The Shintaro Higashi Show - The Business of Martial Arts

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

In this episode, Shintaro and Peter talk about the business of martial arts-- how to make money doing martial arts! Shintaro has a wealth of experience from running successful Judo clubs in Manhattan, growing his YouTube channel, and graduating from NYU Stern business school. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about the martial arts business. That's right. As you guys know, Shintaro has been in this business for a while and he's seen a lot of success. And I'm sure there are a lot of people who would love to be in this business and also get some advice from you and then basically hear how you did it. Yep. So there's many ways to make money in the martial arts business, right? And when you think like I'm in the martial arts game, the industry, first and foremost, people think brick and mortar dojo, right? Like a physical store where you could go actually learn martial arts, you know, and it's very interesting world because people think, hey, you know,

some people are very old school. They're like, oh, you shouldn't make money doing martial arts, right? Martial arts should be free almost, you know know but it is a service right and the person who learned it took many many years to acquire that skill and you're you know learning that skill and the people's lifestyle depends on it right right so it is sort of a business too i don't want to call it a business and to me it's more than a business because it's a very lifestyle oriented thing and it's an intergenerational thing but that's the first first thing most people think about is the dojo right so yeah let's kind of go through the whole process of how you start a dojo and grow it and whatnot so let's start from the beginning how do you even go about starting a dojo

well that's a good one steps yeah first you have to be good at martial arts right right actually you don't even have to even be good at martial arts you know? Actually, you don't even have to be good at martial arts. You could just actually do martial arts for a very long time. And this is the problem. You spend 10 years, 15, 20 years training in martial arts, learning a skill. And with no business background, you're like, all right, let me enter into some of these business contracts and long-term lease deals and then start a business. I have no idea how a P&L works or what the expenses are but i'm just do it you know right um and so i think that's where a lot of people struggle uh but first and foremost you have to have a martial arts background i think right you know and do you think to go about it do you think yeah what are some other ways do you think you have to be at the like a professional level like

you did or you don't have so you could do like judo and brazilian jujitsu those are like show me sports right like show me that you're good people can challenge you you have to be able to grapple you have to be able to hold your own right this big portion of the martial art is the combative element the non-cooperative drills right a lot of times everything is coordinated for some martial arts everything is choreographed but judo and jujitsu it's not like that right so if you're doing a martial art like that you need to be able to hold your own because if you have a student base of i don't know 30 40 people and then a challenger comes in it's like hey let's go sensei

you know you've done judo for x amount of years and you have that fancy belt and then you get your butt kicked and tossed around you're gonna lose students right that's that's like a unfortunate reality i guess you know yeah yeah that's just how it is you know so you have to pick the martial art right and there are some martial arts uh you know let's just throw out like tai chi or something you know that you don't need it's not like a show me like hey let's let's work out right right people can't challenge you and you know discredit you by just challenging you that's right physical confrontation right right and you could stand in front of the room and teach i'm not saying anything wrong with that right taekwondo model is a little bit different than the judo model

which is a little bit different than the bjj model so depending on different martial arts the models are very different yes but the bottom line is you have to be good at it like one way or the other pick a martial art and you have to be good at it to teach yeah you have to be good at it i don't think you need to be a world champion or tier one sort of an athlete like you call it and i think sometimes the tier one athletes are the worst at running these businesses because it's like oh you know why can't you do it why don't you understand it i was able to do this when i was 11 years old right and they just don't understand the average layman's struggle of like, I just don't have the coordination. I don't have the core strength to be able to physically do this.

And it's very difficult for the world-level top athlete to understand and get into the body of the average practitioner. Right. I see. So you don't have to be the best. You do have to be good, I think, to a reasonable level. Now with Instagram and YouTube and everything, it's like everybody could just film you and put it on the internet

and then people are going to criticize you. So it's like you got to be decent, I guess, especially now in this day. Right. All right. So you picked a martial art. You're good at it. You're decent enough to teach other people. So you threw out a lot of like

acronyms like pnl and whatnot so let's kind of go from the beginning like okay so you want to start a business what is the first step you have to register somewhere or we'll get a lawyer get an llc right it depends on i think uh i don't know from state to state i know new york city it's like you get a llc and then you get an ein number and now all of a sudden you know you have this corporation right this company and you could pick between like s corp and c corp and all these LLC and then you get an EIN number. And now all of a sudden, you know, you have this corporation, right? This company. And you could pick between like S Corp and C Corp and all these different options. I don't want to get too technical on that, but you need to establish some sort of, right,

corporate structure, right? You probably want to have some professional helping you. Definitely want professional help. You want an accountant in there. You want a lawyer in there, right? Making sure all the, right, all those things are tight right and then you got a bank account because you know you're not going to do business like hey come in and sign up for judo twice a week and it's 200 a month and then here's my bank account just deposit into that right that's going to be you

know some serious commingling thing happening and it's going to be very difficult to keep track right right right right you need to keep track of the money coming in and the money going out. It's a separate bank account. Yeah, a separate bank account. And then that's essentially the essence of business, right? Profit and loss, right? How much is coming in?

How much is going out? What's left at the end of it? You know, sometimes when you start the business, it's zero. If you're lucky. Right, right. Because in the beginning, you're losing money. Because you have to invest and spend money. You have to invest, you have to spend money. You had a negative in the beginning you're losing money because you have to invest and spend money you gotta spend money and you add a negative in the beginning right you know and uh

the administrative stuff is very important but then you need a location especially if you're doing right dojo business because the brick and mortar store now you gotta find commercial real estate you know yeah and then i'm sure you probably need some professional help with that with an agent and whatnot. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And people kind of like, I don't want to work with no agent because I have to pay whatever it is and they take a fee. But they can really guide you, right?

Right. But you have to take their guidance with a grain of salt because their objective is for you to sign the lease and they get paid. Right? So that's in their best interest to get the thing signed. But they have a lot of information and wealth of knowledge that you want to tap into. You know, things about like, yeah, like rent increases, property taxes, like all those different things matter. Right. It's like, oh, you know, it increases, you know, 3% every year or, you know, things of that nature. Like that could you have to grow to at a certain percentage to overcome.

