Jiu Jitsu Master: Unlock Confidence and Achieve Balance with These Principles w/ Rener Gracie

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The reason why the world is falling in love with Jiu Jitsu is because it changes the practitioner's operating system more profoundly and in less time than any other activity that we know. Every single time you step on the mat, you're being reprogrammed, literally, as to how you face adversity in your life.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned life entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. One of the best parts about my job as a podcast host is getting to know people on a deeper level. And I love discovering the interests my guests have that they don't always talk about. You know, the world class athlete whose favorite pastime is painting or the billionaire who still plays a weekend garage band. and the truth is everyone has layers and people are rarely as simple as they appear on the surface. For marketers, that complexity can make the job even more challenging. After all, how can you reach your customers if you don't really know them? That's where TransUnion's marketing solutions come in. TransUnion brings clarity to marketing chaos by delivering a 360 degree view of your customer, helping you deepen your insights accelerate your decision making, and better measure the impact of every marketing dollar. Visit transunion.com/clarity to learn more. The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, Empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road, at home, or traveling along life's journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to amica.com and get a quote today.

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Father's Day is coming up, and for lots of dads out there, dad doesn't quite cover it. They're groundskeepers, patio whisperers, and rogue leaf vigilantes too. So this year, show dad some love with gifts from the Home Depot. They've got fast free delivery on handy gear that helps dad do his thing. We're talking Ryobi cordless outdoor tools like the Ryobi 40 volt expanded string trimmer. Find the perfect Father's Day gift at the Home Depot. Shop in store and online at homedepot.com. Free delivery subject to availability. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Henrr Gracie, who is a third generation Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master of the legendary Gracie family. My man. So great to see you. And I just took my first jiu jitsu class from you 10 minutes ago, and I quickly realized that I'm inefficient as a human being. That I, if I get into a fight, probably I'm going to hurt someone the wrong way. Someone's going to hurt me the wrong way. And I don't have the skills that I thought I once had. You know, being a former pro football player, a decathlete all American, a professional handball player with Team USA as well, training with Olympians in boxing, I actually realized how someone so much smaller than me with probably minimal skills and understanding of Brazilian jiu-jitsu could probably destroy me in a one-to-one match with the right setting. And so thank you for letting me know of how much more I have to grow as a human being to really feel a sense of inner peace and confidence. And I have inner peace until just now. So now I know that I need to master a new skill, and especially with the world feeling sometimes out of control or our own worlds feeling out of control. When we learn how to master ourselves and learn the principles that you're to talk about today about this book, the 32 principles about harnessing the power of jujitsu, to succeed not only in business and relationships, but in your life, then I feel you can have true inner peace. So I'm excited that you're here. And before we dive into the book and into the background of how you became a master through your family and through your grandfather, who was, I guess, one of the founders of the UFC, why do you think Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is something that everyone should at least take a boot camp of classes over any other type of fighting techniques.

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me and thank you for trusting me to guide you in that first lesson.

You didn't break my arm, which is good.

Right.

And it didn't strangle me.

I almost felt like us sitting down to talk about principles of jiu-jitsu applied to life and business and relationships. It was hollow if you didn't know where all of my enthusiasm and where all of my passion came from. So I'm so happy that you trusted me to try jiu-jitsu today and have your first class. And the fact that it shattered some of your dreams, it reminded you of some of your vulnerabilities. It kind of like really just gave you a whole new perspective on where you live and where you exist in.

The world relative to other people with these skill sets. Yeah, here's the interesting thing because I feel safe, you know, when I walk around, when I'm with my girlfriend, I feel like when I look around, I can take on anyone. Maybe that's like, ego, or maybe it's just my ignorance or my naivety, or maybe it's just like I work out hard, I train hard, I'm strong, I'm athletic, I can run away from stuff also. I know I can escape something if they can't grab me, right? And so I just feel like I have awareness and if I need to, I can sprint and get out of it. But now noticing that if someone comes behind me and grabs me, I may not have that skill. If they put me in a chokehold real quick, I may not know what to do. And that's a scary thing knowing that when there's a scenario that you could have control over, but you don't, that's a scary thing to be aware of. And it doesn't mean I'm like terrified now. It just means, okay, there's more to learn.

Well, and furthermore, it's not just, you're not just feeling, you know, this idea of I could escape, I'm an athlete, that's one thing. There's another liability in all of this, which is if you were to get into a fight, because remember, if you run from the fight, your girlfriend is still behind you. And she's not as fast as you. You can't leave her in the train station and while you run upstairs and go, she's in trouble too. So if a violent situation were to happen and you choose to intervene, the problem is as athletic and powerful and strong as you are, you're more of a liability than an asset. And I think that's what you realized today as well as we went through these techniques is like in all the situations that we contemplated and I said, what would you do here? And you're like, well, I would just, punch from here. What you have to realize is you break your hand, you break their face, as we discussed, you brutalize the person. So at the end of the fight, even if you won the fight, you lost the war because you go to the hospital with a broken hand and the medical bill and you get served that lawsuit later for excessive use of force. Because look how strong and big you are. Any jury is gonna look at you and say, why did you do that to the poor guy who spit on your girlfriend? You see what I'm saying? You went from being the victim to being the culprit. So you're a liability because up until this point in your life, starting today with your first jiu-jitsu class, you only knew how to fight fire with fire. Starting today, you learn how to fight fire with water. Wow, let's go.

That's great, man. You feel me? We'll put some of this B-roll in from it as well. We'll have the full workout and demonstration on another video linked up as well.

Now in terms of why it's addicting, right? In terms of what's all the buzz about, what's all the hype about in terms of jiu-jitsu? I think it's very profound in everyone who does it, but for those who don't, it's very misunderstood. The reason why the world is falling in love with Jiu Jitsu is because it changes the practitioner's operating system more profoundly and in less time than any other activity that we know of.

Explain.

Yes. So what that means is there are some profound psychological shifts, reprogramming that happens once you start doing jiu-jitsu that you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. And there are three. Number one, how you face your problems. Number two, how you face other people, adversaries. And number three, how you face yourself. Okay, when we talk about facing your problems, Conventionally speaking, if someone were to walk into this room right now and there were two people fighting, one person was on the top, one person was on the bottom, automatically the bottom person is losing the fight, top person is winning the fight. Just an automatic. Automatic.

Two random people or?

Yeah, even if we were fighting, even if you and I were fighting and I was on the bottom, right? They would walk in and say, look at this big guy on top of this little guy. He's losing, he's winning, it's automatic. Now, in jiu-jitsu, not only is this not true, But in a very real sense, the opposite is true. Because jiu-jitsu teaches us to be underneath in very uncomfortable positions and not only be comfortable, it's more than that. It teaches us to win in what so many others see as worst-case scenarios. I demonstrated when I was under you and I was telling you to slap me in the head and you couldn't how quickly I snuck into a triangle choke. So you went from the dominant top position to tapping out in a matter of five seconds. And you didn't really know what happened to you. And my point is to the general public, they don't understand that you can be in a worst case scenario and win. And when you practice jiu-jitsu, it reprograms your brain to that reality. Number two, how you face other people. From an evolutionary standpoint, larger members of a species consistently defeat smaller, weaker members of the same species. Larger gorilla, annihilates the smaller gorilla when fighting for territory or a mate. A larger squirrel will annihilate a smaller squirrel, weaker squirrel, when it's fighting for a nut. This is normal. But humans are uniquely suited to violate the natural order of things, the biological natural order of things, to learn skills and process information that can actually give them a chance to defeat a larger, stronger member of the same species. And jiu-jitsu is proven over a hundred years now, the fastest way for someone to accomplish that. Wow. Number three, how you face yourself. 99.9% of the world, including all of the viewers watching right now and everyone listening right now, have never tried a jiu-jitsu class because they don't feel capable. They feel too old, they feel too young, they feel too fat, they feel too skinny, too tall, too short. Every excuse you can imagine, They're giving themselves those excuses as to why not to do jujitsu. But for the lucky few who make it onto the mat, not only do they realize that their fears or their beliefs about their inabilities or incapabilities are not true, they realize that they're more capable in the very bodies that they were born with. Than anything they ever imagined. And the analogy I like to use is like a Swiss Army knife, right? Every human being in the world I see as a Swiss Army knife. But the crazy part is all of them are existing having only ever used the knife feature. Literally the knife, the blade. These people have no idea that they have a tweezer, they have a Phillips head, they have a nail file, they have a magnifying glass, they have scissors. And the actual most robust Swiss Army knife, I looked it up a few nights ago, has 33 tools on it. And what Jiu Jitsu does is it teaches you how to use your body. You felt that today in ways that you never imagined possible to acquire leverage over your opponent.

