Academy Jiu-Jitsu Founder, Black Belt, Mountain Bike Racer & Entrepreneur Hector Beltran

How does resilience transfer across disciplines? Andrew Vontz and co-host Blake Kasemeier sat down with Hector Beltran to talk about fine-tuning the balance of creativity and personal progress in any practice.

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Hector, co-founder of Academy Jiu-Jitsu in Downey, California, is a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a mixed martial artist and a Bronze medalist in the Master division at the 2022 IBJJF No-Gi World Championships. He’s also a coder, filmmaker, musician, and endurance athlete.

He shares the value of being present with family and career, how tech influenced him to unlock new opportunities in business by breaking tradition, and what mountain biking taught him about jui-jitsu.

With over 14+ years of experience competing in various different athletic pursuits from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Pankration, Mixed Martial Arts Fighting, and Endurance Cross Country Mountain Biking. Hector Beltran is no stranger to difficult undertakings and has made it his mission to show others how to challenge themselves, face their fears and overcome adversity both on and off the mats. 

Hector Beltran sees martial arts and all athletic pursuits as vehicles for personal development and is passionate about helping the Academy family achieve their fullest potential by leading by example.

Past Choose the Hard Way guest Blake Kasemeier joins me as a co-host on this episode. Blake and I have done many hard things and a few stupid things together, some of which we’ve discussed before on this podcast. Blake is a copywriter & creative director whose video work has taken off on TikTok and Instagram. He’s also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt. You can find Blake @blakeoftoday on all social platforms.

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This episode is part of Life Cycles, a series of episodes about how bikes change people and the world. Different people find different ways to seek and create change within themselves, their community and the world; for me, it has been cycling. The power of hearing these stories inspires people to reach beyond what is possible in life.

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Choose the Hard Way is the podcast where guests share stories about how doing hard things build stronger, more resilient humans, learn more at www.choosethehardway.com.

If you’re new to the show, I’ve spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. I’ve held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX and my byline has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.

Today I advise and consult with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and I coach leaders to become high-performance communicators. If you’d like to work with me, DM @hardwaypod or reach out to choosethehardway@gmail.com. 

In This Episode:

Hector Beltran Website | Instagram

Blake Kasemeier Instagram

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Andrew Vontz LinkedIn

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Choose The Hard Way is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production 

• TRANSCRIPTION

  Andrew 0:00

  Okay, we're rolling. Blake was just telling a story and if anyone follows Blake Blake up today on Tik Tok on Instagram, you wouldn't even recognize him because he has a shirt on and he's not putting his calves in front of the camera. So, I, but hey, Blake, it's great to have you here. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for introducing me to Hector. Hector. Really excited to have you here today. And before we get started Blakean Hector, you're both in Southern California. I lived in Southern California for a long time is Blake explain. That's in fact, where we had our cute meet at a soup kitchen where we were both volunteering. I want to start out I have never done this before. This is going to be really wild. But given that we have this common denominator of Southern California, I want to throw something out there. A bit of a challenge for you guys. And Hector, I'm gonna let you go first. So here's here's the question. It's 3pm on a Thursday, okay. You've just picked up your rental car at the Burbank Airport and you need to get to the Santa Monica Pier. What route do you take?

  Hector 1:04

  Oh, Jesus, Burbank? Correct. Okay, well, I don't know why you would fly into Burbank but if suppose one did, okay. Suppose one did I suppose, you,

  Blake 1:17

  Jesus,

  Hector 1:19

  that I never go out that way I would hop on. Get to the 10 some way Pray take the streets to the 10

  Andrew 1:32

  Do you want to go you want to go five south to 110 to 10. Do you want to go 101405 to 10? Like what do you think I'm

  Hector 1:41

  right. I mean, I'm most I'm most likely gonna go one on one for four or five to the 10. And if not, I probably use Waze. I probably use Waze to avoid the freeways. 3pm you're talking about 3pm Hmm, that's nightmare.

  Andrew 1:56

  You guys like hard thing? So that's why I'm giving you this.

  Hector 2:00

  Yeah, started off with a really tough choose the highway. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna Yeah, say I'll take the the as many streets as possible and try to get try to avoid the zombie apocalypse of a

  Andrew 2:14

  valley. More of a Thomas guide person, but if you want to use technology, that's cool. I don't know if you guys are even old enough to remember the Thomas guide.

  Hector 2:22

  I just follow the pigeons most times. Okay, fair enough. Okay,

  Andrew 2:26

  Blake, what have you got?

  Blake 2:28

  Yeah, probably the five to the 115. Dude, that's, uh, that's the route. That's the route when? Yeah, when I had to rush Andy to the airport when he would oversleep his is alarm. Back when I was when we both were living in LA, it would be five to the 115 and 115 is like a nice little just because basically it's a beeline but you know, I would I would suck it up and kind of stick to the grind of the five going through downtown. That's my move.

  Andrew 2:58

  Okay, I like that. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing those answers. hectored. Yeah,

  Hector 3:03

  I've never flown into Burbank that's why I say that but it might be very nice. I don't want to offend all the Burbank people it might be

  Andrew 3:12

  very nice. Do you prefer lax or Long Beach Hector I just

  Hector 3:15

  where I'm at where I'm at it just everything's Long Beach or lax. So I just fly in and out of those places.

  Andrew 3:23

  Long Beach is nice as well. When I was living in LA Burbank was always the easiest point of ingress and egress. And now when I'm in California and need to travel within California, typically I'm seeing people between east side to Hollywood, you know, like Los Feliz, Silverlake to Altadena. So I like to say it's a quickest point to get in and out. And man, it's so much simpler than lax. And if you're not from Southern California, and you're listening to this, you're probably wondering why we're talking about it. If you have lived in Southern California, or have spent time there, you know what we're talking about. So, guys, all three of us are dads a question I wanted to ask. Now that we've talked a bit about navigation, let's talk about navigating life a little bit. One of the things that I find all humans experiences, but I think when you're a parent, there's a component of it. When you wake up, you might have a plan for the day. And then something might happen, where you're going to have to adapt, you're going to have to shift. I know that both of you are high level jujitsu practitioners. I am not you often hear jujitsu is life. And I'm really fascinated by when people do difficult things in one domain, does it actually transfer into other life situation? And so if if you're a jujitsu practitioner or you race bikes, can you apply that that will to go forward and to adapt? When you know, a child throws a tantrum for example at 430 in the morning, but I'm getting to a question here, which is when did you have to adapt in an unexpected way? In the day? That's happened so far? Yeah.

  Hector 5:12

  So from the dad domain, right, it's you hit it, you had you kind of struck a nerve there because I didn't sleep very night, very, very much last night because of my, my three year old. So my both my wife and my daughter and my daughter is eight years old. They both have COVID right now. So

  Andrew 5:33

  sorry to hear that. Yeah, it's okay.

  Hector 5:35

  They're doing better, thank you. But my son has been spending a lot more time with me. And that's not typically what our schedule has been. So throughout the night, he'll just start, he'll just start throwing a tantrum every like, two, three hours, because he typically spends a lot of time with mom. And so sleeps a mom. So it just been bananas trying to take care of this kid right now the kid takes swings at me he like has a vicious, right. And he'll just try to just knock me I swear, it's like, little violent little creature. But, but I have to love him because he's my, he's my blood. He's amazing. But it's just like, in the middle of the night. It's just like, I almost missed my, like, I had an eight o'clock meeting this morning. And I almost missed I just because I haven't been sleeping well, this past week because of the situation. But yeah, I mean, everything I've done prior definitely prepares me for the next most difficult thing, right. i If you actually look at everything I'd done before becoming a father, it was a lot of difficult endeavors, a lot of difficult challenges. And I definitely think a lot of that prepared me for, for, for the challenges, being a being a parent, you know, will bring I've been very fortunate that you know, my I have two Healthy Kids overall. And I have nowhere near the challenges that some people have. I'm always I always realize especially because the kind of work I do I deal with a lot of young students teaching jujitsu and everything that there's a there's a big spectrum of needs and abilities and, and challenges that people have and parents have, you know, so it's I'm very blessed. I don't have crazy challenges, and most of the crazy challenges. That's my wife's department.

  Andrew 7:30

  So I love that. But Hector, I've got to ask a follow up question. So you got woken up in the middle of the night, there's a tantrum going on, or something's happening? How did you feel at that moment? And how long did it take you to get where you immediately like, I'm cool. This is fine, or were you a bit surprised? And how did you adapt?

  Hector 7:48

  Yeah, I mean, it's Dave, put on your mask, you're gonna have to come over here and I'm not, I'm not build for what do you got to do? What are you gonna do? There's certain things, there's certain things where I just defer to my wife, you know, and we have a system, I go bait. Our system, you take care of the kids, cool. crackhead breaks in the house I got on, or we can swap? What do you want to do? Deal? All right. So that's my chickenshit way of copying out of those situation. But definitely, I mean, there's, there's certain things where we're, we're all handle certain aspects of parenthood. And thank God for my wife, she lives she's the same. She's a real saint.

