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I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
[MUSIC]
Is it possible to harness the passion and
success from your art practice and
apply it to other aspects of your life?
Welcome to this episode
of All of Your Stories.
I'm your host, Hava Gurvij.
And today, I am truly honored to have as
my guest Nick Sueno.
Sueno Sensei is one of the leading
martial arts
instructors in North America.
And he translated that mastery into the
principles of success itself
that apply in diverse fields.
He runs a successful martial arts school
as well as a marketing firm.
He's an author of
several award-winning books and
a motivational speaker, a
life coach, and an entrepreneur.
Join us as we talk about the importance
of having good role models,
the power of transformation, and
the challenges of having a business
around your art practice.
Welcome to the show, Nick.
So, do you go by Nick or Nicholas?
Just Nick, please.
Nick, okay, great.
So, okay, so what I want to, where I want
to direct the conversation sort of is the
intersection of art and life and how one
says the other and it's
kind of a feedback loop.
And when I say art, I mean any kind of
practice that you do passionately
throughout your life,
your calling, that's your art.
And you know that.
What's interesting to me and the
conversations we've had in
the past is even though on the
surface it seems like we are in
completely different fields, and
especially since I don't
really know much about martial arts and,
well, you know more about
visual arts than I know about
martial arts.
But when we start talking, when we start
talking about the
creative process or just what it
takes to be focused on what you're doing
and where that leads, like
how your practice influences
your art.
And so, I'm holding this book that just
came out, mini biography of who you are.
It's really quite impressive and I'm glad
that I got to know
you and talk to you like
a normal person before I read all this
because it's a little bit intimidating.
Well, listen, it's nice to have fans and
so this guy, Bob Wolf,
is a martial artist who
I've helped out a little bit.
And so he wrote the book and I think it's
more, it creates, accolades for me that I
don't know if I deserve,
but nice to have it out there.
I think it's good to hear how your life
work is perceived by
somebody who appreciates it.
And it's to me always kind of humbling,
but also a good reminder
that there is a persona
and there is a life's work that I put out
into the world and
that you put out into the
world and it has a
life of its own in a way.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So it is an entity that others interact
with and as much as we can
try to control the output,
really control how it's
perceived and how it affects others.
And so when you get this really clear
confirmation that what you've
been doing, what you've been
putting out there is
resonating so deeply.
It's yeah, yeah.
It's very gratifying, but
that's a really interesting point.
I'm assuming the same for you.
I do the things I love.
I do martial arts.
You know, I run a marketing business that
I, you know, I never
thought I'd be in marketing,
but I I've grown to love and I just do
those things and go about my business.
And most of the time not thinking about
how it might be perceived in the world.
And I don't even know if I would be able
to do a good job of knowing, right?
Like how I, what I put out, how does it
land at the same time?
I'm not without the years since I've been
in business, I, you
know, you're never completely
without the idea of how can I influence
the public perception
of what I do, right?
I want the public to think well of me.
I want the things I do, martial arts,
marketing, personal
development conversations.
I want that to seem valuable.
And I want it to actually be valuable,
but I want it to seem valuable too.
But at the end of the day, you know, I
think if boy, this is a tough one for me.
I can only spend so much time curating my
public persona and then I sort of have to
be happy with what's out there.
So this is a great confirmation, probably
not the short
biography I would have written
for myself.
And I'm not sure I would have, I don't
feel old enough to
write a biography yet, an
autobiography yet,
but you see what I mean?
So there's a distinction between kind of
what, what we, what, how
we live, what we try to
put out there and it, and finally,
ultimately the
perception that other people have.
It's a distinction, but it's also like a
constant conversation between them.
And, you know, even if you try not to,
not to let how your
life's work is perceived get,
you know, get to your head or influence
you, it is all interconnected in a way.
But speaking of how you, you would have
your autobiography, I
believe this, what then on
the back of the book is from your website
and I'm just going to read it.
But before I do this word, D O J O, is it
just pronounced dojo or?
Just pronounced dojo.
Okay.
Dojo.
And what does that mean?
So literally means the way, place, the
place you pursue your path.
Oh.
So we think of it as a martial arts
school, but really a
dojo could be anything where
you're pursuing your, your,
your studio is a dojo, right?
Oh yeah.
Actually that is exactly the, that, that
is basically the concept.
Cool.
All right.
So for more than three decades, thousands
of people have become
more centered, happier,
and more successful with Nicholas Suinos.
I hope I'm
pronouncing your name correctly.
Perfect.
Guidance.
He has been called one of the leading
martial arts instructors
in North America, but his
influence radiates far beyond the dojo.
He has made his life's mission to learn
the fundamental
principles of success in many
different fields, apply those principles,
and then share them with others.
Author of 12 books, Suino helped
transform professionals,
business owners, athletes,
martial artists, and ordinary people with
his presentations, group
training, and coaching.