Wow.

So every single time you step on the mat, you're being reprogrammed literally as to how you face adversity in your life. Number one, the problems you thought were insurmountable are surmountable. Number two, the people you thought were undefeatable are defeatable. And number three, the body you thought wasn't capable is capable. And this is why Jiu Jitsu is so addicting because it makes what was never before possible absolutely possible. And initially, this reprogramming happens as a function of learning techniques. For example, today, I put you down, I got on top of you, what would you do? You struggled, I can't, Henry, I don't know. Switch roles. And then I showed you a move and you're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, that was awesome. And you did it and you're like, All right, I believe that what I thought wasn't possible is possible. And then I did it a second time and a third and a fourth and a fifth. And before you know it, all these techniques are giving you solutions, Louis, to problems that always existed that you never knew were surmountable, that were achievable and overcomeable. So now you're like, Man, this is amazing. Give me more techniques. And that addiction, that addiction will last for several years, two or three years, where you're like, give me more moves to solve problems. But what eventually happens for every long-term jiu-jitsu practitioner is they realize after learning hundreds, eventually thousands of techniques, individual solutions to individual problems, is they realize that there are fundamental techniques that hold this entire thing together. A rather limited set of 32 principles make every one of those techniques possible. So essentially we have an alphabet to our jiu-jitsu language. And once you identify what those 32 principles are in your jiu-jitsu, you become capable of creating techniques in situations where you don't have a technique for. And it becomes magical. You could put me in any position right now on the ground, hold me however you wanted, If I know a technique, I'll deploy it. If I don't know it, I'll make it up on the spot as a function of the foundational principles that make all the moves possible. And then once I create a technique using 2, 3, 5, any selection of these principles, I'll make it up on the spot. You will be blown away because you'll think it's a move that I've known for years, but I just made it up right now. And this ability to improvise is only possible once you become a student and a practitioner of the principles of jiu-jitsu. And then the real breakthrough happens when you realize that these 32 principles are not limited in their deployment in combat situations, but that they have equal potency in every aspect of personal and professional life.

There's so much I wanted to ask you about during that. But first I heard you say there's three main things that you face is you face your problem or how you face your problem, how you face other people and how you face yourself. Right.

So is that the same? Exactly right.

What is the biggest problem that you face today?

That'S a great question.

Of these three, is it, you know, other people, yourself or a problem?

The biggest problem I face today is one that we are tackling together right now is we have the most powerful fighting system known to man ever in terms of Jujitsu. And when I say most powerful, I'm not saying other Arts aren't valuable. I'm saying the one that can do the most for the people with the least.

Really?

Yes. That's what makes Jujitsu the best.

How many, how many? Martial arts practices are in the good.

Question I would say what are the main? Well, I would say yeah, you're talking about the karate kung fu taekwondo kickboxing boxing Judo sumo wrestling savate shoot fighting then you start to get like variations.

Of those right like those are the.

Ones Jiu Jitsu, but maybe there's 10. Yeah, I would say 10 to 20 just because I don't want to be craft maga like you have these other ones, but then each one of those has kind of like different denominations of the same religion, right? There's like other variations of it so there are dozens and dozens of martial arts and they all have great things to offer. And if you trace back to the roots of what each one was designed for, they neutralize that particular concern. We just happen to be lucky in jujitsu that ours was designed by our grandmasters, Elio and Carlos Gracie, to help a smaller, weaker person prevail against a giant. That was it. That's all that had to happen. Small, weak men against larger, stronger, aggressive, crazier, meaner, uglier men. and then eventually the spillover to women and children is automatic because women in a self-defense situation or a child in a bullying encounter, they need equally efficient solutions. But to your question, what's the problem? The problem is this. We have the most powerful martial art on the planet. We have the most powerful promotional vehicles for this martial art, the UFC. You got Joe Rogan, you got Jaco. Now we got Louis, the School of Greatness, advocating for Jiu Jitsu. And you see it in movies now at Avatar, the guy on the scene on top of the mountain, he chokes out the dragon that he strangles and then he submits it and then he rides the thing. That's Jiu Jitsu influence in the movie. So the point is we have the most powerful art, the most powerful promotion vehicles, but yet 99.9% of the human population has never stepped foot on the mat. So my biggest problem that I face is as Someone who is very proud of being a member of this iconic family that bring this art to America and to the world. My job isn't done until everyone is doing Jujitsu. And the reasons they don't do it, I named a few. There are others. But it's my job to not only make it desirable and known to everyone by introducing people like yourself to the art and showing that introduction and showing that it's safe and it's fun and it's effective. and anyone can do it. And all of their fears are unfounded, but also to create the vehicles through which the world can learn Jiu Jitsu in a safe and structured way. Because there are lots of Jiu Jitsu schools, and unfortunately, it's such an unregulated industry that many of them teach Jiu Jitsu in ways that are both confusing, unsafe injuries happen quite frequently, and, and also contextual. relevance isn't always the case when people are learning. There's a lot of emphasis on aspects of Jiu Jitsu that do not give a brand new student the sense of confidence and empowerment that you were introduced to today and that, that we try to do with every one of our.

Students that we have learned this art.

What?

So of all the, you know, called 20, 30 different martial arts, you get a black belt the same size in Jiu Jitsu versus a black belt of the same size and weight and shape. In another martial arts, the other top martial arts, which one typically would win? Jiu Jitsu every time. Really?

A hundred years have proven it. Really? That's what we've done, Louis. This is the whole point. Wow. This is why we're sitting here today. This is why you know about the UFC. Yes. This is why the UFC was born. This is why the UFC had staying power. This is why the Gracie family is known all over the world. This is why the US Army completely rewrote their hand-to-hand combat manual. to be based on Gracie combatives and Brazilian jiu-jitsu techniques that we taught them 20 plus years ago when the UFC first came out. So, or now 30 years. So this is the whole point. This is why this is so remarkable. And I'm saying this not to be boastful. I'm saying this out of pride and excitement of the fact that I'm part of a family that has completely flipped martial arts on its head. And when people ask, what's the biggest thing that the Gracie family has done? I think that we The Gracie family has completely violated and redefined the distance from which a fight is fought. For the longest time, you think Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, movies, Hollywood really influence, but they're doing what looks good on camera. And as any actor or fight choreographer, choreographer will tell you, what looks good on camera and what really works are two separate things, right? Like my wife worked for the WWE for six years.