Right. And then those agents will know more about the neighborhoods and foot traffic know about the neighborhood and foot traffic things like that you know uh there's a lot of stuff going i don't want to get too into it because it's not a commercial real estate thing and it's not my area of expertise right right but you do need to know what's out there and what you're paying for price per square foot that's what sort of they go by new york city right right and then so you don't want to get ripped off it's the biggest expense right i see right so then so so you uh open up bank account you got yourself a dojo like a space um well actually i kind of want to go back to what you said about the bank account and then how you get paid and whatnot so i know uh you you like to take the payment processing system and

then just go with the credit card route and other people don't want to so what's what's do you have any thoughts on that part like just to yeah so you need like a yeah you need to like have a tool right like a crm tool like a client management right? So money gets filtered in on a monthly basis, on a recurring basis. That's what you want. Right. Because you don't want to have to manually go in and charge every person every month and be like, hey, this person paid, that person didn't pay, this person's paying cash. You put it in the system.

I like the commitment system. People call it the contract system, but the contract has like sort of a taboo sound to it, right? It's like you've got doing contracts at your dojo. It's like, yeah, you're like sort of a taboo sound to it, right? It's like, oh, you got doing contracts at your dojo. It's like, yeah, you're committing six months. I'm committing six months, right? So, you know, it's a two-way street here, buddy, you know? And then you put down the credit card, it just gets automatically charged.

So you do need some sort of software to have that, right? I use MindBody. I see. I see. Yeah. So that's how you, you know, keep track of your profit and loss. And that's one of the metrics. Well, so I use that for just billing and email marketing, which I actually don't do a lot of. But it's really just like appointments and keeping track of the membership.

So I have a membership management solution, so to speak. And then the losses and expenses, it goes through QuickBooks Online. And then I kind of know, oh, I spent this much, I spent that much. And then you can sort of see it on your bank account. Because if you go in and look at every item, it gets confusing. But I sort of have what's the dollar amount that's in the account. Every month, has it gone up? Has it gone down?

And I have kind of like a general idea. I know people get really crazy about it, but I try never to be, you know, super focused on that. And as long as it's above a certain threshold, I'm like, all right,

good. Okay. Things are going in the right direction. So what are some of the other metrics you've, uh, pay attention to other than the profit and loss? So generally it's like you want the business moving, right? And there are people going to get hurt.

There are people that are quit. There are going to be people that are moving away. And you know, people have issues with life, right? Things happen in their life. They have a kid, whatever. So you have to sort of account for that. And you always want a steady stream of newcomers coming in. So you want to kind of have like this tight pipeline of leads coming in,

people calling, emailing. How many people are calling in? How many people are emailing in? Right? That's one metric, like leads, straight up leads. A hundred people contact me saying they're interested. How many people are actually walking through the door? Right?

Right. Out of the hundred, maybe like 20. Okay. So 20% of people who are leads are walking through that door. Good. Right? So now you have a percentage there. Out of those people, how many people are actually signing up? Right. Right. And then out of those people, how many people stay one month? How many people stay five months? How many people say,

and you don't have to be meticulous about this, but you have to have a general idea. Right. It's like that funnel idea, right? Yeah. It's like that funnel idea. And then, you could see exactly where, right? It's like, oh, man, like I'm looking at the numbers. And then we had only three signups this month. Like what happened? And then you could look at the leads. It's like usually you get 100 leads. I only got 30 leads.

Oh, shoot, something not right with the Google. Right, I see. Google AdWords or my ranking on Google. Let me check that, right? I only had three signups this month, but leads are the same. Trials are the same. Right. Someone's not signing them up.

Okay. It's a follow-up issue. Right. Now let's look at the follow-up protocol that's in place. Like, are people following up? You know, for me, it was George for a while. I was like, is George doing his job? He always did his job.

He's great. Right. He's one of the best employees I've had. You know, he's amazing. Good, good. So now that we're talking about the growth of a of your dojo so you kind of mentioned of uh the google ads and whatnot so what how did you uh set up or you know some advice on that like websites yeah you want to put yeah so you want to have a website right

you want to be visible on the internet obviously because you know people looking for dojo they're going to look on google right judo upper west side or something like that you want to make sure your dojo comes up on the results of that right you could actually pay you know for advertising on google right you know that little top sponsor you know right so you want to pay for that kind of slot you know some people choose facebook campaigns some people do direct mail marketing some people just do campaigns some people do direct mail marketing some people just do word of mouth like we did for many many years you just want people calling in you just want leads people who are interested right and that's what marketing is you know being in front of the people who are interested yeah right if you're interested in dance and if i'm

like hey judo judo judo like that's not for you they're not interested in it right right but i definitely do want to be in front of the people who want to do judo and that's the marketing stuff right that's the marketing whether you do it through email lists or website right those are sort of the important things and you know you don't have to keep track of everything you don't have to do everything you can just do what works for you and once you get to a certain level you don't have to do any of it even then you know just water mouth happened organically yeah you know the dojo for a while it was where i was pretty content with the numbers at kbi and i was just like you know kind of sitting on the sidelines

okay i don't need to spend money on ads or do anything you know right crazy to pump business in because we're close to max capacity and you know i was happy with that you don't want to just overgrow i guess you don't want to grow too much because then yeah it's a it's a fine line yeah because you get too many people there's a sort of like this critical mass thing where it's like okay you're at a certain level and now the quality just declines right you know diminishing returns there you know you don't want to be there right okay all right so that so you did your marketing you got your core group of people coming in yeah so then uh you have to keep them in retention retention retention is a huge one yeah you kind of touched upon it with when you talked about giving contracts out so let's kind of dig deeper into that so contracts some people think of it as like a taboo practice so how did you

approach it that's a good one man you know so like my father who was an old school old school guy he just never did contracts and it's like you came in you wanted to pay for the month you pay for the month and you know whatever it was and then you're good you didn't even take credit cards like check your cash right come in pay for one month and then you stay for one month and at the end of the month now it's like you're out of classes what you. It's like check your cash, right? Come in, pay for one month, and then you stay for one month. And at the end of the month, now it's like you're out of classes. It's like, oh, man, I took a beating this month. I'm kind of tired. It's cold outside.

Let me just not go. One week goes by. Two weeks go by. No one calls you. Right, right. You take up freaking something else. You know what I mean? And there's a time that the instructor invests too you know

you walk into a dojo and you're like hey i'm here for to do judo for a month and i teach you for a month and then you're out here you're gone it's like that hour you know that month that i spent teaching you hour by hour by hour like that could have gone to someone else that's going to stick around for two months three months more right so it's like i'm kind of doing a disservice to the regular gen pop or the general population of the dojo by right letting people just come in and leave right right right they lose practice partners and stuff practice partners and just time time right attention people who actually deserve my attention and people who actually want to learn or making themselves better like i want those guys to get the proper attention. Right, right. And one way of ensuring it

is through automating some of this stuff. Guy comes in, it's like, okay, you have three months, six months, or a one-year commitment. You commit, I commit, right?

