatest martial artist, they've trained in many, many disciplines. The greatest artist, Leonardo da Vinci, he wasn't just painting, but he learned biology and he learned.
Jeremy (45:20.733)
Yeah.
Feras (45:27.71)
Steve Jobs, he was into calligraphy. So I think that road to mastery and learning first is ongoing, of course, but then is trying to learn from different people, from different arts, from different systems, and also different methods of learning. I think all of those are required if you're serious about making progress.
Jeremy (45:52.317)
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. It's it's a mindset, right? When we when we see people who have done great things, they not not always, you know, sometimes you have people who are very specific at what their greatness is, at least our understanding of it. But when you said when you you were talking about an artist, my mind instantly went to Da Vinci because painter, sculptor, inventor, disector, right? Like just
that this man just had a thirst and a mindset that led to these incredible results. And we tend to see that. And when I think about the best martial artists I know in terms of skill and contribution to the world of martial arts, they tend to have a broader understanding. I'm not necessarily gonna say that they've formally trained in a dozen different things, but more often than not, they have trained in a lot of different things.
Feras (46:50.034)
Yeah.
Jeremy (46:51.677)
And whether you want to justify that as they're learning how to defend against these things, or they're interested in these things, or they're, you know, cross -training the way we might often use that word.
It tends to show up with all of them. And I think that there's something that can't quite be ignored, that if you want to be great at anything, you're probably going to at least get very good at a bunch of things.
Feras (47:23.314)
Yes, and I think...
And in business, I always say when you're looking for.
A business partner, let's say you want to do a lot of businesses, a lot of business owners, they succeed on their own a lot, do so with partners, one or two business partners. And in all my ventures, I've always had co -founders. And when you're looking for a partner in business or a co -founder, or maybe your first employee or your second employee, you want to look for someone, not just the values align, maybe the way they work and the way they think of business, but also...
the skills that you have, you want to find people who compliment what you have, right? If you're the sort of the believer and the, you know, like a very, very positive person, which is great, you probably want to have someone on your team, not a pessimist, but someone who can maybe be a bit more skeptical on just on things. I mean, it'll help greatly in business. If for the person who's out there selling and marketing,
You want someone who also is really good at delivering what you sell. So, you know, if you're just a solo business owner, you might have to do all of it. But at one point, if you're wanting to grow, you have to figure out your area, your niche or your area of expertise and focus on that and then get others to help you grow. And I think in martial arts,
Feras (48:58.802)
You know, in our dojo, when we train every night in the class, we actually stick with the same partner for that same, the whole period. Yeah. And we encourage actually our most junior people right after we bow to run and grab the most senior people. And I did that like initially, I thought it was like, I was shy and like, and they said, no, no, it's just go on. And I used to go and grab the most senior person for the first, like maybe once I learned for the first couple of months. And I think that that helps. So, so.
Jeremy (49:05.965)
interesting.
Feras (49:27.826)
But if you're always choosing, you know, I can say you're tired and you want to kind of train hard, you're choosing like an easier route or someone like really junior, you can do that. But I think that impacts your training. You know, you want to, you want to always, I think, train in a challenging way. And if it was sometimes, you know, I, we have a new student and I train with them the first night. So I do learn from working with beginners for sure. They move differently. They ask all kinds of questions.
But then maybe after that one hour session, I stay another 30 minutes and I train, you know, with someone, you know, who's senior and pick up something that maybe I didn't pick from working with that beginner that night. So it is doing the difficult things. Is it doing the challenging things? It is getting out of our comfort zone. That's how we, I think, get better.
Jeremy (50:23.613)
Yeah. Yeah. I'll share this with you. I don't know if we've talked about this on the show yet. My and you might be able to guess this. You know, this might say, this doesn't surprise me in school. I double majored in philosophy and computer science. We certainly said that on the show. And people who know me say, of course, that that's that's very Jeremy. That makes sense. I also when I when I started my karate school for the second time last year, it's in a library, which is also a very Jeremy thing.
Feras (50:38.962)
Alright.
Jeremy (50:52.797)
To do so that's a that's a lot of fun, but You know, I I'm I'm fascinated with distilling things down because it makes it easier to teach and I've come up with this formula for progress and we keep talking about some of these these aspects here directly and indirectly progress requires four things a feeling of safety but also a feeling of discomfort and Remaining in that that intersection
with some frequency over a period of time.
And if you can check those four things, you're going to make progress. And if you recognize those things and see where is the safety here, where is the discomfort, you can start to manipulate those variables and make rapid progress.