So camera versus reality, it's a whole different world.

It doesn't look good when you're just.

Laying on top of someone. It's not a gore. It's unremarkable. It's boring. Now, why though, when I watch the UFC or the Ultimate Fighter, it seems to me like they're always standing up and they're always punching, kicking, they're keeping their distance, they're trying to get the elbows in the face, the strikes happen. So what is happening?

Why don't they just all do Brazilian jiu-jitsu? It's been 30 years. They all do Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So, for example, my brother and I are both black belts and when we spar, it's like two grizzly bears. Right, and no one really has an advantage. If you make one mistake, you get caught. But for the most part, it's a draw, like very tight. And it wasn't always, I'll tell you that story separately. Like, he beat me up for many years, and then I had a breakthrough. But the point is, it's very neutralized. So what you see today is everyone does Brazilian jiu-jitsu. They're all great at it. Everyone's great at wrestling. Everyone's great at kickboxing. Right, but here's the whole point. In the world, the population of the world, not everyone can kickbox. 'cause we don't wanna get punched in the nose. And not everyone can wrestle 'cause it's a relentless sport that is incredibly unforgiving. And there's a reason why you graduate high school and you're done wrestling, maybe a little college, but after that your body simply can't take it. And it's injurious. It's so intense, unlike jiu-jitsu, which my grandfather did till 95 years old on the farm.

Wow.

Training till the very end. So the beauty is MMA is a great vehicle for promoting jiu-jitsu and the arts. But the general public looks at that and what they say, Louis, is they go, I don't want to get down. I don't want to do this. It's too violent. I don't want to do that thing in the cage. But what I'm here to say and why we've done Gracie Breakdowns, we have a YouTube channel with half a billion views of people who want to see videos of how these techniques come to life like we did today. We're the technical side of it. And then my goal and my my cry at the end of every video is, listen, it is for you. You can do jiu-jitsu. You can do jiu-jitsu. It's for all of us. But someone has to convince them to get off the couch, step on the mat for the first time. And the teacher that is trusted with that first class has to make sure they don't get hurt. They're safe. And what they learn makes sense to them like it did for you today where you say, wow, when's class number two? Right, right. Teach me more. You feel me?

Teach me more. There you go.

Exactly. I give you the first class for free. You get hooked and then I'll catch you on the back end. But my point is it's so easy to ruin it. But when you ask my biggest problem, that's my biggest problem. The best martial art on the planet, the biggest promotional vehicles and 99.9% of the population has never tried a class. And my job is to flip that so that only 0.1% is remaining when I'm done. Wow.

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Yeah. So my great uncle Carlos Gracie was introduced to jiu-jitsu as it was practiced in Japan by a Japanese immigrant who went to Brazil. Once he learned this Japanese art, he became very fanatical about it. He loved it. But my Carlos was the oldest brother. My grandfather was the youngest brother. So while his older brother started practicing and were quite effective in their practice and having fun, they started teaching it in Brazil. My grandfather was the little runt of the family and doctors prohibited him from doing any athletic activity because he suffered from vertigo type of the conditions where he could run and he would pass out from exhaustion. So he was limited. So he dropped out of school in the third grade and then he basically is sitting watching his brothers practice all day, every day. as a matter of course. So his brothers were training. He was only observant. One day, a student showed up for a private class with Carlos, the oldest brother, but my grandfather was there to watch, but Carlos was absent. So the student says, He's just there? Carlos? No Carlos? No Carlos? Elías, my grandfather was there to observe around 16 years old. And Elías said, Hey, Carlos isn't here. If you would like to, I'll go through the class with you and just go through the techniques until my brother shows up. What do you say? And the man, much older gentleman, said, yeah, of course, kid, let's go. They do the class, they complete the class, Carlos shows up very apologetic at the end, and then the student says, Hey, no problem. In fact, I had a class with your younger brother, and if you don't mind, I would like to keep training with him from now on. So a student promoted my grandfather to a teacher. Then off he went. He's having the best time of his life learning jiu-jitsu, but he's realizing there's certain limitations in these techniques for his body that made it difficult with his limited physique to be effective. So adaptations began.

So that was the Japanese jujitsu. Yeah, it's kind of coming in.

Now you're transitioning. So what's happening is the emphasis and the techniques and the prioritization of leverage and timing and patience and energy efficiency over brute strength and speed and power. That shift is happening in their hands. And my grandfather went from the youngest brother to becoming the family champion such that Carlos was now organizing challenge matches against every martial artist you can imagine in Brazil was challenged by my grandfather. Some accepted, some did not. the brown bomber, Joe Lewis, the heavyweight boxing champion in America, went to Brazil. My grandfather challenged Joe to a fight, and Joe denied, did not accept the challenge. So this is like, this is what's happening in Brazil during this era, way before the UFC was ever even dreamt of. So then my dad is bored into this Legacy of fighting in his brothers. My grandfather had nine children. Carlos had 21 children, 30 kids, 105 grandchildren between the two of them, including myself. so my dad is born into this fighting Legacy. From day one, you're learning Jiu Jitsu. He comes to America after graduating law school in Brazil, comes to America in 1978, gets established right down here in Hermosa Beach, Southern California. And every person he meets, he invites for a free class. And then that person invites another friend. They get a free class. The friend gets a free class. Everyone you tell gets a free class. And before you know it, the garage is full. And during that time, challenge matches are happening where people who trap, who practice multiple martial arts. are like, hey, they go tell their karate master, come to Torrance and come try this, come to Hermosa Beach. This judo stuff is really good. The karate master says, no, I don't agree with it. I don't think it would work on me. They come back and tell my dad, yo, my master doesn't think this would work on them. And my dad goes, hey, well tell your master, and if he ever wants to try it out, it'd be my pleasure. Right. And then the master gets told that and they say, yeah, I accept the challenge. And then they show up in the garage and these challenge matches are happening. No rules, no referee. It's just a fight on a mat. anything goes. Do whatever you want. We fight until someone's knocked out, broken, or Taps out or gives up whatever it is. And they would get choked out like this time and time. Oh, my gosh. Bro, these guys are practicing breaking boards for 30 years. They simply cannot believe that they cannot land one punch for their life. They can't land one.

One.

Why can't they? Distance management. Like I showed you.

Yeah.

When we talked about the Mike Tyson situation in our class. Whoever manages the distance manages the damage that can be done. And the reason why people get knocked out in fights is because they stand at the striking range, you know this from being a boxer, from standing at a striking range and they give and they get and they give and they get. But if I stand too far away, meaning six feet away, two arm lengths, you can't punch or kick me.

If you're too close, you can't get a great punch.

Yes, and when you come towards me, Louis, to try to punch me, I come in, and I do so without any warning or notice, and I got you now, and I've grabbed a hold of you, and all it takes is one. So for you, you have to hit me and knock me out, and that's a very hard-- you can throw a hundred punches and never knock me out. I just have to grab you once. Right, right. And if I grab you, your life is over, unless I choose to spare your life, which I will, 'cause I'm a compassionate human being. But my point is, I can do whatever I want with you once I.

Grab you one time. And this is what happened in all these challenge matches. So you Right now versus Mike Tyson in his prime, you would win every time. You got to choose where to put your money.

But that's what you believe. I put my house, all my kids.

All my money, everything I own, I.

Put on that and I double it the next day. Wow. Unless he got lucky with one punch.

Yeah, that's true. My point is this, he has to.