If you're going to be here, be here. I'm going to teach you. I'm going to care, right? You know, dojo's not, you know, we're not trying to pump out thousands of people in here.

It's not a McDojo. You know, we don't have, you know, 18-year-old green belts teaching your classes. Like I'm physically teaching most of your classes, right? And if it's not me, it's going to be one of my top black belts. So you commit because we're going to commit. Right. Pick between these three and it's just going to be automated charging. Three months, six months, or one year.

And it's just going to go. And just so you know, it's automatically renewing so I don't have to think about it. Right, right. I don't like messing with money at the dojo. I don't want to be like, hey man, you didn't pay this month. Hey man, you didn't pay that month. I don't want that, right?

Credit card gets declined. It sends an email automatically. Hey, fix this, right? Email goes, they fix it on the back end. That way I don't have to deal with that nonsense. All I have to deal with people coming into the dojo and I get to teach them judo. That's what I could focus on. That's your main focus.

That's why you're providing. That's my main focus. Yeah, that's what I try to do with the business. And of course, there's people who have financial issues and I can't make it. And then sometimes you'll be like, okay, what is your deal? And then it's a case-by-case basis, right? Right, right, right. Somebody that's been committed to judo for a very long time.

It's been two years. They just lost their job. They're having a really hard time at home. Judo is really good for them. And they're a huge value add to the dojo because everybody likes them. It's a win-win having them there. Right, right.

Those people I will sometimes make an exception. Like, okay, I'll get your job back, whatever, right? and having them there right right those people i will sometimes make an exception like okay right your job back whatever right but generally i try not to deal with any of that stuff yeah dojo you know it's kind of like good business practices right right so other than contract what are some other strategies you've used or you've seen work well to retain your students. So different from kids and adults too, right? Right. So like the Taekwondo model, they have a lot of extrinsic rewards. When a kid comes in, they're like, oh man, I don't really want to be here.

I have to get in shape. My mom making me come here. Maybe that kid's not motivated by just learning a technique or learning a kata or doing sparring or something. Maybe they're just afraid of confrontation. That kid might need a stripe, might need a reward system. You get three stripes, you get a patch. What kind of patch do I get?

You get a dragon patch. You get three of those, you get a lion patch. You get a lion patch and you get three of those, you get a cool new gi. Right. Oh, wow. Like that. So people like that, there's kids that like just positive reinforcement. They're like, hey, good job.

There's kids who seek out negative attention and you kind of have to manage all these motivators for each and every one of these kids, essentially. Kids are different business. Kids are different. I see. And you probably have to talk to their parents frequently. Talk to their parents, yeah, because you have to know what moves them right and you have to talk to them and you have to manage expectations and a lot of the times i got myself in trouble too when a parent is expecting their kid to be a world champion right and they're not gonna be a world champion right you know and that's that's managing

expectations hard because everybody has different expectations some parents are just happy with the kid coming in and learning a couple of moves and working out because they don't really care that much about martial arts they care about the kid doing good in school or they care more about chess because they were a chess player right right so you when you talk to the parents and you have a couple conversations with them you know why they're there right once you know they're wise then you could be like okay i'm gonna teach them in a different way Like I've had parents that are like, I'm from the country of whatever, and I was a judo champion kid, and I want my kid to do judo, you know, all this stuff.

And I'm like, okay, you know, this kid's not, whether he's motivated or not, whether the kid likes it or not, it doesn't matter because that parent is bringing that kid into the dojo. Right, right. So now I have to walk the fine line of, do I want this kid to like judo? Yeah. Or do I want to push him harder push him hard and the way the parents want me to push him right right most of the time i won't do what's what the parent wants yeah and that's kind of bad but i'll do what the kid needs you know right right um that's when i was running most of the kids i don't know the kids classes anymore now there is no kids class because it's

pandemic right so like those things are really important i think yeah you can't have a one-size-fits-all and you have to be able to differentiate between each kid and obviously you can't come up with a individualized lesson plan for each and every individual right because you just can't scale that way right so do and then you and think but you do some uh grouping of kids right like age wise and skill level yeah yeah so for a while we did like a tiny champs and then we'd like a kids one kids two in a youth judo right because the last thing a 12 year old wants is being in a group with six year olds and seven year olds right right you know and it is time you know consuming to break him off into those independent groups and And you can't do it in the beginning, right?

When you have a new program and you have six kids, you just can't do it. Right, right. You know, so for a while we had Monday, Fridays, kids program. That's it. Especially when I took it over from my father a couple years ago, we didn't even have a kids program. My dad's like, oh, man, kids, you know, it's exhausting. I can't really do it anymore. I don't have any instructors.

We're just going to focus on the adults. And it was like that for a little while. Right, right, right. man kids you know it's exhausting i can't really do it anymore i don't have any instructors we're just going to focus on the adults and that it was like that for a little while right right right after i gotten through the system he's like okay right i see we're going to focus more on the adult program so then once it grows you have to break it up i think i see and then did you end up break creating a competition team for kids or anything like that i know we talked about it yeah competition's dangerous man right for kids and you know it's double-edged sword you know and it is great for character building and there are many many merits to it but you can't do judo once a week go into a tournament and compete against a kid that does judo five times a week right right

right because you're gonna get smoked that's just how it is once a week kid is never almost never gonna beat a five-time-a-week kid and it's kid is almost never going to beat a five-time-a-week kid. And it's going to have a very difficult time beating a three-time-a-week kid. And maybe they could beat a twice-a-week kid if they have a lot of skill and experience and athleticism and all this stuff. Right. There's just too many factors. You know, you go to a tournament, a kid could be a green belt, but wearing a yellow belt, people do this, you know? And it takes one bad fall in judo

right actually gets slammed hard for a kid to be like i don't want to do this again right you risk injury kids get injured in judo tournaments right this i'm specifically talking judo i'm not talking about like taekwondo or some of these other ones where you could do form which is an you know people have a opinion about this but i think it's amazing that you could do that. Yeah. You know, judo needs a form division for kids. That's what it needs. You know, it needs. I'm going to start ranting and going. I've been preaching this stuff nonstop.

