← The Money Mondays
The Money Mondays
The Business of Live Events & Tony Blauer's Self-Defense Philosophy 💰 EP112
00:56:49
Loading summary
Transcript38 lines
- [00:00]
Tony Blauer
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Dan Fleischman
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Monday Mondays. This will be a solo episode, and I'm going to go over with you live events and the business of events as you're listening to this episode, I'm about to, starting tomorrow, throw six events in a matter of three days. So the 13th, March 11th. Sorry, March 11th through March 13th, I'm throwing six events. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. This episode obviously comes out today, on Monday. Whenever you might be listening to this might be a little bit after the fact, but you'll be able to see across my social media what I'm talking about in real time. So let me walk you through real life. First off, it's in Miami. I'm throwing what's called the 100 million mastermind experience. I started the 100 million mastermind back in 2019. So we're going into our sixth year. It's $100,000 per person to attend for the year, three weekend events. So March 11th through 13th is the next weekend called the fulfillment event for the first one for 2025. Now, why would someone pay $100,000 to be part of a group? And why would they? Some of them do it for year after year after year. Some of them have been in the group since 2019. It's because the other members in the group are typically doing 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 50 million, a hundred million dollars in sales. And the instructors have either done over a hundred million in revenue, spent over 100 million on ads, or been seen by over 100 million people. So the 100 million mastermind experience is a way for people to surround themselves with other entrepreneurs and business owners. Now, literally the same night, I'm throwing a completely free event called Elevator Night. I've thrown elevator night 56 times, completely free. No tickets for sale, no sales on stage. I don't even bring in sponsors. I just pay for it. What is that, like year 13 or 14? Now, this will be the 56th time of elevator Night. So I'm going to walk you through expensive events and free events, and I'm going to go through the rest of the next three days. Okay, so the 100 million mastermind. I'm creating an experience. That's why it's called 100 million mastermind experience. The experience is an important word. A lot of masterminds are in a local ballroom at a hotel, or they're at someone's house or at someone's office, which is fine because people are getting the learning experience or the networking experience. I'm trying to create an experience that people Remember for the rest of their lives. So I'll bring in Mark Wahlberg and Floyd Mayweather and Kevin Hart and celebrities, entertainers and performers for these experiences. Or I'll go get crazy venues. I'll go get the Diamondback Stadium or the Dallas Cowboys stadium or places like that. So create experiences. Even though it's less than 100 people in this group at all times, I will create this experience because people create memories that'll last them a lifetime and build relationships. But with this group creates a lot of power. I always am able to raise a lot of money for charity through this group, which is really, truly important to me. Each time that I throw this on the second night of the event out of a three day event, we do either a charity poker tournament, a charity dinner, something to raise money for an orphanage, something to raise money for the toy foundation, homeless, things like that. And so I'll tie in, whether it's my charities, friends charities or respected charities, a way for us to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars in these environments. Why? Well, if I'm going to bring in 70 to 100 people that have either access to capital themselves or access to capital from friends, I want to use that power for good. And so that's why I try to forcefully get them excited to want to raise money through either a chance, a charity poker tournament, a charity dinner, et cetera, through an experience to be able to raise money for, like I said, orphanages, toy drives, things like that, or the homeless. This has been truly important to me to incorporate it because the butterfly effect of what happens if during a live event, I can raise money for a charity. Also, they've got their phones out, they know other people that might be able to donate or share on social media, etc. The butterfly effect is very powerful if I can use that mastermind for good. All right, so then that night, Tuesday night, March 11, is elevator night in Miami. We have a venue that can hold hundreds and hundreds of people. Again, it's totally free to attend. You can visit elevatornight.com and depending on when you're listening to this, you can actually send people to that event. If you're listening to this on Monday or on Tuesday. Now, why do I throw a free event 56 times? This free event cost me 20 to 60 thousand dollars on average to host. Why would I do that? You can do the math. 20 to 60,000 times 56 is a lot of freaking money, a lot of time and a lot of energy. It is my way to get entrepreneurs together in each city. I've thrown this all over the country. I've done a couple overseas because I want to get entrepreneurs into a room to meet with investors, meet with my local friends, local ballers, local influencers so they can all network with each other. These events are very short. They're just a four hour event. Typically it's about two and a half to three hours of content. So speakers on stage and the rest of the time people are networking before, in the middle and afterwards. But through this we've been able to help raise money for companies, been able to create a lot of jobs, create a lot of investments, create relationships that led to people creating babies from these events. It's really fun to just bring people together so they can network and deals can happen. Relationships can happen for friends, couples, businesses, partnerships and everything in between just by bringing good people into a room and having these four hour networking events. You can host an event just like this in your town, totally for free. You can charge if you'd like, but I host this one for free. And you can get people in town to go to a real estate event, a car event, a fashion event, a makeup and hair event, whatever it is that you might be passionate about. Pickleball, poker, basketball or running club, et cetera. Getting people together is very powerful and you can do it for free. Now let's go to Wednesday, March 12. That is going to be Aspire Tour. Aspire Tour is going to be around 2,500 to 3,000 people. This is a large format of that you guys can visit aspiretour.com and by the way, if you're listening to this before Wednesday morning, go to aspiretour.com you can use the free code elevator and you can get silver tickets for free. And if you're not in the Miami area or Fort Lauderdale area, no problem. You can send your friends, family, followers, etc the free code elevator for aspiretour.com this event has a rod. Alex Rodriguez, Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, Cody Sanchez, Dave Meltzer, Andrew Cordle, the founder, Eddie Wilson, the co founder. You have a lot of powerful speakers up on stage like Tim Story. Etc. Aspire Tour goes once a month all throughout the country. This is I think number 20 or 21 or 22 since the company started. Aspire Tour is a very powerful tour that helps bring entrepreneurs together to learn in a one day format. Event runs from 8am to 6pm Aspire Tour was started by Andrew and Eddy and then five months later I came in to help bring in influencers, celebrities, speakers, etc. Marketing different venues, different people, different characters, sponsorships, etc. To