BTG 50 - Eliot Marshall

[Music] hey guys what's going on i'm david alvin here with my co-host robert drysdale and on today's episode we have a very special guest none other than ufc that uh host of the podcast uh and uh and you've done quite a bit let me just get you in there elliott martial welcome to the show what's up guys how are you thanks for having me on i appreciate it it's my pleasure i was just reading up a little bit about you and uh i realized we're birthday brothers should i say yeah i think i knew that too i think i knew that too from a while ago because you know we were all kind of doing it at the same time and you know the competing thing but we you know you guys were ahead of me today same day he's a year older i mean yeah he's 40 i'm 39 we're close up pretty close that's awesome and then um i guess to get started just uh for people who are not familiar with you just give us a little bit about your background in the martial arts and how did you get started so when i got started i got started in 1986. uh i saw the karate kid and i and i crane kicked a lamp in my house and and my parents were like all right well let's put you in a crowd yeah so um i did karate right like any like most of us 80s kids did um there was no jiu jitsu in america or anything like that i had a very interesting upbringing you know karate actually probably was my savior was the difference between for example me and my sister who didn't get too into it because we were very we're very different you know i had a black dad and uh a jewish mom whose parents survived the concentration camps so um with you know my dad older not older but like when he growing up was 1950s and 60s so right through the right through civil rights you know so a lot of fear you know a lot of fear in the household i would say um and you know i learned you know like things like i never fit in anywhere like my house would get spray painted with swastikas and racial slurs and and all kinds of stuff but at karate i always fit in so um yeah so martial arts was kind of my thing and then towards the end of my karate tenure the the late night the late 90s um you know my friend we were doing we had a tournament a karate tournament and he dodged me he did like the masters division and i was like ah you you know and it was just sparring so like it wasn't full contact so you would you would fight your friends right like you know you'd spar against your friends in a tournament um i was like you dodged me you're scared and he's like oh you think so he's like come over my house on friday i was like oh sure no problem old man and i go over his house and i have no clue what jiu jitsu is i have no clue that he'd been he's like about to get his blue belt you know but we were like kind of the same level at karate but he could wrestle and do jiu jitsu because he was a state champ wrestler and oh my god it blew my mind like it just blew my mind i was like oh my i can't fight at all you know what year was this this was 1998 yeah okay yeah um super early in the game yeah i think everyone has that story of getting their asses kicked by someone and realizing they can't fight for [ __ ] yeah because you think you can fight until you get your butt kicked by a 13 year old you're going okay i can't yeah mine was a chicken doe and uh we never sparred when i did jinkundo we did all forms and katas and hitting pads and my brother and i thought we were both bruce lee yeah until i remember the first realization was with kendo because we were doing kali and stick fighting and i thought oh you know my cousin was doing kendo properly right and he had the whole practice swords which essentially is a bamboo with a little layer of phone i'm like oh let's spar okay and i'm trying to catch sword and all that and just getting whacked in the head nonstop and like god this isn't working like in practice why yeah what the hell is going on right now this is not it's not supposed to happen you know so i didn't i kind of started then you know because the closest school was the mergurisi brothers or it wasn't their school actually it was uh what did they what was it called back in the day um what's his name there the god why can't i remember his name right now he had a son who was really good for a while philly philly the maxwell steve maxwell or is that that's why yes basketball exercise you know exercise was the only place around but i was like 17 so getting to philly was like 45 minutes from my house so that was kind of hard and uh i i like learned a little bit from my buddies at this point you know like john like my friend john hassett who was doing you know he was doing karate uh he was he did karate and he was one who beat me up that day um he's a black belt now under helsing and the miglisi brother so that's you know he we're all still in which is kind of cool um and then when i moved to colorado i met amal easton who's my teacher and now business partner i met him at a mall he was doing like you know trying to get students uh and then yeah i trained for like a month ran out of money he was teaching out of like a karate school and then a year later in 99 i heard that he had opened uh he opened his own place and i went and i was like yo got no money still but i can clean and you like man it's your lucky day my cleaner literally just quit two hours ago and i was like oh hell yeah so uh and now i'm the owner right he and i are you know 50 you know like the majority owners that like you know like together so you can go from cleaner to owner it's possible wow that's an amazing story man like that is hard to do because i mean i've had terrible cleaners in my gym like i couldn't imagine any of them making it to you partners at the gym but um i had some good ones too but you'll still stay in it nobody until we hired professionals nobody cleaned the gym better than me yeah you know what it's it's in general not just a cleaning part but there's something about having someone invested in the business just makes it run easier because they put their heart and soul into it versus just getting paid to do something they hate and let's be frank who likes to clean right like no one ever likes that so i think that's that in itself is it says a lot about you know things you can do to run a business in general it's just like giving them some kind of stake or the promise of something like that it gives them the incentive you know i've finally figured that out late in life and i think it makes a big difference it's nice that's what i call like ownership mentality right when somebody who works somewhere but like they're not just like i'm clocking in i actually feel like this is my place you know i want to make this place better and those are rare people to find that they can have a claim in the business without even actually having you know a percentage of the business at that point but they're just invested in it and it makes a big difference you know like in my gym i had a similar story i had a guy working night shift and he ended up opening up his own franchise under us and now he has his own gym and he's doing really well but same type of rag to riches you know a story but he was somebody who was invested you know like he he knew that like he felt like it's like when you walk by it let's say the locker room and you see a little piece of garbage in the floor the guy with ownership mentality is like uh i'm picking that up but normal guy like that whatever you know yeah not my place not my shirt yeah my trash yeah exactly man and for me it was really uh i guess it's a two-fold thing here um amal did a good job and i'll explain both kind of for me i think everything has a cost right like everything we do has it costs something now the way you know 90 percent of our students come to the school the cost is money right like they pay money they get training well for me i didn't have any money but i still knew that this is something that i really wanted so i better in my from my perspective i was like man i better clean the [ __ ] out of this toilet because the jiu jitsu is really really important to me like getting good at this this is what i wanted for my