Ep. 392: The 90% That Matters, feat. Beatrice Jin

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I have huge news. She actually did it. We're pleased to announce that Beatrice Jin, top-ranked women's competitor in North America and long-time BJJ Mental Models premium community member, has published her first ever course with us, exclusive to BJJ Mental Models. It's called Stop Being Nice. It's a three-part audio series designed to solve real mindset problems that regular folks experience in Jijitsu. If you struggle to be aggressive and competitive in Jijitsu, you'll find the solutions here. If you're already a BJJ Mental Models premium subscriber, you've already got access. And if you are not, good news, you can get it now and get your first week free. Go to BJJ Mental Models.com and check it out today. Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to BJJ Mental Models episode 392. I am Steve Quan and BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jijitsu approach. And I am here with fan favorite, long-time community member, star athlete and coach. I've got Beatrice Jin from Kogaian Academy on the line. How is it going, Beatrice? Speaker 2: Things are going well. Thank you for all of those nice titles. It's really great to be here again. I feel like every time we talk, so many things have changed since then. I think our stop being nice episode was like two years ago, so it's great to be back. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Funny timing, too. We just started launching our audio course on Stop Being Nice featuring Beatrice Jin. So, for those who listen to this episode and they think, man, I want to hear more about this, there are some great back catalog episodes with Beatrice, plus the course that we just released and I'll again, I'll put a link to all of that in the show notes. But let's talk about you, Beatrice. For people who missed our first chats, why don't you tell everyone a bit about yourself? Speaker 2: Well, now I'm a black belt. Currently, I'm ranked in the IBJJF lightweight and middleweight top 10 for the IBJJF. This year, I was on the podium for adult black belt European and Pans Championships. And then also last year I won black belt adult American Nationals. So competitively, that's kind of where I am right now. I also run a gym with my partner in Arlington, Virginia, called Kogaian Academy, where we teach Jijitsu and Judo. And then also, I guess I'm kind of an influencer now. You'll find me on YouTube and Instagram at Baron Bozo, which is Baron Bozo with a Z. Speaker 1: Yeah, for people who are wondering what we're talking about, if you don't already follow Beatrice, and you should, if you've ever seen a reel in your feed with a woman explaining Jijitsu to you in a humorous way with whiteboards, that's Beatrice. So, anyway, there you go. Follow Beatrice if you aren't already. But you've got a lot on the go between all of the social stuff, the Jijitsu competition, running the gym, your merch brand as well, which again is something we can talk about. And on top of that, just running from my understanding, one of the most successful and long-running women's open mats in America, you've got a lot on the go. And what inspired this conversation was something that I believe you said to me. You said something to the effect of how only 10% of Jijitsu is the actual Jijitsu. It's all of the other stuff that makes it work, that makes you successful. And for you, a lot of those pieces started really coming together in the past few years, while you started picking up all of these impressive wins on the competition circuit. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, about the so-called 90% of stuff that you need to do in Jijitsu that makes you successful, that actually doesn't have much to do with the sparring itself. I think that's a great topic for this episode. Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess like the inspiration for this came from just the past month, actually, where I podiumed at adult black belt Pans open class. And so I was like, first of all, my first time podiuming at open class at any colored belt at any major, and it happened to be at black belt. And on the podium was Gabby Pasanha, Sarah Gaval, Elizabeth Clay, and then me. And, um, for me, like, I came up through Jijitsu, it's been almost eight years of training now, and I always kind of thought that if I made the podium of an adult black belt major, that that would be the peak achievement of my life, and I could just retire and everything would be great. And I just remember standing there getting my flowers from the IBJJF and thinking, oh, like there's this is not even the best part of my day, like let alone my week, month, year, career, you know? Like I had like a great week with my partner. I was really like happy to see him win his match, and I was like, oh, I can't wait to go back to women's open mat at my gym. And so it was very like jarring to experience something that I had looked forward to and thought was maybe impossible to reach. Like I didn't know it was possible until I got there, you know? And then suddenly be like, oh, this is like, and I went to the New York Open two weeks later. And of course, like no one knew that I had been on the podium of IBJJF Pans because no one knows anyone who's on the podium of IBJJF Pans. And unless they're like, you know, a huge social media star. And I had probably like 30 people come up to me saying that talking about how much they like my whiteboard reels. And I was like, oh, like obviously that makes me really happy. I'm really like glad that my like entertainment value is high, but that was also like a big, there was a big contrast, you know? Like that day I had also won the New York Open. IBJJF featured me on their reels. They have 1.2 million followers. You would think that that's like a, you know, a big moment for an athlete. But when people congratulated me, it was probably like, it's probably like 5% for being an athlete and 95% for making whiteboard reels, honestly. It's always a whiteboard reels. So, yeah, that's kind of like why we're having this conversation now because I think being an athlete, of course, is like probably a lot of people's main goal and that's like what really drives them to be better every day. But there are so many things outside of being an athlete that can bring positive attention to you and then also like bring business to you and, you know, help you make connections. You can't, not that you can't, but you don't just have to be good at Jijitsu. Speaker 1: Yeah, and this isn't some treatise telling people that they all need to go and start posting reels on Instagram, but more that you need to have a more comprehensive view of how you engage with the sport and with life in general. So many young people or people who are new at Jijitsu get hyper-fixated on just the technical side of Jijitsu and the accomplishments around it. And often they think, man, if I could just get on that podium, my life would change forever. But people in Jijitsu have really short memories. I'm guessing that most people probably have no idea who was world champion, you know, five, six, seven, eight years ago or beyond. You could be an amazing Jijitsu athlete and then after a few years, a new generation of people come in and they have no idea who you even are anymore. So, hyper-fixating on just your individual Jijitsu performance is often a trap because that usually isn't the thing that's going to bring you long-term fulfillment or success. It's all of the things you do around the Jijitsu that help you become successful, especially down the road. They set that foundation. It also diversifies your life and just makes you a more balanced person. Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree. I think, um, like, uh, I won't name any athlete specifically, but I've been to, you know, seminars and workshops where there were like extremely high-level athletes, not in Jijitsu necessarily, but, you know, Olympic-level athletes. And you could tell that a lot of people didn't care for like the way they taught or whatever it was, you know? So like, yeah, I would say like the level of Jijitsu is obviously important and it definitely matters to like, you know, a segment of the population, but, you know, how you like handle relationships and how you present yourself and all that kind of stuff is probably arguably like much more important. Speaker 1: As you mentioned earlier, things really started clicking together for you in the last few years. Were there any changes in behavior or routine or mindset that you noticed during that time period that really made a difference? Speaker 2: I would say, you know, I don't want to like jinx it for myself. I would say like currently I am things are like turning around for me at black belt in the past like year. And I probably started around American Nationals when I like, you know, beat someone that I had lost to before. And then also at the same time, I had like my first real blow up, you know? It was like a reel about how kids class was like ridiculous and, you know, like the funny habits that kids will have. And it was just like two like very juxtaposed things, right? Like pretty high-level competition success along with something completely unserious. And that made me kind of believe one that there is a level of like being an athlete that I could reach and I had like started to like reach it and that more was possible. And then on top of that, that people were receiving my social media positively, I guess, you know? And and that I could be both. You know, that was that's the big thing. I think a lot of people think that they they have to focus on being an athlete or else, you know, they're going to be wasting their time or they're going to be wasting their resources or their youth or whatever it is. And I just think that's like not true. Like being an athlete, you know, you'll see like even like the AOJ kids who are professionals, they train probably like, you know, whatever, like two or three, two to four hours a day and then they're teaching the rest of the day or they're working on some other, you know, modality of business. And so just knowing that, just like starting to realize that I could do both or multiple things because I feel like I'm it's not just social media and athleticism, it's also like running a school and and all that stuff. That, you know, one person can do like many things. I think that's like very powerful and that's kind of like has been setting me on a upward trend right now. Speaker 1: How did you get into all of this stuff? Often the entry into these new domains is one of the most intimidating things. Like how do you start getting traction when you take over coaching at a gym or when you set up a new social media account and you're concerned about putting yourself out there and opening yourself up to criticism? What was that like getting started on all of that stuff? And any lessons that come to mind that you might want to share with people? Speaker 2: Yeah, it was definitely really scary. I think that's what probably scares most people. I think a lot of people actually have a lot to say, it's just they're like, you know, worried about how it would be received. But, you know, I think running a gym for, you know, a pretty long time and also being in a lot of different communities and meeting a lot of different people in the community because of my women's open mat and all that. We kind of learned that people, I mean this is like not a malicious way, it's just like people talk about other people all the time constantly, you know? Like people are going to talk about you no matter what you, whether you talk or not. And so I felt like, you know, if someone is going to project an image of me to someone else and I have no say over it, you know, I might as well just put my own image out there so that like I get my own say in it. And like, you know, people can listen to whoever they want to listen to, but at least like I get to present what I think is like my authentic self on social media. And I think like having a say is always better than not having a say. And in terms of criticism, I think, you know, the only way that the only way to avoid hate is to just say nothing. And I'm like not okay with saying nothing usually. And so I think it's like, it's like a trade-off and usually, I think I like to have taken care to be relatively, you know, non-controversial and focus mostly on providing value and entertainment. And so I don't think I haven't been like really, I haven't gotten a lot of hate really at all. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, my experience with posting stuff is that there's always going to be someone out there who is just a total dick about it or is weird or creepy. But the majority of interactions that you get are likely to be positive, unless you get brigaded or you're the target of some sort of harassment campaign. The issue though is that as human beings, we tend to focus a lot more on the negative than the positive when people come to us with feedback and it takes a bit of practice to get used to letting that feedback just roll off your back and not worry too much about it. It's easy to fall into this trap of feeling like you need to respond to everything or get into arguments about all of this stuff. But like you said, at some point, you realize that people are just going to have opinions and there's nothing you can really do about it. The best you can do is counter-program that with your own opinions and your own beliefs and your own content. I think it's important for people to share their ideas and put them out there. I I'm certainly not suggesting that we all go and invest a ton of time in social media. I am well aware of the the harms that excessive focus on social media can do. But as a business person, it's often one of the better vehicles that you've got for getting your message out and sharing your brand, sharing your ideas. So, I think it's important to think about how you present this information. It doesn't have to be social media, but as you talked about earlier, it can even be how you conduct yourself at seminars or open mats, how you build that networking side of Jijitsu. I in retrospect should have done this earlier in my journey, to focus more on getting to know and interacting with the people around me, rather than just focusing on the training itself. That would be advice I would have for people earlier on in their journey is to think more about the community side of Jijitsu early, rather than hyper-fixating on their own performance early. Speaker 2: I think yeah, people make all the difference for real. I would say in in terms of social media, like business-wise, right? Like I would say most of the time, like people just don't know who you are. And social media is literally free marketing, right? There's like, I mean, you could pay for it, I guess, but like in general, social media is just free marketing. And so I don't like see why a business wouldn't do it, unless they just feel like it's this massive burden, but in that case, I think, you know, they should probably be outsourced. But I think that people's memories are very, very short. Like no matter what you accomplish or how good you are, I think you kind of like always need to either remind people of like what you've accomplished or you have to let it go and just form the relationships, which is what is actually going to last. So, Speaker 1: Is there a way that you can train or learn these kinds of auxiliary skills that go around your Jijitsu? If we all want to get better at Jijitsu, there's a playbook for how to do that. You find a coach, you go to class. It's a problem that has solutions that are easy to find. But if you want to start building up your life in Jijitsu around the Jijitsu itself, did you have any good resources or coaches who were able to help you on that front? Speaker 2: Oh, in terms of social media, is that what you're asking about? Speaker 1: Really anything, whether it be social media, open mats, the merch brands, the gym, all of that stuff that doesn't tend to get taught in a standard Jijitsu class. Any suggestions on how to learn that stuff or maybe the path that you took to find information? Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let's break this down. So for seminars and teaching and running a gym, honestly, BJJ Mental Models, you know, not to be a shill for this amazing podcast, but I really think like I learned so much from this podcast because this podcast pretty much covers, you know, we have like premium courses. I think even a free course about, you know, how to reach out to students. We have a lot of courses on pedagogy, if that's how you say the word, right? Like how to teach other people and how do you learn to teach other people? I learned a lot from listening to these podcasts and then also listening to the people who came on this podcast, like their other content. You know, I think like, you know, I didn't go to school for teaching Jijitsu. I went to school for math and that has nothing to do with, you know, presenting technique in front of a room full of people and especially kids. Like a lot of people are not educated to teach kids. And so I think it requires a lot of outside coaching or at least help, right? So joining those communities, being in the BJJ Mental Models Discord and being like, hey guys, like I cannot teach reverse X-guard to this group of people for some reason. And the problem is probably me, so like how can I do it, right? And so just having a community of people who are experienced, I think that really helps. In terms of social media, I think Jijitsu social media is probably lagging a little bit behind other, you know, sports and in general, but I do think like, I mean, I don't get coaching, right? But I I listen to a lot of podcasts about social media. And that's kind of like a self-interest thing. Like I love learning about what makes people pay attention. I watch a lot of YouTube about YouTube. And like I've always done that. Like in the past 10 years, I grew up watching YouTubers talk about YouTube. And so like, you know, I think all of that kind of like set me up for um success in social media when I like really just like got the courage to actually post. But yeah, I think it like the resources definitely exist. There are a lot of unqualified people making viral things on Instagram. It is not that hard to learn. You know, you know, learn how to make like a three-second good hook, learn how to like, you know, retain a viewer. And as long as you're providing value and people like like what you're saying, you're going to get that virality. Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, you had a lot of good insights there. I specifically want to double-click on the bit you said about watching YouTube about YouTube. You're talking about almost a degree of meta-study where you're you're studying about how to interact in this ecosystem that you're already in. Sometimes I think people forget that you can do this. In the world of Jijitsu, we do this all the time. We're always looking for instructionals and courses and content about how to tighten up that technique. But you can do that for everything else that you got to do when it comes to Jijitsu if you want to be successful. You can find great content about how to engage more successfully on the business side or even if you are talking about individual performance, things like strength and conditioning. There is so much good information out there. And a lot of that is readily available either freely or cheaply. It's easy to find lots of great content. I mean, like you said, there's also a lot of BS out there, but if you approach it with a critical mind, you can often filter out what's good and what's not or you can get recommendations from people you trust, find stuff that's worked for them. So, I would want to dig into this. This is kind of the process of learning the auxiliary skills. And I don't see many gym owners doing this. You know, they will watch tons of Jijitsu instructionals, but they don't spend a lot of time taking courses on how to be a better business person or tighten their sales funnel or something to that capacity. Anything you found that works particularly well that you would want to share? Speaker 2: I think you had, can you remind me the the guy who uh runs um Easton Training Center? Speaker 1: Elliot Marshall. Speaker 2: Elliot Marshall, I think you had him on the podcast. I believe I remember like being like first starting to pay attention to gym business because of um his podcast with you guys. So, I mean, you know, I am by no means an expert at gym business. I would say probably I know more about social media than gym business, honestly, at this point. But I think like Elliot Marshall is probably an expert at gym business. And there are a lot of uh like people who sell gym subscription services, which is essentially what a gym membership is, right? Who like do courses or like free workshops on that kind of stuff. Yeah, did you ask just about the gym business? Speaker 1: Or really beyond that. I mean, gym, anything else, any other area where you've had to learn how to learn or expand and take courses or Speaker 2: Yes. So in terms of like the meta, like learning about teaching, I'm not subscribed to him, but I did see that Greg Sauders has a school community and he has 200 people subscribed to his school community about like, you know, how to run eco classes. So like that's I know that that type of resource exists and also market for that type of resource exists. There is a community called the Art of Coaching Kids BJJ and it's run by a lady named Ellie Beckman. Also subscription like school community. I think that's helped me, you know, learn more about teaching kids because, you know, again, like I have I have no education in how to teach kids, but, you know, I I genuinely try my best and try to learn as much about, you know, child psychology and, you know, what are kids like, you know, able to do and what do they want to do, what are they able to pay attention to, like that that kind of stuff. So, yeah, specifically on the meta of like Jijitsu, that those have helped me. And, uh, yeah, and I think in terms of teaching, that's helped me a lot. In terms of technique, I think that's probably like very, very variable based on where you are in your Jijitsu journey and who you like to learn from. But on a meta level, probably those. Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting too, because so many of these auxiliary areas of the sport, like coaching and pedagogy, they're still very much evolving. I mean, when we take a look at how people teach kids classes and adult classes in Jijitsu, but within our space, it's still a relatively new thing to be adopting those best practices from other places. But there is a lot of good content out there. And I think though that something that you touched on, which is also just this understanding that, hey, look, I'm not an expert at this. Sometimes people trip up themselves and because they're not an expert in things, they're afraid to take the first step into that domain. And I think it's good that people are humble about these areas and they understand the limits of their expertise. That's tremendously important. But it's also important to not let that lack of knowledge prevent you from engaging and trying and starting to learn that stuff. There's many people out there who will tell you, well, you're not an expert in this, so you should just shut up. And of course, we should all make sure that when we say something, there's intelligence behind it, ideally, there's data behind it. It's something that we can back up. But we've got to remember that even the people who are experts at this, they had to start as beginners at some point. And so, it's one thing to remind someone that they are not an expert, but it's another thing to remember that we were all beginners at one point. And we should never let our our fear of going into a new area prevent us from doing it. So I think it's, I mean, it comes up in Jijitsu quite a bit as well. This is something that people talk about in Jijitsu where they will say things like, white belt should never teach. I disagree with that. I actually think white belt should teach. I think they should explain what they know and let other people hit it with a hammer and try to find out the weaknesses and refine their knowledge. There's a difference between pretending to be an expert who knows everything and sharing what you know while acknowledging the limitations of that knowledge. It's totally fine to say, hey, I'm a white belt, I don't know much, but here's what I've been doing, tell me what you think. I think that's completely acceptable. And same on the business side, I worry sometimes people are afraid to engage with these other areas of Jijitsu because they feel like it's so far outside of their lane. And I get that, but it will only become your lane if you actually get started. Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, first of all, I don't know why people should teach, but that's a totally different off-topic argument. I think, yeah, okay, let's not get into that. I think probably with Jijitsu and in and uh venturing out into these other areas, um like social media or like just running a gym in general. I think it's for me it was it was hard because I thought that, you know, I had like a fairly high level of competency in Jijitsu, at least on the bell curve of like, you know, all athletes and practitioners. So, as a black belt, you know, who's like doing okay in these competitions. And I think the frustrating part is like you feel like you have all this value to offer. Like all you want is to share it with as many people as possible. But then when you put out, let's say, whatever it is, a technique reel or you put out an ad for your gym, you just like don't get the response that you think it deserves. And it's not because you didn't provide enough value and it's not because you your technique is bad or like no one cares, right? But you have to on social media, especially in like these days, you know, everyone's calling it the attention economy, right? You got to prove to people that they deserve your attention and you also just have to like, you know, get good at that part of social media. And I think that's that's very hard for some people to accept because they're so used to, you know, when someone walks in your gym, they respect you because you're wearing a black belt and you're, you know, you're teaching them and you're taking care of them. But when you put it out there to an internet full of strangers, it's you got to like set up all your qualifications first, right? Otherwise, people just don't have the energy to listen and it's like nothing personal. But that's something that I think um sometimes holds people back because it's kind of discouraging in the beginning, but I think once you get good at it, it's um then actually it scales even more, right? You can now reach millions of people instead of the, let's say, 100 to 200 students you might have at a gym. Speaker 1: So let's talk about the open mat side of things. I know that you run a hugely successful women's open mat. That's another area where people struggle often. They have a a community initiative they want to start and they're excited about the idea, but they just can't seem to get traction. You know, maybe they say, I want to start an open mat, but nobody shows up. That is a real problem. And overcoming that initial inertia is probably the hardest part of the journey. But you've done that before in several different areas, whether it be Jijitsu competition, the open mat, running a gym, social media. What are your suggestions for someone who's struggling to get over that initial hump where they want to do something and maybe they've even started doing it, but they just can't get any traction? Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think it's actually very similar to running a gym, right? It's just like, it's usually lack of awareness or like you're probably unable to convince people that driving to a new gym and a new event provides enough value to them that they should do it. Even though it's free, it's going to be like a break in their routine, right? And so I would say similar to running any business, not just a gym, right? You just have to first make people aware of it. I think that itself is it's getting harder because social media is just there's a women's open mat like every week somewhere in the DMB, you know? So first uh making yourself like visible in a very saturated market uh through social media. And then two is outreach. Like you I get a lot of people who like send me posts and they're like, can you please share this? And I know like I'm not I don't usually share it, so it's a little bit hard for me to say this, but like unless you share those open mats with people who are going to share them or like people who already find value in them and can convince their friends to come, then like you're just not going to get the momentum to like have that open mat. And then on top of that, I think one-time events are like they can be successful if you try really hard, but it can be very tiring because, you know, you do all this effort for like one event and sometimes it's even free and you like you might get something out of it and you also might just it just might be one-time gathering of like 20 people, you know? And so I think that my open mat is successful because it is so regular on Friday and Sunday. And, you know, I think I'm not sure if we've talked about this before, but I don't know that many people who are willing to give up every single Friday and Sunday of their lives, like in the next, you know, let's it's been like three or four years for me now. Every single Friday and Sunday, I have open mat if I'm in town, which is, you know, probably like 90% of all weekends. And so unless someone is willing to make that sacrifice and be a consistent host, you know, I don't consider it a sacrifice because I I want to do it, but someone else might see it that way. Then it's very hard to build something reliable that people know that they can come to, right? Like people don't even need to check social media. They can just like come to my gym and we're going to have open mat 95% of the time. And so I think that's a huge part of organizing a community because a community comes back to itself multiple times. If you're hosting a one-time event or like a four-time workshop or whatever it is, it's hard to make something that is that has a long-lasting impact. Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's that's a great insight. Often when people try to kick these initiatives off, they give up way too early. I think it was Noah Kagan who talked about committing to 100 reps. If you want to try to do something new, you have to commit to doing it about 100 times regardless of whether you succeed or fail because that consistency is what builds up the momentum that gets you where you need to go. If you start a new program like an open mat, at the beginning, you're probably not going to get that many people showing up. And you've got to power through that. If you just give up, then you're proving people right that they shouldn't have gone in the first place. If you're trying to build community, that consistency and that stability is what draws people to community. It's not a community if it's going to come and go and appear and disappear. And that's why things like making it happen consistently, like you said, predictability. If you know where it is every week at every time, you can mentally work that into your schedule. You can physically work that into your schedule. Whereas if it's completely erratic and happens sometimes, some weeks it doesn't, some weeks it does, it happens at different times. That's not predictable enough to really build a community around easily. So the more predictable and stable you can make these events, the more likely you are to succeed, even if out of the gate, you're struggling to get people in the door. It's so tempting to just give up on something when you're not seeing immediate traction. But there are more valuable things to study when you're building a new movement than just how many people are coming in the door. Things like awareness and mental commitment matter as well. A lot of people might hear or see about your open mat and not come the first time or the second time or the 50th time. But at some point, they might start coming and it takes a while to build up that that space in people's attention. You mentioned earlier that on social media, there are so many things competing for our attention today. It takes a while if you're trying to get a message out there for it to really stick because it's not enough for people to hear it once. They need to hear it over and over and over again. And then you got to kind of hit them at the point where they actually are interested and then you've got to convince them to come in. That might mean you have to hit them with a message 50 times. Like when I take a look at, you know, people who sign up for BJJ Mental Models Premium, a lot of the time it's people who have been listening for years. They might have listened to over 100 episodes of this podcast before they went premium. And sometimes that's just what it takes in a crowded information attention economy. Whereas if you just start an open mat and you try it once or twice and no one shows up and you just give up, again, you're just proving everyone right for not investing their time and attention into this thing. That's also a huge problem that you see with people who want to do things like create a women's class at their gym and they always say, well, I'm not getting enough people there. Well, it it takes time to build momentum and you have to earn people's trust that this is a movement and an initiative that's going to stick around. If people think it's just going to disappear at some point, then why would they commit their schedule to something like that? Speaker 2: Yeah, I think especially with Jijitsu because like it's such a big like energy and sometimes safety commitment, right? You're like, man, I'm going to go there. I know I'm going to train 10 rounds there with people that I don't even know. You really got to like make it worth it to someone for them to one come in the first place, which is always the hardest part of any sort of gym. And then also for them to come back. And I will say like in the beginning, you know, with my women's open mat, you know, talked about the story many times, but it started with just three people and it was just a group of like seven rotating girls and not all seven would come for the first year. Like year, a year of open mat that's only seven people. Some people might consider that like not a successful open mat. But if you look at the quality of the people who are coming, right? Like all seven people were people who are really interested in Jijitsu, even if they didn't compete as, you know, I compete once a month, I guess no one really competes more than that, but like, you know, even though they're not like super interested in competing, they really love Jijitsu and they're very competitive people and they're interested in sparring for those 10 rounds, right? So if you have a good quality people in that community that keep coming back, then you know, you like kind of have something and you just got to keep like expanding that niche, right? Like I have no interest in growing my open mat to 100 people where 70 of them are brand new white belts. Like I have no interest in that whatsoever, right? Like I want my open mat to be competitive and really good training. And so those are the people that I want to attract to the open mat. And so, you know, now it grows to like sometimes on Sundays, we have 30 women and let's say like probably like 20 of them are like actively competing within the next, you know, month or two. That's like what I want and I feel like it's grown slowly, but very reliably and I would say probably one of the only places where you see like women from different gyms. I mean, I can't name how many gyms there are or I can't count how many gyms there are, but like a lot of women from different gyms who are like besties, right? We don't like, you know, we're competitive in our training, but we don't compete against each other and we like hang out all the time outside of open mat. Speaker 1: And I think that's fantastic. That's really what we mean when we talk about the importance of community in Jijitsu. Now, you had talked earlier about outreach and how you get people to come. That's such a huge forgotten and missed piece of this process of building things in Jijitsu that go beyond just the Jijitsu itself. Like how do you reach out to people and get them to come to your thing or get them to promote your thing? You've gotten really good at this, especially with highly shareable content on the internet. Any thoughts on how you can motivate people to get involved? Because again, if you just post something on social media and you don't follow up or get specific with people, it can be hard to get their traction and get them to come in, which I think is where many people get tripped up. So there is an aspect of outreach, almost a sales process to getting people involved in something new. Any suggestions that you found that make these ideas really sticky and get people motivated? Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. I don't think I'm at that stage of my social media game yet, honestly. I think that, you know, I don't want to downplay myself. Like I I think I'm doing like a pretty good job of reaching a very large audience in terms of like people who do Jijitsu and think like certain things are funny. But I would say in terms of like converting that audience to a business model where like I could actually monetize it. I honestly am not super interested in monetizing social media. I really enjoy just like interacting with people, which might sound a little bit like woo-woo, but I genuinely like just enjoy like talking to people and like meeting people because of social media. So, maybe like some other like social media manager person would be better at like being like, oh, this is like the kind of ad you need to run to get people into your door. And there are plenty of agencies who do that too. But yeah, in terms of content and like reaching a lot of people, I think that in general, you want to talk about things that everyone understands. You never want to overcomplicate it and you never want to sell people. And I think that's like the hardest part of social media for a lot of gyms is that they're always like, oh, you got to come in because this is going to change your life and, you know, you're going to learn self-defense. And I don't think people like need to be sold to, you know, people know what they want and what they need and they'll be looking for it. And so I think most of social media should really be about like building trust and like just having your audience get to know you and like what you think or, you know, like what you have to say. And so you you'll see like most of my social media, like I don't try to sell anything. I have a couple sponsors like here and there that I might like add a plug-in at the end, but my focus is mostly like just like building trust. I think that's like way more important than um trying to monetize it like directly. Speaker 1: It's funny, you said you're not an expert in this, but then you gave probably the best answer I've ever heard on what you should be using social media for. This aligns, you talked about Elliot Marshall from Easton Training Center a while back. This aligns with something that he once told me, which is that, look, on social media, you should really not be trying to hard sell people on stuff there. That's not what it's for and that's not the type of content that people are going to respond to. Nobody opens up their social media because they're thinking, oh goody, I want to be served a bunch of advertisements about come to my gym, buy my product. Nobody wants that. And in an attention economy that is so crowded, if all you're doing is blasting ads out there, you're just going to get drowned and ignored. So when people tell me they don't see any results off of social media, I'm guessing what that probably means is they're posting a bunch of ads, like, here's my class, come here, here's a special offer, buy one, get one free. Nobody cares about that. Social media is primarily about human connection, fun stuff, exposure of new ideas. And if you prioritize that human element of it first, the whole thing of give people something interesting, then you can start building up trust and momentum and even community. And once you've got that in place, selling becomes much easier. If your strategy to use social media is just I'm going to punch a bunch of ads out there, that's probably not going to do what you want to do, right? It's just going to get people to ignore you. I see this quite clearly in our metrics. Every time we post a direct sales thing, it basically just gets ignored. It's only useful content that gets shared and published. But what happens is if you get a reputation for sharing enough useful content, at some point, people are going to start thinking, hold on, is this person have a service I can pay for? You know, is there a way I can go further with this person? And that's when you actually start to see the sales. So, I think your approach of being humanistic about this and leading with, let's build community, let's have fun, let's share ideas, let's add value. That's the best way to get something done on social media, rather than just posting about the latest offer that you've got. Nobody cares about that stuff. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like, yeah, I'm sure that's not the answer people want to hear because it's not fast, right? It takes time to build trust. At least it takes like, I think what the social media people call it is touch points, right? It takes like multiple touch points for someone to, you know, get to know you and then understand you and then like maybe want to buy something from you. But it's got to be like, you have to provide value like, I don't know what the number is, like seven or eight times before you can make an offer to them. Cuz um, yeah, people are very resistant and very keen. Like everyone has an eye for being sold to. It's like a big turn-off for almost every viewer. Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially today where everything is either a scam or it's AI generated and you don't even know if a human's involved in it. It gets really hard for people to develop that kind of trust. So I think the best thing that you can do with your social media is just demonstrate to people, I'm a human and I'm here to help. I want to add value somehow, whether it be through community or cool tips and tricks. I am a real person trying to do real things and help you in a real way. And as you mentioned, that is intrinsically rewarding in and of itself. I mean, hey, getting more followers is cool, but more followers isn't going to pay the bills or anything, right? At the end of the day, what matters is the impact that you leave and how you're able to help people. And I have found that by trying to lead with that mindset first, I don't know if karma is a real thing or not, but it does seem to create this reciprocity loop where people want to help you if you've helped them at some point. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. And then like going back to our original topic of like how Jijitsu is not the only thing you need to be good at. You know, of all the really nice comments I've received, I don't think I've received a single comment that's been like, I watched your match and it just changed my life. You know, can you please break down this technique because whatever, you know, like it'll just be a, you know, life-changing, game-changing, right? It's it's always been something like, I think your content is a breath of fresh air or like it made me laugh and I look forward to seeing your content. It's always something like, it's always a little bit more than just Jijitsu, right? And so, yeah, I think that's like something to emphasize where it's like, you know, everyone's always advertising how awesome they are at Jijitsu. And I mean this in the nicest way possible, but like really high-level Jijitsu is less relatable than just being funny, you know? Cuz most on the bell curve of people, right? Let's, you know, then at least 50% of people are below average at Jijitsu. So they're not, it's not relatable to like present good Jijitsu. It's way more relatable to like talk about the problems that we have in Jijitsu. Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about this, about the importance of being relatable in this sport because that I think you've touched on a really important insight that no one has ever brought up on this show before. When we try to position ourselves as being the best at something, particularly, you know, Jijitsu or combat sport, even if you succeed at convincing the whole world that you are the best at something and even if it is true, even if you are literally the best at this. The problem is that that is fundamentally not relatable. And if you're not relatable, it's going to be harder for you to fill in that other 90% of Jijitsu that is not the actual Jijitsu. Like how do you build and connect and network with people if they don't want anything to do with you or if they just don't know anything about you personally? You see a lot of folks who like Craig Jones is obviously the marquee example of people who have really leaned into the personality side of Jijitsu and they're much more known for that. Even though in the case of Craig, he actually is an outstanding Jijitsu competitor and grappler, but that wouldn't have been enough to get him where he is today. It is everything around that that has gotten him where he is today. Let me dig into this a little bit about relatability. What would you suggest to other people in your situation who really want to go hardcore into Jijitsu as a lifestyle? What can they do to come across as being more relatable to lay people and potential fans who might one day want to be customers? Speaker 2: Well, I think now that you brought up Craig Jones, right? I think the thing that he did the best that, you know, it has been called out multiple times by other people. I'll call it out again is that he advertises himself as the second best, right? And so no one advertises themselves as the second best Jijitsu gym in your area. They all say we're the number one martial arts gym in whatever their area is, right? And so just by doing that, I think Craig Jones has made himself stand out. And now we can't, now no one can say that the second best because Craig Jones already said he's the second best. But you know what I mean, right? Like it's like a different, it's a different angle that only he can say now. And so I think in terms of like being an athlete or being a gym, you have to, you know, call out what basically you tell a story that only you can tell. So basically like I only talk about my matches or the techniques that I use or the things that I've experienced. I that's why I don't like making technique reels because I think they're very generic. I feel like anyone can make those technique reels. But I feel like when I make whiteboard reels or when I, um, you know, make these like skits, I feel like they're things that at least that I originally came I originally came up with, right? They were ideas that started in my brain and even though like other people might have had those ideas, I know that I am authentically presenting them, right? Whereas I feel like a lot of technique content out there is like a regurgitation of something else that someone else did. And unless you're able to prove those techniques that are very high level, then it's hard to make those techniques stand out. And so even for me, I'll consider myself, you know, at least competing at a high level regardless of, you know, how successful I am and I feel even with those accolades of, you know, being on podiums and whatever, I still have more to offer talking about my experiences than talking about my technique because just, you know, again, like really anyone can even look at my videos and just show my technique. But very few people can talk about the technique from my perspective and maybe the story of why I play De La Hiva from the front instead of going for the back and all that kind of stuff. Speaker 1: Hold on, you play De La Hiva from the front instead of going for the back? What's wrong with you? Speaker 2: I don't like I can't use the hook cuz of uh I used to have knee problems, so I don't I just like don't go for the back. Yeah. Speaker 1: I'm the same. I am way too lazy to do all of the rolly-polly get around to your back stuff. So I when I play De La Hiva, I do the Rob Bernacki thing where I kind of use it almost like a distance management tool and I, I mean, this is a total total side tangent, but I use De La Hiva primarily just to make space and then to get up into like an instep guard. But anyway, topic for another day. I really like how you brought up that you want to be authentic. You want to find the thing that only you can do. And man, I remember when I was a kid, my parents and all of the grownups would give me this advice and they'd say, you know, just find the thing that you're really special and good at. And I would think, whatever, mom, I'm not special and good at anything. I'm just normal and regular. But, you know what, there's wisdom there. There's always going to be this one thing that makes you kind of unique in a way. And it might not be something that on its surface seems super glamorous. But if you're the only person who does it and you put your message out there and you attract the attention of all of the other people out there who think that way, then suddenly you're the number one person in that space. You've created a niche that is your own. And yours is a great example, right? People may not know, but, you know, your background, you are an amazing artist, you're amazing at data visualization. And so the fact that you were able to take that and combine that with your love of Jijitsu and create the whiteboard visualizations is a very unique thing that probably not many other people could do that well, or if they could, they certainly didn't think to do it, right? But for you, it kind of aligned in that weird confluence of this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm passionate about, this is what I can do that people want. And so you created your own little space there and I think it's definitely working. I mean, I every once in a while, I check your social media and your follower account keeps doubling and doubling and doubling. So it's clearly doing something. Talk a little bit about that, about that process of authenticity and how to find your unique offering in Jijitsu, the thing that makes you special. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think finding your niche is a is a very personal journey and so, you know, I don't have like a, you know, a step-by-step process that I can sell anyone. Although I wish I did. I feel like that would maybe sell well, but I think if you if someone told me that I was going to create a niche in the Jijitsu space with whiteboard jokes, I would just think like they were crazy and that's like kind of ridiculous, you know, like whiteboard is like, I don't know, something that I thought I would do. But um, I don't know, I think one day I just made a whiteboard reel about how to make a stereotypical Instagram caption after you lose your match or after you win a match. And I remember IBJJF commenting on it, like their main account. And they commented some like laughing emojis. And I was like, oh, like that's interesting, like people think it's funny. And then after that, I was still making like skits and, you know, posting about my competitions and stuff and I just like got a lot of recurring comments about, hey, we want a whiteboard breakdown of whatever it is I was talking about. And so it seemed like for whatever reason, first, I guess I would be what people call like first to market, you know, like probably one of the first people who do Jijitsu at a high level who also, you know, put funny things on a whiteboard and set it to a camera. But also just, yeah, people like the way that it was delivered and so I just like kept going. I honestly did not want to keep going. I was like, I don't want to be called the whiteboard lady. I've had people come up to me and be like, you're the whiteboard lady. And I'll be like, oh, oh no. I thought they would say