  Andrew 8:42

  Alright, thanks for sharing that Hector. So let's bounce it over to Blake who's got number two on the way I've got two kids, four and six year old I can Hector I can relate to what you just shared and in partnerships, I think sometimes the best partnerships, leverage the strengths of each partner, whatever they might be, versus trying to make everybody great at everything. But we know that I mean, we've seen Blake sag ABS on tick tock, we know that this guy is just a legend. So Blake, what how do you handle it? What's happened in your day that you didn't expect would happen?

  Blake 9:14

  I want to answer that question. But real first, I want to say that before we had this interview lined up, I went and talked to Alberto crane who's my jujitsu professor, and has done a podcast with Hector. And I said, you know, could you give me a good question to ask Hector that I might not think of because you have a little bit more experience with them. And his question was just, you know, like, how does how does Hector get it all done? And I was like, Yeah, that's probably a good question. You know, he does. He does a lot of things. He doesn't only get them done but he's like a top performer. And then Hector said are sorry I'll Berto said Yeah, but he'll probably just give you that answer. You know that. That answer that like it's my wife. My wife.

  Andrew 9:55

  Nail nailed your busted Hector.

  Blake 10:01

  I was like, that's the answer we've been trained to give man. We know that's the right. Yeah, there

  Hector 10:07

  is a little bit of a training to that, right? Like, are we domesticated husbands? Is that what it is how we've been? I'm not and I don't add hops, trust me feel like obligated to give that because I always honestly, growing up, I swear, I remember having this this thought being in church or something like that, like a pastor, like, Oh, everybody, like, welcome my beautiful wife, and like, the guys like wife will come on stage, and she wasn't beautiful. And I was like, what, you know, what are you looking at? I just be like, being like this, like, this, like, just responsive, that's in your back pocket, right? And then like, I was like, am I ever going to become that guy that just like, you know, always, always just like talking about his why I'm like this and, and doing all this and giving her all this extra credit. And in this case, I would I'm not bullshitting at all. It's just I am so inadequate, you know, to even answer correctly in a way that saves space. The question like, how was I the superhero in the middle of night when my child you know, and I will? I'm, I'm totally not, you know, totally not. But Alberto. Yeah. Up on the board for Alberto.

  Blake 11:20

  Yeah, my situation, Hector is exactly the same as yours. I have a two and a half year old, almost three year old, he wakes up, he's been waking up for the past two weeks at right around one to between one and two. And he's up from one until last night us up until almost three. And my wife's pregnant, very pregnant. And so like, there's this like, you know, the similar sort of like, well, I, she, you know, sometimes she takes care of these things. Sometimes I take care of these things. But there's a lot of guilt being like, hey, this, she's already taking care of one of our kids in her stomach right now. Like, I have to kind of step it up. And yeah, so dude, I was in, I was in my son's room, and we're trying to break some habits that he has. So my son also has has a mean, right hook these days. And we're trying to like, you know, to regulate his, his emotions and to help him express those things. Well, but also, like, we know that like negotiating with a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. It's crazy, right? And so yeah, a lot of it is like, just that kind of patience of writing up the storm of like, okay, like, there's so many things I want to tell him right now. But he's not. He can't hear me. Like, his brain is doing something completely different. And when that happens, it's three in the morning, like, you know, the first the first couple of times. You, you run into it in the middle of the night, you're like, it's hard to remind yourself. Like, he's just a toddler. He doesn't understand like, all that stuff. Yeah, it takes just takes reps. And then yeah, like today has just been the knock on consequences. My wife is at a doctor's appointment right now my stepdad is over here hanging out with my son, you can probably hear him screaming in the next room. And just this morning was just a complete calamity. Even it's down to recording this podcast where like, I jumped on hilariously, Andrew was in another podcast on this same link earlier. And I was trying to get ahead of the game and test all my equipment, as you see which it has failed. Already wants from this call. And I hopped in in the middle of Andrew interviewing somebody. I just like looked at him and it's like walking into a slight stranger in the bathroom. Like, I'm so sorry. So, yeah, it's been it's been calamitous, but you know, it's just like a jujitsu class. Like, you just got to charge through it. Eventually. It's gonna be over. And you'll survive.

  Hector 14:03

  That's what it is not that. low expectations. expectation. Yes. Yeah. That's one of the one of the secrets to a happy life.

  Andrew 14:13

  I can't resist. I mean, all I know when it comes to parenting is that I know nothing. I guess. Maybe I'm quoting operation IV there or something? I don't know. All I know is that I don't know nothing. But Blake, I do have to ask when Owen is throwing a tantrum. And have you tried the stomp your feet and hit a pillow? You mean giving him that feedback? Yes. Yeah. So we have

  Blake 14:33

  a we have a danger room for him. Like a punching bag setup. And his Oh, wow. Wow.

  Andrew 14:41

  It's like level four man.

  Blake 14:44

  Well, like, know that he can express those feelings. I just want to give him an appropriate space to do it. So yeah, similar. I think the stomp your feet, but I think stomp your feet and hit a pillow might be a lot better. Because I feel like transport them all the way to the Danger Room. Right? Yeah. And it's like In even do it, he's like, No, I don't want to hit that punching bag that like, you know, he called him Mr. Penguin. I don't want to hit Mr. Penguin. And then it becomes like a fight about him hitting Mr. Penguin. I think stomp your feet and hit a pillow is just something you can do anywhere I might, I might have to steal that one from you. Yeah, I

  Hector 15:16

  think I've never,

  Andrew 15:17

  I've never heard of that. I may have borrowed it from Daniel Tiger, who I think Daniel Tiger is just a fountain of wisdom, I've learned so many things from Daniel Tiger that I've applied. One of my things in a professional setting is I've quoted Daniel Tiger many times, he's one of my favorite Daniel Tiger quotes is, if something seems bad, don't turn it around and make something good.

  Hector 15:41

  And just even try and think about, you know how I could even apply that to, to my son when he's throwing a tantrum, you know, just like, I guess, tiring them out, you know, let them get it out of the system. I mean, I'm sure we all do that we all do that we did some of our best work, some of our best focus has probably come out of the expression of doing something with with anger or frustration. You know, I know, definitely, I mean, sometimes go ride a bike, when you're really angry, you know, go go train, you know, go into certain zones, that's maybe dark, but at the end of it, it's like, ah, you know, so giving, giving a version of that to kids, you know, could be could be quite powerful. I'll send my wife an email about it.

  Andrew 16:31

  You know, when this conversation, Hector is actually making me think about a question I wanted to ask you, and you've done, you have, you have a lot of content out there, which is awesome. You've done a number of interviews. And in consuming that content, something that you shared was that at one point, you started to teach yourself how to code and you kind of you went deep into this, like doing a number of different boot camps with coding. And you know, whether we think about culture, we think about our own behavior, you think about family systems. One of the things that I think about is how a certain set of inputs yield certain outcomes, which that's part of what software engineering is about. And I'm curious, with what you learned from coding, did any of that knowledge change how you thought about other domains of your life or how you approach different problems?

  Hector 17:21

  Now, great question, because I was actually having this conversation yesterday with my business partner trying to he's a brown belt in jujitsu and been doing jujitsu half the time. I've been doing Jiu Jitsu, I've been doing jujitsu for over 15 years. And when I was expressing to him, because he sent me that he sent me this this code, I was at a coffee shop and said, if you could read this, if you could read this bit of code, then you get a free drink. And then I started looking at it. And I said, Oh, okay, it says parameter. And they said, Ah, you're such a nerd. And say, Man, I learned this and three months in a bootcamp how to how to code and how to do do a couple of different things from front end design and some databases they taught you like full stack development, but But I learned how to code in a couple of months. And I in that time revolutionized my life, because I realized how much you can learn in a short amount of time because they made us code 70 hours a week, it was absurd, I almost got kicked out of this program for not coding up. Because I want to train jiu jitsu, you know, one day a week, I was like, Yeah, I want to go change Jiu Jitsu. And he's like, No, you can't fucking do that. You got to code. And, and but he was like, if you approach jujitsu like that you can learn like, it would just completely revolutionized your life, right? Not everybody has, you know, three months ago, 70 hours a week in or something, right, I get it, you know, and not only think that's really healthy, but this allowed me this allowed me to realize how much I could learn what my potential was. And also how to dissect certain aspects of jujitsu or other endeavors, whatever it is that I'm trying to learn or accomplish. And not not just that also just the systems for approaching things I created a when we first opened up Academy, I created a Trello board, a Trello board and started you know, picking out different like different sprints, this is one idea, I stole these ideas from tech, so that we could so that we could scale really fast and if that's even something that now as I oh yeah, we need to react that I said yes. Or we need to reactivate our Trello board and start thinking in Sprint's again and started having those standards and start doing everything so that so that we could completely outperform and disrupt everybody again, like that's that's always been the thing I don't think about I don't have a jujitsu school I think about like, I have like, I won, I have this. This like, startup tech company, I think more like that, you know, where jujitsu is our service, you know, but then we tried to do everything in In a very efficient manner,

  Blake 20:02

  just for context, Hector, I mean, I've been doing jujitsu for almost a decade now. How, you know, in that time, Jujitsu academies and the business of jujitsu has accelerated quite a bit. But I would still say that having this approach that you mentioned is pretty novel. Like, I don't see a lot of academies. Having that sort of business savvy, and then also producing a lot of academies, either they're either over indexed and one, right, it's either like grateful hada. Like, it's like, really hard training, they produce champions, or they run a really great business as a very successful Kids program. And like, everybody has really nice. You know, I think your approach is really interesting. And I'm curious, like, what inspired you to one like, tell me how common you think that level of business savvy is in the industry, like, across across all like maybe American jujitsu? And then also like, how did you why did you apply this? Like, why? What made you think to apply that level of, you know, business savvy to this industry?