life so i better do a good like i better make sure i pay up and then i better make sure i take advantage of the opportunity i've been given by coming as much as possible now for a mall what he did on his end was he showed me a path forward so very you know within months i moved from not just cleaning but cleaning and teaching you know and then i could stop teaching we hired you know he hired another cleaner and i was just teaching so and then it gradually built you know and i i could always see a path so from a business perspective if for your employees even if it's a martial arts school if people don't see the path to something more to where where where are they going to go next is a very hard thing and i have to say it's probably one of the things that we've done best with easton is you know we have seven schools 150 employees and we there's a there's a path forward for everybody wherever you are you know even the ceo has a path forward and i'm not the ceo and neither them all nice yeah it's a good it's good to have that plan laid out and that uh um you know that that knowing that there's a lot of room for growth regardless of where you stand and all those schools in colorado right like i've been in one of them yeah yeah all of them on the western slope uh i'm sorry on the eastern slope on in the foothills like in the denver metro area it's called so yeah they're all here um yeah and we actually just started a uh an online thing for other schools to uh learn how to do it a little more skillfully run their schools that is you know where we created a course and you know they consult with me about you know just some very basic steps that they can do to uh do a better do a i don't like to say better do a more skillful job with their school because look schools are hurting right now covet sucked for every single person right covered i mean i mean maybe amazon right amazon did pretty well ups probably killed it you know a couple a couple walmart crash day home depot although you know uh but they had billions already but for the rest of us covert really sucked um and people i would like i would like to say people realize what's important to them and what's not important to them and they're not going to waste their time with things that other people don't do skillfully like so i think the jiu jitsu schools need to the martial arts schools in general need to step their game up a little bit so that you know we are really providing what it is we say we're providing when somebody walks through our doors yeah i mean that's spot on i think uh like you said when people go through a crisis like this you it really wakes you up and like i gotta tie down my ship because i can't afford to have any leaks in this funnel you know because yeah any anybody that you lose potentially could be like your rent you know what i mean it was it was cold it was very difficult for me you know jim the gym owner wise personally yes it was hard but at the end of it all i mean i'm not you know you want to be disrespectful to people who lost loved ones and all that there's a lot of suffering financial and emotional but it was actually a good thing for me like believe it or not it actually worked in my favor it sucked financially i lost a ton of money like i'm just doing my my 2020 tax that's when you realize when you look at your tax returns like how much money you actually missed out on and that's like all that sucks but financially it notwithstanding who's one of the best years of my life man like it was because it was it was an opportunity to shake things up and like you know change things reset you know moving forward with a completely new mindset and i think that i personally maybe not just be for everyone here i needed a hard stop and i think covet did that for me it was like you know what let's reset and let's start all over again with a different mindset and it really worked for me even though like i said you know financially it sucked yeah financially i agree financially it wasn't the best um i think i actually saved more money because i couldn't go anywhere right like like that might have been true so i think the bottom i don't know what the bottom line for my bank accounts personal bank my business bank account sucked but my personal bank accounts like i don't i don't know what the bottom line ended up looking like because i mean i didn't do anything for a year like including like just going out to eat right you didn't do any of that like you used to um so i i think i was i was down for sure but whatever not not something where i was like oh my god how am i gonna eat today but i would i would agree with you bro uh as an overall and again no like you said no disrespect to someone who lost a loved one uh i had to look at my life a little bit again and be like okay is this what i want to be doing is this how i want to be spending my time and most of it was a yes but more of what that most of it was which means i had to get rid of something so because like i said everything has a cost right um so where else do i want to spend my time and what am i going to give up because they can't give up you know there's only 24 hours in a day yeah you got to be willing to let something go so a lot of times the things that you don't want to let go are the ones that you need to let go the most right and that's how it like i i cut some things out of my life and it's been for the better but it was like i can't live without this you know sort of thing like i need this in my life right like i have to be doing this this and that and then when you stop doing it with a second it's just freed up my time tremendously it's like that 80 to 20 principles cliche to say it but it really is one of those things the things that exhaust you the most gives you the least returns and the things that don't exhaust you are actually pleasurable i give you the most returns you just have to have the wisdom find what those things are and then have the balls have a cojones to cut what you don't want you know like what you because at the end of the day okay even if you are making a ton of money doing something you don't like is that really how you want to live like i asked myself this question would i change my would i trade my life with elon musk i wouldn't like honestly i i don't know what his life is like but like you had to be you and go do elon musk no way i mean if you could be elon musk because i think elon musk loves his life he wouldn't trade with you either right but like you as robert drysdale no [ __ ] way yeah i can't imagine how much money you made but like even so like i don't i don't know i don't know if it's a good life i don't know maybe it is it's better than mine i have no idea but i think that that's like you know one thing we have to learn about well i learned how to do is how to cut the things that aren't us like whatever it is that you are that's what you have to be personally who are you and once you know who you are you can start working to become that person yeah i think that's that that's that's a huge question right there is who are you because we and and i don't think it's a one answered thing right there's no complete yeah there's no cookie but i don't think people actually spend time thinking about like wait a minute who am i what what you know it's a simple question from in my opinion uh i am i can i will who am i what am i capable of and what will i do to achieve those things right and that's where you start to really find your mindset is right but before you can get to that what will you do you got to know who you are like what what is it what are these things that when when the earth starts to shake and covet hits and all that stuff like what it what is the unmovable objects what are the unmovable objects that are you i think those are good questions that we all need to ask ourselves yeah i think that's something that's lost on probably this generation is just self-reflection i mean put somebody in a room without a phone and they start going crazy yeah and because their sense of identity is tied to their instagram it's not just that you know it's like they have that endorphin rush whenever