like, oh, you're the girl who was on the podium of Pans. But yeah, I think that kind of just organically happened over time and um, it's been like a year since I posted my first whiteboard, a little bit less than a year. So it's been, you know, I still at this point, I think I have 22,000 followers, which is, you know, nothing crazy. I have big reach for sure, probably, you know, 100,000 to a million views for whatever the reel is. But it's a big reach, but not not like that many followers compared to other influencers. So, definitely still more to learn about social media and grow. But yeah, that's kind of how it happened and it's just kind of like seeing what your audience responds to and then also like what you're interested in making, you know? Like I said, I have no interest in making technique videos. So you'll probably never see a really detailed technique video from me, especially not one that goes viral. But, you know, I really enjoy putting jokes together. I really enjoy, I don't know what it is. I enjoy tapping on a whiteboard, um, which I found out about myself, you know, like six months ago. So, um, that's like kind of what I'm leaning into now. Speaker 1: Look, you could do a lot worse than being known as the whiteboard lady. Aaron Hurley is sometimes known as the fart lady because she once came on our podcast and talked about how if you're not farting during training, you're not training hard enough. And that quote went mega viral. So you could be doing worse than being known as the whiteboard lady. Speaker 2: For sure. I'm not complaining at all. Speaker 1: Amazing. Well, I want to take some time to plug all of your stuff, Beatrice. We talked about this in bits and pieces here, but you've got a lot on the go and there are a lot of ways that people can get to know you, train with you, work with you, support you. Let's run through those. If people want to follow you or train with you or check out the merch, how do they do that? Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so I teach at Kogaian Academy in Arlington, Virginia. K O G A I O N Academy in Arlington, Virginia. It's like 10 minutes from DC. So if anyone's in the area, they're welcome to come train. I teach seven days a week, so, you know, I'll be there. And I also have women's open mat at Kogaian Academy every Friday and Sunday. On social media, my handle is Baron Bozo, which is Baron Bozo with a Z, um, on Instagram and on YouTube. I apparently TikTok is a thing. I've been told to post on TikTok and I just post there, but I don't really like look at it. But on TikTok, I'm Beebtown, but the content is pretty much like a duplicate of Instagram. But if you want to go there, I'm also there. And then I also have a small merch brand called Butt Scooter Jijitsu where I make plushies and stickers. And so if you want to support me directly from far away, that's probably the best way to do it. But uh, honestly, the best thing that I feel like any audience can do is just to interact with me on social media. I really, really, really love talking to people on the internet. And I love like comments. I love like meeting people at tournaments when they come up to me. Like I think that's really cool. And it's always it's it's like 99% positive. So, Speaker 1: I actually want to throw a comment on that as well. Please do reach out to not just Beatrice or me, but anyone in Jijitsu that you like and you enjoy their stuff. People sometimes think that like, oh, I I don't want to reach out to this person. That would be weird or why would they want to hear from me? Like, no, trust me, people want to hear from you. I love it when people send me messages about what they're doing and what's working and what they like and even what they don't like. Many of the best friends in my life right now are people that I met because they reached out to me on social media. So, please consider that. If you want to talk about the 90% of things that can expand your Jijitsu life beyond just what you do on the mats, if there's a creator or an an athlete or a coach that you like, reach out to them. Even if they're super famous, you will probably be surprised at how willingly they respond to you, especially if you're being genuine and you give them a note of appreciation and thanks. People always love that. So, my thought would be even if you're just a white belt, if someone is is adding value to your journey, even if you've never met them, shoot them a nice thank you message. That's how friendships begin, right? So don't think that's weird or anything. Make a point of doing that on a regular basis. People love getting those messages. Speaker 2: Yes, I've met so many people, friends, sponsors, from social media alone. And also we're not that famous. Like, you know, we're like D minus tier celebrities in terms of fame. So if you reach out to us, we will definitely see your message. And as long as it's not creepy, we're probably going to be happy to respond. Speaker 1: Yeah, don't send the creepy things. I every once in a while I look at I feel so bad for all of my female friends in Jijitsu because every once in a while I look at their comments and it's like, oh Jesus. There's a few in there that probably need to be sanitized quite heavily. So don't be creepy when you reach out, but other than that, people tend to appreciate nice messages. I would also encourage people if they want a sampling of your amazing work, if they enjoy your type of humor, they should definitely Google Lochlan Giles, green eggs and ham. I will say nothing more. People have to figure that out on their own. It's an Easter egg. But I will also put links to everything you talked about in the show notes, Beatrice, so people can find and support you. I will also throw links to our stuff. We are at BJJ Mental Models.com. You should definitely be checking out our podcast, which is what we're talking about right now, plus our mini episodes if you want to get to the point quicker. And our newsletter is uh well over 15,000 subscribers now. All of that is completely free. And I really try to add value in an ad-free format there. There's no cost to any of this. So please do make sure you're taking advantage of that. If you do want to level up with us, that is what BJJ Mental Models Premium is for. It is the world's largest audio library of Jijitsu master classes. Funnily enough, Beatrice, we just launched a new one. We did those chats a while back on um your framework for how to stop being nice in Jijitsu. We made a whole three-part course on that and we just launched the first part with more coming soon. Elliot Marshall also, we just completed launching a course with him on the four pillars of successful business at Jijitsu gyms. So if you are a gym owner or an aspiring one, also content that's definitely worth checking out. And the best part is, your first week is free. So if you are unsure of what this is all about, you can hit up BJJ Mental Models.com, sign up for premium, try it for a week, let me know what you think. And definitely if you do, again, please do get involved in our community, get in our premium Discord because we have a lot of great conversations in there. I will throw links to all of that in the show notes, plus Beatrice's stuff. But Beatrice, thanks for doing this. I always love chatting with you. It's always great to check out your stuff and it's great to hear the things are going so well. Speaker 2: Thank you. Super happy to be here. Speaker 1: Amazing. And listeners as well, thank you so much. Truly appreciate you and we will talk to you in the next episode. See you then.