  Hector 21:15

  Well, I actually started realizing how much how many vulnerabilities there were in the market and how many schools were just ran very mom and pop right where they were not utilizing tech, they were not utilizing that really collective thinking pretty much most of it because it's very hierarchical, where it's everybody, you got the blacked out at the top, and then everyone just kind of follows that guy's direction. And, and I didn't want to scale academy that way. So my face is not up on the wide Academy. Not there's no Helio Gracie on the wall, nothing's hierarchical. I want everything to be where, where the students, the staff, everybody feels like they're part of it. Right? They're not to they feel that way. But they are a part of it, because one of my students could end up surpassing me at Academy in terms of knowledge in terms of in terms of competition status, in terms of whatever they want to do, you can scale within, within Academy under the umbrella. And so many schools are limited by their black ballot is a top and nobody goes above the guy at the top. You know, so it's, it's your you become the bottleneck, you know, and that's one of the things I like you learn, like to eliminate like when you're stuck and you know, in tech, you know, how do you get unstuck. You got, you know, you reach out for resources, you you do not want to be the bottleneck, right versus in in jujitsu, mom and pop businesses. You're, you're, you're always doing what you saw around, it's like coming up in a family, right? You're gonna do exactly how you what you saw at home, most likely, you're the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, right? So if you see whatever, whatever you saw at your academy coming up, that's what you're gonna replicate. Now me both me and my business partner, my business partner is a HUBZone it business. And he's all about being paperless. He's all about being progressive. And as far as like, how do we do things better, you know that like Kaizen system or like a constant improvement in every aspect, right? So it's just like, applying all these same principles to the to the jujitsu business is like, oh, man, we could disrupt super easy, we could totally destroy, and they're just like, it just, it just was a leaning into that more and more and more.

  Andrew 23:34

  What was your sense of what you were building? When you initially got into the business of having an academy? What was your intention? And what did you want to build?

  Hector 23:44

  I only I never saw it being a lucrative business. I never saw it. I just wanted to, to be in a place where I felt comfortable, where I could help mold account a culture with principles that I always recommended people where I was training, but they're always like, Ah, you don't? Like, what do you know? You know, what do you what do you not like you don't? You're not a black belt, or you're not a jujitsu school owner? Like, what do you know? And so many times, that's what it's like, right? You go anywhere, maybe you go into a coffee shop, maybe you go into whatever business you go into, you go, Oh, you guys should maybe do this. And they will look at you like, like, No, thank you. You know, we don't want your unsolicited advice. And I always had all these ideas. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you guys should do this. And then I stopped and I wouldn't like just, I would just keep things to myself. And then I was like, Okay, well, there's an opportunity to open up a school, and there's an opportunity to do this better. You know, so that was just my goal to give a better service. I always thought I was gonna end up having a another business a different job. I didn't think I was going to be all in like, this is what I do. I live my family my kids eat, from the services that we provide. And we're helping people with with martial arts, you know, and that's another thing like I don't want to just say, but I'm not a jujitsu guy. I'm a martial artist. That's the whole thing like everything, right? Like whatever you say you are, you end up becoming the latest version of that, because a new version always comes out and it evolves, I'm able to evolve as a martial art, just like when I started jiu jitsu jiu jitsu looked a lot different than what it looks like right now. Versus everybody's trying to cement what they do right now. I'm always thinking, how am I going to be on the cutting edge and part of the future as this thing evolves? You know, so basically, my short answer, I just wanted to do it better than everyone else was doing it. Hector, I

  Andrew 25:45

  have a couple of follow up questions about this. So I also I'm big into systems level thinking, I'm big into grounding decision making business building creative endeavors, from first principles, which it sounds like, that's the approach that you took, and it sounds like at the outset, you had a set. And over time, you had decided, okay, this is what I'm not seeing in the marketplace. This is what I believe to be an opportunity from a principles and systems level. And it also sounds like you had a set of anti goals or things you knew that you did not want your academy or business to be if you had to just share a handful of those things, on the principles that you proactively wanted to implement. What were some of the things that you wanted to do differently than you saw other schools or businesses doing at that time?

  Hector 26:33

  Yeah. completely wiped out bullshit warmups, we do not do Bucha we do not do jumping jacks, we do not do stress, we do not do push ups, we've completely did away with all this shit that allows the black belt instructors show up 15 minutes late with coffee in their hand, and blue belts who run the class are free. That's bullshit. That is that is just convenient for the instructor and and make it creates bad precedent. Because now all the higher belts are like, Oh, we don't need to do this. And it's true, they don't need to do it. Because practicing shrimps outside of an environment where you actually have to do the thing that helps you get out of that position will help you practice for many, many, many years, something outside of the environment that actually makes it work. So you've now been practicing strips wrong for 10 years. Congratulations, you suck as strips. You know, everything is shitty in the warmest because you're drilling it outside of a real pressure environment. You're not You're not every everything that is clutter. And that didn't make sense. We're like, that's gone. That's gone. We're moving that. That is that that's one example. Classes start right on time. All my classes start right on pretty much right on the second they start on time they end on time, you have a hardened heart out you gotta live you have kids that you have to pick up get what you got to do that my school because classes and right on time, you know, everything's very professional. Everything's just ran like, like a good operating like a well operating business. Like it just it just all those standards, just like people are doing this all over the place at a grand scale around planet Earth. They're just doing it the way this shit was ran. Because those ran many times not for profit when it first started, like with martial arts, it's just like, we're running this out of a rec center. So fuck you, I'm a volunteer, I get it I've ever had, I once was coming up in a in a in a martial arts class, I won't disclose what I was at a certain place training. One of those cheap martial arts variations of something really good instructor it will just subsidize, okay, through a government, their local city. And the instructor said, Hey, I'm not charging you guys enough for you guys to be acting like this and not applying yourself. And I said, and I was saying in my head, I was like, I would pay more for you not to say that. You could, you could charge me more, I'm happy to pay pay more. And I'll be chastised like in this group for for your because you're unhappy because you're not driving the car you want to have to the place where you're volunteering your time, very cheap. So just all these things is just the mindset a lot, a lot of people approaching things wrong. And because they weren't being effective business operators, they always had, they always had a chip on their shoulder, no chips on their shoulder. None of my instructors for matter of fact that nothing, not a principle based thing. Not my students on my score are allowed to clean the mats. They are not allowed to clean them out too. Whereas on the other side of that a lot of jujitsu school, lots of martial arts schools, they go and say I'm gonna catch all this flak from jujitsu school or like No, don't say, don't say that. I don't let them rot and you should listen. He should not let them clean the mats. But let me go down that real quick because it's really stupid and put that On a new paying customer who lied about typically who is who doesn't need that kind of treatment, they didn't need a hardened heart out. They need to feel like they're their top priority guests. Okay, they need to feel comfortable. They don't need it. They don't need it work when they're already paying dues. So charge them a little bit extra pay somebody else to clean the mats. Well, we did. I'll even give you the solution what we did at my academy, I say, Hey, check it out. Mr. Instructor. How about you're already here? Pay a couple extra dollars at the end of your class, you clean the mats on the classes where you're the last guy on the map for that day. And they're like, Buck. Yeah, like, everyone's happy. They're making more money because they're already here. They're happy because the the mats are cleaned the right way. Nobody's getting worm stat everything's, everything's very precise. But maybe at the end of the day, it's economics. People don't want to pay. You know, so we we have a huge payroll. I have a team of about at least like 11 instructors, we have a ton of instructors a ton of hours we teach on Sunday 60. between our two locations, Downey 16 classes a day. So there's a lot of classes, there's a ton of classes, okay. 6060 or 60 classes a week. And there's a lot of cleaning of the match. Right? And none of the students I do I will give one exception. If some of these punks my students, blue belts, they hit me up, hey, open up on Sunday for an open man. I'll say all right. Well, you gotta help me clean them up for that, bro. But man's non serviceable hours where I'm not paying someone to clean the mat. I will take some help. That's my full disclosure on that. But it's all principle based. It's all logical. It makes sense. Right? And I see Blake over there be like God down. preach, preach.