they get a like or whenever they get a friend request or a comment and they're just on this pursuit of endorphins and they don't have time for anything else or things that matter you know and i think that's kind of taking people away from if you think back like 500 years ago you know what were you doing around a campfire you were having a conversation which was probably meaningful or you were reflecting on what happened to the day or perhaps in your life and it gives you a time to be a philosopher you know or to think about what your purpose is or what motivates you but when there's a constant deluge of information that's passing through you have to process the information and you never have time to actually just reflect and and i was fortunate because i guess in a way when i was younger i was very shy like dreadfully shy you know i didn't have any friends besides my brother and i spent a lot of time to myself so i got to reflect and think a lot as a younger man you know so it's not a skill that's lost on me but i think now for people that's probably a lot more difficult you know just because there's so much distraction and it's even if you're trying to avoid it it's difficult right like if you're just outside there's banners and there's boards and now you go to the gas station they have commercials playing on the gas station you know it's like yeah it's like everywhere you're going you're being bombarded you know so i don't even think yeah i don't think it's a problem just for the young people i think it's a problem for i think there's 40 year old dudes out there that have no [ __ ] clue who they are even ones like you know even ones that have made a lot of money and they're highly successful and they but but then you watch the crumble of them because they don't they've done no work on who like who is elliot what like what what does that have a definition does that have a meaning so you can have all the money in the world like you said robert you could be elon musk with with a ton of money but if elon musk doesn't know who elon musk is he's he's always going to be chasing that high whether it's whether it's the instagram like which he's probably passed or whether it's it's some other high that's probably unhealthy there's um an inscription over the the oracle delphi and ancient greece read know thyself right and the oracle delphi was summer for you walk in and ask any question oracle was going to tell you and it's like sort of like the ancient version of google right you ask and here's the answer but um but like it's important that it's said to know thyself because you can't i think what they were implying is that you can't get an answer out of this unless you know who you are you can ask any question you're not going to get the right answer unless you actually have an idea of who you are and once you know yourself and you know what you're really made out of right and that requires a certain degree of honesty which is difficult because we all like to think of ourselves better and higher than we actually are it takes a tremendous amount of discipline and honesty to look at yourself and go this is what i'm made of and maybe i don't like that picture but that's the reality of who you are right and then you can start asking questions about you know what about this what about that and once you can start answering those ques once you have that honest picture of yourself i think the answers come a lot easier right i think that's why there's so much wisdom that i know thyself because what you want to be or how you perceive yourself to be is not necessarily how you are right are two different things you know like just to go off not kind of off topic here a while ago enough questions should say this or not but there we are the diet is cast um i did mushrooms a while it was like a couple years ago and one of the more it was a very painful experience because it was what some people would refer to as a bad trip right it wasn't bad it was bad at the moment but afterwards it was like enlightening because it was it forced me to look at some things about myself that i didn't like and i was in denial about and it was just very painful it's like i didn't know like admittedly it was so crystal clear right in front of me this is what you don't like about yourself and it's there and you can avoid it all you want but that's there right and then it was very painful but afterwards the next day i felt great because i feel like just like this thing got moved off my shoulders like okay i know now maybe i still don't like it but at least i know for sure and i can work with that now versus being in denial about and how can you make progress about anything if you're in complete denial about the problem right so i think the question of knowing yourself it does come down to honesty just take a close look at yourself in the mirror and accepting whatever is there and versus trying to change it or like let me change it but like be in denial about it deny i think the universe is going to come talk to you about it you know i know it did for me i'm i'm an anxiety i'm someone who can experience really intense anxiety and i don't know five years ago now now you know the universe said hey man you're gonna have to [ __ ] deal with this and it was painful it was long uh like that that's the subject of the book that i wrote the gospel of fire um and yeah it was uh it was a long uncomfortable not a lot of sleep a lot of crying a lot of fear uh all wrapped up into like figuring out a little bit of like you know what you just said i was in denial of it in the and it was forced upon me to look at and address and go down a different path with my life so um it was a very interesting that was a very interesting experience i mean different than a mushroom trip or different than some type of psychedelic that kind of showed it to you i you know this was something that i had buried down for years and years that i had to then address you know oh man just dude it was it was i just got back from a vacation in hawaii and i had just basic jet lag where you know you can't sleep whatever but the but the not sleeping sent me down a whirlwind like it went it made me go crazy um and then i didn't sleep i probably didn't you know to the to the point where i was up all night pacing the house having panic attack after panic attack it was five nights in a row no sleep um you know maybe couple out maybe catch a couple hours here or there and then i i needed help you know i needed a lot of help at the end of that four days like i didn't you know uh i was super lucky that i had people to help uh friends that would stay on the phone with me all night long uh if that what was necessary as i like freaked the [ __ ] out for you know 10 hours straight and then yeah it just slow i slowly had to just dive into what is this you know what is this you know where and how and how am i going to deal and how am i going to move about my life forward yeah that's uh i think that's something everyone has to go through whether you know you tap into yourself like you did or you need help like i needed help um you know from like psychedelics but i think everyone should do that at i mean not sometimes at one point in their life but like all the time i'm not saying you should be you know doing mushrooms all the time but uh but i think it's it's i think it's a very necessary experience that everyone should go through in adult life at some point because there's no way that you're going to be aware of every aspect of yourself there's so much that we bury like i know i was right i'm sure there's some things about you that you bury that you're it's just too painful to confront right but that right there is the first step and once you once you figure that out like knowing yourself and i think it's so much easier to plan your life and live the life that you want to live because it's based off of your nature right the way i've always looked at is like if you have like like a marble stone there's only so many things you can carve out of it like that's what's giving you but you can shape it in many different ways you just got to find out what kind