Digital Marketing Basics Part 2: Understanding Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

[00:00:00] Scott: So somehow we started losing the recording. So, uh, I, I think your cell phone signal cut out there for a minute. So, uh, the question that I had was like, coming from that meathead world of, uh, rugby, how did you come up with a training plan to, you know, get that round belt in two years and you were, you were just going on about how rugby is a little bit of meathead just slamming into each other.

[00:00:19] Scott: But there are, there are some intricacies.

[00:00:21] Big Cheese: Yeah, it definitely is. And like to the layman, like if I look at golf for instance, I don't have a particular affinity for watching golf, but I could break down the compartments and say that this is exponentially better to do it this way than it is that way. And so it's really the eyes of wish. You look through things through, look through things at, and it's your perspective to be able to break things down.

[00:00:39] Big Cheese: And a really prominent name who's done this to the highest degree in my opinion, is Dominic Cruz. He's a phenomenal sports analyst and he looks at different hip positions in hockey or horse riding or any sport that you can think of like well far apart from MMA, and then figured out ways to cross apply that information into MMA because.

[00:00:59] Big Cheese: One thing is useful at the highest, highest, highest level. It will also be useful in another sport at the highest level. And it's interesting to think that I have more in common than a Muay Hai fighter at the highest level than I do with somebody who's a white belt in my own sport. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around for most people, but to the degree of which you are like.

[00:01:20] Big Cheese: Approximating mastery. I think mastery is a myth to be fair, but putting in a fuck ton of time of and, and effort and energy and getting yourself to a place where you're at a really high degree of your sport. I think that the people who have gone through that in any field, no matter what I'm experiencing this in business right now, I'm experiencing this in communication right now.

[00:01:42] Big Cheese: I'm experiencing this in a ton of different things. Uh, they're more closely linked than they are further apart. And so I think that's really interesting point to reference and to recognize as well. And that's basically the reason I was able to have such a fast rise in the sport because I was already at the, this essentially this.

[00:02:00] Big Cheese: Second highest level you could be at professionally within Australia. Um, I never cracked playing a top game for the top grade. I was in a top grade side, but I never actually played for the top grade. Um, but being in that and seeing the, the effort that was portrayed by the very best, the skills that were portrayed by the very best, the discipline, the focus, the extra work, everything across the board, the recovery, putting in all the time and effort in the right areas.

[00:02:28] Big Cheese: I'd already been around it for so many years that I just embodied and took on board. Everything that they were doing. And realize that if you just, if you put effort in the areas and you become the best at where the, the things that talent doesn't exist, work ethic, focus, skill development, like all talent obviously helps in some of those areas.

[00:02:51] Big Cheese: But if you put in effort to become the best, and where talent doesn't help you in the intangibles, and you just become the best at where you can put in the most effort, you'll eventually beat the most talented people. And that's what I learned within rugby because there were so many guys that weren't the fastest, weren't the strongest, but they out competed everybody.

[00:03:08] Big Cheese: They just did the 1% as they put the effort where they needed to put it and then they got the rewards from it. And so taking that style of learning and that style of system, uh, very much greatly benefited what I was doing. And so when I come into jitsu with a relatively amateur version of that, then you start to see pretty rapid gains in skill acquisition pretty quickly as well, even in terms of competing against people who don't think about it like that, who don't put in a hundred percent effort, who don't put in all the necessary things that they need to put in.

[00:03:43] Scott: I love that. I've got a, uh, I've got a coaching maximum, so I coach salespeople for a living. And a lot of what you're saying is true. There's a saying in coaching that I use a lot. My coaching clients are probably sick of it, and I, I'd love to get your take on this. It's this idea that it's better to be consistently good than occasionally.

[00:04:02] Scott: Great. Right? Great. We've all, um, we've all seen either competitors sales that the gym who gets in, tries. He hits the treadmill, he hits the weight super, super hard. And it's like, yeah, but you're not being consistent, right? I, I'd rather see you put in 45 minutes of quality effort, 3, 4, 5, 6 times a week than try to do a two hour power lift and cardio run. So how does that land with you again? One of my favorite sayings is it's better to be consistently good than occasionally.

[00:04:35] Scott: Great. And I'm happy to see that you guys have seven elevens out there in Australia. That makes me feel good.

[00:04:41] Big Cheese: Yeah, that's, that's a great quote. And I think that's one of the most prominent challenges in today's day and age, especially with the younger generation coming up behind me and depending on what, uh, segmentation of the generations you read, I actually belong to that generation. So maybe it's fair to accuse myself of this as well.

[00:05:03] Big Cheese: Um, but one of the. Things is that people, people are absolutely refusing in today's day and age to go for a very long period of time without being validated, without having a dopamine rush, without having a reward at the end, without seeking the, the carrot and avoiding any stick whatsoever. And I think that's one of the most pressing issues in terms of this whole parameter of consistency.

[00:05:30] Big Cheese: And I don't even think about it as discipline. I don't even think about it as willpower. I do what I love every single fucking day. I cannot wait to go to training and my misses will tell you whenever I'm on a Sunday where there's no training on, I get the shits, I get antsy, I gotta do something. I've, I write 150 emails because I have to put the energy into something.

[00:05:50] Big Cheese: I've gotta like plan out something for the week and, and do all that sort of stuff. And it's not that I can't sit still, but it's just that I want to be able to get the best at something as I humanly possibly can. And for me specifically, like I was very much not thinking about these things when I was playing rugby.

[00:06:08] Big Cheese: I was half-assing a lot of shit. I wasn't doing all the 1% things that I now know that I have to do in jujitsu. And that's probably the reason, like that burning desire to get better probably comes from the mistake of not doing it in a previous career where I know I could have. And it's also that lapse where not only do people not get an opportunity to be a professional athlete once, the likelihood that you get the opportunity to be a professional athlete twice is almost statistically impossible.

[00:06:38] Big Cheese: And. I'm speaking as one of those people who gets that second, second bite at the apple today. And so for me to squander that and to think about not being consistent and not being disciplined, not being focused, what a fucking insult. What an insult to the luck and the opportunity that I've been given that I'm extremely grateful for.

[00:06:57] Big Cheese: And probably one of the reasons is I work as hard as I fucking do is because I actually have a ton of reasons to do so. I think people's biggest. Problem with consistency is they don't actually find a reason big enough to wake 'em up in the morning. Like say you wanna make a million dollars. Like, yeah, okay.

[00:07:14] Big Cheese: What for though? Like, you want, you want pictures of dead people in your fucking closet. That's not gonna help you. It's not gonna change anything about you. All the money in the world doesn't make you anything really. It's just a, it's, it is just a mechanism, right? It's a tool. And so if your reason is that you wanna retire your parents, fuck, that's a good reason.

[00:07:34] Big Cheese: If your reason is so you can do this at, at, at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, fuck yeah. Why not speak to cool people all over, around the world? Inspire people to do better for themselves? Absolutely. What a fantastic reason is your reason so that you can pour yourself 110% into whatever you would like to do, whether that be personal greatness or community greatness, where you're giving back to a bunch of people, showing 'em how you do the things you do.

[00:07:57] Big Cheese: Fuck. That's a good reason. You, you wanna be the, the, the black sheep in the family and prove to everybody else that you are the one that can do it, even though they said you couldn't. Great reason. You wanna prove doubt is wrong. Great fucking reason. You want to get those, I get tingles every time I think about it.

[00:08:12] Big Cheese: You want to tell those people that said you were gonna be nothing Right. When you were a kid, when you had nothing, nothing going on and nothing doing. And then you, you see them 10 years later and you're like, yeah, look, look now, motherfucker, it's, it's not the sole reason I think you should be doing things because I think it's very dangerous and, and, uh, and compromising energy.

[00:08:31] Big Cheese: I think it can be quite sticky and quite negative if you're only doing things to prove people wrong. But it's still a great reason to get you started for sure.

[00:08:40] Scott: So tell me a little bit about those first couple years, because you know, at some point you're a white belt, you're a blue belt, you're a purple belt. You might be really strong, you might be murking people because you have the physicality from your previous career, but there's a time where you're not, you know, Josh, the guy who got his brown belt in two years or whatnot.

[00:08:58] Scott: How were you thinking about it then that you're like, I'm gonna find a way to make a career out of this. I'm gonna build a community, I'm gonna make money, I'm gonna start coaching people. What, was there those thoughts, or was it just a matter of like, I'm gonna get as good as possible at this and see where it goes?

[00:09:13] Big Cheese: Yeah, so the interesting part about that is that I was already doing mostly online coaching, uh, for personal training around about the time that I started to get into the sport. And I still had heaps of in-person personal training clients. And there was a, a, a period of the year in December, and it's known as like the personal trainer's graveyard year, uh, graveyard period.

[00:09:36] Big Cheese: Because all of the clients that are just barely hanging on are the ones that, uh, only need like a tiny excuse to stop coming. And it's the break of habit. And so when you go away for Christmas, you go away for Thanksgiving and any of those periods of the year. The amount of effort and will that it takes them to get going again fast supersedes their consistency.

[00:09:58] Big Cheese: And so they quit and so they leave. And I'd experienced that twice, even with all the, all the best metrics, all the best understandings of why that was happening and how it was happening. And I had no ability to stop it. I, I could have done probably a bit better knowing what I know now in terms of business, but at the same stage, it was probably for a reason that I didn't do it right, because it could get me into this.

[00:10:20] Big Cheese: And so when that happened, what ended up happening eventually is that I was like, all right, I've gotta fix this. I'm gonna go towards I an online training model instead, which will be much better because first of all, the price is gonna be a bit lower so people won't be as willing to quit because it's just, it's a nominal sum or this is what I thought when I first started and it was gonna be one of those things that I could continue to work with them in a capacity.

[00:10:50] Big Cheese: Enough so that they could stay interested over that break. And I could actually help them with all the regrets of like eating too much food and putting on too much weight over Christmas and all these common problems and issues. And when I did the online coaching thing, it was, it was, it was great. I was getting a lot out of it and I was enjoying it.

[00:11:08] Big Cheese: And it was by no means the most passionate endeavor for me, probably not. Um, but at the same time, it allowed me to train enough so I could do morning and evening sessions. And it, it was about this time that I started at my current gym, uh, the guy that I was doing privates with, the coach that I was doing privates with, he said to me one afternoon, he is like, look.

[00:11:28] Big Cheese: If you want to take this sport a little bit more seriously, you're probably gonna have to go to this gym. And that's my current gym, which is the best gym in Australia. And so I went off, went to there straight away, started training at that gym. My first session, this is actually a cool story, I'll tell you this one.

[00:11:43] Big Cheese: Um, my first session at the gym, I walk in there and two weeks earlier, I didn't know this until many years later, two weeks earlier, my coach was literally having a conversation with one of his best blue belt. And he said, where are all the like freak athletes that just walk into the gym for no reason?