help with the brand. Andrew and Eddie had already built a machine and I just added my gasoline to their fire. So then that large amount event happens. So let's call it 2500-3000-People. That night is a dinner. We call it the VIP dinner with Dave Meltzer. Dave Meltzer often travels with Aspire Tour to speak at the events and to host a VIP dinner after the fact, typically with 50 to 100 people. Those networking dinners have happened all over the country. I've known Dave Meltzer for many, many, many, many years. We went to the same high school together called Patrick County High School. Different times obviously, but Dave Meltzer has built up a very, very impressive career. You should check him out on social media. And these VIP dinners are a great way to network as well. You can notice the theme. Masterminds, Elevator Night, Aspire Tour, Dave Meltzer Dinner are all about networking, bringing people together. Stuff happens, magic happens, deals happen, and everything between Thursday, March 13th in the daytime, we're going to be taking over Garrett White's mansion. Garrett White is my partner on what you might have seen me recently post about from May 17 called man in the Arena Tour. We're taking over the Maverick Center. I've done events at the Maverick center twice with a guy named the Muscle. We threw what's called Limitless arena together at the Maverick center. We had over 7,000 people, over 6,000 people on the two events that we threw there. Coming up with Garrett White is going to be called man in the Arena Tour is also going to be at the same Maverick center venue coming up May 17th. I'm very excited about it. So we'll hopefully get around the same 7,000 people in into that facility. You should check out Garrett White on social media because he's been doing fantastic content. He has trained over 70,000 men over the years through his programs and coaching programs. So on Thursday, March 13, we will be taking over his mansion and we will be hosting the 100 million mastermind experience in his backyard where people can learn, have some amazing speakers, some networking sessions, and what's called breakout sessions where we take small pods, let's call it five to 10 people from the group and they go venture off into different parts of the house and they're going to actually meet and talk about their businesses, their careers, things that are going on in their world, their problems, their situations. So in these small five to ten people groups, these little pods, people can have amazing, amazing outlooks on life and learn from other People that are in the group that night. We're going to be doing a yacht event. That yacht event is also going to be for the 100 million mastermind experience members. So. So you can see the very different tiers of things. Also, I didn't mention on Tuesday night after the elevator night I'm running over because Aspire Tour is doing an influencer event. They're doing an influencer event from 7:00pm to 10:00pm Elevator night is 5:00pm to 9:00pm we'll probably run that to 10:00pm also just because there's a lot of speakers that are going to be there at elevator night. But Aspire Tour is having an influencer event because they are going to be doing this summer a virtual summit, a three day challenge. And so they want to bring together influencers and affiliates over to a mansion also in Miami. And it's going to be at Chris Vasquez's house. That event is for influencers and affiliates to learn about this virtual event so they can be a part of it. And the lineup for that virtual summit is unreal. A lot of the people you heard me name for the actual Aspire tour speaking there, plus almost every judge from Shark Tank is going to be speaking. The lineup is just really impressive of who they got for it. And so to me, very exciting. They'll be, they'll be posting about it this week. Actually the ads just started for their virtual summit. It's a three day challenge and they do a great job doing that. So Andrew and Eddie will be leading that up. Okay, why am I doing this whirlwind? Why is there half a dozen events in a three day period? Free events, influencer events, yachts and mansions, you know, large format, 3,000 person events, free elevator night. Why is all this thing happen? VIP dinners, et cetera? Well, I am compounding on my relationships. I'm going deeper in different relationships, I'm building new relationships and I'm gaining a lot of social media awareness, a lot of deals happen, a lot of business happens, etc. I've been doing this my entire life. And so whenever, when someone asks me, what is your one superpower? My answer is always the same. I say it's my cell phone. Whether I want to get a restaurant reservation or I want to invest into a restaurant, I'm one text message away from a relationship. And so I like to throw events from free to expensive to charity events, to business events, to everything in between because I want to bring people together in between there. By the way, this three day whirlwind I'm going to be inviting the local Miami friends, local Miami influencers, local Miami ballers, local Miami models, local Miami, different characters to come to different parts of these six events. The ones that fit them, I will invite them to. I'll invite everyone to Elevator Night, obviously. And the ones that fit to come to an aspire tour or VIP dinner, etc. I'll be inviting them as well. Now, why would I do that? It's the same concept. I'm going deeper in certain relationships. I'm spending more time with people that I want to see and I try to do this in every city that I go to. But during this whirlwind, March 11th to 13th, you're going to see a ton of social media, be able to actually watch in real time everything that we just talked about from Elevator Night, Influencer event, Aspire Tour, VIP dinner with Dave Meltzer, 100 million mastermind at Garrett White's house, the yacht event, and everything in between. It is very, very useful for people to watch. What am I up to? So that you can pick and choose for yourself. You might want to throw a meetup in your city or you might want to throw a meetup in a city that you're going to. You might decide that you're super, super deep in real estate and you want to throw a real estate meetup. You might just want to get people together to build your, you know, your Rolodex, build your contacts up and you just move to a new city. You just moved to Miami or you just moved to Chicago, you just moved to Austin, Texas. Great. You could start a running club. Your running club is every Saturday at 8am you guys go running. The first time you got four people, then you got 11, then you've got 22, then you've, then you've got 30, then you got 100. And now you start to meet all these people in town. You don't want to go running. Great. You can do it for poker, chess, pickleball, basketball, football, whatever you want. It doesn't cost you anything to do. But if there's a certain sport that you like or a certain game that you like, or certain thing that you like to do, activity wise, could be yoga, breathwork, whatever, surfing. You can get people together and you can start to build your network. It is fascinating what happens when you build your network. The fastest way to success is through working with other people. It's through relationships. Let's say you needed to find a manufacturer. Right off top of my head. I know. Oh, Paul Schrader Minimus. That's a great warehouse. It's a 3 PL warehouse. They have a hundred thousand square feet. You should talk to him. He knows everyone here. Oh, you need a clothing manufacturer. Oh, you should talk to Verd. Her family, Verd Nissim. They have an amazing company downtown LA. 300,000 square feet. Every word that I say out loud or you say to me, I know someone that fits. Warehouse manufacturer, real estate, design, website, accountant, lawyer, anything, any topic that you bring up to me, I've