You need a white belt division. You need a first time judo competitor division where they're going out there and demonstrating these throws. Right. I mean, we have all the kata. I don't know about kata for kids, it's like show us three of your best moves and the kid goes out there like Osorogari boom

Tadoshi yeah and then it's like oh shoot everybody raps applause you give a thing kid gets a medal he feels good

right and then he looks over to the other mat and sees these like killers yeah smashing each other like I want to do that

I see yeah and then the sensei can say when you're ready. Ready. Right? Right, right. What does that mean? You got to train more.

These kids train four times a week. They've been doing judo for three or four years. As opposed to like, kid starts judo, dad's like, I want him to compete. It's like, what? You know, like, I want him to go to that tournament and compete. It's like, oh, okay. And then you're going to throw that kid into the competition with these lions and they're gonna get mauled right that kid's never gonna want to do judo again and you did the kid a disservice because he'll forever fear right right

confrontation because he had a bad experience with it and people like no you gotta be tough you gotta be there a lot of it's luck man right right right you know i don't care if you're super athletically gifted and you come from a tough family and you're gritty and you do judo twice a week you go in there against a kid that's bigger stronger older done judo longer than you that kid smashes you and you get injured you're not going to do judo anymore right so it's a fine kind of yeah so the competition is another type of a business right get all the competitors of the area you collect the fee you pay the math space yeah and that's another type of business and it provides a service right but then you have to gauge if that's right service for the kids and

whatnot exactly a lot of the times it's doing a disservice to say okay you know the competition and the problem with the competition too is like you know you have a competition team at the dojo and they get a cool patch and a cool shirt and all this stuff and now all of a sudden you created a tier system like your dojo right first class citizens you're a competitor right right you've taken the vaccine oh my god you bought into the system no citizens? No. I got to not say that. But yeah. Yeah. First class citizens, right?

Yeah. So you don't want to alienate people like that. No. You don't want to alienate people. And, you know, because judo competition isn't for everyone. Right. So what you're trying to do with the kids program is make judo as fun as possible. So kids keep coming back to do more judo.

And when they do more judo because they love it and find it fun they're gonna get better at it right and then maybe they want yeah they can compete yes exactly so you know i guess we're kind of digressing from the business side but like that all has to do with retention right right finding the motivators right and maybe the motivator is competition for some kids right so then maybe you know you have to scratch that itch yeah and that carries over to the adult side i mean you know always there's a like a bit of a division between hobbyist and serious competitors even for adults yeah how did you handle that in terms of retention well you know the problem is when the higher level guys are beating

on the little guys the lower level guys and they're like oh i am going easy it's like that makes me so angry because it's like you're going easy for you but do you remember when you were a white belt when you were a brittle out of shape person that sat on the couch the majority of your life and then you came in to change your life around and you got lucky you never got hurt you got lucky the people around here supported you and help you grow right now you're on top now you've been doing it for five years and now you're gonna be like oh these guys are soft or oh man you know i am going easy on these guys it's like that guy i am you know i'm gonna talk to that guy yeah yeah right because that's not right you know you have to try to put yourself in their shoes and i try my best to do that you know so sometimes it's managing that managing

these interactions and it starts with these little small i don't want to call microaggressions but these like little backhanded things are like right you know when the bigger person goes with the smaller person like oh don't crush me okay or like these little nonsense stuff right and that kind of stuff escalates and that kind of stuff you know digs deep right death by a thousand cuts by a thousand cuts yeah man so it's like i try to manage that and that's very important you know uh having the beginners have a beginner session was beginner centric and you know seven to eight for us was that mostly drills and skills seven to eight maybe we'll do a little bit of live for the beginners. It's beginner-centric.

It's drill-centric. If you're a black belt and you came, you were there for the beginners. If you're a black belt and you came, you're competing, tuck yourself in the back corner and do your own thing that's fine. Keep to yourself.

That was kind of the situation. Everyone was nice. That was kind of the thing. Then 8 o'clock everyone was nice. And that was kind of the thing. And then 8 o'clock comes around. We do conditioning. They do a little bit of live. White belt center class. Okay, done. White belts and yellow belts go home.

If you want to stay and watch, you're more than welcome to watch. They sit and watch. And they watch these guys, right, pounding each other, just hammering away at each other, right? Like slamming each other, cranking on their arms. And they're like, wow, I want to do that. Right. And I say, that's the most fun you'll have in judo but it takes a while to get there right look forward to it you know eyes on the prize kind of a deal and you want to protect them from themselves and you want to protect them from that right right that's really dangerous stuff man so how did you so i know you talked about like giving out patches and stuff like that for

kids did you use any kind of extrinsic motivation for adults too you know not so much right i like teaching adults uh but i want to teach people who want to learn right i want to teach people who care who are very invested in themselves too right because that makes me feel fulfilled as well right that's sort of my motivator personally right helping these people who deserve to be helped helping those people who are helping themselves right and it kind of gives me this feeling of like accomplishment and well-being you know what i mean so if one of those people start falling off and not coming and you know i'll reach out to them be like hey what's going on right right right well there you go we miss you at the dojo we do we

really do you know it's a genuine thing you know so like that's uh a motivator for a lot of these guys you know when sensei reaches out right oh i care i really do care you know and then you know if you're yeah so it's like that's sort of a motivator for adults and some adults are motivated by rank. And some adults are just motivated to come in and make friends, have a sense of community to belong to. And then that's a big one for adults because you could get isolated. You're at work navigating like the political minefield of like office politics and this guy and that guy and your friends but not really really. And you're kind of like frenemies almost, right? At work, you deal with that. You know, you see the same people every day. You go home, your wife is there. So like you kind of want and seek out that sort of camaraderie. Right, right, right.

Right. And so having a place for those people to go to, that's huge. And that takes me managing that. Managing, not micromanaging but these interactions when a black belt says something or does something that can potentially right take away from that experience like i'm monitoring that really closely and i'll say it at the end of the class you heard right yeah that's where you interact with each other be respectful yeah you know and uh yeah man it's like don't hurt me or i had a guy one time say like to not even you know just all the day even it's like right hey sensei like is it okay if i throw this guy can i throw him like can i go a little bit harder with him it's like as you're implying that you've been going

easy with this guy right right it's kind of putting down putting him there's already a skill gap there everyone knows that there's a skill gap there everyone doesn't need to know that you're taking it easy on this. I'm taking it easy on this guy. Can I go a little bit harder on this guy? Like that's a dick move, man. And I have zero tolerance policy with that shit. Yeah, I see. Because it's like it doesn't feel good being on the receiving end of that.