[00:12:04] Big Cheese: Like we've had a bunch of guys, we've had like software engineers, we've had, uh, we've had people who like study math. We've had like psychology guys in here. We've had tradesmen of all different kinds and shapes and sizes. Where are the freak fucking athletes? Two weeks later I walked through the door.

[00:12:25] Big Cheese: And lo and behold, the fucking freak athlete, athlete arrived. And, uh, I went and I trained, I did the first rounds positionally with two white belts and absolutely destroyed them because I was 35 kilos of lean tissue, at least heavier. And that was very bad for them. They were a couple of the, the, the software guys and the engineers and whatever else.

[00:12:47] Big Cheese: And then, so my coach saw pretty much what was happening and sent over the colloquial mat enforcer, which at the time was a blue belt named Curtis and super strong, super rigid, super tough, very gritty, not super technical, but able to deal with people who were bigger than him. And he comes over. We're training, we're going through a bunch of different positions.

[00:13:08] Big Cheese: I end up taking his back via a bolo from half guard as a white belt against their best blue belt at the time, like competition, blue belt, a hundred wins, all that jazz. And my coach is just sitting there going like, what the fuck is going on? Like, who is this guy? Anyway, so Curtis, he'll get the shit if he ever listens to this.

[00:13:30] Big Cheese: I guarantee he doesn't. But he ended up finishing me in the end of the round on my back. So I'll give him his credit where his credit is due. But, uh, finished the end of the round, finish the session. I walk over to the front desk and I, I start talking to my coach, Luke, and he goes, uh, where the fuck have you come from?

[00:13:49] Big Cheese: And I was like, excuse me. And he is like, seriously, I, I've never heard of you. I have no idea who you are, where you've come from. Like, I'm in the scene very intimately and I've just got no idea who you are. And I said, well, I started training six months ago, so that's probably why. Uh, and I've just like, I quit rugby league, blah, blah, blah.

[00:14:09] Big Cheese: Told him the whole story. And he goes. Dude, if you train here for 12 months, you will win trials. And at the time, I didn't even know what the fuck trials was. I only knew what a D CT was because the first match I ever watched was Gordon v bha in the 2019 finals. That was the first match I ever saw. And it was only because my private coach, he, he was the one who was into it at the time.

[00:14:35] Big Cheese: Uh, he told me to watch that match. So I went home and did some homework and I watched it and I was like, I don't know what the fuck's going on here. I couldn't even tell you one sequence at that stage of what happened. But, um, yeah, so he told me, he told me, you train here for 12 months, you win trials 15 months later due to covid.

[00:14:52] Big Cheese: Otherwise it would've been 12 months. I won trials. That was kind of when I got the feeling that I could do this pretty seriously. Um, mind you, I had already quit my job full-time as a personal trainer. I was doing online only. I had absolutely no right to do. So I was making about 300 bucks a week. But jujitsu was so captivating, so interesting, so engaging that I just didn't care.

[00:15:20] Big Cheese: And so I'm like, you know what? I'm willing at this stage to live how I need to live, scrape to get by, forego all the niceties because this is so, so interesting to me, so captivating, so exciting. I'm gonna do it no matter what. And then that was the thing that kind of got me to the place where I'm at now by just seeing the opportunity, taking it for what it was and just going a hundred percent in, 'cause it was make or break.

[00:15:49] Big Cheese: I didn't put myself in a situation with a safety net. I didn't have any savings, I didn't have any help from family. I didn't have any assistance in that regard. Like nothing was propping me up at that stage. And I basically just said, fuck it. Let's do it. One trials had a match with Pener at, at A DCC, knocked out in the first round.

[00:16:09] Big Cheese: And it was at that moment that I was like, all right, like, I'm gonna win this eventually no matter what. I don't, I don't give a fuck how long it takes. Um, but I need to figure out a way where I'm gonna be able to tra travel, train, and compete as much as humanly possible. And that was where the course was born.

[00:16:28] Scott: So, uh, first of all, I wanna give a shout out to your original coach because a lot of the juujitsu world is a lot of very territorial, narcissistic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, insert any adjective you want for him to have the grace to say, Hey, man, like this isn't the gym for you. If you really wanna compete at a high level, you need to go to this gym over here like.

[00:16:52] Scott: I just think that guy has so much class.

[00:16:56] Big Cheese: So originally was my privates coach. I was getting private lessons from him, but exactly right. My original coach was such a fucking gangster. He more or less said this exact same thing. He's like, if you need to go there, you need to go there. By all means, go for it. He actually, he gets more, he gets less credit than he deserves.

[00:17:15] Big Cheese: Reason being, when I started showing promise at white Belt, he said to me, look, I want to get the gym going a little bit more. I want to get it off the ground. I'm gonna sponsor you not only for your fees, but I'm gonna send you to other states in Australia to go and compete so that you can wear our gear and wear our staff and compete as a, as a blue belt when I get you, when you, when I give you your blue belt.

[00:17:38] Big Cheese: And so he was the reason I went to my first competition in Melbourne. First competition in Brisbane. I won both of those, uh, in the absolute division and my weight class. The only one I didn't win was Melbourne. I ended up getting beaten by a guy, um, down there and then came back 30 minutes later to beat him in the absolute division.

[00:17:53] Big Cheese: Um, but he was one of the reasons that like word and Chatter started getting out about this blue belt kit that was pretty much ripping through everything at heavyweight. And, um, it was about that time that I signed my first, uh, super fight in and around that time. And then that's when things started to pick up.

[00:18:13] Scott: And tell me a little bit about like the jiujitsu scene in Australia. Like if you had to rank it against, and, and I know there'll probably be some country pride and some gym pride, but if you had to rank it against, you know, let's say Brazil, Austin, Vegas, whatever, maybe America overall, like how did you feel winning trials in Australia and then getting to the big show at A DCC?

[00:18:35] Scott: Did, did you feel comfortable and at home and like every match that you went in? I mean, I know you said you were one and done in your first one, but have had some success since then. How, how do you feel about the training partners and the, the level of jut jujitsu in Australia as it's growing popularity?

[00:18:51] Big Cheese: We're definitely behind in terms of like having a room full of pros to train with and we're very scattered all over the place. So like, obviously Lucas, Lucas Canard lives in Sydney with I with myself. Um, Levi Jones lives in Melbourne most of the time. Lachlan Giles is down there. Um, you've got a couple of key prominent Adele's in Perth over in Western Australia, and so you've got a couple of key prominent figures within the sport now coming from Australia.

[00:19:18] Big Cheese: Isaac, Michelle lives in Austin, obviously, but he's back and forth all of the time and he's Australian when he is here. He's in Sydney with us. And so there are a couple of us at the highest level in the professional scene at the moment. Um, Jeremy Skinner is another one of those guys who's competed at a CCC A DC twice now.

[00:19:39] Big Cheese: Uh, won trials once done really well for himself, and it's just a, it's, it's a matter of. Not really having the depth in terms of professionals that are training each and every single day. Like I imagine at, at, at New Wave in Austin, there's 30 guys on the mats. They all do jujitsu full-time, morning and evening at Atos.

[00:20:00] Big Cheese: There's a hundred guys on the mats. Morning, evening. Everyone's a professional, like most people are professionals or at least high level competitors. To say that though, and the caveat and the thing that I always come back to, Alexander Vul, Kovski was pound for pound number one in the world, in the UFC training out of Wollongong in a gym that is so sparsely located from anything like they, those guys barely have internet, let alone fucking high level training partners and absolute weapons.

[00:20:32] Big Cheese: Don't get me wrong. Granted, he was flying people in, of course, but at the same time. With limited resources. He was still the best fighter on the planet for many, many weeks and months in a row. And you've got the same things from like Leon Edwards winning the belt from the uk. You've got Michael Bisping living the winning the belt from the uk.

[00:20:53] Big Cheese: You've got McGregor with the same team in Ireland all the way up. You've got key individuals within MMA. I know it's easier for people to understand, so I use those examples instead. But there are key prominent figures that exist, that have trained with the very same team, right the way all the way through in the beginning.

[00:21:10] Big Cheese: And people come and they go and people break up with their girlfriend and they leave. And there's all these different things that people like inconsistency within training partners and so on and so forth. What it all boils down to whether you live in Austin or whether you live in Sydney, whether you live in San Paulo, whether you live in fucking Iceland, it really doesn't matter.

[00:21:30] Big Cheese: It comes down to you accepting that you have whatever you have available to you. And that's what you have to maximize properly. Like there are guys who train in the best gyms in the world who you've never heard of, they will not win tournaments. Why? Because even if they're in the best gym in the world, even with the best coaching in the world, they still don't fucking believe that they can do it.

[00:21:54] Big Cheese: And so there is no substitute for hard work. There's no substitute for good training. But in my opinion, even if you do have both of those things and you don't have the belief to back it up, or even if you lack the, the same degree of those things, but you have bucket loads of belief in yourself, you'll be more successful than the opposite.

[00:22:16] Scott: Yeah, I, I know when you, uh, did the super fight against Gordon Ryan, which unfortunately you did not win, but not a lot of people win against Gordon Ryan, I know that, you know, you were so gracious and, and you guys ended up being so cool with each other. You went and did some training with New Wave. What is the difference between being at that gym that has a lot of inconsistent training partners and being at a gym where everybody there is a pro, they're getting in three sessions a day, they're taking care of their nutrition, they're lifting weights.

[00:22:42] Scott: Like what do you see as the difference between, you know, your typical hobbyist gym and a gym where there's a lot of pros? 'cause I'll tell you, when I started at 10th Planet here, there was one night I was like a blue belt. You know, again, I'm, I have kids the age of most of the guys in there that are trying to be competitors and I'm looking around and I'm like, oh, that's the youngest guy in the UFC.

[00:23:01] Scott: That guy was an A DCC trials winner. That guy was an A DCC. And I'm just looking for an easy round and I'm like, fuck, I am the easy round. And so, you know, even being the worst of the best that that Vegas has to offer, I still feel like it's increasing my game. What did you see the difference of between training with the guys that you are bringing up behind you versus like being in a room full of pros?

[00:23:24] Big Cheese: Well, it's the, it is the difference, right? Of of, of going into a room where you've described it exactly like you are the guy that's not the most prominent figure within the room. You're not the biggest, the strongest, the fastest. And so you kind of have to sit within that as well. And mentally, that's something I deal with very, very easily because I was not that in rugby either.

[00:23:43] Big Cheese: There's a, there's a guy who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles right now. His name's Jordan Mylar. He's like left tackle or something like that. He's six eight hundred and fifty three kilos, or he is like 320, 30 pounds. That guy was my training partner when I was playing rugby as a 20-year-old. And it was my job to break him mentally.