Get lucky with one punch, which if you see two professional boxers boxing, how hard is that? It's hard to get that punch. It's hard. Right? And if I stand six feet away, there is no punch. And then when I close the distance and I grab it, it's over. These punches are no longer powerful because I'm too close. And to be clear, Hoist challenged Mike at his prime. Hoist, there was a challenge where Hoist Gracie challenged Mike Tyson publicly and Mike did not accept the challenge at his boxing prime. So this has already happened and Mike.

Tyson- Unless it was boxing rules.

Of course. No, no, no.

It is suicide.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The same way MMA or what we now call MMA but back then is normal vale tudo, which is called everything goes in Portuguese. Valley Tudo, Mike versus any member of the Gracie family, you know, in their athletic, healthy, you know, state of 25, 35, 40 years old, Mike has no chance. And he knows this, and he respects this because he's playing a sport. Boxing is a sport. It's one sliver of a fight. Jiu Jitsu is a complete fighting system that covers the striking, the distance management, the distance closure, the taking the fight to the ground, on the ground, whether we're on top or on bottom, whether you're striking me or not makes no difference. If you practice jujitsu in its fullest form, you have control of every aspect of the fight.

Have you ever had to use this in the real world?

Yeah.

Like out in public. Has someone ever- if you're around a 12 years old.

Really? 12 years old.

As an adult, have you had to also or no?

Yes. Here's the irony of it all. So when I was 12, I fought.

When I was- Like out in the streets?

Yes. When I was 35. I verbally de-escalated because I knew how to fight. Right. That's the key in all of this. The number one skill everyone listening and watching right now needs for self-defense is the ability to set boundaries. Yeah. It's so critical. And this isn't true with just strangers. It's also true in our personal relationships, in our intimate relationships. Right. So important boundary setting. But let's take it to the self-defense realm for a second.

What was this at 35? What happened?

Oh, I'm gonna tell you, but I'm gonna frame it. Okay. Okay. So self-defense is boundary setting because let's say you're a woman at a gas station pumping gas and someone is walking towards you. You don't know who they are. They might be even nicely dressed. Let's just make it less suspicious. There's a normal looking guy walking towards you. For a woman on a situation. I'm not threatening. No, we don't know. We don't know. That's the whole point. A woman does it. No, but let's say her senses tell her. Doesn't feel right. There's nobody else in the gas station. He's moving directly towards her. There's no car next to you. There's no store over there. He's not, where is he going? So if she starts to feel that feeling, the number one thing she must do is turn and look directly at him and say, don't get any closer.

Wow. Set a boundary.

Stay right there. If he takes one more step, I said, don't get any closer. She has to escalate because When you set a boundary, you've now created the opportunity to reveal intention. If you don't set a boundary, you don't ever have a way of assessing truly the intention. If you say, Hey, don't get any closer. And he backs up and says, I'm so sorry, ma'am, you dropped this. I was going to give it to you, but I can see that I shouldn't have walked towards you when you're by yourself. I'm so sorry. I'll leave it here. No harm, no foul. Everyone's happy. Everyone went home safely. Amazing. Or if you say, Hey, don't step any closer. And he takes one more step by saying, But ma'am, I just wanna make sure if you need any help. I don't need any help. Stay where you are. You see how he tried to give her the run around, the conversational web we call this. When he tries to give her that run around and wrap her into that web of random mumbo jumbo question and answer, just random conversation to trick her to get closer. he's trying to get closer so we can take action without being detected. The point is, you'll never know that it's game on until you set that boundary. So when we teach women, when we teach children dealing with bullies, and even when we teach men in a road rage incident, I'm going to say, guys, you guys get out of the car. He might be upset. You need to tell him, stay right where you are. I can see you're upset. I'm going to take my car out of this parking spot because I know you can see that you think it was your spot, but don't take one step closer. and if he takes another step, guess what? It's on. Do you understand? You set a boundary. You reveal the intentions. Here's the problem. Here's the problem, Lewis. It gets worse. Whether it's a child, whether it's a woman, whether it's a man, people don't set boundaries that they aren't capable of enforcing.

They're false boundaries.

Yeah, they're Hollow. You can't say, don't take one more step. If them taking one more step, you're screwed.

Your whole system's gonna go, you're gonna.

Hardwire, and you're gonna trip out and run in circles and run. Do you understand? You don't have the backup. So here's what this is all about. Learn how to fight so you never have to fight.

Yes.

That's the whole game. I don't get into fights as an adult because I'm so empowered with jujitsu that there isn't an altercation that I can't verbally de-escalate. It doesn't exist unless someone is in the act of violently assaulting someone, in which case I will intervene and put out that fire with water and compassion, and I'll protect the aggressor, I'll protect the victim, and I'll protect myself. We all go home, no one goes to the hospital. That's my ability and my commitment if I have to intervene. Unless, of course, I have to use a higher level. I'm not to say that if I don't catch you in an armbar and you have a knife in your hand, the arm is coming off until you drop the knife. I'll take the arm off and I'll go home and hang it on my mantle. So to be clear, I have the ability, but I also have the ability to do everything I want to do without hurting anyone. Yes. And you never had to... Have you.

Ever had to intervene in a fight? So the situation that I had, I was at the, I was at the.

Anaheim House of Blues for an Ozo Motley concert, amazing band. Uli, one of the head guys there, is a black belt of ours. He was performing and I was in the crowd, it was me and my wife, and there's a guy next to me, who literally created his own mosh pit. Just banging people. Crazy, yeah. And I'm like, no one is moshing right now. And I'm not even in the front. I'm like way back, like where the bar is. I don't drink, right? Just water and watermelon juice. But like, I'm back where the bar is and I'm hanging out, like getting a good view, like a good eye level, and he's just throwing a mosh. And in my mind, I'm like, I can move, but he will make someone else's life uncomfortable. You feel me? Like, this is inappropriate. He's just tripping on some drugs or alcohol or both. and I said, if he bumps me one more time, I will have to make this clear.

He bumped you, bro.

It was. It was crazy. So, yeah, so he freaking comes in, he bumps again. Boom. He hits me again. Right next to him. I grab him by the neck and I say, hey, bud, I see you're having a really good time. Wow. I said, but do me a favor. Do not bump into me one more time, or we're gonna have to dance. And then I alleviated my squeeze.

What happens?

Okay. And there was no more mush pit.

Wow. So you never had to get in a fight then? You've always been all the DS.

I've had some challenge matches where guys come into the school and say, I believe in kickboxing. I believe in jiu-jitsu. Let's fight.

Boom.

So somebody in the public street, I have not, not in my recollection. Right, except for the challenge matches and the fight when I was younger, when I was a kid. And then every week we put on gloves and we punch each other while we practice in a safe way. But I'm really having to, yeah, nothing out in the street. That's what I mean. Because that's the challenge, right? And when you, it's almost like, imagine if I carried a gun everywhere. You feel me? Always. And I spoke to people as if I had a gun. How many fights do you think I would get it? None, right? Because they know I have a gun. Yeah. I don't carry a gun, but I carry the confidence of someone who has a gun. So I speak the same way. Right. And they feel it. And if anything push comes to shove, right, which only if the combative energy of a interaction starts to escalate, calm assertive, right? Cesar Milan, who I've taught as well.

Yeah, he's great.

Calm assertive. Listen, man, I can see you're having a good time. Do me a favor. Don't bother me one more time. or it's going to be a problem. Yeah. And when you talk like that, he thinks either I have a gun or I have a jiu-jitsu black belt.

Yeah, exactly.

He doesn't know, and he doesn't want to pay to find out.