Right. You work hard all day, grinding a nine to five. You come to the dojo. You want to work out, feel good, and get better. You want to come to a community where you feel safe and you feel like you belong and all of a sudden this guy's signaling you like yeah this guy sucks i'm good like i could take it easy on this guy i'm doing him a favor right i'm the good guy here like cool right all right yeah yeah yeah you're doing good you got me it's like you know what man i you know like that kind of stuff really pissed me off so

managing that is important because we know that one of the biggest motivators for adults to come is being in that community yeah in that community right so that kind of touches on uh the fact that sometimes businesses have to essentially choose customers too just like the customers choose businesses have to yeah yeah so you have to have like sort of a value-add system almost right it's not something like like monitor and keep but it's always sort of in the back of my mind right right there are people in the dojo who isn't a plus one man they're like a plus three plus five you know they're just not in a monetary value way but like they just add so much to the community right friendly they're kind that's the guy that everyone wants to do randori with that you can't get around with my cousin eugene is a great example

of that right you can get around with eugene right because when he walks into the dojo everybody wants to drill with him white belt yellow belt green belt right brown belt black belt every women kids adults everybody want to work out eugene you want to go eugene can you work out with me and he's like oh man i'm so sorry like i already have somebody and we already said that you know he called me last last thursday and i promised him you know monday that i'd work out with him right like that's a value add like a you know plus 10 plus 20 you were like a negative 10 because you heard all my beginners in the beginning i did i mean you were the worst you were the worst i i i have to tell you guys you know i

shinta was very good about it because yeah like you said when i first joined i didn't have that sense because i've never been, I never really trained in that kind of community before because for me, it was always like competition, competition, and, you know, not like that.

So I, Shintaro had to put me aside and have a few talks and it took me a bit, but I did change. A few? Let's just keep it at a few. Yeah. Yeah, it's a interesting thing

right because the goal of the judo is to throw the other person right so you're in there you're like i'm here to throw the other person we're playing a game and the game is throwing the other person right okay you grab the person you slam them they get hurt all right from a business standpoint that person quits okay that's that's lost lost. And it's also like I've been teaching that guy for four months. I kind of like them. Everybody liked them. Maybe there's a girl in the class that has a crush on him that comes just because of him. Because he's a funny guy.

He's a nice guy. We like having him there. He quits. She quits. Right, right, right. Not a big deal. Maybe he didn't cut. It was an accident.

And then another guy comes in and he's a brown belt. And Peter's like, right, right. Not a big deal, you know. Maybe he didn't cut. It was an accident. And then another guy comes in, and he's a brown belt, right? And Peter's like, I got him. Throws him with a tatoshi, and the guy tears his calf, you know? Right? And then I'm just like, oh, man, he would have been such a good addition for the dojo because, like, people could have worked out with him because he's a good, big, strong guy. I still remember that round. I still remember that round.

Because, I mean, honestly, that's what it is. I didn't think there was a hard throw but you know it doesn't yeah you didn't think it was a hard throw exactly you never know but you know that was like one of those that's like all right i got it because he was big he was strong he's wearing a brown belt yeah right so you know you never know who it is right right especially the guests with coming in with experience right that's a double edged sword too right yeah because you don't want to intention on you want to send out your enforcers but then at the same time you don't want to you know you don't want to beat them too bad to where they don't want to come back right you don't want them to beat you up too bad to where they're like

you know it's very very sensitive so i always like if there's a guest, you know, it's like, all right, first minute, feel them out. Second minute, throw them once. Third minute, let them ride out and just tire them out. So now they got a session with me. They got taken down once. They didn't take a beating. And they're like, okay, maybe next time I could get tense. Right, right.

They can never do that. That's right. It's sort of uh the methods you know but yeah it's it's an interesting thing with the value of the people in the room because you're not just you can look at it in a way where it's like i want this much business i want this much money but for me once i hit a certain level of right not say income but like certain level at the dojo i wasn't really motivated by, I need 10 students, I need 20 students, I need 30 students more.

Like I wasn't there anymore, right? I just wanted to sort of keep the community going, right? And it's for me too, right? It's not purely altruistic or anything. That's for me because I go in and that's my source of social connection and belonging. Right, right. and that's my source of social connection and belonging right you know i get to hear these guys who are you know phd programmers like yourself talk to you yeah you know we have very very intelligent people and i get to interact with them and ask them questions about their field

yeah right and then make you know like so that's what i like i thrive on that so you know um yeah that's the way I like to approach. Yeah. Yeah. So you've now grown your business. You've retained a lot of core, very value add people. And now the problem is you can't do it all,

all of the running the business and teaching judo. And when the unit help, you need to hire people. So how did you go about doing that it's a tough one man and there's two ways right you could actually seek externally finding right but you're not pulling from a big pool if you're teaching something like judo right right okay you know i need to hire a programmer there's a lot of programmers i need to hire a lawyer there's lots of people who just come out with law degrees or i need to hire someone who's going to

teach judo for me. How many people know judo? How many people can teach judo? How many people have the same mindset as me in terms of safety and personal growth and all this stuff? So a lot of the times the best way to hire, I think, in the dojo setting is your homegrown guys, people who are going to help you. And it's kind of another one that's kind of tricky because once you develop someone to teach for you, you're essentially developing someone who can potentially be your competitor, right?

And people expect this like loyalty forever sort of a situation, especially martial arts, right? I trained you, I built you. How can you ever leave me and start your own dojo? It's so freaking selfish. It's like, that's just kind of messed up. You have to almost expect them and want them and give them the blessing to leave when they're ready to leave.

And it's very annoying. So kind of like the pipeline system, you always want to have a couple of people that's sort of in line to be able to teach classes, knowing fully well that they may start their own. So then the next person comes up through the ranks. Next person comes up through the ranks next person comes up right right there's ways to do it in a way where it's not deceiving and it's not messed up right i've known you know martial arts schools that were like oh you know you learn my way you teach for me and one day you'll have a dojo like me and you'll have this many students and you'll have this much money because two hundred dollars a month and you have a dojo like me and you'll have this many students and you'll have this much money because 200 a month and you have 100 students that's 20 grand a month and you can

make a quarter million dollars a year teaching this stuff you know like just stick with me it's like sensei i want to start my own dojo now it's like no you have right you're not ready yet or something like that yeah it's kind of messed up and you know people do this thing of like this indentured servant like you're teaching for me beginner class, and it's part of your training. And I'm not going to pay you. Your payment is learning how to teach. You know, people do this kind of stuff. Right.