Suino owns and co-owns successful
businesses in diverse fields
like martial arts, marketing,
publishing, and law.
And he has been honored by the University
of Michigan-Dearborn
as mentor of the year
by the Blue Water Chamber of Commerce
Business Expo for advancing
entrepreneurship, and by
the International Martial Arts Federation
for supporting traditional Japanese budo.
The thing though that I really want to
sort of focus on, I
hope, is this part says that
through your dojo as a martial arts
expert that you have
translated that passion, that
journey, and that success into the
principles of success in life.
And that's the thing I
really want to talk to you about.
But can you just a
little bit about your journey?
Yeah, well, I've had a long journey so
far, and it's taken a
lot of different forms.
I don't know what to call it.
I have a short attention span for some
things and a very long
attention span for the other.
I can't explain it.
I started martial arts in 1968, and I
really, other than a few
years in high school when
I was doing gymnastics, I never quit.
And interestingly, I moved to Tokyo when
I was 28 years old and
spent about four years
there training in martial
arts and working part-time.
And it wasn't until I came back and then
another few years had
elapsed that I realized that
that was sort of a pivotal moment where I
changed from somebody
who was a little bit
lost and always a follower to somebody
who then was well
self-directed and I realized
I was more comfortable as a leader.
Now, I don't say that with arrogance
because I know I make a
lot of bad decisions and I'm
very inefficient sometimes, but I just
realized that I'm more
comfortable leading the ship
than taking somebody else's direction and
vastly more comfortable.
And once I made that distinction in my
life, I was able to just
really dig in and do things,
right?
Went to law school, clerked at the
Michigan Court of Appeals
and the Michigan Supreme
Court, had some really good law jobs.
It was never my calling, but I just
realized I was able to focus and do that.
Started a dojo in Lansing, Michigan, ran
it for 10 years and
sold it and then eventually
moved back to Ann Arbor
and started a dojo here.
I've been running that
dojo for about 19 years now.
So that was a pivotal switch and I'm
going to bring this back
to martial arts because
I had really phenomenal martial arts
teachers in Japan, world-class,
historic-level martial
arts teachers, but my Iaido sword teacher
was the primary influence for me.
His name was Mr. Yamaguchi.
We called him Yamaguchi Sensei.
And he was, I say this and it's
absolutely true for me, he
was the first role model for
how to be a man that I had.
And I don't mean like in some macho movie
sense, he was a very
strong and consistent
man, but he was also gentle, he was calm.
He just showed me how
to be kind of a grownup.
Meanwhile being one of the best swordsman
who's ever, who's
lived in the 20th century.
And so I was just
enamored with the guy, right?
Absolutely overwhelmed.
And so while I was with him, I was the
best follower that I've
ever been for anybody ever.
Literally, I joke about this, but if he
had said, go run in
the street, to get better
at Iaido, I would have done it.
I just emptied my cup completely and I
gave myself over to that experience.
And to this day, his
influence still radiates with me.
So that was like this transformative
pivotal moment, right?
Go in as a young man, want to be strong,
I want to be
perceived as strong, I want to
do this physical thing that I love.
I got really good at it, won all kinds of
accolades, but the
primary takeaway from that
experience was this relationship I had
with an extraordinary teacher.
And that turned the corner for me.
Yeah, I think you said that it wasn't
until later that you
realized that was a pivotal
moment.
I knew that I was
enamored with him, right?
Overwhelmed and thrilled to
be training with this guy.
And every lesson was like a...
And he and his wife were extraordinarily
kind and generous to me.
And when I look back,
I'm kind of ashamed.
I don't think I was as...
I would be nicer and more appreciative
now than I was then,
although I wasn't bad.
I did work very, very hard.
I knew I loved him.
I knew the experience was unique.
I knew he opened all kinds
of doors for me over in Japan.
I did not know I was undergoing a
personal change, right?
Went in as a lost follower, came out as a
pretty well-directed
leader, and the lessons
continue.
I'm curious, which of
these skills or transform...
What part of the transformation has
Poisedroop to come back and
go to law school and start
all these businesses?
How did that translation happen?
What did you bring?
Yeah.
I think early on, I loved martial arts
because it was physically active.
For some reason, I can't explain why, but
I was more
comfortable in the spotlight in
a tournament or
whenever when I was very young.
And so to me, it was just a
playground when I was young.
But what I didn't realize at the time was
I was learning the
relationship between hard
physical work and success.
And so in those days, it was go to class,
do the things your
teacher tells you, practice,
practice, practice, go to a tournament or
in-house, compete
with your friends and do
well.
As I got older and I started getting into
other martial arts
like karate, my teacher,
Carl Scott Sensei, who's passed away, but
when I trained with him,
his thing was practice,
practice, practice, but
also do more push-ups.
We literally did
thousands of push-ups in a week.
