The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

#24 What You Condone, You Endorse. My conversation with 8th Degree Black Belt Grandmaster Rick Rando

• Mark Cundiff

Share episode


In this episode of the Learning to Lead Show, host Mark Cundiff interviews Grandmaster Rick Rando, 8th Degree Black Belt, owner and president of Kick Masters Karate and host of the Victory Couch Podcast. 

Rick shares insights from his extensive career in martial arts and business leadership. He discusses the importance of maintaining high standards, recognizing and addressing toxic influences, and the significance of servant leadership. 

Rick also recounts his journey from starting martial arts to owning a thriving business, highlighting key lessons learned along the way, especially during challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The episode emphasizes the value of humility, continuous improvement, and building trust within teams. Rick's personal experiences and practical advice offer valuable takeaways for leaders in any industry.


00:00 Overcoming Toxic Relationships in Leadership

00:53 Introduction to the Learning to Lead Show

02:13 Rick Rando's Martial Arts Journey Begins

04:46 Early Leadership Lessons and Family Influence

06:04 Building a Successful Martial Arts Business

12:06 Servant Leadership and Team Culture

19:36 Balancing Humility and Confidence

23:11 Challenges and Growth in Business

27:12 Adapting to COVID-19: Safety Measures and Challenges

28:10 The Importance of Systems in Business

29:15 Continuous Improvement and Efficiency

31:45 Self-Leadership and Personal Growth

35:41 Building and Trusting Your Team

44:00 Lessons from Disney: Leadership and Service

47:02 Personal Development and Influences

49:46 The Role of Family in Leadership

52:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts


Connect with Grandmaster Rick Rando:

Rick's Recommended Reading List:

Rick's Recommended Podcast:

Free Learning To Lead Resources

🔎 About LeaderNotes

LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go. It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.


Contact Mark at: mark@markjcundiff.com

Audio Only - All Participants:

I would sometimes keep toxic people around because I thought that I needed them and I couldn't get rid of them. Oh my gosh, this is the number one instructor for Little Dragons. If she goes, or if I cut her, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna continue to make it? I want your view is to understand what you condone. You endorse. So if you hang around with toxicity, you're basically saying that it's okay. I early on didn't wanna offend anybody. I didn't wanna to hold the line. I would blur the line a little bit. She comes in a little bit late, but I need her, or sometimes she had gossips a little bit, but I need her, instead of being like, look, no, this is what it is. So I think another early mistake that I made was not being definitive of where the line is. I think as I've gotten older and a little more rigid. This is the standard. And the standard is the standard. So either you level up or there's the door right over there.

Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead Show. I'm your host, mark Cundiff that clip Was from my good friend Grandmaster Rick Rando, who is the owner and president of Kick Masters Karate. He's also the host of the Victory Couch Podcast, he's a eighth degree black belt in TaeKwonDo one of the things that you'll learn today from Rick is how to be a servant leader. He goes into great detail talking about how over the course of his career starting. A martial arts business going through COVID with a business that is all about in-person training, in high touch, high contact environment. How he survived the ups and downs of running that type of business when 50% of the businesses that operate like him in a martial arts setting. Went outta business after COVID. One year after COVID, they went outta business, but he is still growing and thriving. Has an 8,000 square foot facility make sure that you download the leader notes to get the summary from the content today.'cause he's going to put out a lot of different things that will apply to your situation, to your industry, to your leadership growth. Get ready to listen to my conversation with Rick Rando.

Audio Only - All Participants:

Hello, Rick. It's great to have you with us today. Thank you so much, sir. Honored to be here. I'm excited to continue to contribute to learning to lead what I'd really like to do is just give your story a little bit of context. Tell us a little bit about your leadership journey, how you got into this whole world of martial arts, karate, and how that's played. Into your leading a business and give us a little bit of context of where you're coming from a leadership standpoint. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks so much for listening. I think the number one commodity we have is time. Anytime that you can give your time and attention to someone else, it's an honor. So thank you for giving me your time. And listeners, thank you for giving me your time and attention. My story starts a long time ago. It actually starts mar my martial arts journey when I was about nine years old. So my sister, who at the time was six, she comes home one day and she tells my parents, look, I want to be a ninja turtle. Okay? Because that was popular at the time. I wanna be a ninja. It's not just a Halloween costume. I wanna learn martial arts. My family did a little bit of research, found a studio. She started taking lessons. I, at the time, I was a basketball player. I did a little bit of soccer played the drums. Martial arts was not for me. It just wasn't. So I would go and watch my sister do all these moves and the, and oh and yeah, and all this stuff. It just wasn't my bread and butter. So anyway about two weeks in, we were getting ready to go somewhere. In the car. And of course we jumped into to the vehicle that my, my dad was driving. It was a Lincoln Town car. And at the time as a kid you could drive in the front seat or ride in the front seat, I should say, standards, shotgun rules. You had to see the front, you saw it, you said shotgun and whoever you know, called it first got the ride in the front seat. My sister six, and she yells shotgun on her way to the car, and I was like. Kidding me, like you're six tiny little thing. I've moved my hand away and she goes, wow. Like that. I was like, oh man, this is not good. So anyway, I ended up getting in the backseat and I'm back there. I don't know where we were going. I don't remember. I remember thinking, if I don't learn what she's learning, she's gonna be right in the front seat and gonna be able to kick my butt anytime, anywhere. So if I don't learn what she's learning, I'm gonna be in the lurch. So I started martial arts for self-defense purposes, self-defense against my 6-year-old sister. That's how my martial art journey started. Ever since then, it has infected me in the most wonderful and positive way possible. I really give my leadership prowess to my grandfather who was an entrepreneur, my great-grandfather who owned a. A grocery store. My grandfather owned a restaurant. My dad owned a coal company and sold crafts on the weekends at different fairs and things. I saw work ethic at its finest modeled to me.'cause as more is caught than taught. And for me, my journey started by watching my family members go out of the cave and kill something and drag it back home. I got my black belt in 1992. I was 13 years old. The very next class I was teaching, so I got my black belt on Saturday. On Monday I started teaching the adult class at 13, and I'm out there, I have no idea what I'm doing. My instructor, who was basically by himself said, Hey, look, you're a black belt now. You're, go ahead and teach the class. You know what you're doing. And no systems, no training, just throw you in. That's how things started. About eight years later, I had earned his respect and he had passed the studio down to me and a partner. And that was in 2000. And since then, we've been growing and really trying to build my martial arts studio into what it is now. In case you don't know who I am my name is Grandmaster Rick Rando. I'm an eighth degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, first degree black belt in Cali Sala. Trained in K Maga, a little bit of keo, a little bit of hop Keto. I own one of the largest open space martial arts schools in the country. 8,000 square foot building. We have a staff of 70 plus. We run classes six days a week. That's how it started. It started with me riding in the backseat of a vehicle because my sister was gonna kick my butt. So we have your sister to thank for your career. Yes, sir. In fact, I tested for my eighth degree black belt this summer, and the very first person I thanked was my sister. When she got up, she got a chance to speak at the event and say a couple words. She was very, I think, humbled by that that reference of saying, look, that no one gets anywhere without the significant help of others. No one, even Michael Jordan had to have somebody drive him to practice and change his diapers when he was younger. I think that humility comes into play for sure. But my sister being the supportive nature, even though she's not in martial arts right now, continues to be fruitful even to this day. You started your entrepreneurial career very early, a lot earlier than most people. And so what would you say that are the different types of leadership roles that you've had during that time? When, you go back all the way to when you were 13, starting to teach that class. That was a leadership role at 13, so you were thrown in the fire pretty early. So walk us through a few of the different roles that you've had and what you've learned in those roles. It started, I think I, I think the first time I really had to lead was when I started cutting grass. My job was to come out and cut the grass every seven to 10 days. Of course my family would compensate me accordingly. I think back then it was like$5 every time I cut the grass or something like that. I learned early on that if you do a really good job, people notice. I was cutting the grass one day, and one of the neighbors pulled up in his car, his Buick or something, and said, Hey, would you mind cutting my grass? And I said just doing our lawn here would you mind cutting my grass too? So we worked out a deal where I would go and cut our grass and then go cut their lawn. Of course I would do the edging and the trimming and I brush the walkways and all that kind of good stuff, of course. After a couple weeks, another neighbor would say, Hey, I see that you're working really hard. Would you mind cutting my grass? And by the time it was done in high school, I was cutting anywhere between 15 to 20 lawns. I was working for myself. I had a lawn care company way back when, and I was doing things that other people were not doing. I think that's the difference that I learned early on, that you have to. Do things that other people are not willing or not able to do in order to stand out that average is forgotten? Average experiences, average happenings, average human beings will be eagerly forgotten. In business I learned early very early that if you want to make a difference, you have to be different. I cut lawns. I worked for Pepsi stocking shelves. In high school. I was the the leader of my of the chorus. I was a class treasurer in college I was a member of two honor fraternities. Nothing like, toga to, it was like grade based and, major based. Then, right from there at 22 I took over as as a business owner. And that was 25 years ago. So if you're doing the math, I don't know how that works'cause I'm still 39 and holding. But that was a lot of rings on the tree and a lot of leadership lessons earned and learned early on. So if we went back to your early days of Young Rick, when you're 22, you're starting out to lead this organization, lead this business, what are some things that, if you could go back to Young Rick and tell him, Hey, you should be doing this and you should be doing this, what are some things that you weren't doing at a, an