I'm kind of against it. You know, but you have to have sort of a pipeline of instructors that are sort of homegrown. Right. And every now and then I'll get people with experience elsewhere that are great who are seeking a job. But the biggest disservice is taking someone off their current path. I mean, like, you don't need to go to college. Why would you do that?

Come teach judo for me, man. There's a future in it. That's messed up. I don't think that should be allowed. It happens all the time. People are vulnerable at a young age and impressionable. And there's this guy standing in front with all this charisma teaching martial arts. arts it's like i want to be like that guy it's like you can all you got to do is teach 18 classes a week for free and your payment right is the experience

is the experience i'm collecting all i'm taking all the money put in my pocket all right but good job you know kid and right so so you have to look out for this you have to look out for the you know potential teachers in your amongst your students they're coming up and then you gotta treat them fairly yeah you do and you know for me i was very lucky you know uh because a lot of these guys who ended up teaching for me they did it you know through their own choosing right hey you know i want to help people approach me can i help with the kids classes you know through their own choosing right hey yeah you know i want to help people approach me can i help with the kids classes you know i've had people who uh i don't like teaching kids classes you know and i'm like okay god bless you you know george like that

i want to help and he's like okay you know and he was helping and doing stuff and he was like kind of you know teaching kids classes after a while he's like i don't really like teaching kids classes that right i'm like okay you don't have like, okay, you don't have to like it, man. You don't have to do it. Done. No hard feelings, man. It's okay. You know, do you want to still answer phone calls?

He's like, sure, I'll do that. I'm like, okay. He really enjoys talking to, you know, the students on the phone and then trying to follow up with them and whatnot. I mean, right now I have no employees. Right. Right. Because it's...

I'm coming off as like this great person great employer i had to fire everybody because i had no money coming in because of the pandemic right right but you know they're getting unemployment and stuff it's okay right hopefully it'll get back yeah yeah hiring is important man because it's very uh you know and i've had some great employees and i had some bad employees and you know uh managing people period is such a weird thing because you're managing people. I just thought of that.

You're trying to control someone to do something. You're paying for their time. On a philosophical, fundamental level, I'm kind of a little bit weirded out about it. It's like, you come here, do what I say, and I'll give you money. It's kind of a weird situation. I like taking the approach of, look at me, I'm doing this thing. If you, and I'll give you money. So it's kind of a weird situation. I like taking the approach of like, look at me.

I'm doing this thing. If you want to help me, you can. And if you do help me, I can compensate you. Some expectations. Right? In a fair way. Right. That's sort of the way that I approach it, which isn't the right way.

I'm not saying this is the right way. A lot of the stuff that I do is not a good business move. For instance, people aren't required to buy my gi. People go on Amazon and buy their gi. People are going to have differently branded gis from other dojos that walk in. I already have a gi. I'm like, okay, you can wear it. I've never, you know, trying to.

Right. I've heard people do that. You have to have a white gi in the dojo. And you have to have our logo on your chest. Right. That's good business, right? In some ways because it's like, okay, every person that comes in has to purchase a gi now. That's good business.

It adds to the bottom line. But some people hate that. I'm not going to buy no gi. I'm not going to wear your gi. But some people are like, hey, it's a uniform mindset. We're all in this together. We're on a team. We have to brand this the same thing right so like i don't do that i don't sell you know gatorade i've tried

it it was horrible you know like there's so many things that i could potentially do and i don't do you know like merch sales i rarely ever do it because i think it's sometimes if it's not it could take away if it's not done well it could take away your focus from the main thing, which is teaching judo. Yeah, I don't want to do anything that distracts me from the dojo. Right. I like my dojo. That's why it's a lifestyle business. It's not like a great business.

It's a great lifestyle business for me because I walk into the dojo. I don't have to touch money. I don't have to deal with billing. I don't have to deal with phone calls. I don't have to deal with none of it. I walk in. I teach judo. I'm there to teach judo. If you want to learn judo, I'm there to teach you. I don't have to deal with billing. I don't have to deal with phone calls. I don't have to deal with none of it. I walk in, I teach judo. I'm there to teach judo.

If you want to learn judo, I'm there to teach you. Right, right. Hey, I've never seen you before. Shami Osoto Sensei. I forget you, you know. Like I want to teach the people who really want to learn

who's committed to learning. You're coming back every week and you're teachable. You're coachable. You're asking the right questions. You're a good part of the community. You're value add to every human in the room i'm gonna teach you right and i'm gonna look to see what you need and i'll teach you what you need to learn right kind of like that that's how the way

i like to set it up right but that's me personally right so while we're on the topic of you know hiring people and managing your employees and whatnot and you just finished your mba yeah and i'm sure you've you guys have learned a ton of amount about managing people and hiring people so are there some of the things that you learn that you do in your business now or some of the things that you did you learn learned, but you didn't take in reality. So can we talk about a lot of that? Yeah, I think one of the biggest takeaway, and I've already sort of mentioned

this lifestyle business idea. Right. We did a case study on like a bread company and they made sandwiches and bread and they wanted to expand and they wanted to be a franchise and these venture capitals came in. They wanted to fund it

and make it a national chain. Right. But it was like a mom and pop shop. They were just happy, right? Delivering bread to schools and having this type of a lifestyle where they have control over everything like their goal wasn't make millions and millions and millions of dollars and have to deal with these corporate people and after like that's what wasn't their goal right so they were trying to hire a board to you know do certain things and grow certain ways but they had a lot of resistance from the family because the family didn't really like it like that. Right. And then essentially at the end of

it, it was like, it's a lifestyle business for the family. Right. Right. And I really liked that sort of mentality. And I was like, oh, that's what I am. Right. Because I initially thought I wanted to have a dojo of a thousand people. Right. I wanted to have, you know know five dojos in the city and three overseas or whatever it is and have a franchise and you know i initially kind of thought like that would be kind of cool that's a lot of money you know you have a thousand students paying two hundred dollars a month that's two hundred thousand dollars and just revenue on tuition yeah in a monthly basis that's 2.4 million dollars a year right right right so i was like oh that's cool if i can make that much money you know doing teaching you don and having this and that. But, you know, the headaches of training

everybody and trying to do quality control across the different franchises, it's just not worth my time and my effort. Right. So it helped me really hone in on what I really did want from the dojo. And I wanted to keep it, you know, I want to keep it a lifestyle business for me. Right. You know, I want to keep the legacy of the dojo the way my father ran it and i also don't want to spend you know 80 hours a week on it i don't want to spend 40 hours a week on it i want to show up teach the people and it's just a great community of people who want to learn right kids and adults kids a little bit different you you gotta you know before you start the business you kind of have to sit down and think about this right like is it what's the goal it's not just i have to sit down and think about this, right?