And so the analogy is if you learn to
love push-ups, your
punches are going to be stronger.
That's so simple and direct, right?
But it's the analogy for all the work.
If you learn to love the work and connect
it in some way with
better outcomes, then it's
not just put up with the work.
You sort of have to be one of those
raving fanatics, right?
Where you just, you have to, at first
it's, what do you want to call it?
You're just like
cheerleader for yourself.
You love this, go, go, go.
But after a while, this
funny thing happens, right?
The people I know in the top 1% of
martial arts are able to
tell themselves to do something
and love it without the cheerleading and
do things that other
people just can't do.
And the years and years of training
allowed me to do these
physical things that most people
wouldn't be able to do.
And it's just because of that stacking.
But somewhere along the line, you grow
up, you realize you have
to do something or you're
living and you realize it's the same
relationship between
push-ups and good punches as there
is between studying the law books and
passing your exams or
picking up the phone when you
don't want to and calling a difficult
client and having the
conversation will lead to a
better outcome in the marketing file.
You took the skills and the practice and
applied it to another field.
I think so.
It wasn't that intellectual at the time,
but I just started
doing art and art of things
and realizing that, you know, so here's a
part that I bet you
can relate to as a visual
artist.
A big part of both is breaking them down
into simple components, right?
So when you do a complex martial art, you
know, when you're
fighting somebody in a karate
art or a striking art, the distancing and
the timing and the
movement and the fear and
the, you know, the stamina, that's a
really complex set of equations, right?
Lots of chaos.
But the truth is what it is, you move
your foot, you move your
hand, you know, it's really
that simple.
And, you know, when I got to, you know,
when I got to law
school, that was much easier
than the practice of law, by the way,
because, you know, you had,
there were some challenges,
but the teacher would say, here's the
books we're reading, learn the case.
And I had, you know, if I can go into a
dojo and train for
three hours, I can go to a
library with coffee, you know, or go to
the coffee shop, eat
cinnamon rolls and read law
books.
That was the easiest
thing I ever did, right?
But it was that same thing.
You put in the hard work
and then go take the test.
How did you know that you've sort of like
figured something
profound about the way reality
works on this level
and wanted to share that?
That's a great question.
When I, that's a great question because
as you asked me that, I
think there's two really
different parts to that answer.
One was there's a way you study for exams
in law school, a way I
studied, which I would
write an outline of the course.
And then for each outline, I would write
subheadings and then
subheadings and subheadings.
And I essentially memorized that.
So you're memorizing like
a whole law book, right?
Spend about, I don't know, I, you know,
the first semester was horrible.
Second semester was horrible.
After that, they got easier.
And by the last couple semesters of law
school, I basically
screwed off until the last three
weeks.
And then I, you know, built these, built
these, these schema, but
again, breaking it down
into the smallest pieces, memorizing the
piece and how it
connects to the other pieces and
then going to take the exams.
And I don't know if I knew it at the
time, but looking back on it, same thing.
Your teacher teaches you a kata, which is
a complex set of motions.
And you do a piece and you see how it
connects to the other
piece and you just keep doing
it, break it down to its smallest parts.
And even after you've done it for 20
years, you still do that.
You sort of integrate it all and then you
break it back down into small pieces.
So that's been kind of a theme.
You know, I've told you before, my mother
was in visual arts and
she taught me to, you
know, to do watercolors or, or, you know,
oil paintings when I
was a kid and I never
pursued it or got good at it.
It was the same thing.
She talked to me about color and form
and, you know, and so you
see this complex, beautiful
work of art.
Oh my God, how did that get done?
And she could...
Once brought up at a time.
Yeah, right.
So I think that would start to just be a
theme and when you live
long enough, you know, it
sticks.
But here's the other
piece is that I care.
I don't remember the timing of this
exactly, but I started
getting interested in personal
development stuff.
Part of the, you know, the big players,
the Tony Robbins, Deepak
Chopra, the Brendan Burchardt's
of the world.
And a friend of mine got some free
tickets to Tony Robbins,
who's the big, you know,
personal development guy in Chicago.
And we did a four day Tony Robbins event
and I remember how
immersive it was, but I remember
how immersive Tony Robbins was, but then
I left there not
feeling very good because of
the sort of the hyper marketing, you
know, salesy aspect of it.
Right?
That's what I...
And yeah, and so I felt like there was a
lot of really good
information contained in it,
but I just felt like the
push towards sales was too much.
Now I'll let other people
make that moral judgment.
I think there's some real value to it,
but you know, I spent a
few years studying all
that stuff and when I went through a real
tough period of my
life later, you know, I
just consumed all of it and tried to pull
out, you know, like Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee is famous, right?
Famous martial artist.
And he always said,
absorb what is useful.
So I go to one of these events or I read
one of these guys' books
and I go, you know, half
of this stuff is pretty good.
And if it wasn't dressed up in the salesy
clothing, it would actually be useful.