[00:24:05] Big Cheese: Like that was, that was the lay of the land. Like that guy was coming from my spot and we were doing beach wrestling sessions where I had to try and make him quit and I succeeded on a number of occasions. And so for not being like the biggest guy in the room, easy, not being the best guy in the room, also easy because from a rugby league perspective, you are, you're very, very rarely the best guy in the room, especially because there's so many guys that are older than you.

[00:24:30] Big Cheese: They've got 10 years of experience in playing at the top level, all those sorts of things. And so for me, mentally, it's not really a big thing physicality wise, it's definitely a, a jump up. Like it, it is probably unfair for me to assess the training rooms together because I'm only there within like, the last couple of weeks of a DCC camp.

[00:24:48] Big Cheese: So it's a very refined version of what the training would be like on an ordinary day. But it's, it's, it's definitely the increase in intensity for sure. Um, in terms of like physicality as well, there's a, there's a large degree of increasing in physicality. Like I'm, the majority of the time, if I'm rolling a guy who's a blue belt with three kids, like he'll give a good first couple of minutes, but then when he gets tired, he's fucked.

[00:25:13] Big Cheese: Even against Oliver Taza, who is half of my body weight, when he gets tired, he goes up a again,

[00:25:21] Scott: Right, right,

[00:25:22] Big Cheese: it it, it's a different, it's a different ball game, and you're not getting, you're not getting things without working very hard to obtain them. And so when you get something, you feel like you've earned it, but you're just not getting things very frequently, which is great.

[00:25:40] Scott: I I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about the business side of it. 'cause what you've grown on the business side is maybe more impressive than the juujitsu side, right? There's a bunch of 25-year-old world beaters in the juujitsu world that, you know, can't figure out how to pay their car insurance.

[00:25:56] Scott: Um, much less grow an online community, grow an Instagram following, grow a marketing department, grow an educational platform. Uh, I've seen a lot of them start, I haven't seen a lot of 'em stick around. And this isn't just in Juujitsu. This, I mean, I know I, I know countless loan officers who have been like, oh, I'm really good at doing loans.

[00:26:14] Scott: I should start a coaching program. And then six months in, they figure out how fucking hard that is to get people to open up their wallet and enter in their credit card number and stick around. And, you know, over nine years of running a coaching business, I've had more false starts, bad price points. I've screwed up more than probably I, anybody.

[00:26:32] Scott: So talk about, you know, what was your background or your self-taught training? That one gave you the confidence to do that. And then two, get it to the successful stage that you are now where you're driving an A MG. And I saw your watch. It's pretty nice watch. I mean, still shopping at seven 11, but that's okay.

[00:26:47] Scott: I love seven 11 too. um, tell, tell us a little bit about the evolution of building the business.

[00:26:53] Big Cheese: You can't be, uh, you can't be luxe with everything. Uh, Ramit the guy, he teaches you how to be a, a really good spender on the things that you value the highest and a skimper on the things that you value the least. And so, like for me, cleaning products, I'm buying the cheapest shit that exists for me. Like desk furniture don't really value it that high to be fair.

[00:27:17] Big Cheese: I'm going to ikea. I'm not, I'm not really spending that heavily on that sort of shit. Um, the stuff that I do like more than willing, more than willing, and.

[00:27:25] Scott: I don't mind lighting $40 on fire every night 'cause I value a good cigar, but I, I don't need a steak every day. I can eat a Taco Bell if need be.

[00:27:33] Big Cheese: That's right. That's right. And that, that's a really good compartmentalization of like how you actually do it. 'cause you can't max everything to the top level because you send yourself broke. It's fucking stupid. But the things that you value are also excellent reminders of why you do what you do, which ties back into the early part of the conversation, which is your reasons and your reasons are everything.

[00:27:53] Big Cheese: Um, so I went through a couple of different business development programs with personal training, and the biggest thing that I pretty much learned on that was actually, uh, embodied within a quote by Jim Rohn. And he goes, if you work harder on yourself than you ever do on your work, you'll be unbelievably successful.

[00:28:10] Big Cheese: And so basically the thing that I took from that is like, all right, well business is going to be turmoil. It, it's going to be up and down, left and right, sideways. Things are gonna lop in your face and you've gotta stick within your lane and be calm. And you've gotta accept all of the waves that come crashing down.

[00:28:26] Big Cheese: And then learn how to surf on top of them. And I'm like, okay, cool, I can do that. So I just dove heavy into self-development, personal development, and without even realizing it, just little, little pieces of skills that I knew that I would need. How do I communicate more effectively? How do I, uh, design programs more effectively?

[00:28:45] Big Cheese: How do I make complex things very simple for people and save them time? Uh, how do I present that information in an appealing and interesting way to get them to at least pay attention to it first? That's, that's critical. Uh, once I've got their attention, how do I actually get them to buy into what I'm saying and how do I do that over a long enough period of time to get them to physically buy into what I'm doing?

[00:29:13] Big Cheese: And then how do I sustain that over a decent period so that they get unbelievable results and then tell all their friends and that there's a couple things going on there. It's very difficult to explain each and every single one of them, but I think. Uh, putting yourself in a position where you know that you're gonna fail and you're only a couple of failures away from your next milestone.

[00:29:37] Big Cheese: And if you continually put that in your mind, you do not put yourself into a position where you are failure or risk adverse and you actually just charge through them faster, which means you get more experience, more lessons, more benefits, and better as fast as humanly possible. And to be fair, the reason that I've, I've been able to alchemize that so quickly is because of jiujitsu.

[00:30:03] Big Cheese: I did not think like this pre juujitsu, I did not have this mindset.

[00:30:07] Scott: that. Why does, how does jujitsu relate to business?

[00:30:09] Big Cheese: Because you are going to get fucking smashed by every single thing that you can possibly think of. And as soon as you think you are doing well, you're gonna get smashed with something new. And as soon as you think you've conquered that, the next thing's gonna kick the door down and absolutely obliterate you.

[00:30:26] Big Cheese: Then you're gonna get on your high horse because you get a couple of rewards. You get a couple of wins, and then the 135 pound black belt female comes and puts you in a triangle and you go home crying and you're like, motherfucker, you, you finally get the marketing right and then the product falls to shit.

[00:30:41] Big Cheese: Then you finally get the product right, and then the marketing falls to shit, and then the sales guy quits and then this happens, and then this happens. And then they wanna up your prices for all your, all your subscriptions and, and all of your systems and all that sort of stuff. And now you've gotta deal with that and margins get thinner and, and more expansive.

[00:30:58] Big Cheese: If you look at it as problems, I think you are going to have a shit time. If you look at his brand new experiences and just another opportunity for growth and another inevitable challenge that you get to tell your, your story about one day, like your kids will learn how much shit you had to go through and how you've turned into the person that you've become.

[00:31:17] Big Cheese: Like I, I love how Alex Oz's quote on that, where he is like, if I'm, if I'm positioned propositioned with two options, I will always pick the one that allows me to tell the coolest story later

[00:31:30] Scott: I love that.

[00:31:31] Big Cheese: that's fucking mad. And so for me, it's such an easy decision. Do I work a nine to five at a hardware store stacking shelves where I can barely train and barely afford to go overseas?

[00:31:44] Big Cheese: And I like, I'm good within Australia, but then I, like, I don't do anything with my career. Uh, it is a bit of a lackluster story. Yeah, it has more safety associated with it. Probably a little bit more stability probably. But it also, it also deteriorates all of the massive benefits of being in the chaos because out, out of the chaos is born, all of the brand new opportunities that you didn't even think were possible.

[00:32:12] Big Cheese: And so if you take the risk and you take the plunge, yeah, it might be scary in the beginning, but you'll look back on that and say, fuck, I wouldn't have done it any other way because it's given me so much. It's given me all of these things. And it's perfectly marries jitsu because when you start thinking about like late stage submission defense, for instance, it's fucking terrifying.

[00:32:33] Big Cheese: I don't want my arm to break even professional guys do not want their arm to break. 'cause then it stops us from doing the thing we love. We're the same as the hobbyist. We have more common, more in common with the hobbyists than we do differently. I don't want my shit breaking, so I've gotta figure out a way that I can execute the skill development in a low stakes environment first.

[00:32:52] Big Cheese: Then I scale that up to a high stakes environment eventually, and it's the exact same thing with business. You, you don't try and bite off more than you can chew all at once. You go low stakes environment, you, you go in a, a very easy to, uh, easy area to build the skill. Still gonna be difficult, still gonna be challenging, but you don't go for everything all at once.

[00:33:12] Big Cheese: 'cause that's how you burn yourself out. You get overwhelmed and everything basically ships itself. Then you think about it in jujitsu terms. You're like, oh yeah, cool. Like, I, I shouldn't probably be learning, like, take downs all the time. And then trying to match that with passing and then trying to figure out pinning and doing everything all at once and spinning so many plates at once.

[00:33:30] Big Cheese: Maybe I should just get really, really, really, really good at one thing and then expand upon that. E eventually, and it is the same thing as a whole Moses thing. It's one product, one channel, one audience, one avatar. Just like really dive deep on that and really nail that from a business perspective. And you'd be utterly surprised at what you can get done.

[00:33:53] Big Cheese: And people are like, oh yeah, but my niche isn't big enough. I've capped out my niche. And you're like, bro, what industry are you in? And they're like, oh, I'm in the supplement industry. I'm like, that's a $46 billion annual industry. You have not fucking capped out your niche. Shut your mouth.

[00:34:11] Scott: You know, it's so funny the, the stress of dealing with business, right? You get a call from somebody or something, some piece of paperwork's missing or whatever, you know, I, I get, I, I get the pleasure of working out every morning with a guy named Tom Lawler Black Belt Collegiate, um, super stud wrestler, fought in the UFC for 10 years.

[00:34:29] Scott: When my day starts with that guy trying to snap my wrist or my neck, everything else feels like. A little bit lower stakes, a little bit less stressful. Like, we'll figure it out. Nobody's, nobody's going to sleep or getting their arm broken in the mortgage industry. Um,

[00:34:44] Big Cheese: Hundred percent.

[00:34:45] Scott: so give, give us a couple of the, uh, greatest hits of your, uh, your failures.

[00:34:50] Scott: Then we'll get into some of your successes. 'cause I know with any startup, with any business, there's been a few misfires. So give us a few of the Josh misfires in the business world on.

[00:34:58] Big Cheese: Oh man. If you want to, as a fun exercise, if you are listening to this and you're interested, I've posted fuck loads of content in the last couple of months, but if you have the time and you are bothered, scroll down to the bottom and go and look at my first posts. They are fucking awful. They are dog shit.

[00:35:22] Big Cheese: And I was always like, you know what? I'm putting out good information and this is good. Well, guess what? I fucking wasn't packaging it correctly, was I, the information's good. It's some of those things that I keep talking about now, but it was just a still photo with purple and one word, and there's like not captivating at all.