exceptional level from a leadership standpoint that you're doing today? What would you tell Young Rick? I'd say very early on to look at it through all lenses. So you and I are big Disney fans, and one of the things that Disney does is they try to think of every little tiny detail, the differences in the details. Just to give you an example, you go to the Magic Kingdom, or if you go out to Disneyland, you will see that the windows and Main Street are very low. It doesn't make sense to us tall people, but it makes sense to all the short, little tiny guests they have come in so they can see in the windows, because when they go into Main Street, USA. They don't really see in the windows because they're too high. So looking at things from everyone's perspective will give you a better product, a better experience, and a better way to serve people. I think early on, I didn't look at it the ease of maybe class times we would have our adult class from nine to 10:00 PM and to me, without kids without responsibilities, that's the perfect time. Most parents, they can't leave their kids at nine o'clock to go work out. So it wasn't convenient, but I was only looking at it through my lens. That's the time that we can do it, and that's convenient for me. And, that's what we're gonna do. Same thing with like payments, taking payments, we'd say we're gonna go ahead and, do payments at the beginning of the month and it's, back then it was a check or cash or things like that. Maybe people don't get paid at the beginning of the month. Maybe they get paid on the second Tuesday or the third Tuesday, so having different payment options or different ways to submit payment. Just simple things. Being on time. Super important. For me, I would always, I would get going. We'd be having fun. The class was supposed to be an hour, and I'd run over maybe 10 minutes. To me, we're engaged in the class. This is great. I'm giving you more, but to a family that's on a tight time budget. 10 minutes just cost them to be late. Somewhere else. So I think for me personally, it was looking at it from all perspectives, from a client perspective, from a staff perspective, from an owner's perspective, and early on, just a little bit conceited in that way. And not trying to be mean, it's just you don't know what you don't know. From a business standpoint, how do you use trust and relationships and influence to lead versus just, I'm the boss? What's your style around that? Sure. Here's the thing. You can lead by a lot of different ways. You can lead by title, you can lead by position, you can lead by authority, you can lead by fear. You can lead by default. What we wanna do at our building and our with our clients is to lead by example and to be a servant leader. We wanna serve. We wanna serve our people. We want to take care of them from the second they walk in. We want them to feel special. We want'em to feel cared for. We want'em to feel loved. And when someone does that to you and for you and through you and by you, it's easy to build rapport and trust. Okay, and here's the thing. You have to be careful of who you surround yourself with the people that work for you. They represent your brand day in and day out. So we only hire within. All of our staff members are our black belts. We don't hire out, we don't have guests come in. We, look, I live in a college town. We have college students come in all the time, and I'll get a call probably once every two or three weeks. Hey, I'd like to come and teach at your studio. I'd like to come and I know this and I know that. And respectfully, I will say so you're welcome to come and train. We can work through that. See what class best fits you. But as far as. Leading or teaching a class we're good. And usually I get a sense of pushback from that of you don't understand. I can do this and I can give you this. And yes, I understand that, but I don't know what you're gonna say. And I don't know what's gonna, what's gonna come. I don't know the experience that you're gonna give my guests. And you know what? Because I wanna be a servant leader and serve them, it's important that I give them the best. Possible experience. I can, and unfortunately at this point it does not include you.'cause I don't know you, I don't know anything about you. And if I'm gonna go ahead and put you in front of a 4-year-old kid who looks up to you and because you're wearing a black belt, you're a superhero. I gotta do my job too. My due diligence. Titles, if you're worried about a title, you're doing it wrong. I can't tell you how many people, some of the best leaders of businesses are out there cleaning the floors. They're serving their people in the back. Look, I have a friend of mine that is probably one of the top three earners in the Chick-fil-A company, and you will find him at least once a week in the back breading chicken. If you know anything about breading the chicken, it is the dirtiest, most disgusting job that you can have in the building other than empty in the dumpster or cleaning out the dumpster. And that's where he's at. Why is he so successful? Because he is not afraid to roll up a sleeves and jump in and help where needed. That's the good stuff. That's the stuff that people will never see. So if you wanna win, if you wanna win in life, be a servant leader, how can you serve? What do your staff need to give their best experience? What do they need? Does your front desk staff person need I don't know, a heater by their feet to make sure their feet stays warm when they don't have their shoes on the building. What does your, what do your instructors need? Do they need more time to refresh between classes? Do they need more pads so they can do the pad class correctly? What do they need? Your role as a leader, especially whether you're young or older, is to find the need. Fill the need. Serve the people that serve the people walking in that essentially serve you. They pay their rent pay your rent, they pay your salary, they pay you in emotional happiness. I can't tell you the ways, how many ways that I have been blessed by my people that walk in every single day because they're more than just a number. They're an opportunity to lead. They're an opportunity to get better. They're an opportunity to make a difference. I think leadership by authority is wrong. Leadership by example is what we should all aspire to be. It sounds like you're very intentional about your culture and very protective of your culture, and many organizations that I've encountered during my career are not so intentional and not so protective. What would you say if someone came and did an avatar of your team members, what are the key characteristics and behaviors that they would see in your team? That's a great question. I would just tell you right now that ethics and humility are some of the strongest characteristics that you can have in a team member that works for me. Also a confident and confident social media present. If you're gonna go out and spew hate one way or another, left or right, doesn't matter to me. You're not for us. We have all of our people sign agreements that we can monitor their social media. We're not gonna tell'em what to say or how to say it, but look, if you post something that is controversial, you know there's gonna be a problem there. I'm not trying to take away anybody's first amendment, right? That's not what we wanna do. But what we do wanna do is look, if you are gonna be a leader to a four and 5-year-old. You can't go out there and complain about this ethnic group that does not, that's not gonna fly with us. So the other thing too is that once somebody gets their block boat, most people think that they can dodge bullets and levitate and run up walls and stuff like that. We have Jackie, Janet, like for that. That's not anywhere close to what a black boat leader is. A black boat leader