What's the goal? It's not just about the money. I don't think you can think about all of it because you can't really know some of this stuff. What is my biggest motivator with the kids program? A good example is Jake. Right, right. He's a great kid. I've known the kid since he was eight. He was going through a hard time, whatever it was.

Came to the dojo, loved judo, did judo all the way through he was 18, away from college didn't see him for four years came back now he's starting to be a lawyer he still comes back yeah yeah i mean not right now because pandemic but he has roots at the dojo right that's been you know going back 20 30 years right and he's gonna always dip it and say hi always hey how are you you know oh you know i want to learn a little bit more i'm gonna to be back in he's not going to stick around after eight months but it's okay right you know and having the kids program and having like this rooted thing is a great thing for me you know yes the kids program is is a little bit more lucrative than the adults right but you know that's that's what really gets me going with the kids program you know having these like uh you know one of the things like we had a grandma and a grandpa bring their kid in you know their son

to do judo and then that son had a kid so they were bringing their grandkids to the dojo and they happened to have met at the dojo 40 years ago oh wow wow wow so it's three generations right of this family have a relationship with the dojo and the grandparents learned from my father. Right, right, right. So something like that is really cool. I want to keep that going. It's a legacy. Yeah.

Yeah. But I also don't want the dojo to feel like work. Right, right, right. You know, mull over everything. It's like, oh, man, profit this and profit that and revenue streams and all these different things. And I need to add fucking merch sales and I need to buy, sell drinks and I need to work on the margins and cut costs.

I don't want to do that. Right, right, right, right. I just want an X number of people, people coming in, right? Just this intergenerational judo community. And that's what motivates me. That's what makes it a lifestyle business. And the NBA really helped me hone in on that

because initially I thought myself as like a businessman, right'm a smart guy i'm a businessman if i say smart guy right you are but then i realized uh being in that room i'm not one of those people you know it's not that it's not that uh if you want to grow a business to become this international chain it's not that that's bad it's just like yeah it take it's good for certain people but it wasn't you yeah not for me not for me it doesn't motivate me right right yeah that's cool like very cool period yeah yeah well they say like that's my biggest thing right now it's like yeah man working just fucking sucks right you gotta go somewhere every day you know like the nine to five grind you know it's brutal i've done it before right right right you know it's like five and yeah but now you're

just uh it's as if you're never working really you're just i mean now i'm working now i'm working in charge of the international business right right you know that too was a blessed that's another thing you could do you know e-commerce and you know martial arts merch right martial arts equipment right i'm working with fuji now on the international division i both my dojos were shut down for a little while and leah hatasha who owns a business who i've known for 20 30 years of my life she's like hey you want to come work for me you know while you know whatever it is and give us some of your thoughts from your mba i was like i'm glad to help yeah nice and so now i'm working there so now that we've talked about how to start a dojo grow it and maintain it and manage it kind of we talked about the way i do things which is not the right way

probably no i think it's it's it's good for to people to hear about this so that you know they at least have a reference point because you you are successful in your own way I do have to say there is some survivor bias there also

and the fact that I'm in a New York City where there's tons of people and plenty of demand for service martial arts and you know

there's not a lot of judo schools in the city too which helps so it's not just me it's a lot of environmental factors that i can't control that it's just straight up lucky right so i have to throw that out there just to make sure people don't think you know right right right i'm not trying to take credit of like oh it's because

i'm so you know it's not that a lot of it is luck smart and humble shintaro and good looking yeah i know oh man so now let's kind of shift gears to the other side like i have other business opportunities in the march art like you mentioned e-commerce and merchandising on that and you're you're now involved in that more so and not even social media too so yeah yeah maybe let's start with social media because you you started with your youtube channel recently and it grew a lot yeah yeah i feel like this could be a completely separate oh yeah too right yeah but we could just touch about it touch about it and then we will move on to the e-commerce yeah so i think like you know before brick and mortar dojo you were confined to the force four

walls right that's it but now with like social media and the network effect and the reach that you may have through the internet and stuff like that, you know, content creation, that's a real business now. You know, you have 10,000 followers, you have 100,000 followers, right?

You can do sponsored ads and, you know, brands would reach out to work with you and all this stuff. And that's a way to make money too. Right. Not a lot of money, you know, but YouTube is one that i do like i teach judo anyway and i like teaching judo and i teach what i teach in the dojo to my youtube

audience yeah right more views i get the more ad money that they give me which is a good thing you know i'm not making a lot you know but that's good yeah yeah it's good you know it's a way to be able to put yourself out there i think and then gain advertisement revenue and if you have a product to sell like a video series which i do right uh you can do that and then reach a wider audience right yeah yeah so that's one way to you know another way of running a business in martial arts world how about the e-commerce side what have you learned so far with working with fuji you know e-commerce that's it's just actually you know not nothing to do with martial arts too right you create a product you add value to it you know you take a commodity or something and

you build it and then make it into something cool that people want you market it and then people buy it you know and what you put into it it's got to be less than what you get out of it right just like that's just how it is and you know i think in the martial arts world right there's equipment that you'll always need to do the martial arts like geese and rash guards and things like that and you know that's sort of a very it's crowded but there's only it's very concentrated at the top you know fuji is one of the biggest brands in the world, I think. And it's one of the top dogs and it's always been there in 20, 30 years. It's a very long history.

So it's an interesting world of business. And a lot of these, the barrier of entry is pretty low. Because it's not like, if you're trying to compete with Boeing and Airbus and you want to make airplanes for a living, the barrier of entry is really high. Because you need engineers, you need tons and tons and trying to compete with Boeing and Airbus and you want to make airplanes for a living, the pay range is really high. Right, right, right.