Feras (51:43.506)
I should be taking notes here, these four things. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, consistency is really important. If you're a business owner and...
Jeremy (51:46.269)
I'm out.
Jeremy (51:53.213)
Yeah. You talked about it as discipline earlier, which I think is the big thing most people are missing in any of their goals.
Feras (52:00.306)
Yeah, and I think that discipline on the mat, of course, I think the discipline off the mat. If you want to, I think, be better on the mat, you wanna work out, exercise, complement, whatever art you're doing. Because I think every art has its strength and has, maybe I, it's okay to say like weaknesses or maybe areas where maybe it's not optimal in.
there's no striking or kicking in Aikido. So it, how do you maybe compliment that? If again, depending on what, what your goal is, you know, of, of training. but if you're thinking more like more martial, more maybe self -defense, you know, if you're into, into it for self -defense again from, and I'm not saying this to, to sound humble. Like I am, I think 15 years, last 15 years in Aikido does not make me qualify me to speak with authority with.
those who've been around like yourself 35, 40 years, you know, and you know, you've been teaching this for a long time, I think. But from my, I guess I could have an informed opinion, if you're into it for self -defense, then you gotta learn about self -defense because I think there's, I've seen this somewhere, there's like a Venn diagram, these circles, overlapping circles, right, between fighting, self -defense, and a traditional martial art. So.
Jeremy (53:03.677)
course.
Feras (53:20.498)
you know, maybe a, what is it? Pepper spray might be like the best, maybe escaping, maybe just, this is the part I love about Aikido, sort of deescalating a situation might be the, you know, instead of taking, you know, like your boxing stand and ready to fight, maybe just, you know, people who are listening, like just kind of pointing, hey, hey man, just, just, you want to be close, you want to, I think your arms, your hands close to your face to protect your face, but instead of taking a martial aggressive stance, you can just maybe,
Jeremy (53:48.125)
Hands up but open.
Feras (53:49.874)
Hands up, open, say, hey man, take it easy, hey man. So, and maybe as we get older, maybe we get wiser, I don't know, but if you can avoid a conflict, if you can de -escalate, I think that's better than having an encounter because you don't know. You have, we hear about crazy stuff out there. People might have a weapon, people might have three friends around the corner. You could be an amazing martial artist, but.
Jeremy (54:00.221)
Hopefully.
Feras (54:18.386)
out there on the street is different. So I think, how did I get into this? But yeah, I think your objectives of learning, of training in martial arts, or also same in business, your objectives of starting your own business, I think maybe money is one objective and it's definitely is important, especially if you go on YouTube and hear about all these get rich quick schemes, you know.
Money is important, but also there are other things I think that are important in business. I love to build. I love to build companies and hire amazing people and with them grow something and have an amazing business culture. To me, this is so rewarding. Most of, not all of my ex -colleagues, really good friends, we still stay in touch, we support each other, we visit when we're in town. That camaraderie, that...
those friendships, lasting relationships, like those are really important in business in my mind, because we spend, what people maybe don't realize is that we spend most of our waking hours at work. So finding, building an environment where you enjoy and learn and contribute is important to me. So there are a lot of reasons I think why people get into business, or maybe get into martial arts. And I think after a while,
we, at least for me, like you start appreciating the journey, maybe not just the destination. So, okay, so you build a business, you sell it, you're a millionaire, so okay, you've done it good. So now, exactly, so you're just gonna go and go to Hawaii every other weekend, and I mean, that's, how are you gonna live if, exactly, like how are you gonna help others? How are you going to maybe provide more for your family, of course?
Jeremy (55:56.349)
Now what? Yeah.
Jeremy (56:04.093)
It's boring.
Feras (56:12.05)
But how can you stay active, an active member of the society? And so those are kind of, I think, thoughts that are important, like kind of always asking, like, why? What do I want to get out of it? What are my goals of business or martial arts? I think that's good to reflect on that every once in a while.
Jeremy (56:33.885)
When we think about someone who's been training for a long time, whatever a long time is, because if you've been training five years, that feels like a long time. If you've been training for 60 years, that feels like a long time.
Why we continue to train tends to change how we approach our training tends to change right we have this this perspective this context that comes from that experience and I'm sure that if we could Build a time machine and I could jump into your first business with you. I would imagine a different culture Your skill sets dramatically different than your new venture I would also imagine even if we're only talking about the Aikido arc of your martial arts training
that from year one to year 15, we're talking about some different things and how you approach it. And I think most importantly, what you want to get out of it. What are your goals as you keep showing up for your training now?