got someone in my mind and you probably do too. Now what I'm trying to do is become closer with those people. I'm sending them deals, inviting them some events, building relationships, posting on social media, texting them memes, texting them when things are relevant to them, texting them happy birthday. Like I am trying to build relationships with all the things that I'm doing. So as you see me go crazy with six events in three days, just understand the basis behind it. I wanna build my network, I wanna build my social media. I wanna bring people together, I wanna create deals. And I want people to be introduced to each other for the butterfly effect, for them to go off and do things. Because that to me is almost like a form of charity. If I can create investments and deals and partnerships and friendships and they go off and do all these other things, the butterfly effects stem from me and it can literally change the world. I have watched friends go off and do amazing, amazing companies and businesses by meeting each other at elevator nights. I've obviously watched people at the A hundred Million Mastermind create big businesses together, huge partnerships, help them fix things and make them more efficient. And also, as you're thinking like, dang, did he say $100,000? I also have a $20,000 mastermind with Tai Lopez called the 20 million mastermind, or 20 mil. So we called 20 mil mastermind. You can see the website 20 mil mastermind.com for 100 million mastermind. It's 100mme com, so 100mme.com. You can also see the social medias for all these. For Operation Black site, which Operation Blacksite's going on right this second. I'm here at Operation Blacksite. You're going to hear on this episode, Tony Blauer. Tony Blower has been teaching for over 40 years self defense. So he's one of the instructors at Operation Black site, which is literally happening while I'm sitting here talking to you right over there. It's a three day experience. We've been doing it for five years. So we do it every month here at Black Site Ranch. Right there's the wild jungle. So wild jungle, there's 200 animals over there. But on the left side of where I'm pointing out there's an entire shoot house. Obstacle courses, military training type sections for Operation Black Site. You can visit the social medias at Operation Black Site or the website operation blacksite.com so we're going to transition from right now to the next part of this episode. It's attached for you. You got a two for one special with our guest Tony Blauer. During his 40 years he's taught the military, the government, police department, civilians and everyone in between how to become more efficient at self defense through what he calls the SPEAR system. So make sure to check out Tony Blauer for the next 34 minutes after I'm done talking here. When you go out there and you are deciding to either want to throw events, you want to consume content of an event, you want to be an attendee of an event, you want to go to a mastermind, throw a mastermind, join a mastermind, learn about a mastermind, et cetera. Check out my social media, check out the different pages and accounts. Just go down the rabbit hole and see what you like. You might want to go to free events, you might want to go to masterminds, you might, you might want to attend Operation Black Site. You might love the idea of Aspire Tour elevator nights. I'm throwing all these different things so you can pick and choose for yourself what you like. Or maybe it's your friends, significant other, your staff, et cetera that might want to go with you. Or maybe they're not, you can't attend or you're not that interested in it, but your friend is. Maybe your friend's a nerd that loves this or your friend loves the idea of getting military training or, or your friend wants fight training or your friend wants to be in a mastermind. You might be able to recommend to your friends, staff, coworkers, et cetera, events to go to. Not just mine, but other events that you see across social media that you might like, masterminds that you might like, training programs that you might like, real estate events, fashion events, et cetera that you might enjoy. Events create relationships, events create memories that can last a lifetime. So go out there, spend more time with your friends, go to sporting events, go to music concerts, etc. And make sure to check out Tony Blauer for the rest of the episode. And we will see you guys next Monday on TheMoneyMondays.com Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays. This podcast is taking place right here at Black Site Ranch. Some people know it as wild jungle. There's over 200 animals over there to my right and on my left, right this second is what's going on is called Operation Black Site. Operation Black Site is going into our fifth year where people learn how to shoot, how to fight, how to escape. And as we sit here right now with our next guest, they're actually learning how to do tourniquets and deal with blood and trauma. It's very intense, it's very useful. That's why I've been doing it for half a decade. And hopefully we'll keep doing this for many, many decades because it's important for you to get training to learn how to defend yourself and become a human weapon. So since I just said that, you might be leading into who our guest is today. He has over 40 years of experience teaching people, teaching the military, teaching government, teaching UFC fighters, teaching trainers, teaching civilians and everyone in between how to better improve their skills, whether they're beginner, advanced, intermediate, or even at the championship level. How can they get better? And so, without further ado, I'm going to have our guest, Mr. Tony Blauer, give a quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money.
- [19:09]
Tony Blauer
Hey, Tony Blair. Thanks, Dan. I love doing this. I love coming to Blacksite and the, you know, the BIO at turning 65 years old, you know, how do I do a two minute bio? But I, you know, I start off. There's two things that are unique about our system. One is it's the foundation of understanding the psychology of fear, how to turn fear into fuel. And I grew up afraid of everything. I was a really good athlete, but I was afraid of every single sport. I didn't want to strike out. I didn't want to let my team down. If I was grappling, what if the guy breaks my knee? And I would worry about all the wrong things. So I never hit flow state. In spite of that, I figured out a system to manage fear so I could excel as a parent, as a dad, as an athlete, as an entrepreneur. The other part of that is I was scared to death of violence. And I grew up in the 60s, and so that was Batman and Mannix and the Wild Wild west, and, and it was wild. So I'd watch all these shows and this, this fear connection is so important because I was so afraid that all that was going to happen to me, that when I was watching the TV shows. I was going, if I learned to fight, all that fear will go away. So I started to learn how to train martial arts, grappling and all stuff. And when I got into fights as a kid, as a teenager, the fear didn't go away. I was like, what? What is wrong? And I realized that we look at self defense incorrectly. And I spent my life transforming and reimagining how people can protect themselves.
- [20:43]
Dan Fleischman
So what's interesting is I've asked some of the most household name athletes, some of the greatest fighters of our time, this exact question about the word fear. And you hear Mike Tyson, and Mike Tyson explains that he needs fear in order to step into that ring. He is afraid. He does have fear. And he uses fuel to go inside and become the champion that he is and become a ferocious beast that he is. Asked Oscar De La Hoya, he said, I wouldn't be who I am without fear. He said, if I go in there being cocky, I'm going to get knocked out. Right?