of marble stone you're given when you're born and then you shape yourself according to what you actually want to be but it's not something that is done you know it's not easier said than done of course but i think that's how you go about like living the life that you want to live it's just finding out what you're made of first and foremost like find out what you're made of and then you can go from there i think there's also a process that you have to constantly reflect again because we're not static we're changing right and uh i think something else you were mentioning before the podcast started was like how like fighters transition post career because you might have found yourself before and like i'm a fighter i want to you know challenge myself and push my body to its limits but then once your career ends if you're still tied to that old identity then you have that pain because you're longing for something that's no longer there and like you haven't made a new identity for yourself or you haven't transitioned into something different so like that's why you were saying we do have to reflect well maybe not constantly but on a regular basis to see where we are especially you go from a single person to having kids now things change a lot your identity is totally different now like how are you going to be how are you going to recalibrate but if you still tied into that old person there's gonna be a lot of frustration in your life because you're like oh you know i want to be out and partying and stuff like that but that's not what a father does you know it's it's a different life now and enjoy the new identity too instead of just like oh i hate this new self it's like embrace it and love it and if you don't like it then it maybe it's not you now you got to fight find something else that you actually do love yeah you know it just it comes down to the you know again what what is the self who is the who are who are you and being being comfortable with the shifts and the shifts the shift itself might be uncomfortable might be very very uncomfortable um but uh the universe moves where the universe moves we we have really no control over that like and as far as the fighter piece right father time is always the winner right like he's he's never lost he's undefeated so at some point um you you will be moving on you know um how what will that look like and just being quote unquote best it won't be enough you know it won't be enough when that time comes for you to move on because there's so many people that during their times were the best right that it's very cool don't i mean i'm taking nothing i was never the best so that's fine um i'm taking nothing away from like for example robert when you were the best right you won the avcc absolute you're the best you know um but i had a i had uh george st pierre on the podcast on my podcast and he said something very interesting about this idea of best and he was like look i was only the best that day and he's he's a go right he's not just the best he's a goat and he was like i was only the best that day like i if it was the next day we don't know if i was the best so this whole idea of being the best we we need to move on from that you know it's it's cool but and this is somebody who was i mean a goat of goats right so i think we can take a little more learning from him rather than some of what we're seeing these days well it's probably given a lot of thought because he was on top of the world for so long and my guess is that he didn't feel satisfied so how can you be a multiple time ufc champion and still not feel fulfilled like my guess is that's where that reflection comes from it's an illusion it's a completely arbitrary mark to say i'm the best because he's right you can only be the best for maybe you can be the best like a few years in a row at best you know like but he's right like maybe he had a bad day he he he loses one catches him and that i mean he's no i mean does that diminish who he is and his effort and his merit does that take away from him as a person to diminish his character anyway so i think at the end of the day we have to we shouldn't look at marks like a ufc belt or being the best of winning the medal i think the real mark is are you improving and what are you doing when to improve because if you're constantly improving even if you're not you might find more gratification with the knowledge that you are improving on yourself than with the fact you actually have a gold medal around your neck because the gold medal itself is not necessarily satisfying yeah i think the word like skillful i i really try to use my friend alex got me using these two words like rather than saying good and bad skillful and unskillful you know because like was i skillful today because we can always even even when you're the best the goal is more skill can i be more skillful tomorrow right and even let's say you're the worst just be more skillful like so it's always okay that was skillful that was unskilled and when it's unskillful you don't have to put this shame on yourself oh my god i'm so i'm so bad or blah blah that was so bad that was so terri you know and we we can do that so easily to ourselves that it's like all right yep that wasn't so skillful i'll try to be more tomorrow so that you know that's really really my kid has anxiety you know he my oldest kid is just like me you know he experiences it and excuse me and then that those that language shift in my household has been such a game changer for him because he doesn't have to be bad anymore and he's got this hang he's got this hang up on being bad and it's like to the point where i mean i couldn't believe it the other day you know he goes to see a therapist and my wife and i had a meeting with his therapist and he he literally has like this trauma from nothing from like this one incident like she asked him when was the last time he really got in trouble and i mean he's 11. he remembered it from four years ago like it happened yesterday to him and i was like oh my god like yeah you know i was like damn so he's like the sensitive soul so the language change has really helped and it's really helped me like i don't you know i can just try to be more skillful yeah that's the thing with uh experiences they're different for everybody but we might perceive as like not a big deal could be like you said like a traumatizing event for somebody else and not me don't get me wrong he was in trouble yeah he was in trouble like he got in trouble i i remember i mean i remember it now like they were in trouble they did the two of them did something bad but marcus i'm sure i'm sorry dave i'm sure you and marcos did something bad right and you got in trouble as brothers they buried it now they were perfect yeah they were perfect the avalon brothers were perfect you have to bring dave's mom and dad here let's get mom and pop on right now zoom in honestly i'm actually pretty innocent yeah my brother was a little bit more of a [ __ ] starter yeah yeah i'm sure he had a short fuse back in the day yeah they remember that yeah he did he did that i remember grabbing a few tables before yeah yeah he was very particularly around people he loved he was very defensive like because it came from me because i was telling you before when i was younger i was very shy and and i was also very overweight i was 130 pounds of third grade so uh now target for people to bully yeah and whenever he saw that he just went to fight mode and and he's older than you right he's a year older than me uh he was protected you're very protective yeah and that continues on you know like he's protective of everybody in his family or in that inner circle so like i have it's good is i mean it's a protective instinct but you also have to know how to keep it in check because when he was younger he would get into like road rage things where somebody come off and give him the finger and he would be getting out of the car i'm like bro what are you doing are you in your mind you don't even know what that means yeah that guy could have a gun in his car and i ever god knows what you know that you never know what's going to