is humble. They're confident in their skill. They're competent in what they're teaching and what they're saying, where they're going, who they hang out with, but most importantly, they're not afraid to lead by example and showcase that on our training floor each and every class. The black belts, we warm the class up. If we want you to touch your toes, we better be able to touch our toes. If we wanna say we're gonna do 50 pushups today, the leader better be able to do pushups in our industry that's rare too.'cause a lot of people that have been around for a while, you can see, we call'em the short belts. Like they got their black belt 30 years ago. And then you look at'em and they're overweight and they're lethargic and they come in and they tell old stories and they don't have any news stories because the only time they come out. And showcase who they are is when it's time to collect a paycheck. For me, that's not what we do. We want to be on our floor. We want to be in our students' lives, and we want to be able to be accessible to moms and dads that look. They're bringing their kid to us because maybe the child has a DD, maybe they have Asperger's, maybe they have some sort of form of autism that they can't function highly in team oriented sports. And they're bringing'em here because martial arts is individual. It's individualized, performance and reward based, and this is the sport and activity for them. And look, we don't take that lightly. So another thing that I would just suggest that if somebody would do a dissection of our team leads is that they aren't afraid to fail, and this is important. I can't tell you how many times that we have somebody get to black belt level and when we're, handing their, the black belt, wrapping around their waist, they thank their parents, they thank grandma, they thank mom and dad, thank the black belts, but then they thank their parents for not letting them quit. Thanks mom and dad for when it got hard. When I failed my third stripe at red belt and I wanted to quit. Thank you for not letting me do that, because quitting is cyclical. Quitting is habitual. You quit this thing when you're young, you're gonna be quitting. Different jobs when you're older, you're gonna be quitting on your marriage, on your kids, on opportunity. Most people don't even start martial arts because they've quit before they started. What's too hard? I'll never be able to learn. What if I get hurt? What if I can't remember the things, quitting is the easiest thing to do. It's easier than starting, resiliency and not being afraid to fail forward is definitely a characteristic of my staff members. That is some great characteristics that you've listed there. There are two there that you talked about humility and confidence in. In our world today, people would see those as diametrically opposed many times. Explain how. You see those two as paired and not contradictory, and how those characteristics shine in your students and your teachers? I'll just give you an example. So you know, you're at a restaurant and somebody jumps in front of you. Okay? I've been doing martial arts 38 years and it would be really easy to, for me to grab that person by the hair and rip'em down and punch'em in the throat, right? But the humility standpoint might say, Hey, is, the lines back there. Is there something I can help you with? No. I'm just I'm just really hungry. I'm in a hurry, tell me why are you in a hurry? I got my kids in the car. I don't wanna leave'em, and my daughter just threw up and I'm blah, blah, blah. Yeah, sure. Jump in front of me. Not a problem at all. In fact, you know what? You want me to go out to the car and just keep an eye on your kids while you order? So that humility of saying, look, it's not always about you, but the confidence to say, look, if I need to and I need to put my hands on you, we'll do it. I'll tell you right now, I started training in Cala. I don't usually go anywhere now without a short umbrella. And an umbrella looks just like a clie stick. And you can take an umbrella on a plane, you can take it anywhere you go, even to a, a crowded theater or into a, even to a hall where you're gonna go see a play or something like that. You can always take your umbrella in. To me, that's a weapon. So I have that confidence to be able to use it, but the humility to say, look, I wanna serve the greater good. I'm not gonna go and hit people with it because that's not who I am. The other thing too, is so many people get wrapped up in getting likes or getting content whether it is valuable or not to the masses. They have to put something out and sometimes they show where they go and what they do and the food they had. And I went to see this concert, I met this celebrity, all that kind of good stuff. They forget that you have to know who you are, which is where the confidence comes from, but you have to keep some of that stuff to yourself. If you are putting everything out on social media, what do you have left to give to your family? Or to your friends or to your team members. And also what are they thinking? Hey I just left the studio to go to this one of a kind resort. Look, I'm not begrudging anybody. I've taken nice vacations and I know that most of your listeners have too, but for me, I don't need to put where I'm going. Who I'm going with and what I'm eating and all the activities I do, because to me, that's just that humility factor. I built a, one of a kind treehouse for my kids in my backyard, and it was for my 40th birthday. My, my wife comes in and says, what do you want for your 40th birthday? I was like, look I have the perfect le, I don't really need anything. I said, but what you, what I'd like to do is I'd like to build a tree house for our kids. We have two kids at the time, my son was 10 and my daughter was seven. I said, this is what I wanna do. So long story short, I contacted the people out in that show on Animal Planet, the Tree House, masters, Nelson's Tree House, and I got a kit from them. I got the hardware and I spent four months building a tree house in the backyard. I am also not fan of heights, so Treehouse is about 15 feet in the air. It was, I got scaffolding and the whole thing, and I did it. There's not been one picture on social media that I put out, showing what it is. There's never been a recording of me in it. There's never said, Hey, look at me. Look what I did. And I think I have the confidence to know that I did it. I build it with my hand, my bare hands every day, four months. But also the humility to say, you know what? That's just for us. That's just for me. I think I think that's important. They do go hand in hand for sure. That's awesome. Think back over your, you said you've been in business for 27 years right now, and think about the challenges that you've had along the way. I know for a business like yours, COVID had to be a huge challenge because it's all in person, it's all face to face, it's all eye contact. I know that probably wasn't your only challenge over those 27 years. Maybe tell us a couple stories about some challenges running your own business and how that's helped you grow as a leader going through those challenges. Sure. The very first big class that my instructor allowed me to teach was in 1999. It was just before I took over and it was called the introductory class. And basically at the time, it was a six week class design, introduce martial arts to new people. I wanted to do something that I guess was very different at the time. I wanted to do some gorilla marketing at the time. You would be able to put something in a newspaper and ad in the newspaper, and it was like$500 and it was like a half page ad, we would fill up classes and I thought, you know what? There's gotta be a cheaper way where maybe I can put some hustle behind the muscle. You know what I mean? Instead of just paying