#73: Punches in Bunches [Video + Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #73 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Punches in Bunches.”

In business, relationships, and on the mats, the biggest winners I know are also the biggest losers!

That’s because the secret to success isn’t always WHAT you do, but how often you do it. But the more you do something, the more often you’re going to FAIL.

So, in this episode, let’s take a look at what it means to be a “good loser” and get ready to chase down our dreams until we hear the final bell.

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SPECIAL THANKS: In today’s show, I mention Larry Kaye, P.I. and his book, How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest. You can visit Larry’s YouTube channel WITH THIS YOUTUBE LINK and order a copy of his book WITH THIS AMAZON LINK.

If you’d like to support this show, share the link with a friend or leave a quick review over on iTunes. Thank you!

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Punches in Bunches

Here’s the video! If it won’t play, try this direct link.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to episode #73 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. Ando here, and if you’re watching today’s show on video, you’ll see my summer vacation beard. If you’re only listening to the podcast today on audio, well, you’ll just have to imagine evil Ando.

All right, I’ve got a quick shout out to make before we hit the main topic, and that shout out goes to Mr. Larry Kaye. Now, you might remember a couple of episodes ago, I told you the story about how my wife and I made a citizen’s arrest. We didn’t really know what we were doing, we just thought it was the right thing to do.

Well, Larry Kaye is a private investigator. He actually has his own YouTube channel where he trains people to become private investigators. Anyway, he sent me a copy of this book. It’s his book, How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest.

Now, I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t tell you if the information in this book will apply directly to your township. But I do know that the questions in here were things I hadn’t thought about. And a lot of the tales from the streets and the information that he provides definitely makes me feel more prepared the next time a situation like that comes up.

So, to return the favor, I thought I’d give Mr. Larry Kaye a shout out here on the podcast. I will put the link below, not only to his YouTube channel, but to the Amazon page where you can buy this book, How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest. Thank you again, Mr. Kaye.

Okay, on to the bigger topic today…

Punches in Bunches. You might have noticed that my YouTube channel recently crossed the 200,000 subscriber mark. Blows my mind. Now, I had just made a video not that long ago celebrating 100,000 subscribers. YouTube had sent the plaque, and that was the appropriate time, I thought, to say thank you to all of you for your support of what I’m doing here.

So if you go back and you watch that video, everything I said in there, let me just say it again, double thank you. If you’ve ever shared a video or left a comment or just given me some constructive criticism, even a thumbs down, I appreciate it. You are the reason I’m sitting here and still doing this. I’m very thankful for meeting you.

Now, something funny happens when you get to 200,000 subscribers though. The more momentum I’ve gained on YouTube, the more I will get emails or conversations in person with people who have their own YouTube channel or they’re starting a blog. And they want to know what’s the secret.

How did you get to 100,000 subscribers? How did you get to 200,000? I even had one person suggest that I had slept with someone at YouTube. Now, I’m not saying I’m above that kind of thing. I guess it depends on the person. But for the record, I have slept with no one at YouTube.

As a matter of fact, when it comes to YouTube, I have to be honest. My success so far has greatly just been to luck. I don’t control the YouTube algorithm. I don’t even know what it is. Why one video gets picked up and promoted over another, I have no idea. So I can’t speak to that. But I can speak to what I have controlled and what I have contributed and try to go into detail about that. And there’s a bigger lesson here about martial arts that I’ll get to right after.

What I wanted to do is I wrote down some numbers here, tallied up a few things. Because the bottom line here, when we’re talking about Punches in Bunches, is that success is a numbers game.

All right? I’m just gonna say that. Success is a numbers game. And specifically, here are some numbers I thought I’d share. All right, first up, I started making videos four and a half years ago. I started the website a couple years before that.

I didn’t believe, as you probably already know, that the videos would work. I didn’t think anyone was interested. But after a couple years of failing big time, I realized, all right, let’s just make a video before I shut it all down.

So four and a half years ago, that’s when I put up my first video. Within that four and a half years, I now have, as we said, 201,000 subscribers. Thank you. That means I have a total of 14 million views.