happen but like it's not that has a way of tempering you a bit you know he's matured a bit more yeah but yeah don't mess with the papa bear you know you're playing with the cubs the inner animal will come it could be i can see myself i've never been that protective like my kids only to a certain degree like i i don't mind them like you know i'm watching like if i seem like arguing with kids i'm always watching but i kind of want to see how they resolve the issue too but there is a part of me that feels like oh you touch my daughter like there is the little gorilla in there that you know like and i've always been like pretty much in control but there there is i think that every person has that in there you know you just go ape [ __ ] you know like i've no i've lost my [ __ ] like more than a few times in my life the most part i try to tame myself but i think we all have that with family it comes out a lot faster so for sure yeah for sure man i i like you're saying with your kid i'm in a situation right now i just got off the phone i was a couple minutes late because we we're dealing with the school there's a kid uh it's been going on for a little on and off for a year here and i'm just sick of it you know with this kid and i i'm like look simon my youngest i'm like look if he touches you again you're just going to get into a fight like go go ahead you know like you're not going to get in trouble here at home so but i'm trying to deal with it on the other end with the school too right because he does get in trouble at school right like they can't have everyone fighting so i understand that perspective so i'm dealing with it you know my wife and i are on the phone with the school right now or going back and forth of like that's why i said i'm picking a fight for my kid because i'm telling the school i'm like look the kid won't touch him again like i understand we can do whatever you want like we can have agreements or whatever but if he touches him one more time there's going to be a fight so i just want you to be aware of this because i don't want the school to solve i i think it's a problem that we have going on especially in the parenting side of things we're trying to solve our kids problems like all the time and it is not healthy like like it is just not healthy they they need to go out and solve their own problems they need to go out and figure their own fun out uh all of it like my wife texted me today she was like oh all of canaan's friends are meeting at wildflower park a park by our house to play and i'm like yeah i know we handled this it's because put your kids out there go ride your bike to your friend's house like the moms and dads don't have to send text messages to help our kids play like that's not how it works right like we're we're uh did you guys ever read the coddling of the american mind i have not it's a great book it's a it's a great book just about you know about what you know parenting in schools and and colleges but it's got a it's got a great line in it said are we are we create are we uh preparing our kids for the road or are we trying to prepare the road for our kids and i feel like we're doing a lot of the other end right now yeah right we're trying to prepare the road for the kid and it's not the kid's fault when they turn out and they can't do anything because never you know what it is gave him things to do there's this huge effort to prevent any kind of suffering or pain and part of children and the truth is whatever happens to you in your childhood however like i mean like you get picked on that's preparing you for life because you're gonna get picked on your whole life it's just gonna get worse as an adult and the things because we shelter kids so much they're completely unequipped right to deal with adult life and that deals with frustration or like i'm quitting or i think that's a big part of where the anxiety comes from it's like a sense of i can i can overcome this because there's no traits like your immune system you have to get dirty to strengthen your immune system and it sucks but that's how you develop a strong immune system right if you want to call your kid too much and you don't let it put anything in his mouth and there's never any dirt around and everything is perfect spotless clean that's how you create a weak immune system on your child and like no one wants to hear that but i think that's the same for everything for your social environment you have to be ready to deal with shitty people and that means yeah in school some days you're going to have a bad dude i got picked on so i was an american kid in brazil i mean how much i got picked on in school like a ton like i had to fight like all the time levels do it right like there's levels to it of of what's too much and too little and and like i'm trying to i'm trying to help my kid on the back end to make sure he doesn't get in too much trouble but i'm for sure not trying to stop the fight like him dealing with it uh yeah you know wrong with kids you know oh yeah they need to resolve this stuff i actually think it's almost like a good thing i feel like it's part of like growing up it's like every now and then you know you're going to have to have an and because that's what's going to happen in adult life guys i know it's not very political but that's that's going to happen you might as well be prepared where there's not a lot on the line and it's in small doses right right versus like all if you're throwing you're throwing into the real world and now everyone's trying to eat you alive and you're not prepared for it yeah you know rob i know god sorry i look back like when i guess we were all the same age when we're all kids and the stuff that i would do and nowadays it'll be like forbidden you'll be like are you crazy like your parents are completely negligent like what you walked like two miles to go to school by yourself yeah are you crazy you know oh my parents once i was like 14. our gardener had it was kind of a you know like i think he was serving the military or whatnot oh you want to go like uh paintballing one day i was like yeah okay and my parents let me go paintballing with this guy we didn't really know other than he's the gardener with a group of like men that i've never met before all by myself it was a fun experience yeah although the jerks on the other team they were using like highly pressurized paintballs which you're not supposed to use like there's like i figured there's a certain psi that you're supposed to pop them they shot a hole through my helmet and i beg and they my uncle gave me like it looked like a predator helmet like it was like full out and they shot a hole in it i remember it started a whole fight situation which got pretty intense here i have a fourth thing you old there's a bunch like a 30 year old man about to throw down because somebody was cranking their paintballs too much you know but like i lived you know i remember afterwards i'm like this was crazy i should have never done this but like you know like we got to do things like that and we got to fight and you know and you learn how to handle yourself and how like i like i joke with my girlfriend all the time you know and uh like if you were a man you could have gotten your ass beaten so many times because the type of stuff she'll say sometimes to me like man this is someone who's never been a fight before yeah you know they're joking denying that we're denying that that we're denying that that privilege right we're denying that privilege from our sons you know like god damn like you this is part of being a man this is part of growing up in the world like you know you said your girlfriend does that right like i get it my wife does it too i'm like god damn baby can't [ __ ] say that [ __ ] you know um but she says it but you have to know that you can't say that [ __ ] you can't just say what what you want to say all the time you the consequence of getting your ass beat always has to be on the table in my opinion and you have to be like well i'm gonna say this and we'll see where it goes or you know what that's francis and ganu over there i'm gonna shut the [ __ ] up