the check. Just doing a one-time shot. So I was creative. I started canvassing, cars at the mall. I would do demonstrations in schools. I made a deal with the person that did the printing and all the elementary school systems for a barter. I gave their sons some free lessons. If they would send a flyer out to every single elementary school in the air. I put it on the marquee of the local movie place. I was everywhere in that very first introductory class. I had 63 kids show up, 63 kids, one class that was bigger than the size of the entire studio at that point, 63 kids. The biggest failure I had is out of those 63 kids, there was very few systems put in place to keep those kids. So simply, we only had one out of that 63 stick around and get to black belt level. Now that is a little bit lower than a normal attrition rate. And what I mean is out of a hundred students that start in martial arts, only three usually will get to black bow level. But the majority of those will stick around at least the first year and a half. We didn't have hardly anybody stick around after those 63 kids, because there was no systems to, to continue to serve them after initially coming in. It's like a new restaurant that opens in your town and everybody's excited and they go and all of a sudden they have a bad experience. There's food on the tables from the person in front of them. And the bathroom's not clean. And you know why? Because there wasn't a system to take care of. Turning the table and getting enough food and so on and so forth. So what happens is you never go back and a huge failure early on is lack of systems in place to continue to bolster or at least help with retention. I'd say another challenge is I would sometimes keep toxic people around because I thought that I needed them and I couldn't get rid of them. Oh my gosh, this is the number one instructor for Little Dragons. If she goes, or if I cut her, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna continue to make it? I want your view is to understand what you condone. You endorse. So if you hang around with toxicity, you're basically saying that it's okay. I early on didn't wanna offend anybody. I didn't wanna to hold the line. I would blur the line a little bit. She comes in a little bit late, but I need her, or sometimes she's, she had gossips a little bit, but I need her, instead of being like, look, no, this is what it is. So I think another early mistake that I made was not being definitive of where the line is. And I think as I've gotten older and a little more rigid. This is the standard. And the standard is the standard. So either you level up or there's the door right over there. The other thing, COVID was it's a bad word here. We don't talk about it in our industry, 50% of studio martial arts studios closed within one year after COVID, 50%. So you have all these giant strip centers with martial arts centers in them that are empty space available. Why is because they didn't adapt. We went to an online model within days of closing, and we survived also. Then when we came back, we were going through extenuating expensive circumstances to make sure everybody was safe, or at least the perception of safety. If a kid touched a bag or a pad, it was immediately cleaned. We were cleaning the floor between every single class. I think we counted some time. We must have cleaned our floor close to 10,000 times in a year. That's a lot of cleaning products, that's a lot of time of cleaning. That floor basically ruined our floor, but that's what it took when people came in. It smelled clean. It looked clean. The appearance of germs wasn't there, and whether you agree with the COVID crazy or not, right? It kept our people safe and it kept people coming saying, look. Even if I don't agree with this, and I think the masks are horrible, the people that did have the mask on, they felt safe enough to stay, and that saved us. The details saved us. I would imagine when you talk about what the lessons you learned early on about systems, you had a culture of systems when you needed to implement new systems, having a culture of systems really helped you through that COVID, yes, sir. What do you think are the key things that leaders. Overlook about having good systems in place.'cause I agree with you that your systems really produce your results. One of the things that a lot of people don't realize is that they have systems. Sometimes they're dysfunctional systems and they create the dysfunctional behaviors that they have, but other people have intentional systems that are producing the good results. Tell me how you use intentional systems to drive those results and have the kind of experience that you're talking about. It's just one question we ask ourselves. One question, can it be done better? Can it be done better? The most dangerous phrase, this, you've heard this before in business, is this is the way we've always done it. There's a difference between your your history or maybe tradition and also. Is there a better way that we can be doing it? One of the things that that Disney does is they use one of those core models. Is efficiency, is this the best way to load the guests, to get them through the turnstile, to get them through the line to get their snacks. Efficiency is important so you can use this not to cut corners, but also is there an easier way or a better way, or a more productive way? I'll give you one specific example. When somebody comes in and they've taken the class and they're ready to go ahead and jump in, we give them a welcome pack. Our welcome pack used to be 28 pages and seven handouts, and we would go through a lot. We wouldn't read anything, but we would go, we do this and you need this handout for this and this, and my wife. When my son came through and sat in the chairs. She said, honey, I love you, but you just talked for 30 minutes about a welcome pack. My son sat there, he was rolling his eyes like he was bored. He just came to karate classes, very first excited. He got jumped in and you're talking and is there a better way to do that? Is there a more efficient way to do that? Yes, you have to get all this information to the client. Is there a better way to do that? Right away we said, okay, boom, we've gotta change that because. Although this is what has to happen and we wanna transfer, our history and what's important to us and our systems in place and this is how you pay and this is how you get your GI and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Is there a better way to do that? And 15 years ago, my son's 15 now, we changed it and it's better. It's more efficient. People don't want a half an hour of stuff. Heck they won't read what you give'em in most cases. But is there a better way to do that? Is there a video you can do?, Can we break it up into little chunks? Can we do something the first weekend, something, the second class and a little bit the third class, do they need to know about snow days? In the middle of summer? Do we need to talk about that? Or canceling class? What's the odds of canceling class in the summer? Almost zero. If they're starting in the winter, you might wanna mention something like that, but in the summer you don't need it. So is there a better way? I think some people get so adapted to systems because that's the way they've always done it. They're never looking for ways to make it better. How do we make it better? Walt Disney says that, how do we plus it? Okay here for us it's like, how do we get the experience to be a level 10? That's our verbiage. A level 10 experience, level 10. How do we make that happen? And we can't be afraid to try a new system. I love that. Always having continuous improvement going on in your organization. The other part I want to dive into is self-leadership. You just mentioned that recently you became an eighth degree black