All right, so 200,000 subscribers, 1,400,000 subscribers, 14 million views. Now, how many videos have I made? Good question. I didn’t even know. Turns out I have 112 videos. That’s how many videos are hosted on this channel.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Hey, big shot, Mr. 200,000 subscribers, how many of those videos would you say were a big hit? And for me, I’m gonna say a big hit means a million views or more– five.

Okay, out of 112 videos, five of them, one’s just about to, so I’m gonna count that one, five of those videos have hit a million or more views. I’m not a math guy, which is why I had to do this ahead of time, but that’s less, technically, than 5% of the videos that I’ve made.

So just because I have 200,000 subscribers doesn’t mean every video I put up gets 200,000 views. Every video seems to live or die on its own. All right, moving on.

So if a big hit is a million views, let’s call a regular hit, just a hit, 100,000 views. So how many videos have cleared 100,000 or more views? Well, out of the 112 videos that I have, 24. So that’s less, technically, than 25% have crossed the six-figure line.

That means, if my math is right, a little more than 75% of my videos are not hits. 75%. Let’s go to the other end of the spectrum now.

33 videos have not broken 10,000 views. That’s basically a third of the videos have not cleared 10,000 views compared to a million. And yes, 14 of those have not even cleared 5,000 views. That’s a pretty stark contrast to five videos at a million plus and 33 under 10,000.

Now, of course, as the parent of these videos, each one’s my baby, I put as much love and care into each one of these as the others. So to see a couple succeed and so many just kind of lay stagnant and a couple just die is really a slap in the face. But again, it proves my point, that success is a numbers game.

That’s what brings us to Punches in Bunches…

And by the way, this isn’t just me and I’m not whining, because like I said, I’m blessed to have a platform where anybody’s listening to me. If I had two subscribers, I’d be thrilled because that would be my mother plus one. So I’m not complaining.

As a matter of fact, I know that the same rules of the numbers game applies to all the bigger players in the martial arts realm– Shane Fazen over at Fight Tips, Jake Mace, Nick Drossos, Stephan Kesting. Of course, if you follow this channel, know that I’ve collaborated with three out of the four of those gentlemen. I’ve never met Mr. Mace in person, maybe some day, but they’re all playing by the same rules, whether they have a million subscribers or two million subscribers.

When you look at their videos, many of them are just like me. They’re just floundering or they don’t get that many views. There’s not that much interest in all of them. So we’re all playing by the same rules on that end.

This numbers game, of course, applies to everything in life. I’m just using this YouTube example because you’re probably watching this on YouTube or you’ve seen one of my videos.

Say baseball. If you’re hitting 30% of the time, that’s 3 times out of 10 at bats, you’re like an all-star. If you can hit 4 out of 10 times, 40%, you’re on the path to legendary status.

It’s the same if you’re an entrepreneur. It’s nice to see the guys with the jets and the boats and champagne flowing, and you think that everything they touch is gold. But in most cases, entrepreneurs maybe invest in 10 businesses, 20 or more businesses before one of them takes off. It just happens that the one that takes off pays for, makes up for all the losses that they felt or went through on all the other businesses that failed. But again, it was success in the numbers, punches in bunches.

The same is true for diet or exercise. If you’re watching what you eat and you exercise one day a week and the other six days you just let it all go to hell, well, the numbers are against you there. What you do most of the time is going to have the greatest effect on your health and your life.

So it’s across the board. We should all have this deeply ingrained in our heads by now. That success is a numbers game. The more you try, the more you’ll end up succeeding. But it’s also true you have to be able to stomach the failures that lead to that success.

So let’s bring this back to a little more specifically to martial arts. Let’s talk about sparring, for example. I would say as I’ve watched my own progress as a martial artist and as I’ve watched many students progress, one of the biggest hang ups is that fear of failure.