- [21:12]
Tony Blauer
Yeah.
- [21:13]
Dan Fleischman
When I say to you the word fear, what do you think about?
- [21:16]
Tony Blauer
Same thing. And it's a, it's, it's interesting because if you talk to Tyson or De La Hoya, when they were fighting, they might not have had that same answer. It was when they matured and evolved that you realize, oh, my God, fear was my fuel. We have a maxim in our, in our. We have a program called no Fear, and it's spelled KN or W. And it's just this reframe of that. If you get to know fear, that's the stress inoculation, that's the reps. If I ask you a question about business, about betrayal in business, an entrepreneurial thing, and I've seen you teach and talk so many times, your answers are like, you're like. But it's because you're. You've had so much experience with it. When we're kids, nobody mentors and tells us fear is a good thing. Fear is there to keep you alive. Fear releases these chemicals that make you stronger, that make you faster. But if you've got a. A negative relationship with it, you know, if your coaches, your mentors, your parents don't teach you, it's okay, you got to lean into fear. But. So George St. Pierre, one of the greatest MMA guys I was. So I grew up in Montreal, and George was a Kyukushikai fighter in Montreal. He used to bow to me in the gym before he was rushed St. Pierre, before he did MMA. And what was wild, we became friends and, and. But he Never talked about fear in psychology until after he got much older. And now he talks about it. I just saw a clip of him saying he wouldn't have been a champ if it wasn't for fear. So I think part of that is you, as you get older, you go like. I think now that I'm in my 60s, I think of people when I was in my 20s or 30s telling me business advice or mobility or any type of advice. And I'm thinking, that doesn't apply to me. That doesn't apply to me. So I really think that I look at fear as a psychological tool, as an organic fuel. We like to tell people you can't be brave if you're not afraid. So it's a reminder that if I use that fear, it can be empowering. The hard thing is when you have an experience of fear, whether it's business, health, entrepreneurial violence, the physiological change, the blood rushing to its extremities feels like you're like, like that and your heart is racing and you've got vertical breathing and your palms are sweaty. If nobody teaches you that, that's okay. That's what your body's doing autonomically. That can freak you out. And so that's why a lot of people hyperventilate or they get that freeze response.
- [23:50]
Dan Fleischman
So I'm going to tell you guys a fun story about George St. Pierre. He actually changed my entire mindset on sponsorship and endorsement deals. He sent me a pitch deck many years ago and he had won like back to back athlete of the year, not just in fighting all sports. And in this pitch deck was a photo, an image of his entire body, head to toe. And then it showed price points for each part of his body. So the hat, it said 100,000. Sunglasses, 250,000. Mouthguard, 50,000. Shirt, 500,000. Watch you can you get the point? Shorts, etc, down to his shoes. And it had a side note for stomach. And it showed drinks, food, snacks, protein, different things that he would consume.
- [24:37]
Tony Blauer
Mm.
- [24:38]
Dan Fleischman
On the left it showed travel. Would he get paid for a backpack for an airline? Things that he would do in his life. And this has been burned in my mind ever since.
- [24:47]
Tony Blauer
Genius.
- [24:49]
Dan Fleischman
Head to toe, there's an endorsement deal and every part of it. And I literally use it in speeches and discussions when talking with influencers, celebrities, athletes, everyone. I'm like, let me tell you about George St. Pierre.
- [25:00]
Tony Blauer
Yeah.
- [25:00]
Dan Fleischman
And I use this story so when you mention his name, it boom. It comes to my mind how to do endorsement deals.
- [25:04]
Tony Blauer
I, I, after we finish this, I'll show you some really cool old, old puz. I knew him before he was Rush. In fact, you know, my high gear equipment that we do, the four support stuff, I gave him some equipment back at the gym there so he could work on his ground and pound. Like, just gave it to him. And it was wild to see his career just, just grow. And, and you know, there's one interview that I, that I use in some of our presentations where he says he was. That the, the worst day of his life is the day he has to fight, that he's terrified. And when you see him doing his Superman punch, you know, punching people in the face and fighting guys, if I said to you that guy this morning was terrified, you wouldn't believe it. What people don't realize about fear, and this is like, like, like the gift of this, like, epiphany, like this light bulb moment, is that, you know, Tyson used to throw up before his fights, but people didn't know that, right? If, if you, you remember, like what a menace he was, like, dominated everybody. Imagine if you and I, and, and you're a betting man. You, you, if you and I were walking in the bowels of an arena and we opened the door and it was a young Mike Tyson, right? And, and, but, but wait. So visualize this. I'm there and I go, the next fighter we see, you're gonna bet on to win, I'm gonna bet on to lose. And we open the door and there's Tyson crying, throwing up. You'd have gone, oh, man, I'm betting.
- [26:33]
Dan Fleischman
The other guy for sure.