  Blake 31:55

  I think I think these are these may sound like small things to people who aren't familiar with jujitsu community, right? But just do the martial art that's rooted in tradition. And that tradition in America, and in other countries, is, is that idea that one person here has more knowledge and deserves more respect than everybody else, and we're paying them for their time and kind of were their their humble their servants. And in some people's lives, that's a really, they love that relationship, right? There's some students love coming to the master and kissing the mat and all that stuff. That's a small niche, the broad majority of people, they want to learn this martial art, they want to, they want to have a great experience. And something as simple as no bullshit warmups. It sounds crazy. But it's like, I'm personally a fan of bullshit warm ups, I've done you know, 10 years of them, I whatever, but I really like practical warm ups as well. But the concept behind it that you say like, Hey, you're coming here to pay for the best level of instruction, I'm not going to give you, you know, a student who's still on the path, like, I'm not gonna waste your time, because I want to do something else for 15 minutes, while you you know, break a sweat before you get that that really that 15 minutes of my knowledge that I'm going to give you this class like that, just conceptually, that is such a different approach from a jujitsu Academy. Giving your students as much respect as you're asking them to give you in a way. That's huge. Let's

  Hector 33:35

  take this for example, metrics, right? You train four days out of the week, your wife lets you train for days, four hours out of the week, okay? Now, for those hours, you have bullshit 15 minute warmup. Okay? Now, you've only really trained for days for 45 minutes. Okay, at the end of the week, if I use all those 30 minutes correctly, and actually taught seminar style, where you get on the mat, I teach you techniques, being knowledge transfer that you didn't already know, I teach you in a manner like if you were having a private lesson, and I transfer my knowledge to you, at the end of the week, you will have one extra hour of training. And you compound out week after week, after week after week after month after year. Can't touch me.

  Blake 34:21

  Yeah, no, I mean, it's it makes so much sense. It's just a it requires a not only an energy shift, but a culture shift. Right like it's a it's a cultural approach, which is a big risk was not a risk for you because you know it's going to work but it's a risk. Maybe other academies fail because like you said they're not mirroring what they have seen culturally throughout their whole experience of jiu jitsu in order to have success. The other thing I want to mention that is interesting about your approach is like in tech we have something and you know, this and i i work adjacent to tech I'm not really in tech like and Drew was in tech and like his circle is, but you have something called like a founder CEO syndrome, right? Where the founder has made, had been successful by having big bold ideas and taking huge risks. And all of the things that led them to be successful as a founder of a business actually start to work against them as the CEO of a business, right, like not listening to other rational ideas, or not asking other people for input or trusting their instincts. When the data says something that's counterintuitive. And I think most people run academies from a founder CEO. perspective, right? They've had a lot of success in jujitsu, they've been maybe a high level competitor, or they run Academy and Academy successfully. And then they hit their their level, like they hit the ceiling. And they're like, Well, this is it, this is how much I'm gonna make, I'm gonna have 100 students, I'm gonna charge them 170 bucks a month. And that's it. That's my cat. That's what I can do. Because I'm not willing to think that maybe I'm doing this in a way that can be both better for my students better for me economically, like it is. Like the fact, it's so hard to express how groundbreaking it is to like, for people like you to be looking at the business model, instead of just looking at like, looking at it as a cultural relic, if that makes sense. Right? So give us context if somebody outside, you know, because it's right, what you're talking about is really interesting.

  Hector 36:25

  So it's more horsepower is what it is. It's what it is, it's more horsepower, I get to give you a better experience to scale to be a better practitioner faster, because we're you're we're using time more effectively times our resource. Okay, so every minute and that why do the classes start right on time? Every minute, if I have 30 people in a class, and I waste two minutes, right, I just wasted an hour worth the time. Everybody's time together is valuable. You understand? So every minute times 30 people is 30 minutes, two minutes wasted, bullshitting around, not being effective is an hour wasted. So I times my minute, I actually had a formula I used to do that our other Academy, we took a 1200 square foot Academy out our old location at our first location. And people probably think online, honest to God, truth. And God, we got up to 285 students at that location. 285 students out of a 1200 square foot location running 12 classes a day. Why? Because I said okay, well, I have 603 Five square feet of mat space. Okay, so the way I can maximize that mat is by operating more hours and running classes right on time. Okay, good. So now I do my formula was serviceable mat hours times mat space. So then I ended up with a with a number that gave me more mad space than the schools that had a 5000 square foot facility because they were offering three primetime classes a day, and then not service the more hours. So I have more math space than they did. So it just about what are you doing? What are you doing with your resources, time? And space is a resource, right? So it's just what do you do with it?

  Andrew 38:05

  Yeah, I think and something that I'm thinking about right now, that has come into sharper focus. For me, the past four years that I've been doing this podcast, is the idea that people who achieve a level of high performance in any discipline, when people on the outside are who aspire to a higher level of performance, in their own life, or in their own profession, they often look at someone who's extremely high achieving. And they say, I need to do it the way that person is doing it. And when people do that, for example, if someone were to say, I want to be like Elon Musk, I'm not sure who that person would be in the world right now. But there might be someone to go try to do what someone else has done to achieve the success that they have done is generally not a great idea. And I think that that's actually counterintuitive to people. Because Hector, I think this is a really good example that over time, what you have done is you have observed a traditional model, you've found ways to disrupt it that you have found to be highly effective. And they're working for you right now. And someone listening to this might say, there's something that I can apply to what I'm doing, I would say the thing that could apply is a systems level approach to solving problems, and that they might actually think of something even better that they could add to the formula that you've developed. I think the mistake would would be to say this is a static thing, and I need to do the static thing. There might be something in the static thing, but there also might be something where someone has a unique idea that could improve it further. And I think that's what you have done. Sounds like

  Hector 39:51

  and that's the idea. That's idea. It's like okay, this is good, and I just I just steal this. We're constantly having this conversation as I go. Okay, we could do better We can do better. And it's always that it's how do we do better, we can do better, we can do better. Following up with, with our students giving them what I call, like, putting hands on shoulders approach to more like, are you doing? Like, like, is everything good? How's your training like that can make a real difference for some people, you know? And it's really, and it's not that we don't want to do it. It's just like, What, uh, you have so many things in your head between trying to teach and be effective. And then it's just like, oh, yeah, that that communication, I'm not just like a, like jujitsu robot or so you know, whatever, fill in the blank, whatever it is, you provide whatever service whatever way, everybody at the end of the day, and one of the one of the core principles I believe in and I heard, I'm not sure if it was a mark Rubio say was, you help enough people get what they want? And you could get yourself whatever you want. It was something along the lines. I was like, oh, yeah, I just have to help. You know, people just need to help enough people. And that could feed my kids be my family, you know, and do what I want to do go on to, on a mountain biking trip, like do all these things while like, everything's like the school is running, and I just went on there. And that's the thing, right? Like being a father, being a business owner doing all this? Wherever I'm at, how do I be 100% present to be 100% effective, and then scale that through my team? Because your wife's the team, right? Everybody around you as a team. So how do we scale that? And how do we make it to where Okay, what do you need when I'm here? Okay. All right, give you all give you everything that I have. While I'm there? I guess like you brought up Elon Musk, right? How does Elon Musk do what he did? wherever he's at? I'm sure he's 100% validated. That's the only way to do it. 100%, focus dialed in, be present, be there. And then you shift yours. That's like the thing, right? Like, I guess like, you know, to kind of, you know, the question that you asked Alberto crane about me, Blake is like, how do I do so much. And I don't feel like I'm doing nearly enough. I just told my wife. The other day laying in bed, I was sitting up, I couldn't see. She's like, what's wrong when she's sleeping, and like, there's not like you and I'm just sitting up, I always do this, I always reflect that that year, I go, I've done a lot. But I could have done more.

  Blake 42:25

  Bach, Buck, and that

  Hector 42:28

  hurts me it like that, like that I leave anything on the table, I could have competed more tournament, I could raise more race, and I fucked up, I didn't sign up for the Tahoe 100 and time they close registration. And they'd like, God, it's always something we could have maybe scaled out to a different market, we could have, we could have done something better I could, you could always do more, you could always do better, you could always do more. So that's that's the idea.

  Andrew 42:53

  The Tahoe 100 is just riding around in a giant dust cloud. You don't you don't need to do that.

  Blake 43:00

  On it, dude. It's okay,

  Hector 43:01

  I've got it. I've done it a couple of years.

  Andrew 43:04

  At least I could do better. We're here to affirm that you can do better things with your time that are more challenging that would bring you into a higher state of consciousness. But I feel you. I wanted to ask your question about that topic of presence. Again, this is this is what I've been thinking about a lot lately. People talk all the time about how the most precious resource you have is your time. I would say it's actually time times presidents because what most of us do, even when we have time, with loved ones, with our children with other people we care about. I know at least for me, I'm often I'm actually time traveling, I'm thinking about shit, what's this thing coming in the future? Am I prepared? Do I have enough money is this strategy going to work out or traveling back in time to Should I have made a different decision or having regret or whatever to actually be truly focused and present in the moment is, it's a, it's a high aspiration, and it's a great aspiration, and it can be really difficult to achieve. And both of you guys, you know, you're practitioners of jujitsu, and you also are cyclists. I'm a cyclist as well. Part of what I love about having, you know, we'll call it a movement practice, if we just want to abstract it away from the activities themselves, is that there's something about having that or two minutes with your body, especially when you're doing something that feels physically hard. That does bring you into the present moment, or at least that's what I feel. And it also can be seductive, and it can become its own addiction. And if you spent too much time chasing that and not cultivating that in other areas of your life, then you might have challenges with presence. How do you guys think about achieving presence? The way you do it through movement, and then how do you bring it into the rest of your life? Like Blake's got it figured out. We've seen his heart on the tick tock.