You see people who just hang back, they throw one punch, they hang back, throw a kick, they hang back. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. We’re training for self-defense here, people. Get in, get that guy, dominate, take over. I coach all of my students to go in there and just keep throwing punches in bunches.

It’s a numbers game. You can’t just hang back and say, Well, I’m trying to get their timing. Well, I’m trying to get a rhythm going.

I get it. If you’re into sports, that’s a valid strategy, okay. But for self-defense, no. You pick your moment, it’s all in, it’s all you, all of the time. The other person doesn’t get a turn.

Do you get punched sometimes when you do that? Well, of course you do. You know, take a look at the logo here, right? Fight for a Happy Life. I’ve got a smiley face there, black and white for yin and yang. But he’s got a black eye. He’s smiling, but he’s got a black eye. Here are some opposites.

To my way of thinking, there are two types of black eyes you’re going to get in life. There’s the black eye or the pain or the shame of not doing anything. That would be you regretting not trying to do anything.

You had goals, you had ideas, you had dreams, but you never followed through on any of them. At some point, you will wear that like a black eye. Maybe people don’t see it. Maybe they do in your attitude, in your posture, in your health, in your levels of success. In that way, it’s a big black eye. But just for you, the way you feel about yourself, every time you look in that mirror, you’re going to see that black eye that you didn’t ask out that person that you really loved.

You didn’t start the business. You didn’t follow through on the big idea that you had. You gave up on one goal after another. And now there you are, 80 years old, and you’re thinking it’s too late. Maybe it’s not. Nowadays, maybe it’s not. But it would be a darn shame for you to end up getting older and older with one black eye on your face after another because you took a beating from yourself, from your own fear of failure.

The other type of black eye, of course, would be the black eye that you get from getting in there, from fighting. You throw a punch, maybe it hit, maybe it didn’t. You caught a punch in the process. You catch a beating once in a while. That’s part of the process. That’s how you learn. All of those failures lead you to success.

So my question to you is what kind of black eye do you want? Because you’re going to get one. I need to know that you understand that life is cruel. Life is going to punch you in the face. The only question is how did you get it?

Did you get broken down and beaten up by yourself because you didn’t do anything? Or because you were in the game trying your best and hey, sometimes you just fell on your face and you got a black eye?

I pray that you’re fighting for a happy life, not just hoping for a happy life. Any black eye that you get while fighting for your dreams and fighting to improve yourself, my friend, that’s a badge of honor. I would rather see you with a black eye from trying something than a black belt. That’s more important to me. So, get your bruises.

Anyway, so specific to sparring, get in there. Punches in Bunches. There are only two strategies, either attack or counterattack. Either way, when you hit the green light, boom! All you, all the time.

It’s funny that when you’re a kid, you get this idea in your head of being a good sport or a bad loser. I think part of growing up is understanding that the losing is never losing as long as you learn. That saying has been around pretty popularly a bunch lately, so you’ve probably heard that by now. You’re not really losing if you’re learning.

It’s only a bad loser who holds on to the shame or the embarrassment of this perceived setback. The people who don’t learn from the loss, the people who think that failing is the opposite of succeeding.

Maturity means that you see failing as a step towards succeeding. You just learned something. You learned something that the person who’s sitting at home doing nothing doesn’t know. Every time you fall on your face after trying something, you’re going to get up smarter and tougher.

It’s funny how you hear about people who win the lottery, for instance, and what always happens, right? You always hear these tragic stories. Why is that? There’s a big idea here that I didn’t want to get to until later, but I might as well jump into it now. Let’s get honest with yourself.

Are you ready for success?

One of the reasons that you may not be successful right now, even if you are throwing punches, is you’re not ready for it. I know for myself, when I start a project, of course you hope it’s going to take off and be a big hit right away. But that’s kind of immature thinking. The reason is, the more you learn as you go, the better you can manage success if it comes to you.

If you’ve been poor your whole life and you suddenly win the lottery, you have no idea who you are anymore. Your character may be very different. You don’t know how to manage this type of lifestyle versus the type of person who maybe slowly accrues wealth.