you know like you know you don't get to pick a fight with francis then guide him just because he can't beat your ass it's not yeah yeah yeah you have to be like yep i'm going to eat that one francis you cut in line have at it buddy you know yeah and may or maybe you gotta go fight i don't know i don't know which one it is you know i i don't know which one it is depending on the situation if i start on his back the renegade choke i'll tell you the one time i'm fighting francis i'm fighting francis if francis slaps me the way gordon slapped galvao i gotta go catch that knockout we talked about it gotta go catch that knockout give me that exact same example dude like it friends yeah slap me like that with what i do like it's on yeah because francis trains jim from the time yeah so robert was measuring him up he's like uh i can't take this guy no man you no you just go you grab a leg you start screaming right like you better hope your homies are there right you better hope your homies are there to come help you but like you gotta go catch that knockout if that's what it takes you can't get [ __ ] slapped like that like there is no way you can get slapped like that andre is just never it's it's it's 30 years from now that shit's still gonna come up that's oh yeah that was terrible forever like a fighter an accountant and then another accountant slaps you like that that's bad enough i'm serious if you're an accountant like you're like you know a gardener maybe you're not no no no no it's already terrible who slaps the gardener's got to go fight you can't get slapped like that no i'm with you yeah and the worst part like let's say like it was private like right now like no cameras robert's asked me in the face and like i dig talk i'm like okay at least it's only robert but they were on camera man everybody watch that thing dude like at least for you i don't know like you said for your legacy and all that you got to do something it's politically incorrect to say it what i'm going to say because i think we're missing that you got to man the [ __ ] up yeah you know you can't oh you said you got a man like but that's what i think is missing in this equation you gotta man up you gotta get some pair cohen is like hold on to them and go like i still got them they're there and go to war like what else are you gonna do man you gotta do this yeah i i don't think it needs to be so politically incorrect just like i don't know i've been i i put out something every monday on my podcast like just a like a motivational thing or whatever i've been i've been talking like the idea of toxic masculinity like to say like you know like what you just said you gotta man up and masculinity being a man is not toxic the behavior that we're calling toxic masculinity is very toxic you know i like you know that i i agree with i just don't think it's being a man so i don't understand what they mean by toxic masculinity like i i hear a lot of these new slogans and like these new ideas coming up and i'm like to meet them they're so um they're so irrational they don't make any sense to me so i have a hard time keeping up what what is meant by toxic masculinity donald trump donald trump right i think that all of the behaviors that donald trump does wherever you see him as a president just how he is as a human like i think that's what would be classified as toxic masculinity i would agree that the behavior is very toxic i would just disagree that it's masculine i was like that's not definition you know yeah it's toxic you know whatever you usually like like his rhetoric are not of the point but it is nothing to do with being a mac what i understand is it's something that if you say something like be a man or uh act like a man or um i think it has to do with a conflict with what is perceived as a gender role when you say something like you're being ultra masculine like that means you are saying that there are roles in nature which clearly there are um it's not me it's mother nature but uh i think that's what is meant and it's not clear to me what exactly you're supposed to be like because when i see the people who are not toxic masculine they're very feminine and that's not something i want to be or i wouldn't want my sons to be and i don't think women are attracted to begin with yeah i think when you talk about like a what i would consider like a traditional masculine role would be someone who is assertive who's confident confident yeah and willing to get there and willing to get their hands dirty if they have to to protect what needs to be protected you know whether or not you understand a job that's necessary right like just do the like get your hands dirty in a lot of different arenas like if that's the laundry or if that's protecting the family the laundry needs to get done do the [ __ ] laundry and cook the dish clean the clean the dishes and cook the food if that's what's necessary right if that's if that's you know if that's where your role is you know now like just for example in my house man i can't fix [ __ ] i'm terrible at it but you know who's really good at it my wife my wife is amazing at my wife my wife set a bathtub by herself i was like damn babe holy [ __ ] um and it's not easy right you know um but so we switched the rolls a little bit you know who know who cleans and does the lawn know who like cleans the kitchen more and does the laundry me because she's doing something else but that doesn't make one of us less masculine the other or her lesson exactly that's not you just redefine it i guess i do all the cooking but cooking's manly as [ __ ] right now so i'm good with that we're supposed to be confident and and strong figures emotionally and i think that's what i see masculine like that's kind of what i mean and i think that's that's normal but it's almost like the whole idea of masculinity is being attacked like the whole thing together i'm not suggesting that like it's all you're gay for doing the dishes or cooking i'm like no i wish i knew how to cook i don't i can do the dishes i don't like it but i can you know but like i don't think it's unmanly to do something like clean that that's not what i'm suggesting but i think you're staying out there like even like okay like a kid slaps you you don't go to the principal you punch him in the face yeah you know what i'm saying like that's to me is a masculine thing to do and i don't i don't think that's a that's bad i think that someone hits you you should have the right to like punch him back like what the [ __ ] and it's that just i thought people did yeah what i want my daughter to do too they give something my daughters are not leaving the house unless they're black built to jiu jitsu that's the rule like you're gonna have to run you're gonna have to learn how to take someone down and choke them out if you have to you're not leaving the house interior black belt that's the rule yeah and some people think like who are anti-violence like oh you know like you shouldn't hit somebody or you should resolve it but the reality is like on a practical level pain is a very good communicator yeah when you can't reason when somebody you know and like there's just a fundamental disagreement that you can't get across pain teaches you and that's why like for me like when you hit children it's very young children that you can't reason with yet and the idea is not revenge or anger it's just like hey snap out of what you're doing like this is what i'm trying to get something across to you you know and that's the intent behind it so like if someone's touching you or pushing you you smack them back you cross the boundary and this is where that happened you pass it it's a very practical thing to do it's not like uh oh you know your your ego was crushed and that's why you're trying to you know hit somebody no it's like you're setting boundaries because like what happened with galvao set an example for a lot of people a negative example which is like you know he let this guy get walk all over first of all he started the altercation and then he let himself get walked all over it's a very terrible example to follow you know it would have yeah