  Hector 44:59

  I haven't really That ADH actually, the H and ADHD is actually stands for Hector. So

  Blake 45:08

  that is something I struggle with like, this is you you talking about it even Andrew is like, like rubbing salt in a wound for me. It's something I tell people about like the first few years of parenthood. The lesson, you know, the lessons that your kids teach you is they just demand a presence from you. So that's one thing about like, having a screaming toddler in front of you, you can't think about anything else, you know, or like having a screaming infant in your hands. It's, it's this, it just demands such a presence from you, that actually up until fatherhood, I hadn't, I really had only experienced, and it feels so bad saying this to past employers, but like I didn't, I don't think I have that same presence other than being on a bike or being you know, smashed by like a 250 pound black belt, where, you know, those are moments in your life where you just, you have to be absolutely present. Because the moment demands of you. I, you know, anecdotally there are things I can tell you, I have this, I have a very vivid memory of that 250 pound blackbelt. And I often think about that moment, I think about the texture of their GI I think about the amount of pressure they put on my body. And when I'm in a moment where I'm sort of disassociating I tap into the presence that I needed in that moment, right, I think about like, wow, like, all all you had in that moment were like those, this really visceral, intense thing. How can how am I experiencing my, my present moment like that, right? So if I'm sitting in a meeting on a zoom call, and I'm tuning out, which is funny, because it's like, I'm also sort of disassociating having this memory, but I think about like, Okay, think about the presence that that moment demanded, and trying to bring that into wherever I am. I'm not great at it. This is something I find to be really challenging, which is why I think I'm drawn to these, these sports, because they they bring it out of me in a way that reminds me almost that I'm still capable of that. And I think that's a lot of why jujitsu is so popular, particularly for men in their 30s, who are living lives that are mostly checked out, you know, who are just going through the motions that their job or just barely showing up for their families. Like, that's why it's such an appealing sport for these people because it reminds them that they can be present in a way that they haven't forced themselves to be in a really long time. I think that's why it's really appealing for me. A lot of times.

  Hector 47:39

  Hector, how about you? Yeah, and say this a presence is a thing that I think most creative type people struggle with. And it's always it's always you got that little, that little demon in your head, like, like, oh, think about this or think about that. And it's, that's one thing I struggle with a lot with too. And, and my wife so he's like, I'm talking to my wife and then she starts she does it like in an incident where she recognizes that like dead I give her where I'm looking at her but I'm looking through her. And she's like, Oh, I just lost them. And she knows and now I wonder Do other people recognize it because she calls me out on my bullshit. She called me out when like I'm I disappear and I'll disappear on it in an instant I'll just disappear and like and then she's like, oh, like I'm thinking about that technique I'm gonna teach tonight or that move like it one thing about about what I do it is it requires so much creativity and so much expression or it required all year round like that random access memory right? You're you're utilizing all your resources when you're thinking about the about the context of the move you're putting yourself in position I'm sure you guys trained jiu jitsu you know this you sit there you'll veg about a move or a technique or thing that you're doing to put yourself in that requires so much mental resources that you literally almost shut down God forbid you're driving but I know it happens driving to you know, where you start thinking about techniques jujitsu or the position you're in, and you're gone. And I'm just like, I struggle with that a lot because my wife notices my my daughter notices me check out and it's difficult it's difficult I mean, I besides that there's also technology there's also your phone in your hand and and trying to mitigate that as much as possible like I even my tic tock account for academy that I was trying to grow I'm trying to farm that out to other people to start running with that don't want to see it because the algorithm gets you like they just like start showing you show that's gonna keep you on there looking at it and distracting you getting getting you know in the Add xonex You know, you've lost an hour or two that you lost another hour to Instagram, he lost another hour to YouTube, he's the boss another, all these different platforms got man Twitter, everything you're on Facebook, all of it is using your resources, you know, and then makes it worse for for. And then that kills your creativity too. You know, so it's all like it's a it's a it's a difficult thing for, for being present and that that presents with with with trying to be effective from a father perspective or from a business perspective from a brand perspective. You know, even puking ordering at a restaurant, when you're not present is takes more time than it needs to prior frustrates the hell out of waiters, you know. But yeah, I'm I'm, that's one of those places where if we're doing like self reflection, I'll give myself like, a four minutes on a passing grade.

  Andrew 50:56

  After you've described with your jujitsu, like your practice of jujitsu with what you do with cycling with what you've done with your business, you have this expansive way of thinking and to move to new levels or to introduce new vectors of possibility. Do you make space in your life just to think about amplifying the possibility of what you can do? Or or to think big? Or does stuff just kind of come to you and bits and pieces and you put it together over time?

  Hector 51:25

  Yeah, I definitely tried to declutter, like, I don't do coffee meetings with people. I don't do like the little chit chats like people hit me up for like, for, Hey, can I pick your brain stuff? Like I'm like, fuck you. I'm good. Like, I'm like, I just take away all the clutter. Because it's like, for me, like, even for instance, I don't give private lessons to anybody. I do not do private lesson, because it's not scalable. What am I going to do give five lessons a week. So how's that going? How's that gonna move the needle, you know, I need to focus on scaling something that helps a lot more people, I, I empower other people want to help more people. So that's like, the whole thing like today, today between our two locations, but 2016 classes will be taught like, I'm only, you know, there's only your time is finite. So there's only so many classes, so many people you can teach and still have energy for, for other people, you know, so it's more about, for me, it's about freeing up time, the more I could free up time, the more I could free up that RAM. That's where I want to be, that's where now the vacuum will allow for more creative ideas or opportunity to take root because the most thing about it, you could, you could have the most amazing business opportunity, like whatever opportunity pop up right in front of you. And then you might be like, ah, you know, but I don't have the time today. That goes up, you know, so I'm free right now. I don't really, you know, I don't have a whole lot of obligations i, i i took away a lot of the things that that like, I don't work for money, for instance, I don't I refuse principles, the I refuse to work for money, I do not work for money. That's, that's something I don't do. I only work for equity, I only work for something that is scalable, I only work for things that I really believe in, I will volunteer my time, I will do whatever it is. But when you start working for money, for instance, then it's just like that, then you end up then you end up in a place where you're just there's a there's a there's a cap, you know where it's like, even if you're a lawyer and you get paid like $500 a day, it's never enough. Whatever the money is, it's never enough whatever you get paid. It's never enough your your living expenses, your everything just goes up. So it's like one thing is just like what I really want to do what I want to do myself freed up or I want to beat myself up for the things that I am passionate about, I believe in and and that being being a dad is really important. So I don't work on Sundays. That's a principal thing I refuse. I grew up in a family that my parents worked seven days a week. And that was really tough. So I'm not going to work Sundays. That's like my thing. That's my thing. So it just certain things. What, where's the line in the sand? What are you going to do? What do you what's important to you and and try to build your life around that?

  Blake 54:34

  Yeah, I mean, the idea. I mean, it's a small thing, but like, not teaching privates. Like giving that context. So most Academy owners in any kind of gimmick that's their bread and butter, right? That's what they're that's where they're making their margins. After they have they have to pay everybody at their academy. They teach their classes and they're like, cool. Now my fun money is these privates and I'm going to teach right and And then it becomes this question of, it's just your your only as you're not a scalable resource, your finite resource. So how many privates Can you teach? And that's your cap. And also, like, the idea that you don't teach private, also doesn't mean that you're competing with the other instructors at your academy who are your employees, right? So you're allowing them the opportunity to gain that relationship to make that extra money to help them build their business. While you're also freeing yourself up, I mean, it's, again, it's a small thing, but it's a pretty, it's a pretty kind of, you know, revolutionary idea. And it's also means that when you give somebody your time, you really mean it, because you're not charging them for it. Right? You could take privates all day and just take put just cash in your pocket. But a lot of gym instructors do. But the idea that, like when you, you know, I think use brands explained that the Shoulder Touch, like when you're giving somebody that time, you're not, you know, that's not getting charged extra for that time, that's your exchange that you're having with them, which makes it that much more powerful, which then promote the culture that you're trying to create the gym, which, you know, there is a disruptive sort of culture in the broader, like World of jujitsu. That's a really cool, small anecdote that has like, a much bigger, I think, it amplifies much bigger than just the thing itself.

  Andrew 56:23

  So what, sorry?

  Hector 56:25

  Yeah, no, I was gonna say there's, there's a, there's a real thing to that, right. Because you cannot buy my time. You can't, nobody can buy my time, my time is something I give, I give, where I think I'm gonna have the most impact and where I think it's the most deserved where I think it's the most, you know, helpful. So it's like when I'm when I gain my time for the kids. So when I'm wherever I'm at the parent that I'm, that I'm talking to whatever it is, other days, I spent two days ago, I spent two hours talking to parents just on the phone, some stuff was going on. And I want to see how I could help them hash some things out and, and I just give my time, you know, but it's like, the when, when you're when you're charging someone for time, right? Like I like what, you actually hit it on the head because I tell my black belt instructor I say, hey, you know what? I don't you know, I don't give privates you have free rein, you're the only black belt instructor really hear giving private lessons, you know, have at it, I wish you make a ton of money and help a ton of people. And that's like, that's the thing. It's it. It really, when when you start really trying to focus on the private lesson model, it takes away from your ability to really focus and my thing is that no matter how much money you have, if you're a member of my academy, you will get the best of me, you get exactly the richest person at my school will get just as much as the most impoverished person at my school, it doesn't matter. It does not matter at all. I will give you my best and all my instructors should be giving you their best, regardless of the extra money that you throw at them. That's just how it has to be.