- [26:34]
Tony Blauer
And, and, but then, so, so what I tell people, it's called fear management. And there's a, like, like a joke I make when, when we do our no Fear seminars is I go like, you know, you have a Costco store manager, Walmart store manager. That what we all need is like a little fear manager button that we need to manage fear. The market changes. You're managing fear really quickly. You're, you're, you're being followed. You know, you're managing fear. You're late for a flight, you're managing fear. It's, it's, it's a wild thing. And the better we manage fear, the better we manage time. The time is the only resource we can't get back. When we're in a fear loop, we're catastrophizing what's going to happen next. Oh, I'm going to lose this. I'm going to screw this. I'm going to, you know, like when, when, when Covid hit was wild because all of my contracts, most of my contracts are law enforcement, military. Well, guess who stopped doing any training at that time. So he went and so like 35 contracts got frozen. And I'm like a small boutique business, you know, I've got 20 trainers around the world, but it's just me, my wife and a couple people inside sales. The whole thing stopped. So two weeks became two months and I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to lose everything. And now it was fear management and it was like, like, how am I going to. So here I am, a fear management expert. Expert. I felt like somebody shoved a vacuum up my ass and was sucking out my insides, right? I was just like, like, like terrified. And so I tell people, I make this joke if I wanted to learn how to skydive, and I don't, I'm afraid of heights. I told you, I'm afraid of everything, you know, so number one fear in the world is public speaking. But like you see me talking in front of a group when I'm in my zone doing my stuff, there's, there's, I got no fear because you know your material and you know, to manage, you manage the fear. But if I make the joke, if I'm going to learn how to skydive, I don't want to learn from a Red Bull 22 year old red Bull athlete with a death wish. I want to learn from a 55 or 60 year old jump master who fought in three wars, survived and has done this thousand jobs. And he loves it so much that when he retired he said, I want to teach people to do this right? So if I want to learn investing and you see this, you know, now you like there's, I make fun of this all the time. Like if I see one more longevity influencer online who has gorgeous genetics, they're 24 years old, right? Like, hey, talk to me about longevity when you're 100 and you look like that, not when you're 24. So if I want to learn and I want to learn investing from someone like you, I want to learn if I want to learn fear. Like I'm like, like I said, I've been afraid of everything. Am I going to be a good dad? Oh my God. Should I open my school? Should I open my school? All my life, throughout my career, 60 decades, you know, six decades, 60 decades, I'd be pretty old. Six decades. And I tell people, I go, I'm going to tell you. And hopefully it'll work for you. What I did to manage fear at all these stages, you know, and there are some people that are, you know, people who are just not afraid of anything. And they're like, I call them the unicorn. And if you meet a unicorn, while you can be inspired by them, there's nothing to learn. So if you and I go, how did Mozart write that when he was 7? If we don't understand that we're not unicorns, right? So we can be inspired by greatness, but we can't really emulate what that person sees. You see things differently. Like, like math wise I've seen you up talking and you do like a computation and all of a sudden like, like you see that like you're a rain man, right? Like, and if I go, I want to, I want to be able to do a Dan does. When I look at that, I go, I don't understand what he's doing. How did he do that? So it's a zone of genius. You can be inspired. But I'm off on a crazy tangent, but like it's important what we do when we make those decisions to improve ourselves. There's going to be. When you move outside your comfort zone, you get a fear spike. And if you don't know how to manage that fear spike, you step backwards and you stay small. So I think that's where I was going.
- [30:39]
Dan Fleischman
So typically we talk about investing into businesses, talk about charity, things like that. I want to talk about investing to yourself. Why is it important for people to invest into learning self defense? Whether it's martial arts, gun training or a combination of all the above, what can people be doing? Why should they be doing for themselves and for their households?
- [30:59]
Tony Blauer
Well, I think at the end of the day, whatever your political angles are, whatever your diet, nutrition angles are, we are survival organisms. If I knock you out, your body, independent of your ego, your attitude, your beliefs, tries to re regulate your nervous system and awaken. If I cut you, you don't have to go say hey, white blood cells, do your thing, tries to heal itself. If I, if I said what'd you say? And jumped across your body without you thinking would go, whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy. You would hit a, what we call a non violent posture and try and naturally diffuse. So we understand intrinsically there's a survival response we have in it. I really believe because for centuries we've outsourced our safety. Like there's like, like a hundred years ago you knew which mushrooms killed you and which ones got you high. You know, a hundred Years ago you might be, you know, I go into town to sell some pelts and some, you know, bandits come onto the ranch. And our wife was up there with a black rifle powder, you know, rifle going, I will shoot you. But she was shaking. She was managing her fear to protect her kids and protect her property. So we've outsourced our safety. And I think when you realize that you are the provider, the protector, that, that classic language when you know, you look in the, in the, in the mirror and you go, I can protect myself. I will defend myself. And the world's gone a little crazy in the last five years if I need to be a courageous bystander. And like the, the, I've been saying this for about 20 years. The ability to protect yourself or a loved one is in arguably the single most important skill you could possess. And I've had a lot of people try to argue with me. And I go, okay, let's see, you have a car collection. I go, keep your car collection, but I'm killing your family. You go, okay, no, yeah, take the cars. Oh, you have a stamp collection. Like, because people try to like, you know, the irrational mind tries to argue and that, you know, be the contrarian. And I'm like so to, I always like giving the substance before I get to a direct answer is why should you learn how to improve your situational awareness? Manage fear, be able to handle a sudden, close quarter violent encounter, Find out that you just got, you know, you're in a car accident, you're, you're getting robbed and you got in a fight and you got cut or duty to care? I'm going to put a tourniquet on somebody else or holy shit, I did get cut. I stopped the guy. I, how do I put a tourniquet on me? The like the ability to save your life for someone else. Like what is more empower, more empowering than that? Here's the transcendent part of that is, and this is a great thing, there's a guy that I trained, he was a marine and he came to train with me a couple times hand to hand. He retired and he got hired by a DOD software company, Department of Defense guys. And he was responsible for 12 people and, and in their sales team and multi millions of like, like sales commission. Now he's on and they figured his background and who he knew and all of this how he that, right? You're like, you're buying the Rolodex, right? And, and the credibility. Like he was there. He calls me because he knows we do all the, the mindset, fear management stuff. And he literally says that I can't mention his name, but, but his quote, he says, I would rather be in a gunfight than be in this board meeting that I go to and talk about my quota. He had no, like. So here's a guy. If I said to you, dan, board meeting, negotiating or surrounded by bad guys with guns shooting at you, you go, board meeting.
- [34:44]
Dan Fleischman
Yeah.