What is someone with your type of skill sets and your decades of experience and training, not only you mastering it for yourself, but also you teaching and empowering others to become black belts eventually and watching them overcome challenges What does someone like yourself deal with insecurity? Do you have insecurities still that you face? Is it a different type of insecurity or fears that you face with this? Or is it just less and more confidence than without the black belt or without the training?

It's a heavy question. When we talk about my insecurities or my fears, I think my biggest fear is letting my sons down. You feel me? Like, we get one go at this. I have two boys, seven and four. And I'm like, I've seen a lot of people kind of play their movies out. And the movie ends in a way that, you know, was not either what they wanted or what they intended. I have a vision for how my movie ends and where it goes. And my biggest fear is that I fall short of how I anticipate my movie going, right? When it comes to, right, living up.

To.

I think my kids expectation of me or living up to my full potential as a father, as a husband, that's my only big fear, big insecurity. Other than that, professionally, it's very good. I've achieved heights that I never imagined would be possible from someone who grew up in a martial arts family, for all intended purposes, a karate family to the general public, wearing a uniform and practicing jiu-jitsu moves on the mat. Never went to college, no degree, but now sitting at the helm of multiple very successful businesses in and out of jiu-jitsu. So professionally, I'm very happy, relationship-wise. It's great. I have a wonderful marriage with a wife that I've been with for over a decade now, and it's just, everything is great. Wow. Right? So for me, it's like, how does this movie end? Where do I go? And do I continue to be the father to them that, that I know I can be, and I just don't want to let them down. And that's it.

How do people, after they go through Jiu Jitsu training for a while, how do their intimate relationships usually tend to go? You know, maybe they're in a challenging one and they get out of it or they improve it or. Are people in jiu-jitsu single and divorced? Are they more like, okay, they see the value of actually committing and being in an intimate relationship and honoring your partner. How is the community overall with healthy, conscious relationships? And what does it teach you about intimacy?

Great question. There is a very common thing that occurs on the green mats in jiu-jitsu heaven here at our school in Torrance. It's called Gracie University. Very common thing, which is when people, men in particular, stop coming to class for a while. Let's say they stop a toe, professionally they get caught up with a work mission, two or three weeks go by, their wives are the ones who tell them to go back to class.

-Wow. -Yeah.

So that should tell you something.

-Yeah, yeah.

Patience, right? Humility. Humility.

Can submit it all to God.

Humility, patience, right? The energy, right? Letting that energy out, that physical release of jujitsu. All the principles, right, that we talk about in the book, that they're reinforced every single day. The problem solving principles, the clock principle, the win wins, right? All of these aspects that are so prominent on the mat, leak into every aspect of our lives. We become better fathers, better husbands, Better brothers, better bosses, better employees, every aspect of your life. You will be a better performer in that capacity with the principles of jiu-jitsu in your arsenal, in your problem solving arsenal. Because when you deal with adversity in the unique and effective ways that jiu-jitsu deals with adversity on a daily basis, you can't not allow it to spill into every other aspect of your life. Once you're efficient somewhere, you're efficient everywhere. How you are anywhere is how you are everywhere.

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What are the principles of jiu-jitsu that teach an individual how to gain more confidence and how to understand and really know the psychology of any human being they interact with? Great question.

There isn't a principle that teaches confidence. There is an art that when practiced unavoidably builds confidence in the practitioner. We have a student, Maximo, a young kid, maybe 10 years old, has been bullied for three years now. Incessant bullying. It's affecting the parents, it's affecting the family. They've talked to the school, they've talked to the principals. They're on the brink of pulling this kid out of school. And then we came into the summer break right now, so it's a little breather, but they're literally on the fence. And they came in to Grace University. And the mom is, again, what do we do? But they saw a video online of a transformation for a bullying victim that we did where we flew a kid from Indiana and we transformed him in one week after getting pummeled on a video in the locker bay. We transformed this young man named Austin, went home, never had problems with bullying again, completely transformed his life, became a U.S. marine, absolute stud, and her whole life changed at GracE University. So anyways, they saw that video, they showed Maximal, and he liked the video and he, I want to go, I want to do this. So he came to class, starts doing judo with us. It's been just the summer right now. He has two stripes on his white belt, which is like, 20 classes. So very new. He was at junior guards, which is a lifeguard training program. He's a very good swimmer. And a friend, him and Ozzy, his friend, were hanging out. And another boy came over and was bullying Maximo. So it's being quite aggressive with him, making inappropriate jokes and really making fun of him. And then Ozzy stands up, says, hey, man, leave him alone. Kind of just steps in and intervenes there. And then the bully turns. and starts attacking Ozzy physically and verbally. And then this is Maximo's moment of truth. Oh, wow. Because he never asserted himself ever against this opposition, against this type of aggression. So he stands up, he puts himself between Ozzy and the bully and says, Hey, if you're messing with him, you're messing with me. Guy throws his hands up, mumbles something, turns and walks off. Wow. For the first time in his life, Maximo just learned that on the other side of setting a boundary with powerful voice, powerful eyes, and powerful posture is freedom. He's free. He's free. The mom came in. I couldn't believe it. Hannah, we celebrated this. Wow. Unbelievable. Everything you guys said worked exactly as we mentioned. But again, the only way he was able to set this boundary was because he had spent 20 hours building the skills to feel like, no, if you want to get down, we get down. So the jiu-jitsu that he learned, learning how to fight, prevented him from having to fight. And if he ever has to get down, he's ready. He knows that, which is why he.

Can set that boundary. Do you feel like you ever face a battle or a war in your own mind, or do you feel like, you know, whenever there's an adversity, you have a sense of peace and confidence that you'll be able to figure it out because you've just been through adversity so much. Or do you have anxiety? and stress.

No, I don't. There are stressful moments, right? When it all comes at the same time, you go, okay, the stress is having multiple opportunities sometimes, positive opportunities, and not knowing where to shuffle and spend your time from a leader of multiple businesses. So I deal with, like everyone, I just have a lot going on. Yes. And I gotta choose. So that's kind of like a you stress, right? Versus the distress, right? Which is the one that you're kind of overwhelmed by in a negative way. But in terms of like what's going through my head throughout this process. It always is a faith, a trust. Wow. That. Hey. No, no, no. I've been in way worse in fights against guys that are 300 pounds. Yeah. Upside down on your head.

Headlock smashing guy on top of me.

Sweating on me, and I'm down there. And all I'm thinking is, oh, he makes one mistake. I'm coming out. I'm gonna get him on the chokehold on the way out. Wow. No problem. I've been here before. Really? Life when it's all coming at you. All I'm saying is this is the bottom of the mount. It's okay. Bottom of the mount is not the best place to be in a fight, but because of jiu-jitsu, it's also not the worst. And when the opportunity presents itself, the right move at the wrong time is the wrong move. Timing is everything. This is the clock example. Say it again. The right move at the wrong time is the wrong move. So if I can't escape right now, that's okay. Because, right, it's going to shift. The opportunity will present. itself and the circumstances will change. And when they change, my opportunity will present itself. I literally live that every single day in Jiu Jitsu. When things are not favorable, they will become favorable. You just must be patient and you just must wait for the opportunity. If it's not an actionable opportunity available to you right now, it will be there. So in life, when it feels like it's all coming from every angle, I just sometimes will just breathe, say, okay, right now. what am I going to focus my energy on? I might be neglecting 20 other things in my life, but I got to do this right now. So this is what I choose and I commit to this. This is the technique I'm going to apply right now. If it pans out, great. If halfway through my application of this life technique, it doesn't pan out, I will pivot. Principle 21. Yeah, yeah. And off we go. And that's okay. And I'll pivot then. But I'm not going to stress now about whether or not this is going to pan out fully, because I know when the circumstances change, I am also capable of change in that moment.