  Andrew 58:15

  Everyone gets that everyone gets that Rolls Royce Ashton Kutcher level treatment.

  Hector 58:22

  That's the idea. That's the idea. Yeah, I'm

  Andrew 58:24

  making a joke but

  Blake 58:26

  I just like just to put a pin on what Hector was saying like last week two weeks ago he competed at the highest level that is available for him to compete at you know NoGi World Champions master we master to master three master Yeah, competed at the highest level that is available for us to compete at in no ghee at black belt level. Got a bronze medal. After a full day of competition, a bronze medal is really freaking hard to get in a jujitsu tournament at that scale. And that night you went and taught a class

  Hector 59:02

  I already had a cover to I still paid the I still paid the instructor I just showed up and I my duty to be there and give myself

  Blake 59:10

  and like you're not getting paid for that dude. Like that's because you care and that's such a that's that's a profound example of the principle that you're describing in my opinion is such a cool thing.

  Hector 59:28

  Yeah, thank you. Yeah, one thing man it's fucking I lost in that in semifinal match by advantages of you know, Jujitsu advantages are like criteria they're not going to point someone didn't score a point on me I think all year out about my competition to show you where how tight things are at the black belt level. Out of all my competitions this year, I have only lost matches two advantages or referee decisions. I'm not that I recall how to one person score a point on me this whole year. It's just everything's like So close when you're dealing with high level black belts, people aren't making mistakes. You know, everything is you got to fight really hard for everything.

  Andrew 1:00:11

  Guys, we haven't talked much, or at all about art and I know art is an interest of like that all three of us have. And I just feel like we need to dig in on it a little bit. So what how does art fit into this whole equation?

  Hector 1:00:27

  Jesus Christ here we go I'm a artists martial artist, the way I like to think about myself i i started off most of my my creative endeavors from like the artists perspective, I like I have an easel up here on the wall. I'm actually like, I'm in my office. But it was like when I moved in here, like more like dedicated art room with like, acrylics, and all sorts of brushes over here, and stuff like that. But I, I started off as like, growing up, I really liked to draw and I got into art classes in high school and at a certain point, even submitted my art into a big art competition and won a summer scholarship program to Otis College of Art and Design. in Westchester. I'll buy all the acts and and that was a very, very, very important part of my life. And something I want to get back to something I have not prioritized because it's this weird thing where jujitsu occupies all the expressive creativity in my like, in my brain pretty much. But, but it's very important to be expressive to be creative. And yeah, I noticed that with Blake to Blake's, like, like such a communicator, like when you see his storyline on Instagram, like your storytelling is phenomenal Dude, your storytelling is like, is really inspiring to see because you take something so like, you can take the most mundane story and turn it into this very colorful and textured, you bring people through the experience with the you know, and, and. And that's something that that I just completely love. Art is very, very upbeat, and expressive is very, very, very important. It's one of the, it's one of the things right, that really make like a first rolled society, you know, it's like art distinguishes like, all the all the most, like, important cultures in history. It's like, that's one of the themes, right? That defines it. It's it's art and interpretation of the of the era, you know, so it's, I'm a, I'm an artist. That's where I like to think about myself.

  Blake 1:02:57

  Actually, I really appreciate that, by the way, a huge compliment. And thank you so much. But I'm curious like, Okay, so with the time equation that you mentioned before, this is something that I know Andrew and I both struggle with, it's artists super important, it's a defining characteristic of who you are. It's not always monetizable it doesn't always be the equation and grow the business and stuff. So how do you make time and space in your in your life, if it's just to play music, if it's to make a sketch, or whatever it is to do that piece of art that's just kind of for the love of the game because you need to nourish that part of yourself. How do you how do you make space for that

  Hector 1:03:41

  just blend it in with the business blend it in with the lifestyle blended and I picked up my acoustic guitar yesterday walked around the backyard while I was spending time with the with a family and just started strumming annoying the neighbors and just start squeezing it in wherever I can in my living room. I bought a harbinger eight channel mixer and a parts PA speaker and it's set up for karaoke on the dime come over and want to experience and we'll play music I bought a keyboard and it's there so I put everything I put everything around me so everything by the way, I was hoping this would come up but yeah, but but but basically my life. My life I set it up to where you walked in, you walk into my house, this is what you walk into the bow trans. You walk in, we have instruments we have the keyboard. We have some fun over here. The PA system the guitar the ukulele it's all there you have you cannot walk by your tools for being creative and expressive without feeling like like an asshole, you know for not touching them. You know, so it'll take, like I set up, I set up my life, everything. So it's like, it's there. This is the workspace. This is the, that's the whole thing, right? Like, what's your workstation, you know, so you come into your office or you come into whatever your domain is. And it should be set up so that you could get a work, you could do that thing. You could play a game with your kids, you could you could do whatever the, the principle is that you want to build your life around, you know, I got, I haven't touched this since I moved in here. But I got like, my, my, like paints and all my stuff over here, like everything set out what I want to do, I just want to put that in my garage, my drum sets in there. And my, like, all my bikes, my, my hoard of bikes in there, and it's just everything is about efficiency. Everything's about building everything. That's idea. That's the cast the vision, what do I want to do? How do I want to do it, I work by minutes, my academy is five minutes in this direction, my other categories, five minutes in that direction. Everything's efficient, taking out commutes, taking out things that are taken out all the shit that the bullshit warmup in life, you know, all the little things I like, I'm not the car copies, or everything's like, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, you know, like that, that allows you to just have that extra hour that can make the difference to be creative. I mean, that being said, still, social media could eat up all your time, as well to even be really productive. Like, you can video at it, like I did on my own videos for for our media. And that takes up a lot of time. You know, so it's just, it's just you got to be very, I mean, I imagine the work you put into for this podcast, you know, people have no concept, the work that goes into producing podcasts and every little thing, everything when you make Sunday look easy. It's the worst, because then people think, Oh, that was easy, you know, but they have no concept of all the work that goes into it. So it's just about being efficient and, and just putting everything in a accessible manner so that I could play my guitars and have fun.

  Andrew 1:07:22

  So you've got first order access to everything is just there, it's ready to go. You make sure it's all queued up. So that's as simple as

  Hector 1:07:29

  possible on a cube union. I almost picked up my computer, I want to give you a tour of the living room where I have my my Wahoo kicker in front of the TV. Oh, nice. I could train I could train and watch a movie with my kids. Like, we're watching a Disney movie while we're watching whatever. And I'm like just cranking out a training session. You know, that's like that's the whole thing. Everything's how do i Two birds with one stone ideal? You know everything right? Two birds with one stone and, and we're money like, everything that I could do. And I'm doing it in that manner. Outside. Yeah. Vacations are always around mountain biking or jujitsu.

  Blake 1:08:08

  Oh, man. That's uh, you struck a nerve with Andrew drag his wife out to the first year we did unbound gravel. For two years he did it. His wife was our, our support. So she was like our neutral support. She's driving out into the middle of the plains and impure Kansas, like holding water bottles waiting for us to come by. They lost no cell phone reception. So we both put our families through

  Andrew 1:08:40

  quite a bit, not to spend a nice night in, like $50 hotel room with Blake and I as well, I'd get up at four in the morning, which I'm sure was awesome. While we were really nervous and about to go race for six hours.

  Hector 1:08:53

  Well, making her part of the process is important, making her part of the process making like their nothing, it's worse, I think I leave my wife at home. She's like, she rather be there doing something being a part of it. And it changes the whole experience. You know, if you can sometimes more expensive, sometimes more logistics to it. It's sometimes you just can't, you know, but but I think I think that there's a powerful component to that as well. Hector,

  Andrew 1:09:23

  how does the bike fit into the overall it's just blowing my mind that there's also bike racing going on in the mix of things that you're describing? I actually I'm wondering if we're living in a simulation and there are two of you. So how does bike? Yeah, how does bike racing fit into everything and and how did you get into that?