belt, and so there's a lot of self-leadership that going up that journey from when you got your, I guess the first belt is a white belt, if I remember correctly. Yes sir. Yes sir. And then, and you moved through that. Now you're an eighth degree black belt. Tell me a little bit about. How that has grown you as a person, as a leader, and a little bit about yourself, leadership journey. I think just for me, and I'll just speak candidly at a certain level, it becomes less about you and more about the people that you have in your herd, your tribe, if you will. When I tested for eighth, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do to showcase my talent and my journey. There were eight different sections of that particular test. Out of five sections. I had people doing it with me. I had either black belt instructors with me, demo team members. I performed a bow form with my son where it was a little old school and then, a little bit new school'cause he's a lot better at the bow than I am. And I utilized some fight scenes with my daughter who's 10. So I could have just stood up there and did some forms and techniques and s sparred and break boards and do weapons and all that kind of good stuff. But for me, I wanted to showcase that this full circle thing, specifically in the martial arts, it's less about you as you go and more about your people. And again, that's where the heart of servant leadership comes from. It would be easy for me if I owned a restaurant to be at as a cashier. And stand up there and show everybody how to do it and hit the buttons and yeah, come over here. Me look over the person's shoulders and correct them every time they did something wrong. Or I can give them a system, put some things in place, back up and let them fail forward. And that's important. And some, so many people, they, so many leaders, they have to have that control. They need to be the one in charge. And that's a mistake that I made early on of not. Trusting my people enough to let them fail. My journey really in the martial arts, it started with me being all about me. Because as a martial artist, if you don't put the work in, you don't pass the test and you're not good at the board breaks and you're not dot. As I have become a leader of a team, it's less about me and more about the accolades of my people. You remember leaders, they get to have the credit, but they also get to give the credit. Leaders, they take the arrows, right? They have to have that accountability or they get to give the accountability to someone else for trusting them to lead this class or this program or this thing. And I think sometimes especially early on when you're young, it's all about you, man. It's all about you. It's my stuff. It's my things. It's my time, it's my me my. And we forget when you're gonna be a great leader. You serve every day. You are last. When your name is on the door, you get paid last. You get the accolades last. The coolest thing that happened maybe nine years ago, we were having one of our staff parties and it was the last week, right before Christmas and before when I was the studio owner and I was teaching every class and right before kids, so maybe about 20 years ago, the stack of Christmas gifts that I would get would just, it would just fill up a room, everybody was bringing in cookies and cards and thank you letters and little hand drawings from kids and so on and so forth. About, I guess 10 plus years ago, I looked and my stack was real tiny, and then I look at my staff stack in the black belt room and this black belt had 15 things and this black belt had 30. I couldn't help but smile and say that is the ultimate compliment because it's less about me and what I'm doing and more about empowering those around me so they can succeed and serve others. That's awesome story. I love. The word pictures and the paradigm you're using there about the journey and how that journey transformed you to being more concerned about your team and their success. Tell me a little bit about how you do build leaders, a little bit about how you're intentional to drive those behaviors, to give them responsibility, like you've talked about, trust there. Trust is two ways. You gotta trust them and they have to trust you. You talked about that you have to trust them to go out and do things and let them fail. Tell me a little bit about how you intentionally build that into your leadership development model. There's a couple different ways. One, just because you're a black belt doesn't mean you're an instructor. That's a whole separate training program. So we have an instructor training program, probably one of the, one of the best ones in the country. You have to be a black belt to get through that. You have to be at least six months as a black belt. So that novelty has worn off. And anybody that was gonna use that black belt to. Be abusive with their power spar harder because they're a black belt, or they're a bad dude. Now they, they don't stay and usually because of all the vetting that goes into our brown belts, they didn't make it anyway. I can tell you that very rarely. But, so there're a black belt, six months. Then they go through our training program and we have this like rubber band philosophy. We're just gonna give you a little bit and see how you do and just give you a little bit more and see how you're doing. And we give you a little bit more. Now we're gonna let you warm the class up and now we're gonna let you warm the class up and then take maybe that lone purple belt that's here on a night. They shouldn't have come. And then maybe we'll give you a little bit more. You do the warm up and then you take like a bigger group. And then we're gonna go ahead and give you the whole class. And now we're gonna go ahead and let you go around and talk to the parents and make sure. Answer any questions they have or any concerns, and we're gonna go ahead and let you maybe do a private lesson, a one-on-one, half an hour. That's a big responsibility. We're gonna go ahead and then we're gonna eventually once we've done that, we're gonna go ahead and give you the key to the building, which is pretty cool. We didn't give you the alarm code yet, but we've given you a key that's the next step. And then once you've been here for a while, usually it's about four or five years as a black book team member. So that means you have about eight, nine years in. We'll say, all right, we're gonna give you the code. You can come in and work out anytime you want. We trust you to continue to do the right thing. Now, here's the other thing too. There's an old saying, it goes trust but verify. Okay? Trust, but verify is a Ronald Reagan quote. I love it because he's saying, look. I trust you to do what you say you're gonna do, but I'm gonna verify to make sure that you've done it. And that's why we have cameras in every room to make sure that we keep our staff safe, to keep the students safe, to make sure everybody's doing what they say they're gonna do. Most of our transactions now are on an app. So there's no cash or, there's no, checks coming through here that keeps everybody accountable. Every dollar is accounted for, but most importantly, we listen for feedback. How's it going for you as a team member? How can we serve you? I noticed this thing during sparring and I noticed, when this group comes up and they go and sit down. They're not really engaged. Is there something that I can do to keep them engaged on the side while they're waiting to spar again? Ooh, that's good. You noticed that, huh? Yeah. We've been noticing that for a while. What do you think, what do you think we should do? I wanna hear some ideas. What do you think? A lot of times if we're doing a staff meeting, I got a big staff a dinner coming up I'll pull some key people and say, look, I'd like you to come up with the icebreaker. For the