- [34:45]
Tony Blauer
Right. So I really think if you think about this outsourced safety concept, because what do you do? Something's happening. You're like 91 1. This. The. What's the response time now? On like minutes. We had a home invasion in 2009. Cops were there in three minutes. Three. That's outrageous. That was 2009. I might have come home to a completely different scenario with no family. But like now, like, you can empty like a magazine on somebody like 9:12, 14 in four or five seconds. Like you're, you're not even finished dialing 911 and you're dead or bleeding. So it's for, for many people out there, they, they live in a bubble. Oh, you're gonna love this, this story. I think it'll really resonate with where you're going. So I was really good friends with Bruce Lee's son Brandon, and I was on the set of the Crow with him three weeks before. Before he was shit. You never knew this, this is wild. I'm on the set of the Crow, they're doing some, some stunt work and I'm like going, wow. Like, like this is a dangerous set like this. These guys, something's off here. And there was one part where they're going to throw an actor into some boxes and I see nails coming out of the boxes and I'm like, I, like, I go over to the, I go to stunt coordinator, I go, dude, like, there's two nails out of this, like crate here. You're going to throw somebody in. So when I heard what happened, I was like, there's. There was a moment where I felt like if I was there, I'm the type of guy that, that if there's a gun on the table, I'm going to check, is it loaded? Is it? This is. So I don't know if you know the whole story of how he died. You know, there was the, the dummy round blue, and when the primer blew, no one cleaned the gun. So there was that. The, the tip of the bullet was in the barrel. When they put the squibs in to fire the close up on the gun, so you get the flash. It blew the, the lead out at like so slow that it just did so much damage when it hit Brandon the stomach. But I got this call like, brandon's dead. And I'm like, holy. And so I went out to the funeral and I'm on a red eye back. And it was back in the day Walkman, you know, So I had a Walkman. I love to read. I had three books. It's a red eye back. I was living in Canada at the time. And I put my books down here. I'm in business class, I got a seat beside me. I'm like, oh, good, quiet. I'm doing this. And before they close the, the, the door, a flight attendant not working the flight runs on. So she's got her name, she's got whatever Delta or American, whatever it was, she gets in and I'm wearing like, like a, like this T shirt, jeans. And she says, oh, that's my seat. I move my shit. And I'm thinking, you know, and then she's like, fired up. It's midnight, you know, she goes, oh, my God. Hi, my name's, you know, Susie. I'm a flight attendant. I thought I was going to miss the flight. This isn't my hub. And I'm going, oh, my God, she's going to talk all night. I want to sleep. And I'm like, I'm not in a good mood. A good friend of mine just died. I'm coming for a funeral. I'm trying to make this dramatic. And she goes, she goes, so what do you do? And we're starting to taxi, and I look at her and I go, I'm a life insurance salesman thinking, who wants to talk about life insurance just as you're taking off, right? And she looks me up and down. She goes, you're not a life insurance salesman. I'm a good reader, character, person. And I said, okay, you got me. I'm lying. I'm a life extension insurance salesman. And she goes, life extension insurance? What's that? I go, I teach self defense. And she says, oh, my God, I always want to learn how to defend myself. And I interrupt her and I go, no, you didn't. Because people who always wanted to do something, do it. I said, I think what you meant to say is you always wanted to be you. You always want, you want to know how to never be near a situation where you might have to defend yourself. And she goes, oh, my God. Yeah, I ended up doing a five hour seminar for the whole flight Home. But it was this idea that if when you say to people, come to black site and train with us, they go, this looks cool. But then they sit there. They don't realize the noxious effect of fear. Like, why would you invest in and practice something you never want to have happen? You've got to be another level in your thinking where you go, the worst day of my life would be I had a chance to influence the outcome, but I didn't know what the hell to do. And that's what we're giving people here, is options. We're options, facilitators. Every one of us is a human weapon. We all know how to fight. We don't know how to fight. We don't know we know how to fight. And it's overcoming that fear first. And it's the type of thing where you can come and do the training and go, okay, now I know, and maybe I'll do one or two more gun classes, or I gotta practice once a month with the tourniquet, or I am gonna learn jiu jitsu or whatever. You fall in love with something, but the ability to know that you can protect yourself and not be manipulated, that's huge. But the transcendent value is that changes your emotional, psychological posture at your next meeting. Right?
- [39:50]
Dan Fleischman
Y.
- [39:51]
Tony Blauer
So it's. It's. It's. It's. It's very. It's. It's super interconnected. You know the expression, the pen's mightier than the sword? So I took some poetic liberty and I added a sentence to it. The pen is mightier than the sword. When you know to use a sword for sure, right? So you're there, you're going in the back of your mind, like, you're such a strong negotiator because, you know, you don't need the deal. If you don't like the person or you don't like the whatever, you're gone. That's the katana. I'll cut this in a second. Where you remember Iggy Pop? This is one of my favorite quotes, is he said, imagine if desperation were attractive. So a lot of people come in there, they need the deal so bad, or they need. And so they come at you negotiating with fear as opposed to with fierce. Like. And, you know, it's. It's that mindset switch. And you can get closer to that when you do this training because you discover that you are vulnerable. And then you. You build to strengthen that, and you just. You become a better version of yourself immediately, even after two days.
- [40:53]
Dan Fleischman
So you guys can see what we've been talking about. Operation Black site. You can go on Instagram. It's at Operation Blacksite on Instagram and social media. And Then also operation blacksite.com you can see full details. Okay, the spear system. You've been teaching the spear system for many, many years all over the planet. What is the spear system? Explain. Break it down. And where can someone go find or research or hire you or book you or come to get training, etc.
- [41:15]
Tony Blauer
Yeah, thanks. So the. I grew up doing wrestling, taekwondo, boxing. Got into some confrontations where nothing worked. They were so close, they were so fast. One was a road rage, one was multiple salons. One was in. Actually in a boxing ring. And I had this wicked tunnel vision. And I was a Bruce Lee junkie, like all of us, right? I think you were the world's biggest Bruce Lee fan. But I was like, everyone, every Bruce Lee fan thinks they were the biggest Bruce Lee. I loved him. I remember when I was 15, my mom said, are you gonna go into the family business? You're gonna be a lawyer, doctor, cop? You know, it's the 70s. So there were only three jobs. And I said, mom, I'm gonna be a famous martial artist like Bruce Lee. I'm going to develop my own system. And she was on the floor looking at Bruce Lee magazine, doing the splits. She pat me on the head and said, okay, sweetheart, we'll talk about this when you're older. Like, I just knew I wanted. I abhor violence. And, and, And I'm. I'm so afraid of it that I just think about it all the time. I study. I'm obsessed. Not passionate, obsessed. And so I started teaching in 1977. My first paying official student in 1980, this kid Mitchell, gets dropped with a left hook, Dan. And I'm teaching him at the time what we all think of when we think about fighting. We think John Wick, we think Jackie Chan, we think Bruce Lee doing moves, doing moves. So I'm teaching him the moves and how to think and do this stuff. And I go and, and. And just visualize this. I come back to his private lesson. I've been training him for three months. He was having a bully situation at school. His dad was a friend of my family. I known them for decades, literally since I was born. And I'm 20 at the time. And he says. And his dad, Joey says, mitch is having a bully situation at school. I need you to teach him some stuff because you're still doing your.