  Hector 1:09:42

  So I I used to, I used to like trail running, I got in a chair. I'll take you from the Genesis. I like trail running, I was doing that and then I would see these people whizzing by and I was like wow, that's cool. That's really cool but seems dangerous and I And then I hurt my knees. I was toe running. And I didn't know what was happening. I couldn't run anymore. I could barely walk. I was I was every time I would go hiking and like after three miles, I'll just my knees were shot. And then I was like, well, maybe and this was in like 2006 or 2000. Yeah, like 2006 I looked into buying a bike, I got a really good deal on on a track fuel e x nine, it was a good deal. And, and then I just started riding bikes by myself. I didn't know anybody that rode bikes, I didn't know at all what I was doing. The seat was all the way down like a BMX bike, like I had no concept of anything. And I was just going through the motions of just like, I'll get out there and having a blast. You know, I'm eating crap every time I'm riding, but I'm having a lot of fun. And I love being in nature. So I'm meeting some people. And then they're like, Oh, you right? Yeah, I could tell ya. How can you tell you like, Oh, your your legs are all scratched up? And I'm like, Oh, yeah. Like always eating shit. I was always like, scratched up on my arms and like all the time. And I took that like saying like, if you're not leaving skin, you're not riding way too seriously. You're not on the wrong bike. So just a navy that and I saw Ryan once the people they introduced me just like riding better trail riding better. And then it always became like, just like from riding the community just kind of saying we like jujitsu or whatever else you do. The communities are presenting itself and started meeting different people that would encourage me to ride better places or get into different things. And then it wasn't until 2013 where I met a gentleman at a at a bike race I was doing on Catalina Island and then Mark Addy and I met them on the on the boat ride over to the island and super cool guy we ended up just exchanging information. And and then he started inviting me to do the Canada Cup Series up in Big Bear and I started racing big bear that year. By the end of that year, I was the first year I attended the Tahoe 100 And I was like dude, I'm not prepared for any of this on my rides are like Max 12 miles. And that was like a 63 mile race and Tahoe and I just started always doing more and more and then I got addicted. And then I was like, Oh, how can I like, be faster. So then I got a hardtail bike and then I got like a nine or nine RDL and always just started getting more and more into it. And now I think I've been racing now about eight years, eight years and to bring it to where I'm at now I primarily I raised cat two except for last season at the end of the at the end of the season. I did one rim Nordic race that's over by like snow Valley in Southern California and I raced cat one and small little small little division but I took first and that was the day after I raced Wah I know you race or write it but the taco No, not the thought that the big bear the toward the Big Bear, which is a 100 mile road ride. Like, like starting off in the in the Big Bear Village going like going down to snow Valley climbing back up going around of city and going back. Like it's a huge massive day, eight days on the bike right? Eight days on the bike. The next day I showed up to race this cross country racing, I ended up signing a cat one because I'm just like, why not, you know, what's the worst that could happen? And, and my leg just woke up. And it was just like, and that's like one of the things right? Like the you know, you don't know what you're capable of. You don't know what you're capable of. And it's just like, alright, well, I guess I have a great days. You know, I have tons of bass right now. So I'm just like, so I started off the race. And then motherfucker just took off and I'm like, Yeah, I'm just gonna chill. One minute, a Chilean, and I was like bollock that. And then I started just chasing these guys. And it's just like, I guess some people are just wired this way, right? It's like, fuck that. And I just started giving chase and started racing. You just start getting him and about racing mode. And it's like, alright, well, let's go you know, and it was a good day and get conditions and and so that was like my first ever because I never got even cat to racing all these years. All these years. I've been racing cat to for a very long time. I've never got a first place. I've never been top of the podium. It's fucking crazy. It's just there's so many sandbaggers. And I'm just gonna call it you know what it is? These guys I literally called out the organizer of the race. There's this one race last year at Temecula. Where the cat Two guys in my division or an exact same course exact same distance exact same everything as a cat one guys, they were doing the exact same last exact same everything. There are two minutes faster the first third guy the third place guy and my cat two division was faster by two minutes and the cat one guy in the first place cat one guy, it's an automatic upgrade. It should be but they don't it should

  Andrew 1:15:28

  promotor a call that's an automatic upgrade. That's that kind of sandbagging can't be tolerated. community needs to enforce this.

  Hector 1:15:35

  They should they should I talked to guys and they go like, Oh, yeah, and it's like, typically it's a different like, it's you know, like cat one does a couple extra miles, you know. So typically, it's it's hard to distinguish exactly what's going on, but lap per lap, everything same course. And that was one of those where I just said, you know, I think it's easier to raise cat one. And it is I swear to God, as are the guys that are just never going to move from cat two. And whatever. I'm just done with that. Now I'm just gonna raise cat one and I don't care if I ever podium again. I'm just like, done with like, with third places. You know, but um, but yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at now and I'm just enjoying riding I'm not built for it. I weigh 185 pounds. You know now I finally have a race bike. I bought the cannondale scalpel last year, I'm all in you know, I'm on a I'm on a rocket. It just up to me whether I suck or not, you know, and it is it just, you know, while I'm while I'm trying to train and do everything I'm trying to cram in eight or nine hours a week, you know, for on my on my wall. Kicker just so I had the I had the base to to do it. Right, you know, and then racing on the weekend. Yeah.

  Andrew 1:16:56

  It's a lot. That's incredible. Hector, I'm actually the thing I'm thinking about right now is that I have my, my window of Swift time, and I'm thinking about how am I going to squeeze it in today. So here's where I am, I'm in, I'm in Maine, and there's, there's snow on the ground outside. So that's gonna be that's gonna be my big opportunity to sweat today. So that's definitely on my mind, too. So across the board,

  Hector 1:17:18

  you gotta get it you gotta get after it. Just like, once you sit when when you set up the routine falling out of the routine is, is the devil, you just have to be like, Alright, today I'm writing. This is a time I write and, and, and, you know, how long do you ride for a train for? Usually about an hour? Yeah, that's good. See, the problem is the thing that gets up in my head and then screws me up the most one that's like, endurance time of the season. Right? And it's like, man, it's just like being on a trainer for three hours. Three hours plus, like, it just that's the way to do endurance, you know, you got to have tons and tons of base, tons of base and it just like it just so grueling, because there's the only way to do those big efforts. I mean, I don't know, I You told me you're I'm not the expert here. Yeah, I'm a white belt here.

  Andrew 1:18:08

  I mean, I would say I'm never sitting on a trainer for three hours. And if I lived in Southern California, I don't know if I'd ever sit on a trainer. Having said that, if I had to I would just split it up into small rides. And then I would I would not do more than an hour at a time throughout the day probably is you get the same training. In fact, you're just getting the dose over three sessions versus one session. So okay, yeah, I think that's the that's what I would do or I would find some way to get an add on the weekend. Maybe free for you. Maybe on Sunday. Yeah, one big day on the weekend. Yeah, I probably just something like that. And then during the week, you could probably do your intensity. I mean, if you're Blake, you're just what? What's going on now Blake, you're getting on the peloton. Like what happens?

  Blake 1:18:56

  Like, dude, I don't I don't ride for more than an hour on. Never dude, it's just crushes my

  Hector 1:19:02

  soul. It does, right. Yeah, it does.

  Blake 1:19:05

  And there are people that do it. And there are people that are you know, obviously, their programs built around that kind of stuff. I just can't man. I have only ride. If I'm writing for more than an hour. It's got to be outside. But yeah, that mean nothing beats the efficiency of the trainer right when we're talking about you know, your time by by the hour. And on top of that, you know, also terms getting fit like nothing, nothing gets you fit like racing, which I haven't done in a couple of years now. So I should probably I don't know that I'm the one to talk about how to train for bike races right now.

  Andrew 1:19:38

  Oh, Blake, I think every ride is kind of a bike race for you. Actually. I've had to review bikes with Blake. No, not yet.

  Blake 1:19:49

  chance with Hector. They're

  Andrew 1:19:52

  like Blake, did you happen to catch my Instagram story earlier in the week with a video of Swift? Yeah. Alright, did you know that Did it was directed at you?

  Blake 1:20:01

  I 100% If you didn't notice, I texted you immediately after respond to a text and then I watched your grand story. I was like, shit. He's gonna know I watched the story I get what was that video?

  Andrew 1:20:12

  We're getting like deep inside baseball here if anyone ever has the chance to ride with with Blake in fact, I know Blake's now doing a group ride a couple of times a week with over more than 100 people on it over at Griffith Park. Blake, I hope I hope you share this with the group. Blake's big move is he likes to chew bubble gum while he rides and he'll like blow bubbles on climbs. Yeah, while he's while he's Yeah, sure. Because Blake also i Hector, I don't know where you're at with hydration, science supports stay hydrated and consume carbohydrates when you're riding a bike. And we're all sciency Yeah, but Blake Blake likes to stay dry. And he likes to chew gum. And his big move when he's passing people is to say looking strong button. So like whoever is writing Oh my God, you

  Hector 1:21:16

  look, it's not like he's trying to keep playing. That's the kind of shit that box box. You can even see me foaming at the mouth right now. Because I'm just like, oh, oh, I'll turn like the little subtle thing. Like, like, the little subtle things sometimes. And I'll just be like, That guy, like, I'm gonna get that guy. I'm gonna get that guy. And it'll just be me, me and Blake, and I'll be like, Hey, dude, you're looking pretty, pretty strong right now too. But all right.

  Blake 1:21:50

  You know, I like people. And sometimes that support is not received as support, you know? Yeah.

  Andrew 1:21:59

  That's great. I appreciate your reframe. So anyway, Hector, I just took a video of myself on Swift. And I did a voiceover where my character was just saying, looking strong. But everybody that passed me says I was going super slow. And I only I only put it up on Instagram, because I knew that Blake consumes all content that's published on Instagram, and he would definitely see it. And I hope that I hope that I'm in Maine, he's in LA. I love like, I really miss getting to train with them. But I hope that it would make him laugh. And I think that I accomplished my mission.

  Blake 1:22:34

  Accomplished. Yeah.

  Hector 1:22:35

  Do you say that when you're passing them? Or do you say that when they're passing you?

  Blake 1:22:40

  So you know the context. Andrew heard that originally was me passing him.

  Hector 1:22:50

  Nice, nice.