So I tried to pull that out and I
discovered a lot of the same stuff.
Go out and learn about the world, figure
out how it works, break
it down into its component
parts and when you do that, you can share
it with other people and
they have breakthroughs
too.
Yeah, but it sounds like such a clear
formula, but something
that we usually forget to do
because when, especially when it's
something new and you see
the entire thing and it feels
like you have to know it all
upfront and do it all at once.
And you know, so to remember that
everything in life is
just one step at a time.
And if you break it up one step at a
time, it's not so overwhelming.
There was another thing that you
mentioned that I really
appreciate is, you know, because
there are people who, you know, they
might be interested in an
idea, but then there might
be some aspect of it,
like the salesy part of it.
And being able to sort of say like,
there's something good here.
You can still extract
something good from almost everything.
Yeah, you know, there's a piece to this
that's really intriguing
that comes to mind when
you talk about that.
And that is how you interact with those
people or how you
interact with a system that's too
salesy, you know, how you get to a place
of quote unquote
success has so much to do with
how you value yourself.
So that's where I think some of that
personal development
stuff, it's really tricky.
You need a level of confidence to say, I
can take on this
system and I can take the
parts I want and I'll be fine.
I'm guessing that, you know, you know,
I've talked about this a
little bit as you've been
a visual artist for a long time, but a
business person, not as long.
Not as long.
And stepping over that threshold, I think
has something to do with it.
You have to have a belief that you can
maintain whatever beauty
or goodness there is about
what you do and not worry about it or
worry about it in
measure, in the right measure.
So that you, because if you think it's
going to corrupt you
and you let that stop you,
then you never, you never go
over that threshold, right?
You hit a raw nerve there.
It's still, but I appreciate that you
said that there is faith there.
Like I, you know, I want to do this.
It's like, I want to make art that's
visually like coming from me.
It's an expression of my
own inner world visually.
But I also want to make art that's
sellable and I want to
have a viable business.
And how do you maintain
both the integrity of both?
Because they're both you.
That's true.
Yeah.
And I'm, I'm still, you know, that's a
struggle for me still personally.
And I guess I'd love to, to hear your
thoughts on it because
that's, that actually is, has
been, we've, we've had conversations
before about
entrepreneurship and the ups and downs
of it.
And especially this, this idea that in
retrospect, sometimes the
things that seemed like the
worst disasters really
ended up being blessings.
And you know, it's, it's, it's one of the
things, I think this
is one of the reasons
I wanted to talk to you as an artist
because there is so much,
even though on the surface,
martial arts and visual arts are very
different fields beneath
the surface for somebody who
is practicing or living that life.
There's, it's, it's
more similar than not.
And the reason I, I recently came to that
conclusion because
I've been drawing a lot
of parallels between my art practice and
my practice as living as a human.
And there is so much that I, you know, I
bring my experience to my
art, but then art teaches
me something that I can apply back to my
experience in that loop.
And that relationship
isn't unique to artists.
And I know that you have
that, a similar relationship.
You know, that's, that's sort of like
what I picked up on
with, you know, you, you just
dropped everything and went to Japan to
study martial arts
because that was your passion.
And you studied hard, you, you know, you,
you did the work and
you excelled at it and
then you came back and you continue to do
it, but you also, it
clearly informed your
life.
It informed how you live your life, how
you create your
reality, you know, day to day
and what you want for yourself.
And you pursued that to the point where
you're like, I cracked the formula.
Well, some formula, right?
I can't, I can't say
it works for everybody.
Do you have any specific examples to get,
to kind of get into
this conversation a little
more about, about that, that, that how
art informs life and life informs you?
Yes.
So I had this epiphany actually this
morning while I was
doing my morning writing.
And so it's still a bit raw, but I'll try
to kind of, so for me,
the process of creating
the art is that's, that's
what's really enjoyable.
That process is where all the growth
happens, where all the
mistakes happen, where all the
insights happen.
And you know, the finished piece,
sometimes it's something
that, you know, I can say this
is one of my iconic or, you
know, one of my great pieces.
Sometimes it's not, sometimes it's just a
stepping stone to the
next thing, you know.
But that process is like, if I, if I had
the ability to just
sort of like close my eyes,
imagine a finished piece, snap my fingers
and it appears, I
would stop being an artist.
I would stop being an artist because
it's, it's, there's no,
the magic of discovery,
the magic of, of sort of the learning and
that, you know, that excitement was gone.
And so, so then I was looking at life and
I'm, I'm very much in
this place of like personal
journey and then sort of
like, what, why am I here?
What is my greater purpose?
You know, what, what am I here to do?
And I feel very fortunate that I think I
am on the path that I was meant to be on.
And you know, it's just that you know
that because that's the
thing that, that you're
most passionate about.
That's the thing that
excites you the most.
That's, that's your calling.