the gal val example if he didn't start it then it would have been different right if gordon just would have walked up to him and smacked him it would have been totally different yeah so the worst part is what dave brought up when we were talking about this is that after he started it he got bit slapped and he kept chasing gordon afterwards and you're still talking [ __ ] laughed again and then got [ __ ] and you try to sell people your website yeah no no it's over i told i told my students i was like man guys if you ever i was like we got two rules going on right now if you ever see me get [ __ ] slap like that and not do anything you can cancel and i'll give you all of your money back that you have ever paid and two if you're present when i get bitch-slapped like that you better be in there with me i was talking to pedro pono and cabac about this deal on the podcast in portuguese and he said that's that's you know it's a side effect too of a culture where there's no such thing as loyalty anymore because back in the day or even one of my bros like you know consider dave a good friend of mine like if i saw him you know and if you didn't have time to react or whatever like i jump on the guy in a heartbeat like there's no question in my mind that i would go to war for my bros and understand he gets slapped and everyone's just watching i'm like where's your [ __ ] brother's man like what's happening there where's where's where where are these troops because i i would like to think that my closest friends would attack anyone who attacked me like in a heartbeat they wouldn't even think about it right it wouldn't be a question like it's just you just go you ask questions what happened you punch first then you asked me who's wrong well that you could be totally wrong but my closest people it doesn't matter if i'm totally wrong they're in it with me like that's the thing like i could be totally in the wrong but if they see it they come let's go so that's my [ __ ] you know yeah if it was in the wrong yeah you know yeah that's at the whole point like the uh yeah you know the the yeah they'll you know and i i i definitely stand a little more left of center but i think the attacking of the masculine gender uh i think it's a mistake i think we need stronger more confident more men who know who they are you know like like back what we were talking about before now look men got to step it up here i don't think men are doing a super great job of being vulnerable being emotionally there for other men you know being emotionally there for their kids uh so yeah i mean we have some work to do i i can see the reason to attack men not the masculine traits though yeah and i think part of it like you said like one of the things that traditionally masculinity well i guess toxic masculinity is associated with is like a lack of vulnerability or like emotional accessibility and like to me that's a not necessarily a sign of masculinity is more of a sign of somebody who doesn't have a good circle right like you don't have loyal uh brothers around you to protect you because yeah you wouldn't want to be emotionally available to somebody you don't trust right you feel like they could use that against you like if i was going to compete against robert and i start telling him all my dirty secrets i'm like that's kind of a dangerous thing to tell a competitor yeah because he's gonna come and he's gonna use all that against me yeah but i i think that's a sign of more of the times like there's so many people that don't really have trust of the people around them that they can't even open themselves up and you're talking about not just brothers i mean wives you know like people holding back stuff from their from their wives you know and it's stuff that's very important to them and that's holding their back i think that's again a sign of weakness from that person because they don't know who around them to trust and if you don't have people around you that you that you trust that you can open yourself up to you know it's a problem because courage should open up it does and i think even opening up to yourself is a challenge right but then there's certain things that you can't uncover on your own there might be it's so deep in there you know that's when you go to a therapist or whatnot you know and uh to help dig that out of you but if you don't have this one of those things it comes down again like this who you are think because uh you know like they know thyself because when you don't know who you are your weaknesses can be used against you they truly can and when you know exactly who you are what would you like to say to me about where i'm bad i know i can be a little i know i can be insecure i know i have this impostor syndrome sometimes i know i have anxiety i know i can snap really quickly when certain things are triggered um so good for go go ahead use like uh i always like to liken it to eight mile you guys saw the movie eight mile right i i did eminem right over the eminem right and and you know some dude [ __ ] his girl and and you know he throws up on himself and he loses his job and all this stuff happens and you know he's in these rap battles and he can't perform but then in the last rap battle like he makes it to the finals against papadoc and [ __ ] and he wants and he chooses to go first and normally you want to go second in the rap battle and he chooses to go first and he just literally says everything that papa doc is going to say he's going to say like you're going to say homie [ __ ] my girl you're going to say this he goes now what you got [ __ ] and the guy just has nothing to say because eminem took it from him eminem knew exactly who he was he knew exactly what he was he goes yeah that's me so what so it comes down to that who are you peace and is that peace uh like i don't know i say i say my i say my i am to myself every morning i'm a father i'm a teacher i'm a student i'm a leader i'm a fighter and i am i'm i'm enough and i'm a survivor so i like every morning when i get up i do my thing and i say those things to myself so that way even when i have a skillful day or unskillful day they don't none of them type those things because those things are just always true and i and i think if more men could know who they are and really work through that then all of our weaknesses we wouldn't have to try to hide them so much um you know they're they they can just be seen and we can just try to work on them rather than to be like oh no no that's not me so i don't know just my my two cents on the whole toxic masculine 100 percent yeah that's a solid point if you know what you are and it's it's like when you have a nickname that you don't like and you try to shy away from it that's when everybody rags on you right there that's called your nickname now that's your nickname now you know um the way i look at someone trying to pick on you or point something about whatever is like there are only two possible scenarios when someone offends you right it's either true or false right if i offend dave and i say dave you're hairy right it's it's it's it's true like you can either accept it and be like or shave or do something or or it was going to be false and if it's false why do you care so if it's true you accept it and just like it is what it is i'm aware of it so you can't offend me because i've known this my whole life yeah right and if it's false like why do you care so like to me being offended is not a real thing like it's it's not a place to be you can't be offended unless you have issues with yourself because if you're overweight right and someone calls you fat why would you be offended if you're fully aware of it like i don't understand why they were like okay like rob you got a massive head and a hole in your chest i'm aware of it i've known in my whole life you're not telling me anything i don't see in front of them everything why would i be offended yeah you know it's like it's it's i think it has to do with a lot of it goes back to self-esteem like what do you are you okay with yourself and if you are how is anyone going to hurt you well it's kind of a lot of things