Feras (57:35.346)
I wish I started 15 years younger. I think...
a few things. One is I just love it. I just enjoy it. Like I sometimes against hard on the body, you know, as we get older, you know, the joints, the knees, you know, the the the rotator cuff, you know, whatever the case might be. But I think you learn even if you have these minor injuries or discomforts, you learn learning, continue to learn trends. I think staying active is really important mentally as well. The.
I mean, some of the folks I know in our dojo, I've known now for 15 years, right? I've been to their weddings and they've been to my daughter's wedding, some of them. I've seen them get married and have kids and I've seen them in their progression, in their own training. So there's that aspect of this community that they're involved in. I teach, as I said, youth class. And...
you know, before COVID, you know, after COVID, our youth class just really mushroomed in a good way. We have a whole lot of people, typically there are two of us, they're teaching and just sort of passing on what you learn and passing on, helping these young folks be a bit more maybe disciplined, be more serious about life. I think that's something that is very rewarding to me personally. I think,
Be, I don't wanna say a role model, but even for, I have three, we have three children, they're adults now, not children anymore, but also be, kind of walk the talk, you tell them to eat healthy and be healthy and work out and be disciplined and sacrifice all these values that are important to me, living those, I think there's an aspect to that when I train in martial arts. So,
Feras (59:42.386)
You know, there's a bit of a competitiveness. I don't know if this is good to say or not. You know, always like, how do I get better? I admire this person that I train with and how do I not beat him, but how do I get better? You know, there's that aspect. I think that's healthy. I don't think exactly like, man, like, you know, he's so smooth and he's so, he's flowing. And how do I, you know, and you know, like one of our sensei, he still trains with us. And...
Jeremy (59:59.069)
There's a challenge there.
Feras (01:00:12.498)
And he's, he's, he's in his sixties and he trains hard. And I, I mean, you probably experienced this. If you don't do the move like perfectly, he's not going to let you do it. Not in a mean way, not in a mean way in a, in a, in a compassionate way. And I don't know how to describe this because you can be, you can, you know, you can be a jerk about things in martial arts. You know, you can, you can show off and ego can get in there and.
But I don't experience that in our dojo at all. Maybe in moments I do it or someone else might do it, just human nature. But I think we correct ourselves right away. And you want to receive it well, you want to give it well, you want to be compassionate about it. But I mean, it is very challenging when, and I don't get to train with him a lot, because we're both a bit senior, but when I get a chance to train with him and I say, okay, now, see if I can do this technique. And he's still.
You still catch, you know, something that I'm not doing right. And it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating, but in a positive way, like, okay, I'm going to try to do it better.
Jeremy (01:01:21.277)
But knowing that he is theoretically the one that is holding you to the standards and the one that likely has the most knowledge, if you worked with him and there wasn't anything to work on, you'd probably be more frustrated. What am I doing? Okay, I've checked this box. Aikido is done. That would be miserable.
Feras (01:01:40.274)
Or he's taking it, probably he's taking it easy on me. He probably taking it easy on me.
Jeremy (01:01:44.925)
which I think is even worse of those options.
Feras (01:01:47.858)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy (01:01:50.269)
Yeah, we want to know that our efforts have a result, right? We put in the time, we get something out of it.
Feras (01:01:54.226)
Absolutely.
Jeremy (01:02:00.253)
Let's take a minute. We're going to start to wind here, but I want to...anytime anybody comes on the show and they do a thing that the audience might be interested in professionally, take a few minutes and give us, I guess, your pitch. You probably weren't even expecting this because it's a martial arts show, but give us your pitch of what you're doing with your business now.
Feras (01:02:20.69)
Well, martial arts, if some of your listeners are not into martial arts, get into martial arts. Whatever it is, whatever it is. And keep training, training and keep training hard. On the business side. So as we have the company called Startup with Ferris and it is, it's a business advisory and media company. So we produce content today on our YouTube channel at Startup with Ferris and Ferris is spelled F E R A S like my first name. And we also have a daily newsletter.
Jeremy (01:02:27.677)
course.
Feras (01:02:49.778)
on our website, startupwithfares .com. So we cover a wide range of topics, all to do with entrepreneurship. So if someone is looking for, if they have an idea and they wanna start a business and they're not sure how, or they're fearful of starting a business, so we have you covered. Or if you started and you're struggling, or maybe you're pivoted and you're not sure how to sort of grow a business. So our goal is to help what we call early stage founders.
No matter how young or old you are, but if you're an early stage founder and want to build and grow the business to seven and eight figures, we have, we have content for you. And actually soon we don't have a paid service yet. Soon we'll be launching an online course and consulting premium type consulting for.