- [43:09]
Dan Fleischman
Your.
- [43:10]
Tony Blauer
Your Marshall tricks, right? Called the Marshall tricks I said, yeah, it's 1980. I'm making $4.50 an hour from my father sweeping in his. In our. We had a ladies import, export, clothing business. So I'm in the back sweeping, and I would punch boxes. Every day we get a shipment in like Rocky. This is like before 1976, when Rocky, you know, came out. Or. No, 1980, it was four years after. So I'm inspired by the Rocky scenes, and I'm beating the shit out of the boxes doing stuff. Joey says, I'll pay you. Is it really how I started my business? He goes, how much you charge me for Mitchell? I go, I'm not going to charge you. A friend of the family, he says, no, no, no, no. I want you to do this, like, for real and be. And be serious about this. And I go, okay, I don't know. I can't charge you. He says, How's 20? So I'm thinking five classes because I'm making five bucks an hour. I said, whatever. That's fine. He says, so I'll pay you 20 bucks a class. And I'm like, holy. And I'm going, I'm rich. Like, I'm like, I can retire. I have, you know, one class. So I start teaching Mitch. Suddenly, Mitch's brother Steve goes, how come Mitch gets private lessons now? I got that. I'm in there in a wealthy area, and then one day we're training outside, and Derek across the street says, what are you guys doing Next day? I got 30. 30, like, in a week, I'm at $20 at 20 bucks an hour.
- [44:29]
Dan Fleischman
Oh, my God.
- [44:30]
Tony Blauer
And I'm 20. It's 1980. And. And I'm still working 40, 50 hours a week. Yeah, I'm doing so what? So I'm doing. I'm doing this. And I'm working nine to five for my father. Sometimes Saturday, and then every single night for six years, I'm teaching privately. But Mitch's bully situation, that kicked this all off. I come back for a private lesson, and he's sitting there like this in his room. And I went, what happened? He jumps up here. Can I swear on the show, I.
- [45:02]
Dan Fleischman
Not the F word, okay?
- [45:03]
Tony Blauer
And he's going, so beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And I'm going, calm down, man. What. What's going on? And he goes, you know, the bully. And they had been a verbal abuse up until now. No physical. And he said, man, the guy today put his hands on me. And I told him, you look like the school wasn't doing Anything. So I was just teaching him in case it got physical. He was running late for class, and the bully trips him and everyone starts laughing. And Mitch gets up and he. And he's like, what are you bothering me for? And I'm paraphrasing it for. For editing purposes. You know, what are you bothering for? I don't even know. You've been bugging me since school started. And the guy walks up and he goes. And he shoves him. He goes, what are you gonna do about it?
- [45:42]
Dan Fleischman
To you?
- [45:43]
Tony Blauer
No, to. To my student, Mitchell. Right? So like Mitch is 15 years old, and he shoves Mitch, and Mitch goes back and he just goes red. Like someone puts your hand on you and you just lose it. And he grabbed the guy and slammed him against a locker bank and said, leave me alone, man. I don't even know who you are. He's just been bugging me. And then he looks at me. Mitchell looks at me and says, then he dropped me with a left hook. I said, mitch, I don't understand. What do you. What do you mean? Like, why didn't you parry, block, slip? And he goes, well, I was holding him with my left hand. And then he goes, I had my school books that I picked up in my right hand. So can you imagine if you. And I had to box stand and I had to hold your shirt and hold books, how easy it would be to hit me in the face, Right? And so, but is. And I swear this happened, I said, I describe it as. It was like the God of self defense. I was 20, 1980. I went, oh, my God. We teach self defense. Wrong. And what I meant by is, we don't talk about the emotional, psychological. We don't have a pre fight ritual. It just, like real violence is just sudden. It happens. And actions faster than reaction. What happens when our situational awareness is compromised? I'm gonna get a little nerdy here for a second. Our executive function is hijacked. Our cognitive brain is bypassed, and our limbic system is called an amygdala. Hijack goes like. And we, you know, so we know Mike Tarzan been on your show many times. He loves snakes. Most guests here, if you slipped a snake in here during the interview, they'd be like, what the. They would do? So their primitive self, their primal self would react to that until you stress inoculate. So I started that day in 1980. I said, everything we do has to make sense in the real world. And we started reverse engineering everything. We would look at any real incident and go, what impact does it have on our body and our mind. Because I don't. I'm not going to stand there. And if I always tell people now, if you look at CCTV and video evidence, you don't see it. You've never seen a John Wick fight in the. In the real world doesn't exist. There's no evidence of it. You would think if all of the. And I've been a martial artist for 50 plus years, so people think I'm hating on martial arts. I'm just trying to make us safer, going, look, this is cool. I've got a gun collection, I got spears, I got knives. But if somebody broke into my house, I'm grabbing my Glock and a tomahawk, like, here we go. I'm not going to grab my spear or a black powder rifle where I go miss and go, oh, like right, let me, let me reload. So we just got to look at real violence. So how did spear happen? Is while I was only. I was doing Fight Club before Fight Club was a movie. We were like getting once a month together. We'd get the get. Get together and beat the crap out of each other. But it wasn't just let's fight. Like in Fight Club, I'd say, literally, I go down. What's your biggest fear in a confrontation? And you'd say, I don't know, two guys with a knife. And then we would do psychology, we'd do drilling, and then we'd put our makeshift gear on. I lived in Montreal at the time, didn't have my equipment company, so it was like a hockey helmet, gauntlets, taekwondo chest guard, baseball shin guards. We were like Frankenstein, right? We'd put everything on. And then I'd say, next up, Dan Fleischman. And you'd put your gear on. And I go, dan, your scenario is this. And two guys with a knife would approach and you'd be like, oh man, this is when he interviewed me. And I would give you that fear and you'd see people like viscerally go. And because, because if I say, let's spar, you go, hold on a second. You warm up and you get ready and you stretch and you shadow box. You don't just start. So these things were like Fight Club with a scenario. And in it I noticed we'd have a. We had a reputation. We do these once a month that some badasses from all over Montreal would come in and a lot of them would like turn and friggin shrimp and go, go fetal and tap and. And I go, man, Like, Like, I thought this guy, you know, you judge a book by cover. But what I realized is nobody understood two things here, how to manage their fear in the scenario. But the other thing I noticed is that when people were surprised, they all