  Andrew 1:22:53

  Guy, everything he knows about riding a bike? I don't know.

  Blake 1:22:57

  Many years that never happened. So

  Hector 1:23:03

  I'm gonna use that tactic this year. Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. It's a strong. Yeah,

  Andrew 1:23:11

  I haven't raced in a while. But another tactic I like to use. And also, I just thought it would be more funny. When I made the video I was I was writing like 100 watts. And I was just like, these people were flying by me on Swift. So I just thought it'd be a funny funny way to reach out to Blake and, and troll him a little bit. But the other thing I like to do, I haven't raced in a minute. But particularly in mountain bike races, where you often will have like, you've got like the long climb and you have, you've got a visual, right? Like you can see your competitor in front of you. So if somebody's dropped me and run a long climb, I'll just like start yelling like, whoa, like, whatever. Because if they hear you doing that, they're like, oh my god, that because once they pass you, they think that they've got you. But you've got to find a way to just get inside their head. And like, if you can, like plant that fear, uncertainty and doubt, then you're imposing your will and eventually you will destroy them. Not that that's what bike racing is about. But it

  Hector 1:24:07

  kind of ah, you know, I've raced many years now and one of my coaches that told me one time something that did resonate, and I used to race very nice. And now that I'm being a dick, and most of this just internal thought, right? So you know, yeah, those fuck those guys. I said, yeah, yeah, he's right. He's right. He's right. I'm not out there do any favors. I'm like, my goal. Your goal is like if your goal is a podium, you're like, not that don't raise 30 Don't do anything. But you don't need you don't need to be like oh sure, right this way. Go ahead. Here's the easy path. No, like you're racing is racing, racing racing. And you know amateur even like it man. If you're like if you're, if you're putting in nine to 10 hours a week. training on top of life on top of everything on top of the kids, you know, we're talking about, like, you know, you're not, you know, racing like, you know, expert or anything like that you're in the data field, you're in the like, I have, like, kids field and stuff like that, right? You're racing with other guys like you, you know, it's still like, you know, let's make this competitive. You know, let's make this comment. I'm not you know, trying to choke you. I'm not trying to break your arm. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just trying to finish before you, you know, let's do this claim. But like, in my in my head, like I at a certain point how to how to flip that switch. And to really like focus on being that competitor, I really, I really compete when I bring in that's like part of that like bringing the top the top back to presence. I used to ride my purse, I racing I used to ride. I didn't race. I was riding. And I realized that and even some days, you might not have it in you. And you go like, Oh, this is a ride. I'm writing right now. I'm not racing. When you race, everything when you're putting everything on the line when you're when you're rationing water bottles when you're rationing ounces when you're rationing goo and you're rationing everything when you're rationing how hot you're going to come in to turns how much you're going to be on the brakes how much not what you're willing to risk when everything everything like you're racing on a eras you know, cat to race or whatever that's an hour and a half effort where you can't make a mistake. You have to be so perfect in jujitsu you didn't have to have a five minute perfect match. In racing even cat two with these fucking guys like, hour and a half. You can't make a mistake. You can't have a mechanical you can't have anything that you train so hard. You got a 10,000 plus dollar bike. You know you burnt gas you're not you're pissing off your wife and kid because it's Sunday and said they want to do something they want to go Lego Land. You're out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. You know and you come out there just so you know, at least when you show your wife your bullshit ass metal, you know and say like, like you want to be like, Hey, big kind of worth it. Right? You know, like, it's their sector in there.

  Blake 1:27:09

  You know, just do me a favor and never tell Andrew that bike racing is harder than jujitsu. Just never do that again, please. But other than that, I'm totally with you.

  Hector 1:27:18

  I mean, you're saying bike racing is harder than Jiu Jitsu.

  Blake 1:27:22

  No, I never thought I'd never tell him that bike racing is harder than jujitsu never let them know that. Oh, yeah,

  Hector 1:27:29

  for real. I let people know this though. I'm sorry. But I let people know I let all my like I'm gonna like do when when you want us when it hurts too much or like you can't. In jujitsu, you get the coward's way out to just say, give the arm give the back. You're done. You're done. In a fight. You wanna you get knocked out. You expose your face. You're good. There's ways to fall on your sword. There's ways to fall on your sword when you're out on an endurance effort. If you quit Hey, hey, here's the car gonna pick me up down I don't know how you ever recover from that. I don't know how you ever recover from that letting the like the support car take you back to wherever Would you ever let that happen? Unless you are fucking utterly broken Yep, there's nowhere to hide like no right that's the thing like I thought about because I've been I've been in the middle of you know like one of those Tahoe 100 I'll never forget the one that broke me the one that broke me I was first lap in that the first 32 Miles was a two hours and I 30 minutes or something like that. No, like two hours and 40 minutes I was on pace to like break like B sub six hours and and then my legs are cramping right as I crossed the like the middle point. And now the second lap the second 32 miles or whatever they wanted to have. It took me four and a half hours of the worst pain I've ever been in. It just cramps Crohn's disease bonk to the dawn Dawn my legs were just garbage every I would ride one mile and how to be in like, that's static shock where you feel like electricity like locking up your legs and you're completely done. You have just way behind I didn't feel right I wasn't my hydration wasn't right. That was the worst pain. I was like, you know like crying basically on my bike. I was crying like jujitsu never made me cry. like it'd be like alright, I'm done I guess I get off the mat you know and go home there's no there's no there's no comparison on a on an effort like that. You know? So it just then those are always takeaways like I kind of like to type things in with like, the choose the hard way and kind of do like, like, do the things that are the most strenuous, the most difficult things in life. It always like okay, This makes jujitsu so much easier and my jiu jitsu competitors or brands or others, they're like, there we go like, Oh, you're like, you don't get tired during training sessions because you're like, you ride bikes and you do all that shit, right? And I'm like, yeah, pretty much like that gives me that edge, that's an edge. That's an edge that I happily take with me. They're just there's nothing, that there's nothing else that I've done that that's been that difficult. And it makes jujitsu and from the, from the physical performance perspective of the effort, feel so much easier. You know, because in jujitsu, there's so many places where you can hang out, even you start getting crushed, it starts to gain smothered, your heart rate starts dropping, because you're not, you're not like biting a more it's not like you're at like a sustain 170 Plus, like heart rate effort for an hour and a half. You know, like, literally by the time you're your heart rate is climbing climbing client by the time the, by the time you reach a certain level, you're already going into kind of a safe position or holding position, standing position. Like it's more like intermittent sprinting is what it is in jujitsu matches. So it's not from that perspective, not from like, it's much difficult to have your arm broken, you know, but like boulders hit hardest book too, though, you know, you crashed on your bike. Those are those are not fun days, either. You know, you crushed I like, like, I've never had this this past season, I did a fall on my bike and get like scuffed up on the whole side of my body once and that was like, not going that fast. I think that was maybe like 50 miles an hour. I just made a mistake and screwed myself up. But like, Have any of you guys ever wiped out going 30 Miles plus? Oh, yeah. Like, gee, that's violent as hell is so violent, you know. So it's, those things have made me tougher. They've made me a lot tougher.

  Andrew 1:32:03

  Well, I think that before Blake talks, I think this is actually the perfect place to wrap things up. And I just wanted to mention that. Hector, I don't know if you've ever won a race or place on the podium and been able to bring a box of Clif bars back to the family that you want as a result of your performance. But that's, that's another really fantastic part of amateur bike racing. You can put in all that effort, and sometimes you'll win a box of Clif Bars.

  Hector 1:32:32

  Jesus. Oh my gosh, really?

  Andrew 1:32:35

  I didn't know that was a thing. That's that's never happened to you. No, no, man.

  Hector 1:32:41

  These races I do. They at least give me like a little bit prepared. At least they have a little a little thing

  Andrew 1:32:46

  to put around your neck. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that was like a big NorCal thing. I mean, Blake one, like one or did quite well in a number of singlespeed cyclocross races. I mean, this guy. I tell you, he brought so many Clif bars back. Like he could have. He could have started his own distributorship. Probably. Yeah, that's adorable.

  Hector 1:33:06

  Nothing humbles you more than that. than that like alright, well, that's it then. Hmm. Iris Iris good offer literally for the biscuit. That'd be like the name of this episode risk of.

  Andrew 1:33:22

  Wow. Literally, like what Blake did, literally. That's pretty good. Not bad. So Hector, if people want to learn more about you check out your content. Learn more about your academy. Where should they go?

  Hector 1:33:37

  Sure. So my academies, Instagram is Academy JJ. My personal account is my full name. Hector. Oh, Beltran. Just that, and as far as our website for Academy, it's Academy jj.com. That's awesome. To find out more about us.

  Andrew 1:33:58

  Awesome. And Blake, people can find you at Blake of today on all platforms. We have a couple of back episodes. We're Blake and I go deep on our rides at the unbound 100 I believe in 2014 and 2015. And Hector, thanks so much for being here. Blake. Thank you for introducing me to Hector. I've really had a lot of fun with this conversation today. And yeah, looking forward to chopping it up with you in the future. This has been awesome. Yeah, I

  Hector 1:34:23

  can't wait. Really appreciate you being on the podcast. All right. And thank you, Blake for connecting us then. Awesome. For sure guys. Take care.