Jeremy (01:03:36.317)
and this can apply to martial arts schools.
Feras (01:03:38.898)
Martial arts schools can benefit a lot from, I'm gonna be very polite here, a lot of amazing martial artists when it comes to business, when it comes to business, they need to talk to you. Just from what I read on your website and the stuff you do. I mean, when I grow your membership, there's something called marketing. It's marketing, sales and marketing. Sales is not a dirty word and marketing is not the dark side. You can do it with authenticity, you can do it.
Jeremy (01:03:41.981)
Hmm?
Jeremy (01:03:47.421)
you're being nicer than I am.
You
Feras (01:04:08.018)
But you gotta grow, you gotta grow the business. Otherwise, unfortunately, like COVID, we know if a dojo, a school does not have a solid financial structure or you haven't really done the best practices in a business, you will suffer. I've seen a lot of dojos close during COVID. I mean, that was an extreme case maybe, but even you see, I don't know what the failure rate is, but.
You know, in one of your videos, you said like you can increase, help them increase their membership by like 5 .8%. I love, you know, I'm a data guy. I love that specific percentage, but if you're increasing 5 .8 % every month, you'll do well in a few months because there's a recurring aspect to business. So, so yeah.
Jeremy (01:04:50.813)
Yeah.
Jeremy (01:04:55.901)
Great, great. You mentioned some of the links where you can have all those links in the show notes, no matter where people are consuming them. But if people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way? I think you sent us a whole list of social media.
Feras (01:05:08.762)
Yeah, sure. Sure. I'm on LinkedIn, probably most active on LinkedIn. I'm aware on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, I'm most active on LinkedIn. You can go to the website, email me directly. I can, I, we do, I, one thing I forgot to mention, we have what I call the Ask Ferris sessions free. No, no gimmick, no pitches. It's just, you can go on my calendar and, and, and select a 30 minute slot and just tell me about your business idea or about the challenge that you're having or whatever, you know, sales and marketing and legal and accounting.
I'll give you my two cents and help maybe point you in the right direction and no obligation. And a lot of, I do this because a lot of people help me along the way. Just like in martial arts, so many teachers, so many peers and even beginners, they help us, right? Same thing in business. So many people help me along the way. And that's my way of giving back to the community is just offer these couple of slots every week to just.
chat and learn about the challenges that people are facing and typically give them a point or two to help them overcome that challenge.
Jeremy (01:06:15.933)
Yeah, again audience we're gonna have all that stuff linked so make sure you check that out and Ferris I'm gonna throw it back to you in a minute to close us up But before I do just a reminder to the audience whistlekick martial arts radio comm whistle kick comm Ferris mentioned whistle kick Alliance that's where that that five point eight two percent Number comes from the whistle kick Alliance program that we have for martial arts schools but remember the majority of the stuff that we do all of our best stuff is free our Digital magazine the dispatch is free this show is
free our YouTube and social media content free. We even have free events, free training day. I mean, what more can you ask for? We do everything we can to connect, educate and entertain you, the traditional martial artists of the world in an effort to get everybody out there to train for even just six months. So make sure you're visiting our stuff. Make sure you're telling your friends about our stuff. Help us grow so we can, I guess cliche as it might be, help the world.
But I'm going to throw it back to you, Ferris. How do you want to wrap today? We've definitely had a few themes today, but what do you want to leave the audience with?
Feras (01:07:25.458)
Maybe I'll build on what you said about helping the world. I think this quote that resonates a lot with me, and I try to live up to it, it's by Ralph Waldo Emerson, he said, life is not about just being happy, life is about being useful, being honorable, and being compassionate. So I think...
as martial artists, as business people, as fathers, as brothers and husbands and mothers and sisters and leaders in business and the community. We live in a time where we're bombarded by marketing messages about me, I, myself. And I think we owe it to people around us to be of service, to be of help.
in whichever, whatever thing that you have, whatever skill, whatever maybe some wealth maybe you have, some knowledge that you have, we owe it to help others and support others. In our dojo, I volunteer, I don't get paid for what I do. When I'm teaching youth, I just love helping out. I always try to find ways to volunteer and help, even when we were really struggling as a business.
I know there were other people who were struggling more. I couldn't contribute financially, but I would, maybe on the way home, I would speak with a struggling entrepreneur and share with them what I've learned this last year. So I would say there's the concept of Budo and the concept of being a, I don't know, chivalry and being there for the community.
I think we can, as again, in our local communities, in our society at large, if we have more of that, I think we'll have a better world around us. So I'll leave it at that.