And so there is in a sense, like, you
know, if I, if I kind of
step back, that perfect
complete person who has created this, all
these works of art
and like manifested all
the creativity and all the flow and all
the abundance and all the
success that, that exists
by what's really interesting is the
process of getting there and that's life.
And I just finally made that connection
that my purpose here as
a human being having this
life is to experience
that journey of discovery.
The best part is, is the discovery.
The best part is, you know, and to
further that analogy,
looking back, the things that
I thought were failures typically ended
up being the best things.
And the times when I didn't sit down with
the intent to create
something great, I just
sat down to just,
without any expectation.
That's when, you know, you don't block
things because you're not
saying, No, I'm not going
to do this because that's
not part of my artistic style.
You just do it because you feel like
doing it and that's how you grow.
So that's, that's, that's kind of like
the connection that I
made, like a very direct
connection between process
in art and process in life.
Yeah.
And that's so wonderful because I can,
you speak of visual art
and I feel martial arts
when you say that.
Yeah.
There's a, you know, I have said, and I'm
sure many people said
it before me, I don't
think you're a martial artist if you
don't do martial arts.
And the reason that's appropriate or
important is because people
that get into the business
of martial arts or hold
themselves out as teachers, right?
There's this whole huge stereotype of
many, many of them
become, you know, they become
soft and fat and, and they're leaders and
maybe they're running a
school that not martial
artists anymore
because they're not training.
So it's just like, you know, if you stop
painting, are you still a painter?
I don't know.
Right.
But I believe that if I stop training in
martial arts and that
doesn't mean I have to
fight or, or compete or, or necessarily
teach, although I, I
teach because I love it and I
teach because it's how the
rent gets paid at the dojo.
But I have to do martial
arts to be a martial artist.
It's my calling, like
visual arts is your calling.
But there's two
interesting parts to this.
So we have one side of martial arts
that's kata, it's
drilling or repetitive training.
And I would guess in your world, that's
like, I don't know what to call it.
You know, you draw colors and you're, you
know, you, you, you do your work.
You got to be good at your tools, right?
Yeah.
And of course you get good at your tools
by doing the ultimate
expression of them, but
sometimes you got to go back to basics.
Or I imagine opera singer
always has to sing scales, right?
So we have fundamentals that we always
work on in martial
arts, but that the joy of
discovery, the first place you encounter
it, or I encountered
it was in free training
in, in sparring or, or right.
Because all of a sudden now the pallets
wide open, you have these set of tools.
Let's say in karate, you have punches and
kicks and blocks and stepping, right?
And distance and angles and timing.
And you put those tools into play and you
don't know how it's going to come out.
Right.
And it's, it's, it's immersive.
So often while you're doing it, you lose
yourself, but afterwards you say, wow,
right, that's right.
That's me at my, at my
ultimate in this physical game.
And it's, it's, it's
powerfully rewarding.
And it's like at the end,
you could look back on it.
Unfortunately, unless you have a video of
it, you know, you can't look back on it
like a painting and then
it's preserved forever.
You just have to reflect on it with the
people that saw it or the person you were
fighting with and go, Hey
man, that was really cool.
Yeah.
A lot of times, you know, the moments,
the best parts of the, of the painting
are memories that I have
about some breakthrough.
And a lot of times they are preserved in
the painting and, and they're preserved
to such a degree that, you know, I don't
have a witness, like you, you know, you
can talk to the person you're sparring
with or people who are watching.
And like, remember that I can just have a
conversation directly with the
painting and be like, I remember, you
know, I remember exactly what was going
through my mind when I decided to put
this color down and, and, you know, and,
and what happened.
Um, so there is, there is a, there is a
witness, there is a witness even there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then you've got this memorial at the
end, you know, it made me think of, we've
talked about chefs before, right?
It makes me think of that idea.
You create this beautiful meal.
It looks, make you take a picture of it,
but that doesn't capture the flavors.
And then people eat it and they have the
flavors, the appearance, environment,
and then it's gone.
Yeah.
Um, that's, that's very true.
Um, I, I'd love to
pick your brain about you.
So you started doing, um, marketing and
like the SEO stuff because you didn't.
You, because you had to.
Right.
Well, I started as I came back to Ann
Arbor and opened the martial arts
dojo and had to market it to fill the,
you know, to get students.
Yeah.
And, but you learned to love it.
I love, I love the challenge.
The big picture.
Yeah.
The big picture challenge.
Why so, so I, gosh, I
think it's like art again.
I think you, um, what I love about it is
at the beginning of a new project or a
new client, or at the
beginning of a new marketing campaign.
You sit down either alone or with other
people and you say,
man, here's where I am.
Here's who I want to be.
Here's what the, I, here's what the
perfect outcome looks like, right?
This is what my marketing looks like.
This is the kind of
people that are coming in.
These of course are the dollar figures
that are associated with that.