You need tons, tons, tons of money and resources to do this. You don't need that many resources. Just start your own gi brand, you know. By the way, Fuji does private labels. So if you want to create your own gi through Fuji, you could definitely do that too. I was actually going to ask, like finding a supplier, designing and whatnot, that kind of would raise the barrier of entry. But you could outsource it essentially to established companies. Yeah, so it's a service company that a lot of these big companies provide, especially Fuji. They do a great job with it.

You can try to source your own factory, but it comes with a lot of headaches, right? International stuff, value-add taxes and right you know issues and factories and you know just even like because you have to have a basic knowledge of like supply chain management if you're gonna have a factory and make it and do this and sell it and marketing you can't do everything by yourself it's impossible but if you contact a company like fuji man it's like they're not even paying me to do this right and they're paying me you know for work but yeah uh you know just a little plug. If you contact Fuji, like, hey, I want to make Peter Yu judo gis.

Right, right, right. You could work with their designer, have Peter Yu design gi, right? And then they could put it into production at Fuji's factory, Fuji's factory, right? And then all of a sudden now it's going to cost you x amount of dollars per unit and now you just sell it at a right price and now you collect the difference right but if you have a social media presence and you could do like if you have a hundred thousand subscribers and then you make your own gi uh-huh right then you can sell to your subscribers hey guys this will help me out greatly i'm trying this thing i want to design geese for a living now too please check

it out and that kind of thing goes a long way right i mean not too many people are doing it because i think people don't know right right right oh yeah i think of the yeah because yeah i have no idea about this side of the business i i didn't even know you could do that like yeah as a service the best prices yeah you should make a gi for our show oh that would be amazing yeah we get your face and my face on the chest that would be very cute and then nobody would buy it we'd be sitting on 100 units in my parents attic yeah well that before gi pants and pockets i that that was a good idea you you you've uh you've sold it all no like no i sold all the black ones oh the white one sold out oh one sat around uh and now they're sitting in my parents attic do your parents like him

do they do they wear them they're nice about it they give it to their friends oh that's nice and it's probably like the worst thing someone could receive like what the hell am i gonna do with this they're comfy they have pockets yeah the pockets a little too shallow oh or maybe it's version two has to come out now version two the version two i actually have a mock-up have a design have, have a cut, everything. It's a lot better than version 1. Version 1, I didn't realize it until I actually started wearing it. And then the phone kept coming out of my pocket every time I sat in the car.

And I was like, God damn it. Yeah. Maybe that could be like a little merch for the podcast if people want it. You know, let us know, I guess. Higashi pants with pockets yeah don't buy the version one it's not that good you can't even buy it now online you can't even write online anymore but you know version two if we do a version two it's going to be a lot better because right we're going to use the material used on the elemental gi pant uh oh okay unbelievably soft

100 cotton and then we'll make the pockets deeper and add a back pocket and then we're going to use bungee drawstring cords you're big on that bunch i was about to ask you it's gonna be bungee cord there's neck version two yeah so based on those three little adjustments and we're not going to make white we're just going to make black people are going to buy it and people it'll sell out but i just haven't pulled the trigger on it just i can't i can. I don't have the time right now. Well, listeners and your YouTube channel fans, please let Shintaro know if you guys would like some of these pants.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe it'll happen. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, that was a good overview on the business side of things in martial arts um anything else you would like to add or that we uh kind of missed yeah i mean there's other ways to make money right we talked a little bit about the dojo business we talked about like the

franchising model different models different motivators we talked about social media like you said and e-commerce and all that stuff. You could also be a professional judo athlete or a professional jiu-jitsu athlete. Right, right, right. That's another route. And you could find your own personal sponsors if you're capable of driving this message of like, hey, this is my dream, and you get people to follow you on that dream because you're an excellent communicator.

People do that. That's one way. I think there's a lot of ways to make money in the industry you know but if you're doing it because you want to make money i think you're already sort of losing right because if your ultimate goal is to make money go be a banker right right or do something else that actually has a lot more money right right go into dermatology right yeah so i do the judo business Scientology. Right? Yeah. I do the judo business because I love it. You know, I love the industry.

I love the people. I've grown up with it, you know? And there's sometimes I'm kind of like, oh, man, you know, I would like to be able to say that, you know, different occupations. Like when you're like, oh, I'm a PhD in program and I'm a software engineer. I'm like, wow. Right? It's like sometimes I'm like, I'm a software engineer i'm like wow right it's like sometimes i'm like i'm a judo teacher and some people like oh you teach like little kids judo and you know tiger patches and i'm like yeah essentially at the fundamental level yeah kinda you know but

yeah there's a lot of ways to do it right i think you have to love it and if you love it it'll happen for you and uh if you want to find me on instagram or something you can and you could ask me questions. I just wrote like three emails, someone asking me about this. That's why I came up with the idea of doing this one. I see. I see. Yeah.

It's like, hey, I'm starting a dojo in Brazil. Can you help me out? Can you give me some tips? Yeah. Hey, I'm starting a dojo in whatever state, one of the smaller states in the United States. I'm like, yeah, okay. If you have any questions, I'll answer them for you. Nice.

Nice. But the way I do it is very different because my motivators are different. My biggest thing that I value in my dojo business is my time, right? Right, right. Freedom to be able to go in later in the afternoon, teach some classes,

teach only the people that I like. I don't want to teach everybody. Right, right, right. Everybody doesn't deserve. I mean, that's kind of messed up like you know they're gonna get to learn in the class but like the interactions that they get with me that's like another level and it's not something you can just buy right everyone pays the same amount right right you know so it's not something you can just buy and purchase you buy in to be a part

of the community and that's sort of the way that i like to run the dojo you know yeah you know how it is you were there for many many years yeah i love it drank the kool-aid hi i fully did i fully do i mean i'm one of those core members you know you should just quit your phd come back and teach my kids classes for me yeah would i be able to would i be able to make millions of dollars if i think about it man if you have 10 000 students bro it's like 2 million a month bro oh sensei take me into their tutelage well that's good i think you you're uh you point out a good your point about having to love what you do i mean that will carry you through i mean whatever you do you're gonna you know run into tough times but if you love love what you do you're gonna be able to persevere through it it's true yeah i

think that's a good very good point on that note uh thanks for listening guys um thank you very much thank you let us let us know about the pants if you guys want some any questions for shintaro you know find them on instagram or youtube and or uh this podcast so stay tuned for the next episode and then we'll see you guys soon yep thank you guys bye