Every step of the way, you learn how to be proud of yourself or how to deal with a new self-image, how to manage that money, how to deal with people who now are looking at you a little differently. You mature in the process to handle success.

So whatever project that you’re working on, whatever game you’re playing, whether it’s in martial arts or in business or relationships, give it time. You have to be patient. Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t have to, but there’s a good chance you’re going to crash and burn if you’re not.

Martial arts is cool that way. Imagine if, like in The Matrix, you could just get plugged into a machine or take a pill and suddenly, I know Kung Fu. All right, but could you handle Kung Fu? If you suddenly had all the power that you dream about having when you start martial arts, could you handle it?

What would you do with it? What decisions would you make? How would you treat people? Would it go to your head? Would you be arrogant? Would you be egotistical? Would you hurt the wrong people?

There’s something beautiful about the learning process that sort of weeds out bad characteristics for the most part. There’s always some bad guys out there. But I know that every step of the way that I’ve tried to do anything, I’ve only gotten smarter. And in many cases, you figure out, I don’t even want this thing that I’m going after.

How many times have you started a goal and said, Oh, I know what I want to be. Like, let’s say for me, I moved out to Hollywood and I said, Oh yeah, I want to be in showbiz. But the more that I saw what that lifestyle really was, the more I said, You know, that’s not exactly what I wanted.

How could you know in the beginning? When someone says, Oh, I want to I want to be a billionaire. Well, do you really know what that lifestyle is like? No, you don’t. So you know, be careful with that.

Oh, I want to be famous. I want to be famous on Instagram. Do you? Do you want to be recognized everywhere you go? Do you want to deal with stalkers or all kinds of inappropriate messages in your inbox or mean comments? There are consequences to every decision you make. And all I’m saying is, if you allow yourself to try things and fail, if you allow yourself to be patient and take things one step at a time, I think you not only get a better sense of what you really want, if you get what you want, you’ll be better prepared to deal with it, to manage it.

I know for myself, I wish my website was not named senseiando.com. That was a mistake in my opinion. I’ve learned from it since. I would much rather have my website now be called Happy Life Martial Arts. That’s something I learned as I went along.

In the beginning, I didn’t really know who I was talking to. I didn’t know who was listening. I didn’t know who would write me. I didn’t know what I actually wanted to talk about all the time. I didn’t know where I wanted to take this whole project. But now I’ve had several years to kind of grow with it and change things as I go.

I just wish I had the technical know-how to figure out how to switch domain names so I could get rid of senseiando.com and switch it over to fightforahappylife.com or happylifemartialarts.com. I’m not that technical. I’m still looking into it.

Anyway, the point today is simply this. Whether you want to start a YouTube channel and be a big hit, whether you want to improve your relationships, whether you want to start a business and make money that way or just do something you love full time, whether you just want to lose weight and be healthy, whether you want a black belt, whether you just want to be able to defend yourself with a higher and higher level of skill, it all comes down to the same secret– punches in bunches.

It’s all about getting out there, trying, failing, celebrating the failure, not looking at failure as some setback or something to be embarrassed about. You should only be embarrassed if you didn’t try. Never be ashamed of telling someone you made a mistake or you went the wrong way. That’s the most beautiful thing ever, especially if you own that mistake. Especially if you can explain, Well, here’s what I was thinking and here’s what I learned.

That is the gold, my friend. Don’t cheat yourself of that experience of finding the gold in your life. You create the gold every time you try to do something.

Alright, so that’s the big message that I wanted to share today. I really hope that you will take a look at whatever it is you’re doing and be more patient with yourself. Be more forgiving of yourself. Look at your black eyes with pride.

If you want to be a winner, you have to be a loser. If you want to be a champion of whatever game you’re playing, you have to be a champion of losing first.

Whatever your goal is, whatever your dream is, just keep swinging till the final bell, my friend. Punches in bunches.

All right, well, that’s enough from me. Thank you again for supporting this podcast or subscribing on YouTube or visiting my website. As long as you are there, I will be here.

Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.