Wow. You've got 32 principles that you've learned from your family history, from the martial arts history in jiu-jitsu. And there's five that I wanted to cover today.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

I think if we, from the book, there's five that I think if people started to tap into and started to say, how can I apply this to my life right now? What are a few key principles to give me more confidence, give me more to give me more focus, more commitment in my life.

I love it.

To be able to handle adversity, what would these few be? And there's one called the clock principle.

I want to get into it.

We mentioned this before already, that recognizing that the right move at the wrong time is the wrong move. Can you give me one example what that is and how we can apply this to our life?

Sure. So there are 32 principles we've identified. Clock principle being one critical important In terms of timing, right? Timing in a fight, as you would imagine, it's everything. That spills over into our personal and professional lives as well. I had a situation where one time a psychologist who trained with us, a student of ours, a female psychologist, recommended a student to us. She said, hener, I have a student. His name is Shane, young man, teenager, 16 years old, who suffers from the most severe case of social anxiety. that I've ever seen as a doctor. He vomits profusely in going into any situation where there's any type of social aspect of it. And I think Jitendra would be great for him, build his confidence. I said, great, bring him in Thursday, talk to his mom. We scheduled for Thursday. I scheduled for a time where there was no one in the building, so he would be, you know, no trouble stepping in and getting a tour. Mom calls me at 4:05, 4:10, five minutes after we're supposed to start the class. And says, henna, sorry, we're not going to make it. I said, what do you mean? Where are you? She said, I'm outside in the parking lot. But we're not coming in.

He's terrified.

He can't do it. I said, hold on, you're outside my building right now? She said, yeah, that's me right there. I said, hold on, can I come say hi? Yes. I walk out. I get to the car as I approach the car on the passenger side is parked on the street, the curb. I hear the most intense gut cry I've ever heard.

Screaming, crying.

Yeah, yeah. Breathing but crying, forcing it out. And I look at the mom and I say, I'm completely shocked in this moment. I've never experienced this before. I've never dealt with extreme social anxiety like this. And I'm looking at the mother who's standing outside the car on the passenger side to greet me. I don't know what to do. This is a situation you have to understand, Louis. When you put in jujitsu context, I'm on the bottom of a trapping bad situation.

And I don't have the technique.

I don't have the technique. You don't have the skills or the time. I don't know the move, but I have the principles. So in this moment, Full trust that if I commit to the process, the principles will set me free. So in this moment, I see her, I said, Look, can I go in the car? She says, yeah, of course. So I go to the passenger side, I open the door, I sit in the chair, back seat, passenger side. He's over here, sorry, passenger side, I'm on the driver's side. And he's doubled over, crying like this. And I'm just sitting, watching him in the back seat here, crying loud. 20 minutes. I don't say a word.

Holy cow.

Depletion principle. Sometimes the best way to win is just to avoid losing. Let them deplete themselves.

Their energy.

Yes. You let them go. Imagine if I would have felt I had to hurry this up and get them in there. Never would have worked. Right. So I trust it in this moment, as I do every day in Jiu Jitsu. Wait, deplete. The time will present itself. So I'm sitting 20 minutes later. He sits up, ran out of steam. And then I, I'm here. What's up, buddy? I said, Hey, bro, what do you like to do for fun? Redirection principle. Video games. I said, Tell me more. 15 minutes we're talking about video games. I know nothing about it. I don't have time for video games. I don't play video games. I have no idea what he's talking about. Just asking questions about video games. He's telling me his whole life about video games. Loves them. He's all animated like extra. Now we're connecting. Boom. Once I felt that we were here, connection principle, principle one, there was a real connection in that car. We were now socially connecting about video games, something he loved that I redirected him towards. I said, Hey Shane, thanks for coming in. I said, we have a really nice facility and I'd love to give you a tour if you'll let me. Beautiful. Just show you around. What do you think? You like this? Okay.

Let's go.

I said, let's go. We get out of the car. We walk. We go in. I tour the museum, show some artifacts. I walk to the building. In my mind at this point, all I'm thinking is he cannot leave this building without doing jiu-jitsu today. Wow. I'm telling you, I'm sweating bullets inside.

How do I get it?

I gotta get him on the mat. I gotta get him to do jiu-jitsu. one thing. But if I say, hey, dude, you want to learn Jiu Jitsu? He's running to the car, throwing up on the way I can imagine.

Right?

So, like, this is a high stress, we'll call it an intense encounter where I'm on the Fly pulling from my life of Jiu Jitsu on the mats principles to try to get this accomplished. What I'm aiming to do for this kid. Because if he leaves without doing Jiu Jitsu today, he's not coming back. Never. We're gonna miss our window. So I walk in the locker room, I show him our beautiful locker rooms, like a, like a. Spa, beautiful school. Go outside, we're passing by the private training room. It's a room about this big, matted from wall to wall mats on the floor. I open the door, I step in. Clock principle, the right move at the right time. I step on the mats with my feet bare feet and I say, Hey Shane, these mats are really, really soft. You should feel them. Take off your shoes and check this out. He complies. He walks in. Steps on? I'm like, how about that? He's like, yeah, it's really soft. I'm like, cool, Mom, come on in. Shut the door. Got him.

Wow.

I say, Mom, have a seat. Shane, lay down in the middle right here. The exact same technique I showed you today. I mounted on him. We're friends now. We're connected. And I'm getting very uncomfortable because I'm gonna save this kid's life. That's my mindset. There's nothing that I wasn't willing to do in order to empower and free him from the condition that he's suffering from. Do you understand? Like, I'll be uncomfortable to save him. So I mount on him, which again.

I don't know what he's gonna react.

Maybe he's gonna crack and smile. I don't know. So I mount on him with the biggest smile on my face and all the love in my heart. And I say, Shane, what would you do if someone was on top of you? Like, the smile of love. He was like, I'll push you off. I'm like, give it a go. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. He's trying hard. I'm watching his senses the whole time, verifying that he's, I'm connecting here. I'm making sure he's okay. He's fine. Fine, I can't get out. Okay, cool, let's switch roles. I toss him off in one second with the trap and roll. You know the move. Click. He's like, oh man, do it again. I do it again. He can't believe it. I show him second move, third move, fourth move, fifth move, an hour later. We're having the best time he's doing jiu-jitsu. I look over to the corner. His mom is crying. Quietly. Tears just falling. It's amazing. Doesn't say a word the whole class. And I'm like, I could not believe it. I get up, we shake hands. Hey, let's see you guys on Tuesday, right? The next class. Next class, it only takes him 15 minutes to get out of the car. The third class, he comes back half the time. He goes into the locker room, he throws up, comes out ready to rock. Wow. We're getting in there. I eventually transition him to another one of our certified instructors who guides him for the next several months. He goes into group classes now with other people practicing. He eventually earns his blue belt in jiu-jitsu, graduates high school, goes to college, lives a normal life. has regular friendships and is now having a great life. Wow. The doctor has said, Henry, I've never seen this type of turnaround for this particular condition, this level of social anxiety. I've never seen it. This is incredible. Congratulations and thank you. And she sent us so many other students since then.

That's cool.

Then they start in private classes, then we gradually introduce them. So this is depletion. This is redirection principle all in the book. this is connection principle. Using every resource we have to connect with them in a way that's meaningful for them. Yes. This is the clock principle. Above all, I believe, because for me to be in there, not sure what I was going to do with this kid. And then the moment I was on the mat, saying, hey, take off your shoes. Come feel this. The right move at the right time will set you free. And that's what happened with Shane.