[00:35:39] Big Cheese: No interest whatsoever. And then you look at my first videos that I was doing, no subtitles, no microphone, no quality, incoherent, rambling, no editing, no cuts, no nothing. And it just, it just, I watch it and I go, uh, but that is the beauty of it. That's the most beautiful part. Taking yourself from that position to where you are now.

[00:36:04] Big Cheese: And I always reference this when we bring this up. Google for me another, a fun exercise for the audience. Google for me Post Malone's first music video.

[00:36:12] Scott: Oh my God, it's hilarious. I've seen it so many times on Instagram.

[00:36:16] Big Cheese: It's the biggest piece of shit you've ever seen. And that guy is one of the most famous music stars in the whole entire world. And he did not let the potential fear or anxiety or critique or judgment of that video being alive stop him from going through it and all the way to everything else and achieving more than 99.9% of individuals ever do.

[00:36:40] Big Cheese: And so that's kind of like the core theme of the message is like, you just gotta get over it. It's going to suck. You will be shit at it and there's nothing you can do about it. And the faster you go through that phase, the quicker you go into the next iteration of that, the shorter that window of suckage is going to be.

[00:36:59] Big Cheese: I think that's the key theme and the key ideology. It's like people, I'm, I'm sure you've heard this all before, like, you know, I wanna lose weight before I start personal training 'cause then I'll be ready for it. That's the idea of personal training, dumb ass. They're like, oh, you know, like, I wanna get fit before I start jiujitsu because then I'll be fit.

[00:37:17] Big Cheese: No, you fucking won't. You'll just be starting later and you'll have less skill development than you otherwise could have had. You're a goose. Do it. Oh, you know, I just wanna save up some money before I start that business. You're never fucking starting because there's never gonna be enough money because you're always going to rationalize that you would need 5K extra for a website you don't fucking need.

[00:37:38] Scott: Right,

[00:37:39] Big Cheese: always, always gonna be something.

[00:37:42] Scott: There's always an excuse to not get started on.

[00:37:44] Big Cheese: Exactly. And that's why that's saying is so fucking perfect. The best time to start something was 10 years ago, the second best time is fucking right now. And that's, that's all you can really do. And like the mistakes and the blinders and everything. Like from a, uh, from a logistics perspective, I sold my first batch of t-shirts.

[00:38:01] Big Cheese: They actually did pretty well. I ended up selling like 50 or of them or something. But just in terms of like the amount of time that I took to package them myself and like. Deliver them myself. Like instead of paying for postage, I drove around Sydney dropping these fucking things off. It was, it was unbelievable.

[00:38:19] Big Cheese: I didn't charge for postage, so I like couldn't sell 'em through postage and all that sort of stuff. And I, I've done, I've done all of it. I've done all of it. Everything you could possibly think of. Um, I got my ad account deleted for my first business that was actually making good money. I, I ended up making a business called, uh, pet Pal.

[00:38:37] Big Cheese: It was like a play off the PayPal name. 'cause I'm like, oh yeah, people know what PayPal is. That'll be smart. And I ended up selling, um, dog blankets for the back of your car that cover the leather so that you don't scratch up your leather seats. And, uh. First month I did 15 grand in sales and I was like, holy fucking shit, I'm gonna be a trillionaire.

[00:38:55] Big Cheese: Actually, not knowing anything about margins, not knowing anything about marketing costs, not knowing anything about that, all I saw revenue and I went daylight, and I was so stupid at the time. I clicked an email that came through to my business page saying my account was gonna be shut down for violations on Facebook. I clicked the email and they fucking stole my account. Shut it down. And that account is like completely banned forever. It's like unrecoverable. And so, because I didn't build any systems, I didn't build any media, I didn't build any Instagram or Facebook or nothing. It was just straight ads, right to Facebook.

[00:39:33] Big Cheese: All of my media channels died in one fell swoop. And it crushed. It crushed me. I was so devastated. It took me like six months to get over, six months to get over. Whereas now I would just go, all right, I'll build another Facebook page, and I'll have another ad store up in like 24 hours. But because of that lesson, I've got that now.

[00:39:59] Scott: And you know, you mentioned those buckets of business, right? Circling back to like, the marketing's going great, but then the product goes to shit. Then you're building the product and you got great videos, but the community is lacking. And then, and then Stripe, you know, increases their processing fees.

[00:40:13] Scott: When, when I found you on Instagram and then I saw that you were hosting your community through school, S-K-O-O-L, the product that Hermo box, um, I was like, oh, okay, maybe one day I wanna migrate my, uh, my coaching for loan officers and business owners over to there. I'll check out this guy's school platform.

[00:40:30] Scott: I'll pay for one month, 44 bucks or whatever it was. I'll do a little research and then I'll cancel 'cause I'm sure this is shit. 'cause I'm sure he's like most juujitsu stoners who puts up one video a month and tries to juice you for 44 bucks. And then I got into the community and it's like nonstop match analysis and lessons and daily uploads.

[00:40:50] Scott: And the community that you've built is really supportive and they're sharing wins. And they're sharing ideas. And I got together, or I was gonna get together with one of 'em for a beer when they're out here at A DCC, but then we couldn't make it work out 'cause I was at CGI till like one o'clock in the morning.

[00:41:02] Scott: So can you talk a little bit about the business and the community itself and how you're focusing on those different buckets of marketing content, community building? Because like I gotta tell you, and I'm not just saying this 'cause I'm in the community 'cause I would be out if it wasn't worth my $44 a month.

[00:41:18] Scott: My wife always asks me when we do our little financial review, she's like, yeah, what's HPU again? And I'm like, oh, that's the coaching thing with the dude in Australia. She's like, how the fuck are you getting jiujitsu coaching from a dude in Australia? Aren't you? Don't you have to be on the mats for that.

[00:41:30] Scott: Um, so talk a little bit about the actual business of building that community. How long has it been around? How many members do you have? And then how do you sustain that model of, you know, constant engagement and uploading and content?

[00:41:43] Big Cheese: So the thing was, initially I wanted to think about absolutely nothing except how to get better at Jiujitsu. I wanted to monetize that, and so it's so seamless and so simple and so easy for me to bring people into that process that wanna learn better, faster, more efficient models of how to do things, and for me to constantly be answering questions, thinking about the sport, and really having that as the base camp for everything that goes on in there.

[00:42:13] Big Cheese: And I also think, what would I want four years, four and a half years ago when I started. I would wanna see those matches broken down because I don't know what's going on. I wanna see like the incremental details of what's actually happening from a guy that's competing with the guise that he's reviewing to give me the ability to have that brand new perspective so I can learn so much faster.

[00:42:34] Big Cheese: And I think what that has done and, and being genuine and being like legitimately invested in the individuals that come through, what that's done is started to spread a little bit because they're like, holy fuck, I actually get to speak to the guy that runs the thing. Instead of buying an instructional and never being able to talk to Gordon or Craig or Ethan or any of these guys, Ali or or Carlo.

[00:42:56] Big Cheese: You might be able to catch 'em in a comment section, but it's very vague. And it's very ephemeral. And I know how I look at people commenting in every single one of my videos asking for free shit, even though I give away a ton of fucking information. I don't really like those conversations very much. And so I imagine the athletes in my position are the exact same spot as me.

[00:43:15] Big Cheese: And so you're not gonna get the best of us. You're not gonna get the best reaction because it's grimy. Like, I'm not going in people's comments sections, trying to get free shit outta them. If they've got good information, I'm gonna pay 'em because they've got the knowledge, the wisdom and experience that they've crafted out for themselves that I wanna piece of.

[00:43:29] Big Cheese: They deserve that money. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but most likely they do. And so I wanted to create an idea of that in terms of what I was building with the online community in, uh, in the fitness space, which mind you, I was doing like the one post a week sort of thing in like a, a WhatsApp like group chat.

[00:43:50] Big Cheese: And it just never got any traction because the guys weren't paying attention for any more than two minutes a week. And of course that's not top of mind reference, especially when you're competing with things like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, for some unfortunate people, PornHub,

[00:44:04] Scott: Yeah.

[00:44:05] Big Cheese: you're competing with those things.

[00:44:06] Big Cheese: You're competing with that for the attention. And so what I've recognized is that I have to actually create a jujitsu, social media, there's gotta be interactivity where people are commenting and sharing ideas and showing wins is a fucking huge one. I'm sure that's like paramount in your business, being able to dive in there and actually get social proof from the individuals that are applying the systems before you.

[00:44:33] Big Cheese: My, my whole dream and ideology of the thing is that, like you were saying, you guys can go get beers together, you can train together. Someone jumps in and they're training in Vegas and they don't know about 10th Planet. I wanna be the Yellow Pages from 40 years ago, 30 years ago. That goes, Hey bro. I got a couple students that already trained in 10th planning.

[00:44:51] Big Cheese: You want to go train there? You wanna go learn from them? They're using the same system that you are learning. Perfect. I've had, I've had experiences where I'm flying around the world to, uh, to Singapore because I got a DC trials for the second time. And Hardy, who's one of the longest serving members in the new iteration of the group, uh, send him a text message and say, Hey, I'm in Singapore.

[00:45:11] Big Cheese: I know you leave here. Let's go get food, bro. Comes to fucking pick me up. Refuses to take any of my money for anything, for no reason. Takes me out to the, the Singapore markets one of the most famous market, but the, the famous one for Singaporeans, not for tourists. So it was busy, but it was local busy and the food was unfucking believable.

[00:45:32] Big Cheese: And he was like, all right, we've gotta get this from number five. We've gotta get this from number one. We've gotta get this from number four. He like, full on deck us out with everything and it was amazing. I. It was fucking fantastic. And, and so for me it's like building a community of individuals that really wanna get better altogether that maybe don't have access to that in their home gyms, where people are kind of like, you know, more self defense or like, they kind of do it for cardio and they do it as stress release and they don't really care about getting better.

[00:45:59] Big Cheese: They just care about a good workout with some dudes and, and, and whatever else. But I want those people that are, that are fucking savages, that wanna really get better, that potentially want to take the sport full time. They want to take it to a professional level. They, they, like my main bread and butter are those people that really wanna dive deep and get fucking good quick.

[00:46:17] Big Cheese: And so that they give themselves the opportunity to become things like a professional athlete or give themselves the opportunity to become things like an authority within their gym. Or the guy that is sitting in the middle of the mats with their hand up for a roll and people are going, fuck that. I don't want anything to do with that guy.

[00:46:33] Big Cheese: Leave me away from him. Because it's, it's, there's a feeling associated with that. It's, it's this hierarchical confidence feeling. It's not arrogance, but it's this, it's like this self-fulfilling ideology that I've put in the work and the effort to get good at something really good at something. And I've got tangible skillsets that I can now take into every area of my life and start to dominating those areas as well.