staff dinner, and they're like, me, I get to do that. And they say, I get to do that. And that's how we know we've done the right thing, right? The culture is there because they get to do things outside their comfort zone instead of, oh yeah, he's, he now somebody has to do it. He, it falls on me. No, because you get to own it. Guess what? You'll get the results that you put in. You always get out what you put in. So allowing people to fail, trust, but verify, and then doing that to, for me, it's easy, that rubber band method of we're gonna give you a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. A good rule of thumb is if you wouldn't trust somebody at your house while you're not there, don't hire'em. They're not part of your herd. If you wouldn't trust somebody in your house alone for an hour. Not to go through your stuff or steal from you or take pictures or put on social media how big your TV is. If you wouldn't trust that person, they're not in your herd. I can tell you with a hundred percent accuracy and honesty, I trust my people. It's 70 plus here. I trust every single one because most of my heavyweights, my top people that have been with me, look, I've got one guy that's willing to been with me almost 35 years. I have my top leadership team members have been here over 30. They were on board before I was even a black bone. And they're here like, look, we saw how good you were when you were 13. And I say that with the utmost humility. We wanna ride the train you're on.'cause we see that has limitless potential and you include me and what I think and what I wanna do and my ideas even if they're not right. And that's a lesson I've learned specifically the later part of my leadership journey of look, we is stronger than I always. One thing that I see there is that you're taking them through a stair step approach or a lateral approach to, to get more responsibility. Very intentional and very specific about it, that's a lot of great information that leaders can take and make sure that they put that same intentionality into theirs. How do you also, on the other side, the flip side, because if they've been with you three decades, they obviously trust, admire, and respect you. What do you think have been the key things that you've done to build trust with your team? From your perspective? You are the same person in public as you are in private. You don't go back on your word. You go to bat for those people, even though they're not in the same room as you, and you give them the opportunity to be heard. And I think any leader that walks in there and says. No, we're gonna do it my way. When you sign the paychecks, you have every right to do that. But people that don't feel valued and seen, they won't stay. They won't. I'll give you an example. So I spoke at a big conference once and I always like to go early. I like to piggyback on what the speaker before me or two speakers before me say, so I can relate that. So it's a cohesive message. The speaker before me ask the team of. Of listeners, is there any ideas they had to make this thing better that they were doing? I don't wanna get into too specifics. Of course this person raised their hand and said something and I didn't understand what they said. It was some sort of technical jargon. And he goes Uhhuh, let me get back to you on that. And there was a lady in the back and she did one of these sheepish hand raises. And I was standing in the back too. And look, nobody knows who I was at that point other than the person that hired me. This lady certainly didn't know. She, no, I was standing back there and she raised her hand, and he says, yes, Margaret do you have an idea on how to make things better? She slowly stands up and she goes I have teenagers and they are on TikTok. I think it may behoove us to maybe put some things there so we can connect with young people. Then she put her head down like that, like immediately bought her body language. Like she was scared out of her mind that it took every ounce of energy and courage she had to stand up, right? And he immediately goes, Nope, that won't work. We tried something like that in the early nineties and blah, blah, blah, and I was like, dude. Are you serious? Look at this lady, how brave it was for her to stand up and you shot her down. By the way, TikTok wasn't around in the nineties. This is how we've always done it. We don't wanna to veer away from that. And it told me right there. I don't wanna be anywhere near that guy. I don't wanna have anything to do with him that he's the worst kind of person to be in front of people leading other people, because he's one of those people that walks in the room and he has to have the loudest voice and he has to order the biggest steak and he has to talk about his boat and his Hampton house and all this other stuff. You know what? You have zero humility. And you know what he should have said is, man, that's. Thank you so much for having the courage to stand up because you know what? I know you, I know the team that was a lot from you.'cause I can see on your body language that you're hesitant to even participate. You know what? Even though I don't know a lot about TikTok and I'm hesitant to go down that road. Can we chat? Chat after and maybe we can get some more information about that. Maybe you can give me some ideas of how to make that work. But he didn't say that. He went and you know what? Is she ever gonna stand up again? No. She's never gonna participate. Why? Because it was all about you, dude. And I was embarrassed to be there. And you know what? The first thing I did when I got out there after the introduction, and I talked about humility and I talked about being a servant leader, that if you're not serving right, it will not serve. You gotta serve and you gotta take care of people and you gotta let'em be heard. We both attended the Disney Institute and we learned a lot about the humility and the service that, that they talk about. One of the things I took away is that every cast member, as they call'em, is responsible. If there's trash on the grounds, they have to pick it up. That's something I remember. And that was what, 15 years ago? We went, yes, sir. What are some key takeaways that you. Guy from the Disney Institute or learning from Disney and some of the things that, that you mentioned a few sprinkled throughout our conversation. What's some caveat moments for you learning from Disney? One of the things that Lee Cockrell talks about in his books are the concept of ARE Appreciate, recognize and encourage, and as a leader when you can appreciate. Recognize and encourage a fellow team member, cast, member subordinate, it's gonna make them feel special, R is what they call it. And that stood out to me. Another thing that that really touches me is they've empowered their employees or cast members. To stop what they're doing to make magic, to make a memory, to give someone an experience. And that's what Disney is about, at least the physical Disney, the phy physical world. I know I'm a big fan. I know you are a big fan with your kids. And that's one of the reasons why we ended up there saying what's the magic? Pull back the curtain. How are you guys doing this? Because when I'm there, I feel like a VIP very important person, very individualized person, and I feel special when I'm there. And how do you guys do that? By giving the cast members opportunities to make magic, whether it's a fast pass in line or a lightning lane now, or giving them an extra dessert or, letting'em ride again. If the lady beside them were screaming the whole time and they couldn't hear the show or they show elements, it's always that they're empowered to do that. I have several cast member friends that have either worked. For Disney or that work through the Disney company, and they're all encouraged to do that. And to me that stands