That's a beautiful story. On this faithful morning. I love that story, man. That's beautiful. Again, the 32 principles. This is about harnessing the power of Jiu Jitsu. To succeed in business, relationships, and life, make sure you guys get this by Henry Gracie. It's an awesome book and an awesome introduction to just more philosophies about jiu-jitsu and how you can apply them to your life. The last one I want to talk about, again, there's 32 of them where we're going to talk about a few today, but the last one is really the Grandmaster Principle. Now, what is the Grandmaster Principle and what does it take for anyone to be a Grandmaster of their own life?

So let me say this, as I was developing the curriculum of the 32 principles with my brother, we got to the point where we hadn't identified, because we did not invent principles, right? Principles, gravity always existed. We revealed them. We revealed them and we classified them and we named them and then we put them into a curriculum. So as we're going through this rigorous process of identifying these principles over an extended period of time and trying to create a cohesive curriculum surrounding them, we got to 31. And then I ran out. And I'm thinking to myself, we can't end with 31. It's not an even number. Eight times four is 32. I want this to be a little more, right, encapsulated. And I want to be more buttoned up with this. There needs to be one more. And I'm thinking, and literally, I'm running dry. I'm telling you, this is like lots of time spent identifying these 31 you can imagine and just really identifying them. and defining them. And then I'm like, Matt, I don't know what I'm gonna do for 32. And I'm in the shower, literally, and then it freaking hit me. The final principle must be the principle of applying all the principles and constantly evolving their application in your own life. It's the principle of all the principles. Yes. and I said, well, then that sounds awesome. What are we gonna call it? Let's name it after my grandfather, the Grand Master Principal. Right? So we just gave it that name. This one we kind of pulled up and pulled out and said, this is what it's gonna be. So what it is, is this idea that my grandfather, when he learned as a young boy, as I gave you the introduction and the story of his beginning, my grandfather, after he started modifying these techniques as a young teenager and becoming the kind of the champion of the family, he didn't have teacher, right? There was no instruction. When he was 1920, he was on his own now. He was evolving the art, but he was his own teacher. But here's the problem for most people. They don't give themselves permission to be their own teacher. They're always waiting for someone to guide, someone to tell, someone to instruct. And what I've learned through jiu-jitsu, it was most pronounced when I got my black belt. I've been training for 19 years my whole life, right? At 19 years old, my grandfather awards me my black belt. And it was such a surreal moment because at that moment I said, wow, now I've achieved the belt that I've always dreamt of and all my legendary uncles are and my dad and all the heroes of this family, world famous fighters, I now have the same belt as them. It's black. But I feel like there's still so much more to go. And then I realized in time thereafter, that no one's going to give me all the answers. I must become my own teacher to grow into the master that I am meant to be. Because by being a black belt and knowing that I didn't have all the answers yet, then it was like, Holy cow. I thought when I got my black belt, I would be done. Close the book. My movie's over. I have all the moves and I... I'm set. It wasn't the case. I would go so far to say, at just beginning.

Just the beginning.

The black belt is the white belt who never quit. There's all these sayings. But really, the black belt is when it really does just begin, because now you have a grip on the art and the amount of innovation. I would say that I've invented more techniques and done more and learned more and. And grown more from black belt till now than I did from white to black belt. Wow. In terms of how much new Jiu Jitsu exists in my life. So there's so much to learn, there's so much to invent. It's endless. So that being said, the black belt was permission to become my own teacher. so the grandmaster principle as we end the book is my very deliberate attempt to empower every reader to become their own teacher. Right? I've given you our operating system in a book. I've given you 32 videos to teach you the physical application of these techniques so that they're contextually relevant discussions when we enter the pages of the chapter and we start talking about life and business application. I've set framework for you to absorb all of these principles and make the jiu-jitsu black belt operating system your own. Whether you've ever done jiu-jitsu or not doesn't matter. You're going to be able to essentially download, right through your own study of this book, our operating system. You get to skip the line, so to speak.

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Retirement, and then there's living in it. At Fidelity, we can help you make that transition and plan for whatever comes next. With a free personalized income plan, you can view and manage your cash flow across accounts. Plus, you'll get investing insights to help you make your savings last. Ready to take on retirement? Get started at fidelity.com/incomeplanning. Expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account apply. Fidelity Brokerage Services member, NYSC SIPC. Now at the end of all this, I have two requests in the grandmaster chapter. Number one, trust yourself enough with the material that I've provided to be your own teacher, to make the adjustments on the fly, to create techniques in the middle of nowhere, like I said, I'm in a situation with Shane that I don't have a move. I've never been there before. But because I had these principles, guess what? The moves, it revealed themselves to me. But I'll tell you this right now, no technique ever revealed itself to me that I didn't first believe was possible. If I didn't believe that Shane was a solvable puzzle, I wouldn't have entered the car to begin with.

Right.

And that's what most people are missing. The belief that the answer is out there. The belief that if they seek, they shall find, whether it be through a book, through a mentor, through a practice of a martial art, the answers are out there. Whatever you're struggling with, someone has dealt with it before. Now, you can pursue that information, reconnaissance principle, and gather that information, or you can trust that it exists, put yourself in the trenches, and let yourself reveal the answer on your own. That's another viable option. but you need to have an operating system that is designed for dealing with adversity. And that's what I think this book does above everything else. The second request, as I wrap up the book, is please give Jiu Jitsu a try. Because of course, as I said in the very beginning, my number one problem, as I said in the beginning, 99.9% of people know Jiu Jitsu, but have never given it a try. I'm not gonna rest until all of them have given it a try. And if I don't succeed, I'll die trying. That's my legacy. That's what I want to do here, right? All of the schools, hundreds of schools we have around the world, a website, gracienuniversity.com, specifically for people who don't have a school near them, they can learn online from home and every one of our lessons is in order. So you can actually learn all the techniques. And actually, once you learn the material, you can go to one of the schools and test for a belt promotion because all of it's there, what you need for each of the milestones as you're climbing through this journey. So this website was done with this mindset. If you're too scared to go to a school, log on to GracieUniversity.com, watch the first three, four, or five lessons for free. And then once you see them and you go, Holy cow, I could do this. Then you go find a school and then you go train somewhere and you continue the journey. So my goal is to create the avenues through which anyone can be introduced to jiu-jitsu. If they have an internet connection or a school near them, then there's no excuse. Go, give jiu-jitsu a try. Now, like I said, you have to be very selective with who you let teach you in the beginning because injuries are so common at schools where and the number one criteria that I will just say is if they have a school where beginners, brand new students are sparring with other beginners, it's a disaster waiting to happen because I don't know enough to keep myself safe, which means I panic, which means I'm not keeping you safe. So we're both liabilities to each other. And sadly, 98, 99% of Brazilian jiu-jitsu schools are having beginner spar within a few weeks, if not on the first day. So it's quite a disaster. So for our schools, we don't do that. You're gonna be a beginner for several months. You're gonna be learning all the mechanics of how to move safely, of how to do joint locks, of where you're safe, where you're not, so that when you eventually spar at a higher level, you can do so without hurting yourself or someone else. So that's my cautionary tale. But like I said, I want everyone who reads this book by the time they're done to say, holy cow, I've got the operating system. Let me go try the art that everyone Mark Zuckerberg included is falling in love with and now the great Lewis of School of Greatness.