[00:46:55] Big Cheese: And that, that's pretty much what I wanna facilitate for everybody that comes through. And I also want to be one that is high touch, uh, highly connected as well. Like, I wanna be able to message people and have them message me and get responses from, from somebody hopefully, that they gain inspiration from, that they enjoy the story or the journey or something like that.

[00:47:16] Big Cheese: Like, imagine being able to, your what, who's your favorite, uh, your favorite business coach or leader at the moment? Like social media wise,

[00:47:24] Scott: Oh man. I mean, I'd love to have a conversation with a lot of people. Gary V obviously comes to mind. Uh. Unfortunately, the number one guy in my space, a guy named Shett Holmes, passed away a couple years ago. He, he wrote the book, the Ultimate Sales Machine, which is the best sales book ever written.

[00:47:39] Scott: Nobody's ever heard of him. And, um, I've corresponded a lot with his daughter since he's such Pa, uh, since he's since passed. But dude, if I could go back in time, 10 years and, and have a conversation with him about his book, the Ultimate Sales Machine, that would be, that would be the pinnacle of the podcast interview.

[00:47:54] Scott: No offense to you,

[00:47:55] Big Cheese: Yeah, no, that's, I get it. I get it. That would be, that would be special. Um, and, and like for me, it was always talking to guys that were killing it at my sport. And I, I was very lucky to be able to put myself in the rooms where I was with some of the best rugby league players of all time. Because of my skills and because of my capabilities.

[00:48:12] Big Cheese: And now because of my skills and capabilities in Jiujitsu, I've met the best of the best. I've shaken hands with Andre Gal. I've shaken hands with Gordon Ryan. I, I've shaken hands with Craig and all those guys, like the, the guys that people look at as the heroes of this sport. Like the, the very top or the top.

[00:48:30] Big Cheese: Or the top. I've met Marcello Garcia. I've met hoist, I've met, uh, Zo and all these guys because of my ability to put myself in the room where I'm competing with it, I've competed against Felipe Pena fucking twice. You know what I mean? Like, these guys are at that very top of the game, and I get to know who they are.

[00:48:49] Big Cheese: They get to know who I am, and it's, it's like a, a mutual sort of exchange thing that's fucking mad, that's sick. I couldn't have asked for that when I first started the sport, first of all, because I didn't know who any of those guys were. But as soon as I became aware of them, I was like, fuck, I'm gonna meet those guys one day for sure.

[00:49:05] Big Cheese: For sure. Gonna meet those guys one day and being able to lead the way and facilitate an experience like that for some of these guys. Like I got a, one of the guys in the community, Maori, he came over from um, wa, he worked in the mines in Western Australia. It's about a five hour flight difference from where I am.

[00:49:20] Big Cheese: And he had to visit his sister, who happens to live in Penrith, which is where I am. And he came in trained, trained for a session, and we had the fucking best time. Somebody, I, somebody I've been seeing for months on Zoom and, and profiles like this. And I get to meet the guy in person and then there's dudes traveling from the UK to come and see me, to see my gym and train in my gym and experience what it's like.

[00:49:43] Big Cheese: I had a young fellow, I forgot his name, but he just started jujitsu probably about six months ago. And for the first time ever, I had a roll with him. 'cause I don't really roll with the white belts who are like very, very small, very, very new. 'cause they're not gonna get a lot outta that. I'm not gonna get a lot out of that.

[00:49:56] Big Cheese: So I usually go blue. Yeah, something like that. Like I'm super lovely, super friendly. I'll never crush anybody that doesn't deserve it. And they definitely don't deserve it because they're like baby giraffes, they can barely fucking walk. Um, but I trained with him and he said, uh, he said, man, like I actually wanna really thank you because.

[00:50:13] Big Cheese: Um, I started watching your videos on TikTok, and you are the reason I got into the, into the sport. And when I first started watching your videos, I got interested. I'm like, oh, where's his gym? And it happened to be five minutes down the road from me, and now I'm in a combat sport training. Getting better, getting more confident, actually putting some skills together where, you know, I was kind of like fucking my way through life, not really doing a whole lot.

[00:50:35] Big Cheese: I was going to work and I've got a girlfriend and I've got a family and all this stuff, but nothing like really passionate or, uh, invigorating or something like that. Like I'm, I'm massive into this recently e even more so than I have been in recent years, but like waking up every morning and going, let's fucking do something today.

[00:50:53] Big Cheese: I don't care what it is, but let me fucking create something today. Let me better myself. Let me nudge myself forwards in any, in any capacity, whether it's my mind, whether it's the people around me and bringing them up, whether it's, uh, my, my body and my physique, or my training and my skillset, or like my business or something like that.

[00:51:09] Big Cheese: And how can I become better, faster, stronger, more intelligent, more efficient, a a, a better individual? How do I work on myself to be able to change any one of those metrics? And like, I wanna give that to people. I, I wanna give that as a, as a fucking gift to individuals to show them that they can do it.

[00:51:26] Big Cheese: Because you can. And it doesn't matter what means or what mechanism or what, what, like how you pour into whatever it is. But finding something that you, you can do that with. I think Jiujitsu is one of the best ways to do it. Obviously it's the reason I'm fucking here right now. Um, but finding something that you can pour yourself into completely and genuinely, I.

[00:51:47] Big Cheese: And lose all this bullshit of like, I'm just trying to survive. Like I'm just trying to fucking pay bills. I can't wait for the weekend. I can't wait to get shit faced this weekend so I can delete the week that I just went through. 'cause it fucking sucks. And you know, like I, I can't handle these small social problems and arguments because my temper gets the best of me, blah, blah, blah.

[00:52:06] Big Cheese: Like when you are fully captivated within something, none of that exists. None. Like I don't give a fuck what day of the week people wanna call it. I live the same day every single day and I fucking love every day. I don't give a fuck if it's called Saturday or not. Couldn't care less. I used to be one of those people, I used to be one of those people that sat there like, can't wait for the weekend so I can go eat a bunch of pills and fucking lose my brain.

[00:52:28] Big Cheese: What? Not a chance would I ever do that ever again. Not a chance. 'cause you get to be high on life, and I know it sounds trite and contrived and everybody's gonna say, oh, it's fucking easy for you to say blah, blah, blah. No, it is been extremely difficult for me to be able to say that, but I work every day to facilitate that and the mechanism of how you get there is not important.

[00:52:49] Big Cheese: It's that you actually get there and you actually facilitate that for yourself. There's so many different ways to do it, but like I think Jiujitsu is one of the best ways, obviously. But one of the things that's like you just put yourself in a position where no matter what, you're gonna work your ass off.

[00:53:03] Big Cheese: You're gonna get better every day. You're gonna eat failure for breakfast 'cause it's just gonna happen. You're gonna suck at everything that you do at the very beginning, but you realize that it's just stepping stones along the path. And that if you can go through that, the rewards you get is being able to cross apply that to anything that you do, whether it's your work life, whether it's your relationships, whether it's your sport and the skills that you wanna develop.

[00:53:25] Big Cheese: Like I have unbelievable confidence and competence that if I wanted to go and get good at Muay Hai right now, I would be in the same position I am in Juujitsu within five to 10 years. Because I understand the principles, I know how they apply. I would be looking for things that people that have been training it for five years don't see yet.

[00:53:47] Big Cheese: And it might sound arrogant, but it isn't, 'cause I've proven it in two different sports already. There's this guy, uh, Josh Waitzkin, I'm sure you've heard of him. The Art of Learning. He's done it in four different disciplines.

[00:53:59] Scott: Yeah.

[00:54:00] Big Cheese: He's a fucking freak. But is he, no. He understood the meta learning principle of how to get good at things very quickly.

[00:54:10] Big Cheese: And once you can get that, you apply to everything. It's

[00:54:14] Scott: funny you mentioned this 'cause I, I interviewed a guy who played on three Olympic teams, uh, for volleyball. Ryan Millar, absolute stud in the volleyball scene. At one of the Olympics, they had the volleyball court and then they had to tear down as all the NBA guys were coming in when they had the dream team.

[00:54:31] Scott: And he got a lot of bench time with Kobe Bryant just sitting there shooting the shit when Kobe was, was warming up and they were finishing up and whatnot. And he said, what's super cool? Is that I'm sure I would just be some unapproachable seven foot white guy on the street if I tried to strike up a conversation with Kobe Bryant.

[00:54:49] Scott: But in the context of the Olympics, Kobe Bryant knew that everybody in that facility, in the Olympic Training Center was world class elite at something. And he goes, Kobe was so hungry for knowledge, he would sit down with the volleyball guys and be like, so tell me about your training schedule. Like, what are you doing when you jump here for an outside shot?

[00:55:09] Scott: How is that different than when you jump for a block? And he's like, the guy was so fucking inquisitive to learn about a sport that he had never played and had no interest playing because he is like, here's another seven foot elite athlete that can get his chest above a nine, uh uh, above an eight foot net.

[00:55:26] Scott: He must be doing something really well that I'm not doing right. And so the guy was just totally hungry to learn. And I have no doubt that in the twilight of his career, if Kobe wanted to be a world-class volleyball player or movie producer or author, he would've found those clues that other studs had left.

[00:55:43] Scott: And he would've been another one of those guys who sadly, had he not passed, would've had another four or five lifetimes worth of amazing careers in something else.

[00:55:53] Big Cheese: A hundred percent and that's pretty cool. Kobe Bryant was definitely a special individual. It's, it's that whole thing of like, luck is when, uh, opportunity meets hard work. That's the epitome of him. He, his whole like, ideology of, even in high school, if I just practice three times a day, every day and I never take summer off and I never, never miss a day.

[00:56:18] Big Cheese: By the time they try and catch up via summer, I'm six years ahead, no matter what they do. That's unreal. Unreal. And uh, they asked me who's number one when I, when I faced Gordon and they said, in your opinion, what makes him so special? And more or less it was like, he's not special. He's just been willing to do the work that people aren't willing to do for longer than they were willing to do it.

[00:56:47] Big Cheese: And it goes back to the first sentiment that you were talking about with consistency. It's like, yeah, you can be consistent, but you can be consistently, shit. Most people do that in, most people do that every day of their life. They're consistent.

[00:56:58] Scott: drop outta coaching every month. You know, they, they email me and they're like, Hey, the coaching doesn't work for me. And I'm like, I'm looking at the attendance report. And I'm like, well, I see you haven't been on any of the calls. Well, yeah, I'm so busy. I'm like, but yet you're not. 'cause I can see your numbers.

[00:57:10] Scott: You're not, you're not doing any production, so how are you too busy to jump on the coaching calls? But yeah, it's just like, it's just excuses. It's being consistently shit.