And it's so optimistic and it's like
bringing something out of the ether into
reality.
Yeah.
Um, and the best clients are the ones
that can kind of go along for that
ride and their partners with you because
it's never, you know, it's never
snapped your fingers
and it works perfectly.
There's a lot of hurdles on the way.
So, so what's appealing to me is getting
on board with people
that I really like at
first, it was just me, right?
Doing the dojo and
saying, here's the vision.
Here's where we can go.
And then going backtrack and
going, how do we get there?
And now after almost 20 years of doing
it, I have a set of skills and a bunch of
pallets that I'm accustomed to using.
And so now I can, I can,
it's not just a one off.
I can say, here's the vision.
Wow.
How do we get there?
Well, I've got all these tools and I've
got a team that knows how to deploy them.
And that's super fun.
There's a lot of challenges in it.
It's not nearly as fun as having money to
spend and spending it, but it's, it's
more rewarding because when you hit it,
it's the success is not only for me, but
it's for my team and it's for the client
and often their families and the
employees of that business, right?
Um, that's a big outcome there.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
And that's such an optimistic way of
looking at it, especially because you
mentioned that salesy component in the
Tony Robbins, Tony Robbins, right?
And he has seminars
that was a, was a put off.
So, you know, it's, it's interesting for
me as an artist who is a business owner.
And I think it resonates with most
artists who are business owners, because
we just have this knee jerk reaction to
business as being salesy.
You know, I don't want to be salesy.
And, um, so, you know, what I, I know
that there's a way to do that.
That's much more sort of
like you still doing that.
It's a business and you
take on the challenge.
Um, but it sounds like your focus stays
on, on, um, like the bigger picture
of how it's going to benefit those people
that actually this was for them.
So yes.
And there's methods, there's always, um,
there's always in my opinion, a better,
more noble way of doing things.
And we don't run a sales company.
I think we run an education company.
Really.
Um, I think the best marketing is
building trust, educating your market.
Right.
Uh, telling the truth, but telling the
truth in compelling
ways on a lot of places.
Right.
So people get the message.
I really try to avoid for myself or
working with others saying, Hey,
we're ABC company, buy our stuff.
Stuff.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
And it's, it's, um, you know, thinking
about marketing, the business side of it
as more of providing a service and
education, um, rather than like, you
know, trying to try and be pushy about
sales, like, um, especially, you know, in
my case with art,
because art is not a necessity.
Well,
that's a real ask.
Exactly.
I think it is, but, um, for most people
it's, you know, it's a discretionary,
like it's, it's something you get when as
a luxury, it's, it's, it's really
filed for most people under luxury.
And so convincing someone to buy is not
it's, it's, it feels, it feels
icky, it feels slimy.
It always feels like, because I don't
like to be, I don't like to
be the target of a hard sell.
Right.
And I'm, I'm not confrontational and I
will sometimes like cave in just
because I don't know how to say no.
I have so much, um,
resentment towards the entire process.
And so, um, I think it is an art.
I think it is an art, uh, of being able
to, um, present it in a way that's
like truthful and thoughtful and
educational, but also effective.
Um, with your visual art and with my
martial arts, we're very lucky because
we have things that almost sell
themselves and our job is
only to make sure everybody
knows how cool they are and
some of the backstory, right?
But when people see your art, you know,
I'm sure there are
people who don't like it,
but you know, when I, when, when, when I
see it and when I, everybody I know that
I've, that I've shared it with sees it,
they're like, wow, that's really cool.
Oh, you mean like a person actually
painted this, you
know, and, uh, and then,
you know, I say, Oh, I know how, and
they're like, Oh, that's amazing.
And if I put a cool video of some martial
arts up on, on the internet, there's
critics, of course, but most people are
moved by it as visceral, right?
And I don't have to
say, come buy this stuff.
I just have to say, this is cool.
Check it out.
You want to know where it's happening?
Right.
You know, that's all.
Um, so that's lucky.
So I'm glad that I don't have to sell for
myself, uh, uh, you know, a product that,
that you have to somehow overcome or that
you, you know, I don't know if
I would sell
accounting software very much.
Yeah, but it's, it's really, um, helpful.
I think, you know, I thought like having
a covered conversation about the creative
process or having a conversation about,
um, a journey, the journey of creativity,
the journey of your calling.
It's for me, it's really, it's really
refreshing to, to hear that.
Insight into the business aspect where,
you know, you, so I've made a connection
between my art and my life, but I'm, the
business part of it is still out there in
the cold.
It's not incorporated yet.
And it's, it's, it's very interesting to
hear, um, here it described as a creative
process and as a, as a challenge and as,
as something that you can do well with
integrity.
You know, yeah, yeah.
There was a piece of it that I want to
make sure we mentioned, you know, you
describe your art as a calling, right?
It's meant, it's what
you're kind of meant to do.