I'm gonna do it also man next week. There you go. So, a couple weeks I'm in.

All it took was your first class being done right and you're like, okay, welcome to jiu-jitsu. You're okay. You're on the other side now and that's how I believe this is. There's an entire population of the world but they're split into two groups. People who've done jiu-jitsu and people who don't. And the people who don't can be karate, it can be taekwondo, it can be this. and they can even be other grappling arts. Jiu Jitsu is the one. And it's not the one, not that there aren't other arts of other grappling arts that are easy. You might have someone that's very proficient and can defeat someone who does Jiu Jitsu. But back to where square one. Jiu Jitsu. The reason Jiu Jitsu is the best is because it can do the most for the people with the least physical attributes in the least amount of time. There's no other art that can do more for someone with less than jiu-jitsu. Quote me on that.

I got, I quote me on that. 32 principles harnessing the power of jiu-jitsu to succeed in business, relationships and life. Make sure you guys get a few copies. We'll have all this stuff linked up as well. I got two final questions for you. But before I ask those questions, Henry, I appreciate you for demonstrating. And again, we'll link up the video where Henry just destroys me. and shows me how incompetent I am as a human being. Don't make it sound so bad, bro.

Hold on, but on the other side of that, there was a breakthrough. There was a moment of, imagine if you learned this.

Of course, no.

Just make sure you tell them that too, though.

It's smart, though, 'cause I was like, oh, how do I defend this?

Well, come back for net class.

I gotcha. Exactly, hook. But I would acknowledge you for your commitment and your passion to bring this art and this, really, these strategies to the world. You know, I don't know if I've had someone dispassionate on the show in probably 10 years. I appreciate that. About what they do.

About the mission. Yeah. About the mission. Listen, I was born into this family. I didn't have a choice to start learning. I tried to quit at least 17 times when I was 11. Easily. Too close, you know what I'm saying? Too close. I don't want to go, Dad. I don't. Okay, you're staying home until I get back in seven hours. Okay, I'll go. Yeah. Go to class and you do it, you rough it out and you make it happen. But the point is, I didn't have a choice to be born into this family. I started learning as a kid. I tried to quit when I was 11-12. I started teaching at 13 years old. Once I saw, for my first student of my life, Robert Mendoza Jr., a five-year-old boy who was getting bullied, once I saved him, changed his life forever. His dad, I can't thank you. I'm 13 years old. And the dad is thanking me like I'm like, you know, this holy figure. And I'm like, wow, that's pretty addicting. It's pretty addicting to be the. The deliverer of Freedom, of confidence, of truth, Jiu Jitsu, truth. And people coming to you with all kinds of problems. And Jiu Jitsu being such a massive solution on the mat and off the mat. Yes. It's such a unique existence. So I became addicted to the giving aspect because let's be honest. who are the happiest people you know? The ones who give the most.

The ones who are in service, too.

Yes. So I got addicted to the service.

And the art, right?

I'm in high school, and some guy wants to tussle with me, and I'm like, line them up. And I tap out the entire volleyball team, 13 guys on wood floor, hardwood. Everyone gets tapped out back to back. Wow. And one day at volleyball practice, when the coach was late for practice, one guy wants to wrestle with me. I tap him out. Another guy puts his hand up. Everyone Taps out. and then they go tell everyone in the whole school. And I'm like, well, this is pretty cool to have a superpower. Yeah. So the point is, going through high school was Jiu Jitsu. It's a different species, a different existence. So all of these, I became addicted in so many different ways. And then when I started seeing how these Jiu Jitsu principles started to serve me entrepreneurially. Oh, yeah. Right. As a growing Jiu Jitsu business. And then many other businesses. Quick flip sleeperhole.com, the travel pillow that I invented. You start to get addicted to the fact that, wow. if I apply jiu-jitsu not just on the mat, but I apply it everywhere, this is crazy. So now it's done so much for me, both as a practitioner, as a disciple of the art, and as a deliverer, a messenger of the art, that all I think is, man, every single person that I touch and I infect with jiu-jitsu and I bring into jiu-jitsu, their life will forever change because of my enthusiasm. Right? The energy or what the world calls the Henergy.

The energy. Where do you think it'd be if you were just, you know, not just, but if you went through school as maybe an elite athlete in volleyball or swimming or some other sport, and you never did martial arts, where do you think you'd be now if you never did martial arts?

Bro, that's like asking to strip the hydrogen away from H2O. You just can't. There's no water without hydrogen. Do you understand? there's no henna without Jiu Jitsu. It doesn't exist. I didn't have a choice. And I'm glad I did not. Because everything good in my life today I attribute to Jiu Jitsu and these principles and their impact personally and professionally. So to act, you can't separate what is actually Inseparable. It fundamentally becomes something different. So then we're talking about a different movie, a different book, a different ending. I don't even care to know that person. I don't even care to know the henna without Jiu Jitsu because. It's just another human being. And I could have excelled in many other categories. Great, as you've done as well. But I'm, it's, you can't even call him henna with an R pronounced with an H. You couldn't even do that because he's not a member of the Gracie family.

He's not got this crazy name pronunciation. Everything falls apart without jiu-jitsu, bro. I gotta get more of this energy in my life, you know what I'm saying? This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. You live for as long as you want to live in this life. and you get to accomplish and create and experience all the beautiful things that you want. But for whatever reason, it's the last day for you in this life. It could be 100, 200 years away, whatever it is. And you've got to take all of your messages with you. This book is gone. This interview is gone. Every training program that you've ever created, video content, gone. No one has access to you anymore except for three final truths that you get to share with the world. this is all they remember. What would those lessons be or those three truths be if that's all people have?

Help enough people get what they want and you can have anything you want. Would be one. A second truth. Whoever manages the distance manages the damage. and the third truth would be, let me talk about advice. Love and Trust fully. Period. Because I think that you've never lived life. You've never lived life fully unless you've loved fully and trusted fully. I know many very successful people. who have no love in their hearts and no trust in their hearts. And it doesn't matter what you reach, you're alone. And what value is a life of 200 years or less or more if you're alone? So anytime you have on this earth, do it loving fully and trusting fully. Yeah. Those closest to you, even if it means you get hurt.

Oh man, that's true.

You feel me? Even if you risk of getting hurt, that's the definition of courage, knowing that things might not pan out, but you do it anyways.

Yes. Those are great three truths, man. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

The progressive realization of a worthy ideal, which I got from someone. Was it Jim Rohn or Zig Ziglar? Right. The definition of greatness, the definition of success, the definition whatever you set your mind to do that is meaningful for you. If it's shared with the world, here we are, I'm doing my thing. If it's share messages of greatness with the world, this is greatness. If it's be a housewife and a mom because that's what you dreamt of and that's what you set out to do, that's greatness. So there's no categorical right and wrong. It's you are pursuing the path that you set for yourself because you determined that that was the most meaningful existence for yourself. And if you're on that path, that's greatness. The problem is we live in a day and age where how many people are on a path that they just fell into to pay this, to do this, to do that, you know, how you gotta pay bills. So I'm doing a job that I hate spending eight, 10 hours a day doing something I hate. And then after work, spending an hour going and doing, you know, pickleball or handball or football or jiu-jitsu an hour or two a week. My question is, in that situation, what are you doing to turn your passion into your profession? What deliberate steps are you taking so you can shift the balance from a 80-20 to that 20% becoming the new 80? And maybe there's still some things you have to do that you don't wake up and are excited to do every single day, but the majority of your existence is in a pillar of what you determine to be greatness for yourself.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels @lewis hows. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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