[00:57:19] Big Cheese: That's right. That's exactly right. And it, it's, look, that, that goes down into a more psychological route as well as they're, they're fighting themselves for their own limitations because they really don't believe they're worth the rewards they don't have. And it's a,

[00:57:33] Scott: For the people in the back.

[00:57:35] Big Cheese: they're, they're fighting themselves for their own limitations because they don't believe they deserve the rewards they don't have.

[00:57:41] Big Cheese: So they want to go to the next level, but they don't truly believe that they're worth it. And if you don't truly believe that you're worth it, you'll never fucking get there ever. Because when it gets hard and when it gets difficult and when you are looking around, you will see yourself as less than in comparative to the people that are in that circle that you want to be in.

[00:57:59] Big Cheese: And you won't make the effort to get there. And the only reason I know that to be true is because I used to fucking do it. I had a mate of mine, listen, listen to this for a story, right? I had a personal training client. He runs a business where he sells model trains. Weird, weird fucking business, but absolute savage.

[00:58:18] Big Cheese: And he was coming to me 'cause he couldn't figure out how to lose weight, gain muscle. And I'm looking at this guy and he rocks up in the, in the car that I drive downstairs. He had like a different color, but he had that car and he is wearing a Rolex to the gym. He is wearing raff Lauren and polo shirts as a gym shirt.

[00:58:32] Big Cheese: Just because like that was his thing. And guy's making shit to shit. Tons of money. And I'm looking at him and I'm like, why the fuck can this guy not figure out how to lose weight? It can figure out how to make millions of dollars. That doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. And I was like, what the fuck?

[00:58:46] Big Cheese: So I was judging this guy and thinking that he was stupid and, and, and not even like taking on the lessons that he had to impart where, whereas I could have been because I didn't believe that I was worth them and I wanted to search instead of ways that I was better than this guy instead of ways that I could learn from him.

[00:59:03] Big Cheese: And, and because I didn't believe that I deserved what he had. And I started to reconcile that when he was like super generous and he was taking me out for dinner all the time. And we went on a couple dinners and I was like, wow, this is actually really cool. Um, this guy is, he's not really like in terms of being special or anything like that.

[00:59:23] Big Cheese: It, it wasn't anything intangible that I couldn't do. And I'd already succeeded in an area that he couldn't. And it was vice versa. He succeeded in an area that I couldn't, but it wasn't that I couldn't, it's just that I hadn't done it before. And I was viewing him as somebody through his eyes, believed that he couldn't get to where I was in terms of looking good, feeling good, being strong.

[00:59:45] Big Cheese: And I was looking at him in terms of somebody I couldn't get to in terms of financial success. And now I had to work a fuck load on this in terms of me believing or outworking self-doubt in terms of me believing that it was possible until in terms of me believing that I actually deserved it. And the thing that stopped me the most was that it was that judgmental factor.

[01:00:08] Big Cheese: And when I was a kid, my mom always wanted a Porsche. She always wanted a Porsche boxer in black, top down, all like the, they're nice looking cuts. And I said to her one day, I was like nine or 11 years old, and I said, well, why don't you have one there? And she goes, oh, 'cause they're for drug dealers or people who are lucky.

[01:00:28] Big Cheese: And I was like, really? You gotta be lucky to have a Porsche. You gotta sell drugs. That's kind of fucked up. And it stuck with me for ages. And here's the fucked up part about psychology. Moral superiority is what's stopping you from succeeding? Because I'm not a drug dealer. I'm a good person. You're a fucking idiot.

[01:00:49] Big Cheese: That's what you are. It's got nothing to do with that because that's just a limited view perspective. Just like I was looking at at Pete in a limited view perspective, because I wasn't looking at the work ethic, I wasn't looking at the, the guys who fired him from the hobby shop when he was 16 years of age and the fire that that lit under his ass to come back and buy that shop five years later and kick them out.

[01:01:16] Big Cheese: I wasn't looking at all the backend stuff of all the failures and all the competition and all the bullshit that he had to go through. All the doubt from family members and the ridicule from other people. Like, you're a nerd. You're playing with trains, da da da da, da, all that sort of shit. I wasn't looking at the individual for what he was capable of and what he was able to conquer.

[01:01:36] Big Cheese: And as soon as I flick that switch to looking at people for their skills, as soon as I flick that switch to looking at as as tangible things that you can gain, my whole life fucking changed and it exploded. And now I drive the same car as he did when I was friends with him. I wear the same watch that he did when I was friends with him.

[01:01:54] Big Cheese: I go to the same restaurants for dinner and fucking shout all my friends as he did when I was a kid. And I do the same shit as he did for me all the way back then. And we're not nearly on the same level. He's doing fucking much better than I am. 'cause he's a freak. But it just goes to show it's, it's your own limitations of your own self-belief that stop you from getting those rewards because you don't believe you can have 'em.

[01:02:17] Big Cheese: And for whatever reason, for rhyme or reason conditioning or whatever you've been brought up with it, it kind of is irrelevant to some point. If you work harder on yourself than anything else, you'll get there and you've just gotta reconcile the fact that no, if I put in the effort, the same proportionate effort, I should get near or same proportionate results.

[01:02:36] Big Cheese: I've just gotta be willing to stick it out, be consistent, focus on the right things, not blame other people, not blame the economy, not blame politics and all the bullshit that's going on, not blame anything else except my lack of conviction. How do you get conviction? You outwork yourself, doubt. You get so much fucking physical evidence that you could not believe it.

[01:02:57] Big Cheese: That's how you perpetuate like legitimate growth. And that's exactly what he did. And I was ignoring those things because I'm like, oh, he's lucky, or he's a drug dealer. What a retard. Like, what an

[01:03:08] Scott: it, it, this, this is amazing because, um, you know, again, I started jujitsu at 40. I've turned 46 next month, so I'm,

[01:03:16] Big Cheese: No, you

[01:03:16] Scott: like an, yeah. So I'm kind of like

[01:03:19] Big Cheese: said you Max.

[01:03:21] Scott: perfect, all right. I'm feeling good about myself. Um, so what ends up happening is like, I'm kind of an elder statesman in the gym just because of experience and business and whatnot, even though I still don't know shit about jujitsu.

[01:03:32] Scott: Um, and so there's a couple coaches, coach Casey, shout out to him at our

[01:03:36] Big Cheese: the best. He's the man,

[01:03:38] Scott: he's amazing. He's

[01:03:39] Big Cheese: of the, one of the most hospitable gym owners I've ever experienced. Unbelievable guy.

[01:03:45] Scott: Yeah, just a solid salt of the earth. Like that's where they came up with that term was with him. And then I've also had some great conversations with Robert Drysdale. You know, half Brazilian, half American, one of the first Americans gonna get a black belt, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All the pedigree.

[01:03:59] Scott: I'm gonna, I'm gonna amalgamate several conversations I've had with the two of them, and I don't think they would mind me saying this is that. You know, they, they have this dilemma with a lot of the young competitors and both of them have told me different versions of the same thing where it's like, juujitsu is kind of like the new skateboarding was in the eighties, surfing was in the nineties.

[01:04:20] Scott: Rock climbing was in the seventies where it's like some young kids that wanna, you know, not start their life or work can hide behind Juujitsu and tell their girlfriend and tell their mom, yeah man, I'm gonna be a world champion one day. And it's like, no, what you're really doing is getting high and working out once a day.

[01:04:36] Scott: And Robert and Casey have told me, it's very funny 'cause they don't talk a lot, but they've told me the same story a a million times in different versions where they're like, you know, some kid tells me they wanna be a world champion. And it's like, no, no, you don't, you're, you're not in here at 6:00 AM and 11:00 AM and 6:00 PM and maybe you got the diet dialed in, but you don't have the scheduling dialed in or whatever.

[01:04:57] Scott: And so if we're thinking about this bucket of young kids that do jiujitsu, um, because my son's gonna be there one day. And the kids that maybe say they're gonna be world-class world competitors, they're gonna win a DCC. Like, could you give some advice to those kids that need to understand, Hey man, you need to pick a bucket.

[01:05:17] Scott: You either need to actually be the Gordon Ryan and put in the time and the hours, or let me give you some advice if that's not your path. And like, it's okay. Just do this as a hobby and be the stud at your local mini mall gym and like go start your life somewhere else and build something else you are passionate about because you've gone through that journey of like, I was kinda half-heartedly doing rugby, half-heartedly doing personal training until the fe The thing I've really fell in love with, I couldn't commit.

[01:05:43] Scott: 13 hours a day and build a community and train twice a day and whatnot. So what would you say to those young kids that are either hiding behind their fear? 'cause whatever their sob story is, right? Like, mom didn't hug me enough, dad was alcoholic. Who gives a shit? What the sob story is like, you either gotta get past that and realize you're good enough to compete at this level and train at this level and build the thing.

[01:06:03] Scott: Or just accept, bro, this ain't your journey. Do it for fun. Train once a day, four days a week, and go build the rest of your life. Like what would you say to those two different buckets of.

[01:06:13] Big Cheese: Man, I didn't know that I wanted to win a DCC until I lost to Penner in the first round. That's how much I didn't know I wanted to be a world champion until I'd already entered the tournament. That would give me the idea that I could be a world champion. I was so busy getting fucking good at the sport and enjoying the process the whole way.

[01:06:36] Big Cheese: I didn't even concern myself with being a world champion. The eyes were on getting good every day and fucking enjoying it to the highest degree possible, let alone what was gonna happen 10, 15 years in the future. So to dispel that sort of thing, I get this all the time. We get white belts come into our gym.

[01:06:56] Big Cheese: They're like, I'm gonna be a UFC champion. You're like, no, you're not. Like, not the rain on your parade, but I fucking guarantee you that the people that walk in the door that actually have the, the ability to be able to do it, they try it. They see if they like it, they end up loving it, and then they do everything within their means to do nothing but that.

[01:07:19] Big Cheese: They're not focused on world titles 15 years in the future. They're really not. I, I honestly was not, I was not concerned with getting a black belt in less than four years. I fucking 100%, truthfully, honestly, was not. But it happened anyway because I wasn't focused on it. Most likely if I was focused on it every single day, walking into the gym as a white belt.

[01:07:40] Big Cheese: Oh, I had a shit session today. That means that I'm not gonna get to my goal. I've only got so much time and so many years to be able to perpetuate this and blah, blah, blah. And you know, like if I have too many bad sessions in a row, that means that I'm gonna suck. And if I suck, I won't get there. And all this sort of shit.

[01:07:54] Big Cheese: It's a mental minefield. If you set yourself up like that, it's like starting a business and going, I only be a millionaire the first three months. I only be a millionaire before 25. No, you're fucking not the top oh 1% achieve that stat. And you know why? It's because they weren't focused on it. They really weren't.

[01:08:14] Big Cheese: They had a guide in the direction, which was driving them, but it wasn't some frivolous achievement. It, it was, uh, think about like Microsoft or Facebook or any of these massive companies. It was bringing something to the world that was really fucking important. So important in fact, that it took everything for them to be able to build it.