out. I also will say as maybe something that wasn't so positive that is that even big companies are still working on being better. There were some elements that we had talked about off camera and probably not to mention here today, but that they fell a little short and they're trying to still figure it out too. So just because you walk into a Starbucks and they've got everything perfect, doesn't mean that can't be better. I think that all goes back to the question I asked earlier is, can we do it better? How can it be better? And I think Disney does a great job of doing that, but also realizing that there's still work to be done. And that gives me hope as somebody that is a small business owner of look, Disney's still trying to figure it out. Starbucks is trying to figure it out. Marriott's trying to figure it out, right? I don't feel so on an island. I don't feel so lonely. So a lot of great memories there. Obviously that's where we met. We wouldn't be here today, chatting with each other. We didn't take the time to get to know each other and email after and have some laughs and things like that, but I really enjoyed my time there and I learned a lot of lessons there for sure. What I learned about you there is that you are a continual learner, a growth minded person, and just maybe share what the audience, a few things that you do to sharpen your saw, maybe books, podcasts. What are some things that sharpen your saw? One, I run marathons. I've run 10 marathons between when my son was three, so maybe in the last 12 years. That's one way that I take care of myself physically. I still train in college a lot. TaeKwonDo, I still spar on Thursday nights with the little kids. It gives me great pleasure to see them grow and get a chance to, to bop maan a grand maan in the stomach. I really enjoy that. I think raising a teenager, I am getting very well versed in social media things and trends and just keeping my pulse on young people, how they think, how they operate, so on and so forth. I think personally, me my wife and I, we have a podcast together. It's called The Victory Couch, and it's a relationship podcast. So really diving into what makes a strong, healthy, happy marriage of two very busy people. So pulling back the curtain there and saying, okay, what are we doing that's working after almost 20 years that we're still in love? We still make time for each other. We still date, we still leave notes on each other's cars. Like how did that happen? We talk about that also, like I continue to read. So one of the things that I'm doing this year as I'm reading my Bible all the way through. I got this tug on my heartstrings at the end of last year and it's, I've been a Christian my whole life and I can quote bible verses and stories, but you know what, I've never really read the whole thing cover to cover and I can proudly say I'm almost there. I've got two more weeks and I've got the entire Bible in. I feel really good about that accomplishment, It's it is the most important thing that I do daily. It gives me strength, gives me purpose, it gives me countenance when I need it. And somehow the stories relate to me and what I'm going through, isn't that funny how that happens? As far as books, I love the Customer Rules by Lee Cock Rule. Rich Dad, poor Dad, I think is another one. Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell. I love Uncommon by Tony Dungy. He's a strong man of faith. Bear Grills wrote a book it's called To My Sons. That's a really good one. And of course, the Go-Giver by Bob Berg. That's always a classic. I love the entree leadership. By Dave Ramey. Another good one that I listen to as far as podcast is concerned. And another one that my wife hooked me into early on, and I guess she's been listening to Annie F Downs for a while. That sounds fun with Annie F Downs is a really good one too. You stole my thunder there'cause I was gonna ask you to tell about your secret superpower in your wife. You alluded to that. My sister and my wife. Yeah. What I found interesting. Listening to your podcast I can tell that you've built this business, but she's been the support to drive that you. Maybe speak to that from a little bit about how leading a business it's not just leading the business. You have to lead yourself well and lead your family well. You wanna maybe conclude, wrapping up, talking about how important that is to you? Yeah. Yeah. My wife is she's the most important thing in my life and I can tell you that without her I would not be. A 10th of the man that I am, she challenges in me. She challenges me in ways that I could only hope that someone challenges my son when he gets married. And my daughter, when she gets married, she is the rock that I need on the soft days, and she is the soft landing spot that I need on the tough days. She empowers me to be better. She challenges me to grow. There's always pushback when there's a little bit of arrogance in that voice or a little bit of pride that sort of strives in, look and I humbly say, look I've earned two awards for two different presidents. I've been on the cover of four or five different magazines. I've been overseas teaching martial arts and I speak all over the country and it's easy to get puffed up and it's easy to show pride, but it's my wife. Who constantly keeps me in check and says, Hey look, is this the way that you're supposed to lead? Is this the best way to lead? I'm writing a couple books and it's funny because I'll get done a chapter and the first person that sees it is my mom, because my mom will tell me how great it is and she'll fix some, errors and so on and so forth. Right? And the second person that reads it is my wife and my wife will tell me what it needs. She will be honest with me and she'll say, look, it's a different way to say this. This hit me wrong. I like that. This made me cry. This made me think. And I think when you find a partner like that, life is so much better. My life has been enriched and blessed by my wife, Julie. She's. I can't think of a better way to end than sharing about your superpower that's driving your success there. We really appreciate your time today, Rick. It's been great. Lots of leadership content, a lot of personal growth type content of people will take it and put it into practice. Like you said it's about being a servant leader, going out there and serving those we lead and putting them first. Really appreciate your time. Thank you for being a servant leader for us today. Thank you, mark, and if your listeners need me, rando speaks.com is how they can connect. I'd love to hear some feedback. And also, jump into this podcast every week. I've been listening now to this podcast, I guess for about a month plus now. When it comes out I'm looking specifically on LinkedIn, some different nuggets that you share there. And there's some really valuable content and some great leaders on this podcast. So thanks for including me in such a wonderful group. Thanks, Rick. Have a great day. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Learning to Lead Show and my conversation with Grandmaster Rick Rando. If you've got value out of today's content please go leave us a rating of five and leave some comments. Let us know what you thought about today's episode on your favorite podcast directory. Additionally, make sure you go and subscribe so that you get this in your feed. As we put out new episodes in the weeks and months ahead, one of the things that I encourage you to do is make sure you download Leader Notes. Leader Notes is a summary of the key quotes, the key themes. The resources that we talked about today. Make sure you go in the show notes, click on that link and go and download the leader notes. Make sure you go out and learn, grow, and lead at a higher level this week. Thank you for listening to the Learning to Lead Show. Have a great week.