BJJ Executive Podcast - Open Mat 1

The BJJ Executive Podcast is introducing a new version called Open Matt, which will have shorter, more topical conversations. The host, Dave Grohl, wants to provide content that is more accessible to listeners who don't have a lot of time to devote to longer podcasts. The first guest on Open Matt is Zach Paul, who runs a successful school and has an interesting story. Dave Grohl discusses his own transition from a corporate job to a new phase in his life and the challenges he is currently facing. He also talks about the importance of balancing training and other commitments. Welcome to the BJJ Executive Podcast, Open Matt 1. I'm your host, Dave Grohl. First and foremost, if you enjoy this podcast and wish to support us, please do so by liking and sharing our content on social media and by leaving a review on whichever platform you're listening from. The BJJ Executive Podcast is proudly partnered with The Matt Mission, a nonprofit organization charged with spreading jiu-jitsu through communities in need and providing mentorship and leadership to the youth within those communities. To get involved in The Matt Mission, please follow our Instagram page, go to our website, themattmission.org, or message me directly. Today we kick off a new version of the podcast called Open Matt. There seem to be two schools of thought as it relates to podcast runtimes. There are those that prefer the long-form podcasts that take several hours to dive deep into a topic, and there are those that prefer more topical discussions that are typically shorter in length. And as you know, our standard episode is meant to dive deep and, frankly, honor the guests that come on to the podcast. And if you've been around long enough in business or in jiu-jitsu, you realize that success leaves clues. And one of my objectives is to try to extract those clues so that you can extrapolate your own journey and then apply them where they relate. And my hope is that that enhances the longevity of your training and that it becomes a supplement to your training. We're aiming to do something a little bit different with the content in the Open Matt. And these are shorter, more topical conversations that are a little bit more bite-sized. And so I've gotten a lot of feedback that the podcast is just so long, I just don't have the time to devote to it, or I listen to podcasts on my commute in, and this is a response to that. So I hope it works, and I hope you enjoy it. We've got a good guest up today, Zach Paul. He was on an earlier episode. He's got a fascinating story. He runs a very successful school, and he's a good friend of mine and just a generally interesting dude. As always, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your jiu-jitsu journey. And as I always say, welcome to mine. Enjoy the episode. How you been? What's the... I've been good. I don't know, like, my soul's been good. I don't know how my body is feeling these days, you know, like I talked about, you know, when you first got here. I did try to go train last night, and it was one of those moments where I had been... First of all, there's just so many personal balls that are up in the air right now. Yeah, you've got... You're in a state of transition, right? Like... Big time. Between your old life and your future state, new life. It is, dude. It's an alter ego almost. It's an alter ego. And I mean, so I had this, you know, I had this version of myself, right, as this, you know, kind of corporate guy, I guess, and... You're a CFO. Yeah. And that's just sort of how a lot, I mean, most of my connections in life knew me, you know. Outside of Jiu-Jitsu, Jiu-Jitsu was always a safe haven. There was really rarely anybody that knew me, and they thought I was like a bank teller or something. Nobody really cared, and they shouldn't. So now... I knew you were a Marine. A Marine? Yeah, I know that because you have a tattoo on you. Dude. Thank you for your service, man. No, thank God for me. Thank God for me. Yes. And thank you for your tax dollars, by the way. Yes. Yeah, man. Those runways were not going to shovel themselves, you know what I mean? Those sandbags were not going to be moved from one random location to the next random location. Definitely not. No, you can thank me. You can thank me later. It's crazy. I had that conversation with a guy the other day, totally off topic, but, you know, you're a combat veteran, right? And so... Yes, yes. You know, well, no, you don't guess. It's a fact. And, like, I am the quintessential 1990s Marine where we were, like, looking to make up things, you know? And so, you know, I mean, any sign of a skirmish, dude, we're like, yes, World War III, you know? So it's different, you know, because so many people that entered the military post-911, I mean, just simply had a different experience than I did. My brother included. You know, my brother went in, I think, in 99 or 2000, but his enlistment was ending at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. And so he extended his enlistment so that he could go participate. And when I talked to him about his life as a machine gunner in the Marine Corps, I mean, like, he has a different perspective on things than I did as a, you know, Joe Bag of Donuts, you know, just enlisting because I couldn't pass the SATs. So it's... But, yeah, anyway, the tattoo, that's an inside joke, I guess. My alter ego. So I changed my LinkedIn profile to, I'm like, look, if I'm going to do this, I need to go all the way, you know, and that makes it real, right? Because now there's, you know, every banker in the world, every former colleague, every recruiter, you know, it just changes things up a little bit. And so I got a message the other day from a, you know, I guess I would say, you know, good acquaintance, somebody that I had done some business with for the better part of a decade. And he's a banker, and we've come in and out of deals together and whatnot, but he shot me a note and said, hey, look, I didn't know that you had sort of left the space. And it was the first, I would say, grown-up conversation I'd had about it. For somebody that wasn't a direct colleague, somebody that, you know, I had a really close personal relationship with or not, this is somebody that was like, so what the hell's going on? You know, kind of like, I heard this, or, yeah, I know, exactly. So like, I kind of... Are you okay? I know, are you okay? I'm thinking, you know, more than anything. Is this a step in your 12th step, like, what's happening? Did somebody like hijack you or something, you know, are you okay? Send me signs of life, send me today's newspaper. But yeah, no, anyway, like, you know, we've just got a bunch of stuff that's going on, like we're trying to buy a couple businesses, we're trying to start a couple businesses, we've got this podcast thing, I'm, you know, trying to stay active in jiu-jitsu. And I haven't been training as much. And so we came back from Maine and doing the Origin Immersion Camp. I know how much you love that, by the way. I did love it. I just am not as enthusiastic as everybody else is about it. We could talk about that and why. But it was about six o'clock last night, I'm sitting there kind of like just moving my body around in the kitchen, and I'm talking to Naoko. And she was cooking dinner. And I'm like, I looked at her, I'm like, I'll be back at 830. I'm going to train. You know, it's like one of those just impromptu, like, I feel okay right now, we have a class at seven o'clock, I know I could get some good rounds in. And if I don't do it now, then I might not this week, you know. But one of the things that I was thinking about is that you've been going hard now for a year. I mean, you were going hard before that, but I mean, you've been operating your school now for a year. And I was thinking about that's a world that a lot of people want to play in, myself included. And, but what is it like every single day? I mean, every single day you're on the mats, every single day, you got to strap a gi on or put your rash guard on or whatever, just bow in basically. And whether you like it or not, whether you want to or not, I mean, you are, you're in the mix. Yeah. How do you balance that? So I mean, I was every day even before this, like, I mean, I was, commitments to me aren't necessarily like I committed to Paul that I'd be there for all the kids classes. I was just there. And, you know, obviously I'm there for class for me. So really my time on the mats hasn't changed. Like I'm attending the same mat time that I have before. The biggest thing is that I think now I don't get as much me training. Yeah. Right. Like I worry about that with myself sometimes too. Yeah. So I've had to find it. Right. You know, we talked about being responsible and training. I had to, we talked about this to my buddy Robert. But like, you know, I go to class and class was for me. Right. Like I'd help out Paul whenever I needed to, or he needed me to, but like, ultimately I would find my purple belts that I could roll with and get my rounds in, but opening new school, they're all white belts. So, and they're great people if we can call white belts people, but, you know, they're not, they're not the same. Of course they're people. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I'm winking at you too. You know, but like, they're not the same as rolling with like, you know, the 200 pound purple belts at Argonne. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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