[01:08:35] Big Cheese: That was their complete and unparalleled focus for many, many decades.

[01:08:40] Scott: Yeah.

[01:08:41] Big Cheese: If they had just put the emphasis on making a million dollars. We never hear of Microsoft, apple, Nvidia, any of these companies. We never hear of them because they make a million dollars and they stop and they go, oh, we fulfilled the goal.

[01:08:53] Big Cheese: Now. We no longer need to go. It's the weight loss goal. Every single day of the week, I would've clients come into the gym. I wanna lose 15 kilos. All right, eight weeks done, 15 kilos done. Then they quit. Then they go, I achieved the goal. Then they stop everything that perpetuated them achieving the goal, and they blow back up 15 kilos again straight away.

[01:09:13] Big Cheese: Then they come back to me eight weeks later saying it didn't work. I was like, motherfucker, what didn't work? You are kidding yourself. I give you the results on a fucking silver platter, and you come back to me eight weeks later after eating nothing but Twinkies and Krispy Kres. You don't do anything of that.

[01:09:28] Big Cheese: I showed you anything that I taught you, and no gym work. I haven't seen you in eight weeks. I haven't seen you on the treadmill. I haven't seen you running. I haven't seen you doing anything. And you go, it didn't work. Because they were only solely hyper fixated on that end result. And don't get me wrong, directionality is so important, but if your only goal is to win a world title at the very beginning of your journey, the likelihood that you stick it through is fucking almost zero because you don't even know what it requires.

[01:10:01] Big Cheese: You don't even know what it takes. You have no idea, and you don't even know if you thoroughly enjoy it enough to go through the hard times, to go through the injuries, to go through the doubt, to go through the insecurities, to forego other things that people in your peer group will be doing. I'm super fortunate.

[01:10:19] Big Cheese: I made decisions very early on in my life that have perpetuated unbelievable results. I quit alcohol nine years ago this year, and I will never go back, ever for as long as I live. I see no use in it, no utility in it whatsoever. Everybody wants to say, oh, you, you could have like a glass of red wine with a steak.

[01:10:35] Big Cheese: Yeah, no, I don't see any point in it personally. That doesn't mean anybody else can't partake and can't enjoy. By all means, do whatever you need to do. But I wasn't doing that, so when I threw myself into a sport, I wasn't thinking if I train on a Saturday, I'm gonna miss out on going out. I don't give a fuck if I miss out on going out because I'm now not missing out on things that those people are doing that they can't do.

[01:10:57] Big Cheese: Like me flying 150 hours last year to four or five different countries, taking on the best in the world at what I do and being ranked in the top 15 in in the sport that I do, and being a top four finisher in the highest level competition in the sport that I do, had I thought about it or considered, oh, I'm missing out on friendships, or I'm missing out on this bullshit, frivolous crap of going out and drinking or whatever else, I wouldn't be where I am.

[01:11:25] Big Cheese: And that's a huge sacrifice. Most people aren't willing to accept that. Most people want their cake and eat it too. Can't have it. Balance doesn't exist. That's bullshit. I'm sure you have weekends with your family where guys are calling you and someone from the team is like, Hey Scott, we need to fucking fix this asap.

[01:11:45] Big Cheese: And you're at a nice family lunch. You'd rather not be having the call on a Sunday afternoon, but you, you know that it is required because it's the path you chose. That is the characteristic of a special individual because most people don't wanna fucking do that. And that's why most people don't go anywhere because they don't do the things that perpetuate the results that other people have.

[01:12:07] Big Cheese: And so for those kids that are coming in the gym, it's like, I don't know if you know what you're signing up for. It's easy to say, I want to be a world champion. How about don't say it and prove it? How about forego smoking weeds weed with your mates before a session? How about forego go on and, and blowing off steam going for a two week holiday that the world champions aren't doing.

[01:12:32] Big Cheese: How, how about forego all of the, or the scrolling and wasting time that you could be spent studying? Because that's what they're doing. And if you are not willing to do it, the guy that's coming up behind you is willing to do it. He's gonna take your spot.

[01:12:47] Scott: I love that man. I got two questions I always like to end the podcast on, but I would be remiss if I didn't have you weigh in on the biggest dick measuring contest

[01:12:55] Big Cheese: fuck. Here we go.

[01:12:56] Scott: right now. Here we go. Uh, ecological versus traditional drilling. I know you have some strong opinions on that and I'm of the, I'm of the mindset that two things can be true at the same time, so I'm just gonna put my bias out there and then maybe we can argue about it a little bit.

[01:13:13] Scott: What is your feeling on this idea of like, ecological, you never drill, you just learn whatever your body teaches you versus like you have to drill for an hour before you're allowed to go live. Like, where do you fall on this spectrum of like how to get the best results outta training?

[01:13:27] Big Cheese: The biggest issue with this argument is that people on both sides are being completely fucking retarded.

[01:13:34] Scott: I totally agree. I was just arguing on Instagram the other day. I'm like, you guys are morons. Like, why can't two things be true at the same time? You learn a little bit over here, you learn a little bit over there.

[01:13:46] Big Cheese: The primary issue is that the things that they're arguing against are not the things that are happening. My gym does not drill with zero resistance for an hour and then roll. We don't fucking do that. No one does that. That's retarded. Then the eco nerds don't just like make shit up and see what happens.

[01:14:10] Big Cheese: And I listen, I'm being, I'm being grandiose and vague on purpose because I watched a video about this guy, I don't even remember his name, but he was specifically saying that one of the games that he executes to get people to be good at hand fighting in the hand fighting, uh, in the wrestling posture and position the game is situated, where all they do is post their forehead on their training partner's chest for as long as humanly possible, and then deal with the hand fighting stuff that comes up as a result of that.

[01:14:37] Big Cheese: And I could see the utility for that because he said, look what it does, it gets them to stand in a correct posture. It makes them focus on eye lines of the horizon, which is fantastic for defending guillotines, fantastic for shots. And it does encompass a couple of things all at once, and it's a great way to demonstrate things and it's a great way to learn.

[01:14:57] Big Cheese: But that's not primarily what they're arguing for. Primarily what they're arguing for is the fact that traditional learning is fucking stupid and it's produced 100% of the world champions that exist. Not one person who trains ecologically is a world champion and like, okay, throw it back on me. I'm not a world champion.

[01:15:15] Big Cheese: What the fuck does it mean? What I say? Alright, go and talk to fucking go and talk to Gordon. Go and talk to Gal Val. Go and talk to the guys. Not even the American guys. Go talk to all the browsers. Go talk to Hoja Grace here. Go talk to everybody. Go talk to A OJ where they do speed drills, which I think is stupid, but it doesn't matter what I think because they produce more world champions than I have.

[01:15:35] Big Cheese: It doesn't fucking matter. HAFA and GI are fucking Juujitsu geniuses. The kids program they have there is unparalleled on the planet. They've got guy they, they've got guys like fucking Diego Parto, they've got Cola Barte, they've got Ty and darpa. Those guys are freaks and they've been built within that gym.

[01:15:54] Big Cheese: Diego Parto excluded because obviously he was fight sports before, but you would be remiss in saying that he hasn't taken a fucking massive leap in development since moving to a.

[01:16:08] Big Cheese: In the whole thing. There's misrepresentation on both sides. The eco guys are misrepresenting the fact that everybody who doesn't do their gay little approach, because look, I've got no problem with their approach. I've got a problem with the people who are fucking just like this in comment sections and don't shut the fuck up.

[01:16:24] Big Cheese: You're annoying and you're acting like lesbians. Stop. Just stop.

[01:16:32] Scott: I don't know what that means, but I'm sure we just got demonetized. I'm okay with it.

[01:16:36] Big Cheese: It's okay. Look. Look who they're, they're, they're vegans.

[01:16:40] Scott: Yes, they're vegans. They can't stop talking about it.

[01:16:42] Big Cheese: They're vegans. They don't shut up. They always win. It's, it's, it's my way or the highway. You are killing animals or you're on the right team. That's it. Like you're a fucking terrible monster. Or you're on my side. It's so stupid. And, and I, I completely agree with you. There's a place for both. I don't mind the idea of having a hand fighting round.

[01:17:01] Big Cheese: I. Where there's some sort of constraint, like what we do. We do freestyle wrestling rules as a jiujitsu gym, so there are no Granby 'cause that would create back exposure 'cause that would be points. There is only an ability to score whether you put them on their back or you use it, go behind things that are obviously not ordinary in Jiujitsu because there's Granby rolls, there's inside inversions, there's victors rolls into the legs and all those sorts of things.

[01:17:25] Big Cheese: And so we already do that in a mechanism of huge similarity to these, what these guys eco guys are perpetuating. The biggest argument I think against it is what people are talking about in terms of like pathing down knowledge and the fact that these guys are, these guys are being lazy coaches by just going figure it out and to, to a high degree.

[01:17:47] Big Cheese: I think it's also misrepresented in that I don't think everybody on that side is doing it, but I think a majority of them are seeing it as this brand new toy they can play with where they don't have to actually put in the work to become a good coach. Because they're just like, oh, I can just get my students to fucking positionally figure things out, and then so on and so forth.

[01:18:03] Big Cheese: But there's a reason why we pass down information to to people because it's fucking useful. Imagine if we tried to have this conversation and we were forced to build our own iPhone and figure that way out. Or imagine like ecologically training with guns.

[01:18:20] Scott: That would be a little

[01:18:22] Big Cheese: just figure it out, bro. Alright, well I know that down the barrels fucking stupid, blow my head off. You know what I mean?

[01:18:30] Scott: I'm gonna use that because I have a lot of good arguments for why ecological is a good idea. You know, the thing that I tell people is like, I can teach people sales scripts all day long, but eventually they have to pick up the phone and make the phone calls and see what works for them.

[01:18:44] Scott: Right. So it's like.

[01:18:45] Big Cheese: percent agree.

[01:18:46] Scott: I can make good arguments for ecological, but now I have the best argument for drilling. You can't ecologically. 'cause I'm also an NRA, uh, uh, certified instructor and all that safety bullshit. Yeah. You like, you don't let somebody on the range until they can recite the four gun safety laws.

[01:19:01] Scott: Yeah. If somebody picks up a gun and does something unsafe, you take it away and the session's over. Like, um, you know, my, my kid, he has a, he has a rifle and he wanted to show his Uncle Cole, the rifle. And I took the rifle out. I cleared it, I handed it to him. He, um, he did not clear it a second time to check for himself that there was no round it.

[01:19:20] Scott: I took the gun back, I put it in the safe. I locked the safe. He didn't get to show his uncle his gun. He cried for like half an hour. I'll do it right, dad, I'm sorry. And I'm like, no, that's a fucking lesson You have to learn. Somebody hands you a gun. You never assume somebody else has cleared a gun for you.