personally right like we break uh the four agreements you we break the you know the second agreement of the four agreements is is we take it personally as soon as you start taking it personally you start to become offended yeah yeah that's why you took the words out and say you know those people who who look to insult and others are usually spitting out the venom of their own you know like the same type of insults they use against you is uh is usually the same type of insults they use against themselves yeah that's why they're so good at it they can recognize the weakness they see in themselves and others and exploit it well if someone's attacking you i think it says more about the person who's trying to hurt you because if you're trying to hurt someone that means you're not because i think the happiest people i've ever met in my life they never attacked anyone because they're perfectly okay with how the world is and they accept it and they're fine but i think there's something about attacking other people that says something about how you feel right it's really about the person so when people attack me like oh man there's probably a lot going on with that person they probably don't like that thing about themselves you know or they feel insecure about the way they look or whatever but i think they just so i should almost like run this is why i think political correctness is so damaging and in some instances this is one of them like in brazil all we did was make fun of each other if you listen to two brazilians talking there's a 90 chance they're talking [ __ ] to each other like all they do is make the political practice is not a real thing there like all they do is make fun of you the whole time they're making fun of you whatever if your girlfriend cheated on you they're going to tease you about that for the rest of your life no one's going to go that's messed up i'm sorry are you okay no they're gonna make fun of you it's got a birth defect they're gonna make fun of your birthday and that's how it is right you can't but your best friend's gonna do it you're saying your best friends are gonna do it hey it's a sign that they love you that's why they're making fun of you and b you become immune to it at some point because you realize like it's not that important i can make fun of him he can make fun of me we don't have to be offended all the time and you know what he's my bro and when someone slaps me i know that guy has my back it's almost like they're doing the idea of a microaggression it drives me insane it drives me insane it totally dries like man i want to be micro aggressed against all the time please right like please please just micro against my progress against me all [ __ ] days micro aggressive yeah man yeah microaggression it's the new pc thing like if you ask somebody where they're from it's a micro aggression because you're assuming that they couldn't actually be from where you are so therefore how could they be accepted and with you oh yeah bro trust me so with 150 employees man you have to do uh sensitivity training so that you don't get [ __ ] sued so we had to do a sensitivity training and you know we did four of them throughout the schools and the first one talked about that and i immediately called whoever like our the or one of our assistants who set up i was like yo we need to change that because we can't [ __ ] say that because all we do in jiu-jitsu is microaggress this is all we do right all day we migrate i'm trying to choke you the [ __ ] out right i'm trying to eat you this is a [ __ ] like this we're this is what we teach people how to handle their real life trying to choose that's i love you yeah because i love you because i don't want someone who who's [ __ ] who's a [ __ ] had to choke you out yeah yeah you know microaggression yeah i feel like this is one of the benefits of martial arts and fighting in general right gigs you when someone's choked you unconscious which i have the pleasure many times both ends right we've been on both ends i'd say i've only been on one end like i've never it's my whole career i've never well not never i've only had like two injuries that causing somebody and it was their fault some people people tapped every time i've ever i've had people when they do heel hooks they tap before it even sets in competition i've always had people tap you know so that's why like people like oh you know you they always expect that i've broken people's arms and stuff like that like never have everybody was always tapped you know or i didn't get it but i've never had that problem but uh what i was going through with the point was that when you've gone through those type of real existential crisis which you're gonna die or you're gonna get something broken when people like insult you it's like that's all you got like you know there's no substance behind it right or that intent is not serious like if robert asked me where i'm from you know i don't really care or if robert says hey you look like a hairy ape probably true right you know like it doesn't bother me because it's not a real thing like to me real people how else are you supposed to start a conversation hey how you doing what's your name where you from yeah yeah you know and now that's a microaggression jesus christ oh forget about that we're not even going to get into the pronouns here okay yeah that's a new one guys i actually got to go i don't got time for pronouns it's a lot of fun man for sure yeah thanks guys i appreciate it the problem so elliot let the people know where they can find you your podcast your book and yeah all all your stuff so both are called the gospel of fire um the podcast and the book the best way to find them both is off of my instagram fire marshall205 and right now i'm actually giving my book away as an uh a downloadable e-copy like the the manuscript like as a downloadable pdf you can go on my instagram and get it for free so uh yeah that is uh again fire marshal 205 that's the best way to contact me i try to respond to everyone i do my very best to respond to everyone on instagram i'm not the best anywhere else on twitter or messenger or any of that so hit me up on instagram go check out my stuff my website's elliotmarshall.com if you're a school owner and you're looking for some help it's easton.online so we we have a bunch of free webinars there like how to how to do sales how to set appointments and then i don't even remember what the other ones uh i don't remember what the other one is so but yeah uh we have three free webinars uh on easton.online so yeah those two places mostly is and then you'll get whatever you need actually again people take advantage of it especially if you're a school owner because everybody wants to find the latest youtube video or broom below or whatever that's not going to make your business work right so it's a great service you're doing elliot helping people out and giving yeah we start with core values you know like what are the core values of you in the school and then we go into all the business stuff right like the business stuff like if you don't know if you will go here or there for money then i mean just go sell drugs because right like that's where that like just do whatever that would get richer than being a martial arts teacher so what are the values that you hold where the value the core values of the school um so we start there and then and then we do the business stuff like you know you're paying attention to your leads getting more leads uh you know how do you answer the phone how do you set up you know getting someone into your school so um it's all gotta follow in line with the core values so yeah check us out easton dot online fire marshal 205 hit me up fire marshall 205 and i'll if you're looking for easton online i'll get you to eastern online too awesome guys thank you man it was a pleasure elliot it was a pleasure if you're ever in vegas man definitely stop by i'll stop by check your gym out next time i'm in colorado and uh yeah man always a pleasure sounds great guys nice to see you nice to talk to you thanks for getting me in absolutely man take care next time ciao you