Russell Brunson recounts watching The Karate Kid and retells the Mr. Miyagi "wax on, wax off" and "paint the fence" exercises as a teaching metaphor. He realizes effective teaching should give learners practical, engaging exercises that implicitly train core principles, then explicitly debrief to reveal the why and amplify results. He proposes a "Mr. Miyagi" style training: design fun, repeatable experiments that force application of principles, then explain the principles and optimize them; simplify processes to increase student value and business outcomes.
Chapters
All right, this is the deal. Years ago. Years ago, I had a chance to. First off, first time ever watch karate kid with Mr. Miyagi. Now, I'm sure you guys all remember the moment you watched that movie. If you haven't yet, pause this right now and go to somewhere where you can go watch the original Karate Kid. I'm gonna watch my kids tonight because I just learned a life lesson that's going to change everything for me, my company. Because I watched that when I was, like, 10 years old. And I remember watching as a kid and actually being freaked out because there some violence, right? Like, I remember on the beach when he got punched in the gut. And like this. I remember there's a soccer ball. I remember the. But I finally. Danielson's like, I have to go and learn karate. He's like, I learned karate at the Y, but I got beat up by these Cobra Khan guys, and, like, I gotta learn how to be legit. And so I need to watch the movie. This is my memory from, like, 20 years ago. So I remember he. He goes to a Halloween party. He's dressed up like a shower. He goes and messes with the dude, and the dude chases him out, and the guy's, like, all skeletoned up, and then catches him at the fence and beats the trash out and just beats him, like, almost to death. And then Mr. Miyagi slowly comes out from the shadows, right, and thrashes all those dudes, like, just destroys him. And Danielson's, like, looking up and sees it's Mr. Miyagi. So he's like, I got to learn karate from Mr. Miyagi. So finally he goes. He's like, Mr. Miyagi, I've got to learn how to do this stuff. So Mr. Miyagi's like, all right, come here. Let me show you. If you really want to. Let me show you. He brought him out to the car a lot, and he's like, okay, here's all these cars. He's like, wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off, right? He gives him the. The pad of paper. He's like, wax on, wax off. And Danielson's, like, kind of annoyed. He's like, all right, I'm going to do what my trainer says. So he does this. Wax on, wax off. He ends up waxing, I don't know, a dozen cars or something. And he goes, okay, mister, like, that was the payment. I'm ready to learn. I'm ready to learn karate. He's like, no, no, you're not ready yet. Come here. And he's like, let's paint the fence. He's, like, up with. And so he starts painting the fence. No, you're doing it wrong. Like, up this way, down this way, up this way, down this way. So he shipped that around. So he goes and paints these fences, and he's doing three or four, like, projects for Mr. Miyagi. Like, that finds getting noise. Like, he comes back, he starts yelling, Mr. Miyagi. Like, no, I came here to learn karate. Do I understand? And then Mr. Miyagi, if my memory serves me right, throws a punch at him. And instinctively, Daniel sounds like, whoop. Whacks the fence and blocks it. And then he's like, huh? He throws another punch. Waxes the car. Or waxes the car the other way, blocks it. And then he does something else, and he paints the fence and blocks it. And all of a sudden, he's doing these things, and he blocks all the punches. And all of a sudden he's like, oh, I have been learning karate this whole time. Okay, So I tell you this because I think this week I had an epiphany about how I teach. I was like, oh, my gosh. I'm teaching the principal. So they know what to do, but they don't really know why to do it. The shift is like, okay, let me make practical training. It's something that I can get you excited by because the end result's so sexy and exciting and fun. And in the process, you're doing the principles, and the end of it. I come back, say, okay, just, you know, this is the things that happen because of this exercise you just did. We have a Dream 100 list. We have who you're trying to serve. We have, like, all the pieces are in place now, and, like, oh, my gosh. And now they're aware of it, but. But they saw it in context. A lot of times we do things. We're unconsciously competent. We do something well, and we don't really know why, but when we become aware of it and we get our eyes, our attention drawn to it, then we can go in and we can figure out how to amplify it and magnify it, make it better and better and better. And so that's my goal, is to give people situations and experiments and fun things that are exciting, that force you to do the process and to do all the principles you're learning about. And then come back afterwards and be like, okay, here's the principles you just applied. And now we can amplify. Now we can really take it to the next level. So, anyway, I'm excited. I'm excited to test out this new. This new style of training. Mr. Miyagi style. Paint the fence. Wax on, wax off. Hopefully it gives you ideas for the way you're teaching, where you're coaching as well. And always try to figure out ways to make it simpler and better and easier for your people. That's the secret. Don't stop. If you can make it simpler, it makes you more valuable to. To your market, to your people, and that's how you make more money.