[01:19:34] Scott: You clear it yourself. And now he has not made that mistake ever again. He needed to learn. I couldn't just hand him the rifle and be like, Hey bro, figure it out. I'm sure you won't blow your foot off.

[01:19:43] Big Cheese: not a chance in the world. I got a big respect for that sort of thing. My, my coach was a, uh, weapons trainer within the prison systems within Australia. He taught every co how to shoot a gun and the fastidious nature that he made us go through while we're shooting guns with John Carlo in Texas. It was to the nth degree, but you can see why.

[01:20:05] Big Cheese: You can see why it's so easy for people to make a mistake. You can see why checking the fucking chamber is so important. You can see why pointing the gun down range is so important. Not standing behind anybody is so important. Always making sure that you're clearing away from your body, not down towards your legs, because that's stupid.

[01:20:24] Big Cheese: Ask me to figure that out. As somebody who's never shot a gun, not a fucking chance I ever come to that assessment. Ask somebody who is a white belt in jiu-jitsu to figure out a back triangle perfectly. You are never, ever, ever, ever going to just figure that out. It is not going to happen. The likelihood that it comes up in training is zero, not, not, not small.

[01:20:49] Big Cheese: Zero. I can show guys and I can show them it to them a hundred times and they still won't be able to execute it properly. So like, maybe that's an argument against drilling. I don't fucking know. But the likelihood that you come up with these like crazy leg exchanges and anything like that, just by figuring things out without, with just constraints and not guidance on what it actually means or how and why the moves.

[01:21:14] Big Cheese: Like I've got a problem with traditional jujitsu coaching as well. 'cause it's just the what? It's just a, an arm bar from close guard, a knee cut pass, and then a fucking re naked choke. How do those things fit together? That's why, that's why people in my community get better at a faster rate because I teach 'em how and why they're the most two important factors.

[01:21:33] Big Cheese: It, it's exactly like what you are talking about. You can teach people the what, you can teach 'em tonality, you can teach 'em pacing, you can teach them the script. But until they learn how and why that's important, by fucking it up a hundred times on the phone, they're not gonna learn shit. And I've been through sales training.

[01:21:49] Big Cheese: I know how much it sucks, Dick. It's the worst.

[01:21:52] Scott: It is the worst.

[01:21:53] Big Cheese: It's the worst. But then you get a little bit good at it. You, you figure some things out. But it's only within the structure of, of like that housing, of, of the total education that you give somebody that they now begin to thrive. So I think, I think yours is a reasonable stance.

[01:22:09] Big Cheese: I think mine is much more similar. The reason why I come off as having strong opinions is because the eco vegans are just unfuck, unbearable.

[01:22:20] Scott: I.

[01:22:21] Big Cheese: Yeah, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell big Dan that that's the way that I'm going with it now, but, um, yeah, a, a lot of heat from both sides. But look, it, you just look at where the, where the results come from. And I know everybody's talking about like, oh yeah, it's, it's new. So it hasn't, hasn't had enough time to be able to build into it and da, da da.

[01:22:39] Big Cheese: Trust me, we've been doing this for multiple decades now. What Juju Hass been around for what, since the eighties, maybe? Like popularized from Brazil?

[01:22:48] Scott: Yeah. Before that it was a little judo ish, you know, to some form of, it's been around for a hundred years, but I think, I think it really started to catch on in the eighties.

[01:22:56] Big Cheese: Somewhere around there. Right? So like four decades. Like what, why has nobody else thought to bring this into fruition? And why isn't it done within Judo? Why isn't it done with wrestling like sports that are much, much, much older, much more experienced than us? Why aren't we seeing it there? That there's probably a reason for that, that it's, there's probably a reason to say that drilling moves with good intention, not, not with zero resistance.

[01:23:20] Big Cheese: No one drills with zero resistance. That's fucking stupid. But drilling with good intention with the understanding of how and why you are facilitating these moves is unbeatable.

[01:23:31] Scott: I love

[01:23:31] Big Cheese: at every world champion that Ev ever existed, that's what they've done.

[01:23:36] Scott: There we go, man. I'm gonna finish on my two favorite questions. Uh, one, what is Josh looking most forward to? This will come out in about a month or two, so around March 20, 25. What are you looking most forward to in 2025? Do you have some matches coming up? Is it just more personal and professional development so that you can win a DCC in, uh, in a year?

[01:23:55] Scott: Like what does 2025 look like for you? And then I'm a movie nut. When you, when you talk about that, when you talk about that pissing off Friday night, I'm not getting blasted with the guys. I'm not wasting time scrolling through social media on Friday night. I will go see a movie and, you know, get some junk food.

[01:24:10] Scott: So I'm a movie nerd, so I need to know what's your favorite movie and why. And then what are you looking most forward to in 2025, whether it's personal, professional, on the mat, off the mat.

[01:24:20] Big Cheese: I've got some news that I can't talk about in a personal capacity that is going to be easily my highest accomplishment of all time. Bar none, not even close to anything. Even if I quint topple my fucking revenue that I do now, it will fast supersede that and it won't even be close. Can't announce it yet.

[01:24:42] Big Cheese: I will probably by the time the episode is done, depending on the week specifically, um, so people can look forward to that. And professionally, it's just the continuation of, of leading the way that I am currently in terms of managing the community, pumping social media, and doing all the things to the highest degree possible that I do in a consistent fashion.

[01:25:04] Big Cheese: I'm in it for the long run. I know I'm gonna be doing it for the next decade. Two decades plus. And I'm just really enjoying the journey of it all. I, I'm, I'm extremely fortunate to have a bunch of guys in my, in my circle that are doing 7, 8, 9 figures, and every single one of them has said like, you have to fucking put your nose to the grindstone, but you are never going to be as young as you are currently.

[01:25:31] Big Cheese: And when I was in my twenties, I wish I was a millionaire. And now that I'm a millionaire, I would love nothing but to be in my twenties.

[01:25:39] Scott: Yeah, life gets more complicated, man. Wait till you get married. Knock out a couple kids. Invest in another business that your friend talks you into, like it does. Doesn't get easier.

[01:25:48] Big Cheese: That's right. That's right.

[01:25:49] Scott: get easier.

[01:25:50] Big Cheese: And so.

[01:25:50] Scott: George, George Carlin has this old comedy skit where he is like, yeah, life is like that video game.

[01:25:55] Scott: Asteroid, boulders just keep coming at you faster and faster and faster until you fucking die. And it's like, the older I get and the more responsibility I take on and, oh, I got a mortgage payment. Oh, I got a second mortgage payment. Oh, I got two kids. Oh, I got three kids. It's just like, it never ends, man.

[01:26:10] Scott: So, so build it now.

[01:26:12] Big Cheese: Yeah, absolutely. I, I'm in a fortunate position and I work my ass off to have both of those things. I'll, I'll have both of those things. Um, and I'll be in my twenties, which is fucking great. But I, I'm really just finding ways more and more so every single day to really enjoy the ride. That's something I haven't done historically because I'm always looking at what's next.

[01:26:37] Big Cheese: But I think looking at what's next while also maintaining, uh, an appreciation for what is now, and also documenting what is now as well, like enjoying the process and being like, fuck, this is the youngest I'm ever gonna be. Why don't I just enjoy it? Why don't I just take it all in? Why don't I just, you know, I, I can spare five minutes to go outside and stand on the grass and look at the sky for a little bit.

[01:26:57] Big Cheese: Like, why not? I've got that ability to do that. I, I've got the ability to, to take a step back for, for 10 minutes and it's not always about rigorous discussing progress at all times in every facet and capability, even though that's what I want to do. It's like peeling that back a little bit and taking some ideas for, for presence is, is one of the big personal goals that I have for the year, and that will facilitate everything else.

[01:27:20] Big Cheese: Um, in terms of matches and competing, uh, I'm gonna dip my toes in the I-B-J-G-F scene this year. I'm gonna go do euros and then probably worlds after that, after I win euros. So that's gonna be fun. Um, I'm gonna go have a crack at that and see what that scene is like. Uh, and then yeah, continuation of building the skillset that I'm currently building every single day, no matter what.

[01:27:41] Big Cheese: Bringing up hundreds and thousands of people underneath that, sharing the journey with them, allowing them to benefit for the, the ride that I'm documenting pretty heavily now. Uh, and, and just enjoying the as as much as humanly possible.

[01:27:57] Scott: I love it, man. Favorite movie and why?

[01:27:59] Big Cheese: Oh, good question. Most common answer, probably Pulp Fiction, not my favorite movie. Definitely my top five. My favorite movie is Guy Richie's, the Gentleman.

[01:28:11] Scott: Amazing flick.

[01:28:12] Big Cheese: Amazing movie and I, I don't know why, but it, it's just one of those ones that if I needed to watch a movie and I just, I just needed to kill three hours.

[01:28:25] Big Cheese: I've seen it 50 times, but I know that I would, I would enjoy every step of the movie, even though I know exactly where it's going. I'm a big Matt McConaughey fan, not even in terms of his professional capacity, but also his personal capacity. I read his book. I read his book three or four times, then I bought the audio book and I listened to it in his smooth, silky Southern voice.

[01:28:46] Big Cheese: And Colin Farrell is in that movie. He's a gangster. Really, really good flick, like amazing storyline, good switch up at the end. It has all the nice knit components that you would want from a movie. Um, and so yeah, I'm a massive, massive

[01:29:01] Scott: scene where Alley and teenagers try to jack him for his money.

[01:29:05] Big Cheese: Oh, and he just, he blasts vinegar in their face from the fish and chip shop. Mad.

[01:29:13] Scott: my wife's in love with the guy, the guy that was uh, Jackson Sons of Anarchy. She's a big fan. She was like, hun, I would never cheat on you, but if I did it would be with that guy. And I'm like, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I

[01:29:24] Big Cheese: You know what's crazy? My said she started watching Sons of at for that guy too.

[01:29:28] Scott: Of course every woman did.

[01:29:30] Big Cheese: He's a handsome devil. I, I don't have any problem with that. I got no problem with that.

[01:29:35] Scott: Alright man. Well I appreciate you being on. Stay on a minute longer after I stop recording, just so we get all the files uploaded. I think we had a little bit of a glitch at the beginning with the um, with the cell phone, but it's all gonna work out. We've got a duplicate recording of the audio, so we'll put in some, some video footage of you kicking ass.

[01:29:50] Scott: And I know you can't say it but I can say it. We'll put in a video of you winning the match against Pena at a DCC even though I think you got the bad call. And um, and we'll leave, we'll leave it at that just in case we lost a little bit of your video. We still got your audio and uh, thanks for being on man.

[01:30:06] Big Cheese: My pleasure.

[01:30:07] Scott: Thanks.