And I know that's true
for me in the martial arts.
If I had to give up everything else, I
can still do martial arts, right?
It's my calling.
And there's that, I don't know how to
describe that, that spark you get, right?
The divine spark or
whatever that gives you that.
Um, and I think the maximum, uh,
expression of that is in
that place in that calling.
Right.
But I think we do our best work in
everything when we try to
stay in touch with that.
Yeah.
So even if we're doing business or
whatever, there's that,
there's that, that, uh,
spark or energy, I don't know what to
call it, but, uh, you
know, if you do business,
if I do business just as a, you know, as
a, as a set of squares and numbers, it's
not very interesting.
It has to have that same, I need to try
to resource that same
feeling of connection.
I think one of the reasons that law never
inspired me was because I wasn't able
really to, to make that connection.
And I'm not saying that
wasn't true for others.
Maybe other people can kind of access
that defined spark or that calling and
thrive in that area, but I never really
could marketing was easier for me to get
to because of that optimism and the
ability to kind of bring other people
up and make lives better.
Um,
yeah.
Um, just touch upon this.
This is, this is our first conversation.
This idea of that there is a point where
you are a martial arts master and I'm a
professional artist and therefore
everything that, everything that I do is.
Art, everything that you
do is part of martial arts.
And, uh, when you create something new,
you are adding to the
field of martial arts.
Like you, you are in a
position to like add your own voice.
You're not just repeating
what someone else already did.
You ha you are in a position.
Am I, am I saying this correctly?
Um, yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
There's a concept I may have mentioned to
you, um, that before they had black belts
and you know, colored belts from martial
arts, there was this idea of a
transmission that you, you know, the
teacher after a number of years would
give the student a scroll and it would
say, okay, now you're, you know, at this
level, um, and there weren't that many
three levels or five levels, but there
was a certain level it's called Mankio
Kaidan in the, in the
traditional Japanese
arts where the teacher basically says,
look, you've done this long enough.
When you do this art, whatever you do
from here on out, that's this art.
It's no longer you pursuing something
separate from yourself.
You can forge the new path.
Right?
Um, and, and, and I love that you said
you can kind of walk that into life.
It's no doubt true that if you've been a
painter for 10 years or 20 years or 30
years, you're going to act
differently in the world, right?
You've got
disciplined thoughts and habits.
You've got a
sensitivity to color and shape.
Um, there might be a lot of other things
that I don't understand about that, that
influence how you walk through the world.
And I know that, you know, I'm, I'm a
martial artist through and through.
And so, so many decisions I make are
connected to that,
but here's what I love.
And I, I got goosebumps when I thought of
it, as you were talking about that.
When I'm not happy with how I, my life is
going when I'm facing a challenge
and I let myself down, it's because I'm
not living into that set of disciplines
that I've learned over the years.
Um, and I've never really thought about
it in that way before that,
uh, it's probably a nice can opener into,
uh, uh, feeling a little more settled
about how I act in the world.
Right?
Because I kind of know I have the
standards for myself in the dojo.
And as this sort of martial arts master
part of my life in the rest of life.
Now that I think about it, a lot of times
when I let myself down, because I didn't
live into those principles and, um, I'm
going to take this conversation and move
forward from that and see if it helps
kind of bring the two
together a little more.
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
Um, it would be, you know, I'm hoping
that over time I get
to talk to other people
who are in that level of mastery in
whatever they chose as their, um, calling
and find, find those, those places where
we, um, you know, like have, might have
different vocabulary and different
interpretation or different description
of what we're doing, but really we're
doing the same thing.
Um, I want to end with a question and
that is what are you most
passionate about right now?
Uh, I am most passionate about a, uh, a
very complex theory I have about the
relationship of time, um, the evolution
of humanity, the development of AI, um,
and how we can maintain our humanness.
And for those of us who are artists of
sub form are our artists nature in the
face of this automation that's coming.
Uh, you know, I, you know, I think I'm
going to have to start with
that, come from that question.
Yeah, that's a big conversation.
But so I know that AI is going to, is
affecting, you know,
writing, like publishing.
It's affecting, um, law, I'm sure.
Um, and it's certainly affecting
marketing and SEO and,
and, and all of that.
Um, is there some overlap with martial
arts because it's such a physical thing?
Not yet, but there's just like, you know,
now when you turn on
your computer, right?
You can do data analysis, you can do art,
you can read the news,
you can watch videos.
Um, the fact that this thing called AI
can, can generate good
ideas, can write writing.
It can create visual art now, uh, videos.
I think it's only a matter of time before
the computer can have a video feed
on a martial arts engagement and break it
down into details and explain why
something went well and something when it
didn't, and then maybe, maybe,
just maybe it's a longer process, but
we're not that far away from having an
integrated computer in the human being
that maybe will direct that interaction,
create these super martial artists.
I don't know.
That's a, that's a long way away, but.
