"It's never going to be perfect, I'm never going to have all the answers and I don't want all the answers because that would be boring!"  - Jesse Elder

The Cheat Sheet:

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• How he fought and won a dojo? (16:10)
  
• The acid test: how to use it for success in any area of your life. (25:00)
  
• His merit-based approach to dating. (35:00)
  
• What is a need-free connection and how can you cultivate it? (41:10)
  
• Money makes us ___. Jesse fills in the blank. (48:50)
  
• And so much more!
  

What can we learn from a "Fight Club"esque fighter/former bouncer turned martial arts school owner turned multi-million dollar businessman about self-mastery? Plenty.

Jesse Elder is a present day successful entrepreneur and business man who started his career in the underground bar fight scene and learned some startling self-mastery lessons along the way. He joins The Art of Charm to share his lessons, his keen insights and authentic views on life, love and business.

More About This Show:

Jesse's path began like it does for many people: he took martial arts as a kid. He loved it and by the age of 15, he was teaching courses. He had the benefit of having teachers who were always happy to get out of the way once they had given the help that was needed and Jesse thrived on that support. By 17 and 18, he was competing and quite successfully so.

Around this time, the UFC was gaining in popularity and one of his local clubs began to offer bar fight night on Thursdays. They rolled out a wrestling mat on the dance floor and whoever wanted to, could step into the ring.

He thought this was an opportunity he would regret not seizing so he went for it. And that first night, he entered two fights and won both. A new path opened up for him; in addition to bouncing and teaching, he started fighting regularly and built up a reputation.

One summer in particular, he simply kept winning. Until he faced one particular opponent. This man was 40 pounds heavier than Jesse and, unbeknownst to Jesse, was greased up with Vaseline. No matter what Jesse did, he couldn't get a handle on this guy and couldn't bring him down. For three full rounds, he sparred and tried his very best but to no avail. Jesse could not bring him down and Jesse lost, in front of hundreds of people including friends, family, and his students.

When Jesse left the match, he told his crew to take him to the hospital because he couldn't breath. It felt like he was sucking air through a coffee straw.

At the hospital, the doctor told him his nose was moved over an inch from where it should be, he had a concussion and his left lung was collapsed. But as Jesse sat there taking it all in and seeing what his family and friends who were waiting for him were going through, he asked himself: How I am doing right now? And the strange part was his answer: I am fine.

Jesse thought, who is this I if I am fine? He understood it wasn't his body, which was racked with pain, but the energy that animated his body. For so long he had associated himself with his body, but now he understood he was far more than that.

He also got that he couldn't change someone else's experiences. He saw his friends and family going through what they were going through when he was in the hospital, but he couldn't change that for them. It was their own independent experience to have. That was one of his first lessons in self-mastery.

That moment in the hospital was absolutely pivotal for him. He stopped caring what others thought of him, and started seeing other people as an extension of himself.

Within a year, he opened his own martial arts school and sought out successful mentors to help him understand the business side of things, he knew nothing about sales or marketing. He soon understood his success wasn't going to rely on how great of a martial artist Jesse was, but how well he served others.

Not long he understood and implemented those practices, the business was earning six figures a year, then six figures a month and about the time Jesse sold it, the business was reaching six figures a WEEK.

So why would he walk away from that? That brings us to his second lesson in self-mastery: he realized he was done with it. It was time to move on to the next thing, the next phase of his life. He sold his business to a partner and walked away from it because he wanted to work with people outside of (or not just within) the martial arts world.

Soon after, he started coaching. His first program was done all via grassroots marketing efforts, meaning he sent people private messages on various social media outlets about the program and enthusiastically encouraging them to sign up! There was no funnel system, no landing page, none of that. He simply had the idea to go for it one day after he posted a video about self-mastery and got tons of great feedback. He wanted to help people upgrade their lives, in any and all areas.

And that's exactly what he does today and why he joined us for episode 298. There's so much more Jesse and I talk about, I hope you'll listen and digest all the great takeaways in this show...and then start applying them to your life for self-mastery.

Resources from this episode:

Jesse's web site
Jesse on Twitter

You'll also like:
-The Art of Charm Toolbox

-Best of The Art of Charm Podcast

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