flinched. And it was like. So I started experimenting with this and I developed a drill called the Sucker Punch drill, which would be. I'd have a mouth guard on, you'd have gloves on, and we'd just be talking and I'd say, dan, whenever you want the conversation, punch me as fast as you can. Right. Remember the Ali video that I showed? We show a clip of that or a picture of that on here, where there's a picture of Ali, like the greatest. The Freddie Starr. Have you seen this video yet? I don't think so. I'll send it to you. Freddie Starr is leaning over talking to Ali and the interview in the uk, and Ali's like listening and drawn in. And then star goes and whap. And he throws a jab. And you. I got a picture of Ali going total fetal. But here's a guy that's fought Fraser Norton, you know, like the Foreman. And here's like, like this little comedian who surprised him and made him flinch. So we show that video because a lot of people, especially male egos, go, I'm not going to flinch the is. And I go like your flinching's your friend. When your situational awareness is compromised, you want something to go, whoa, I didn't see that. So SPEAR is an acronym for Spontaneous protection or startle response Accelerated response. Spontaneous Protection enabling accelerated response. I figured out, almost like classical conditioning, a series of drills where we trick the body synthetically into microfinches and then attach a cognitive correction. So we're converting the flinch. So instead of us going, like most victims of stabbing who don't survive a stabbing, they'll get slashed in the arm and then there's always a trail down their back. So if you started hitting me, I flinch. Non conscious movement, but then I want to get away. I go like this and I turn and the person's still coming at you. So there's that. There's a forensic line all the time. So what we do is we teach people the flinch is going to happen whether you like it or not. But then how do you convert it? So how do you attach the limbic. The amygdala hijack with the limbic system, with this cognitive. Like an athlete. What should I do here? So it's a microflinge and then there's a. Like a Sequence of drills we do we call finger split outside 90 where you drive in and you recruit this core to extremity explosive movement almost like a biological airbag. And we've been teaching it. So I discovered this like an archeologist in, in 1986, 87. And I've been refining it like, like to today when, when Covid started, I saved my company by teaching online. We've done almost 800 classes.
- [52:38]
Dan Fleischman
Whoa.
- [52:38]
Tony Blauer
Since 800. Two hour classes online, all over the place, man. So I just say that because I'm still, I'm so obsessed with it. We're still coming up with wild stuff. So basically I recognize we're all human weapons. We all have fear. How do we use fear as fuel? How do we use our natural inclination to whatever we're going to do and weaponize fear and weaponize our startle response and get back in the fight.
- [53:08]
Dan Fleischman
So where can people find you on social media? Where can they find your website? How can they get a hold of you?
- [53:12]
Tony Blauer
So best thing is, is so I've got two main websites, Blauer Training Systems. My last name, Blauer Training Systems. I've been around long enough that if you just google Tony Blauer you'll find my. The lovers and the haters, like any of all of us have. Then there's blower, spear. Of course you can find me through black site. I've been, I think every single event since, since we started and, and you know, I love it. Thank God I live close to here, you know, so it's just easy for me to shoot in and do it. But there's, there's something so special if you're sitting on the fence, should I do this? Should I do this? Like being able to understand your vulnerability and how to turn like, like the primary ingredient of courage is fear. And to experience that and then to go, oh my God, I know how to put on tourniquet, I know how to shoot a gun. And you're not going to master stuff like the. And you got world class instructors here, but you're going to know what you don't know. And fear of the known is a lot more manageable than fear of the unknown.
- [54:14]
Dan Fleischman
Absolutely. All right guys, it's really important to have these discussions with your friends, family and followers about learning self defense. So if you can go to martial arts training, if you can go to gun training, if you can go to a gun range learning something, at least having some basis, obviously we'd love to have you here at operation Black site, but in your Own hometown. Wherever you are in the world, there is people that can teach you martial arts, shooting, self defense, etc. So at least you have some type of a basis. Because what you don't want to do is the famous quote from Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. So going through experience, going through the back and forth, learning from people that actually know what they're doing can literally change your life and hopefully save your life. If you know, God willing never happens. But if it does, you want to be at least somewhat prepared for those moments so you know what to do in those situations. All right guys, this is a very different episode where we talk more about investing to yourself into your mind and into, you know, protecting your household. And oftentimes we overlook it until after the fact. After you get into a carjacking, after you get robbed in Los Angeles, after you get into a random stabbing in London or New York, where it's happening now, like you do it after the fact, it's mathematically unlikely that you're going to be the one that gets robbed again or gets stabbed again. You know, it already happened to you, like unfortunately. And so it's not that often you hear someone get like carjacked twice, right? There are definitely women that have been raped multiple times because that's a much more intense thing and it's more, more focus happens there. But the actual like robbery shootings and things that we see oftentimes happen during tourism or in certain cities, certain territories. And so getting the training beforehand rather than after the fact is very critical. Similar to trying to be healthier before you go to the hospital rather than fixing after the fact. So the more things you can do to be preventative, to learn is critical. Have this discussion with your friends, family, followers, maybe take all your staff, your co workers together, go out there and do some martial arts training or a day at the range, just getting comfortable with it. And then if you can actually spend time or you like it, then obviously it'd be great if you can get into more intense training because this is a lifelong mission. You don't just learn once on a one day thing or a two hour thing here and there. This is part of your daily life because at any moment your whole life can change. Appreciate you guys listening. Check us out@themoneymondays.com you've been helping us stay in the top 10 for over 110 weeks in a row. So if you can comment, like, subscribe, share, check out Tony Blower across social media and we will see you guys next Monday.