Would you say that
you're looking ahead at it?
Is it optimism?
Is it, is it like trepidation?
Like, do you see it as, do you see it as
something generally positive or?
I do.
Um, I, that might be because I'm
generally a positive person.
Um, I think it's going to be an
existential process.
We're going to go through an evolution as
in the next hundred years or less,
uh, as humanity, um, where we're going to
be faced with a
completely different life.
And we don't have the, the nervous system
skills or the emotional coping
skills to really deal with it yet.
Yeah.
Um, you know, here's where, here's where
I take refuge in two things.
One is the artist is not an artist unless
the artist is doing art.
Yes.
Right.
And so you could produce art, but that's
not the same as, as being a
human being doing art
and that will save us.
But the other one is that, that we need,
we need, I don't know if we're going to
have will on the part
of a computer, right?
I don't know if a computer is going to
have the will to do something
without a human directing it.
And that, that's unclear.
That's unclear, but I'm optimistic that
we can take this, which will be the most
powerful tool that humans have ever
created and do some absolutely amazing
things with it, even though there'll be
bad actors doing bad
things with it at the same town.
Yeah.
My, my attitude is,
um, optimistic as well.
Um, and it's interesting, like the, you
know, AI art kind of just took over and
it's become so almost indistinguishable
from like video, especially video, like,
um, and of course, you know, bad actors
are using it for all kinds of things.
And, um, but I've also noticed that even
just in this like year or two years that
it's been around and it's evolved so
quickly, the pub, the sentiment about it
went from like real excitement to
lawsuits and, and
copyright infringements.
And like, there's a big souring within
the artist community, at least that I'm
part of on, um, AI art.
And, and it feels like a natural
evolution of something
because I think about early days
of computer art, computer graphics.
Um, and they evolved very quickly and the
very first iterations of
them were just being able to
easily do what a photographer would take,
you know, a long time to do.
Or, um, but it has evolved into something
of its own that is an
independent art form.
And, but it has to have these like
growing pains in a sense.
Um, it starts out by
imitating what is already existing.
Cause it's all it's doing is feeding on
the information that's available.
Right.
That's interesting idea.
Yeah.
So it starts out that way.
So it's like, you know, it can write code
because you know, the idea of writing
code exists as one of its tools that it,
you know, learning tools.
And then it can very
quickly write code better.
What can I do after that?
Because just, just better.
Okay.
But, or faster.
That's okay.
But that, that in itself, you know, when
everything can be done better and faster,
it stops being such a
great thing in itself.
So I'm, I feel like it's going through
all these like iterations of like, like
an accelerated, like
Western civilization happening.
You know, until we get to like, it's
almost like we can see into the future,
all of what we're doing now, all of our
knowledge, all of our pursuits to like
their, their end conclusion, like the AI
is doing that all these iterations, like
infinite possibilities of how we can
arrive at something.
And it's going to get to a point.
It was like, okay, done with that.
And then it's going to come into its own.
And that's the thing that's really
exciting because that's going to be where
it's doing something that is not just
derivative of what humans did.
It's, it becomes its own thing.
And, and we have no idea what that is.
We don't, you know, there's, there's a
personality that I, I listened to.
He's a channeler of an
extraterrestrial named Bashar.
And, without getting too much into that,
but, but what he says is very profound.
And what he said about AI is that you
have to make sure that you have two paths
that you pursuing two paths.
One of them is creating this like
powerful tool that can do what humans
can't do like, but as a tool for humans.
But that's not the same thing as what
you're going to like give,
you know, self self-awareness.
Because if you have a tool that's
self-aware, you've created a slave.
That's a great point.
That's a great point.
And we're grappling with that.
And on the other hand, you are creating
this whole other, you know, like in
giving it, and if you're going to give it
self-awareness, you have to give it
agency and you have to give it free will.
Yeah.
And let it be what it will be.
And I know that there's some people are
like, Oh, that we're, you know, AI, when
AI gets to that point, they're going to
see humans as like termites and it's okay
unless they start invading and then it
will just wipe us out.
And there's all of that.
But, you know, the other more uplifting
version is that this AI, this artificial
intelligence
self-awareness is part of awareness.
It's just artificial,
but is part of awareness.
And by being awareness, it has a more
holistic understanding
that everything is connected.
And if you have that understanding that
everything is connected, you don't want
to destroy any part of it
because it's part of you.
Fascinating.
So that, you know, that to me gives me
optimism that there is a possibility of
creating an entity that is not limited by
human ego and greed.
Let's hope it's a kind
entity at that point.
Oh, that's why I always
say, please, please help me.
Right.
Please.
Right.
Remember me.
I'm the one who was really polite.
I love it.
Well, that's a great
place to end our conversation.
Thank you so, so much.
Thank you so much.
What a blessing to have
this conversation today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
All right.
Thank you so much, Nick.