I love this story and it goes to show you how absolutely important nutrition is in our lives and the lives of our children. It’s powerful enough to bring a women suffering chronic disability from Multiple Sclerosis to healthy in less than a year.

The paleo diet she describes has also been shown to completely reverse type 2 Diabetes, ADHD, and other chronic diseases. Please watch this and then watch it again with your kids. It starts out a little slow but gets better and better each minute. It will truly save your life.

The USDA is playing you and your children for fools.

I got a chance to look over the highlights of the new USDA nutrition guidelines released last week and I’m far from impressed, though not surprised. The new guidelines are just as much of a joke as the old guidelines, with a few new punchlines. Oc course, they’re receiving praise from nearly everyone involved in CW (conventional wisdom) initiatives, the nutritionally misinformed medical community, and educators (who still haven’t figured out that kids will display ADD-like symptoms if you feed them SIWFMD (stuff I wouldn’t feed my dog) every day for lunch and then confine them to a desk).

Here’s a chart comparing the old nutrition guidelines with the new ones.

There are some decent aspects, such as a call for more vegetables. But, when you dig deeper and find out that pizza now classifies as a vegetable under Michelle Obama’s USDA guidelines, it’s hard not to get skeptical.

It also set a minimum for the amount of tomato sauce on pizza that could count toward vegetable servings.

Under pressure from potato growers and suppliers of school pizza, Congress weighed in and overruled the USDA on both counts.

The result: pizza now counts as a vegetable.

And then there’s an entire section dedicated to grains with an emphasis on whole grains. The USDA think it’s a great idea for kids to eat a poison-filled (Lectins, Gluten, and Phytates are naturally occurring poisons found in grains) substance that is unsuitable for human consumption unless it’s highly processed. It makes sense when you discover that wheat, rice, and corn are among the top five government-subsidized agricultural industries, but it’s sickening when you realize that they’re marketing the causes of childhood obesity and other medical problems to our kids as a healthy nutrition guideline.

Grains have zero nutritional benefits, being classified as an “anti-nutrient” by nutritional scientists who haven’t been paid off by the grain industry. I suggest you read more about why grains are unhealthy. In the meantime, here’s a synopsis of the three poisons found in the very grains the USDA wants your children to get plenty of:

Lectins. They bind to insulin receptors, attack the stomach lining of insects, bind to human intestinal lining, and they seemingly cause leptin resistance. And leptin resistance predicts a “worsening of the features of the metabolic syndrome independently of obesity”.

Gluten. Found in wheat, rye, and barley, Gluten is a composite of the proteins gliadin and glutenin. Around 1% of the population are celiacs, people who are completely and utterly intolerant of any gluten. In celiacs, any gluten in the diet can be disastrous. We’re talking compromised calcium and vitamin D3 levels, hyperparathyroidism, bone defects. Really terrible stuff. And it gets worse: just because you’re not celiac doesn’t mean you aren’t susceptible to the ravages of gluten. As Stephan highlights, one study showed that 29% of asymptomatic (read: not celiac) people nonetheless tested positive for anti-gliadin IgA in their stool. Anti-gliadin IgA is an antibody produced by the gut, and it remains there until it’s dispatched to ward off gliadin – a primary component of gluten. Basically, the only reason anti-gliadin IgA ends up in your stool is because your body sensed an impending threat – gluten. If gluten poses no threat, the anti-gliadin IgA stays in your gut. And to think, most Americans eat this stuff on a daily basis.

Phytates. They make minerals bio-unavailable (so much for all those healthy vitamins and minerals we need from whole grains!), thus rendering null and void the last, remaining argument for cereal grain consumption.

The USDA says that at least half of the grains must be whole grain-rich beginning July 1, 2012. Beginning July 1, 2014, all grains must be whole grain rich. That should be read as: “Beginning July 1, 2014 all grains must be the full-poison variety.”

We’re not done yet. The next category on the list is milk. And the new guidelines say that it must be fat-free (for flavored versions) or 1%. This is a nutritional disaster. From Doctor Mercola:

Milk is thought of as a wholesome food, which is why so many parents give it to their children with every meal. And the truth is, it is wholesome when it’s in its raw form and sourced from cows fed non-contaminated grass and raised in clean conditions.

Unfortunately, the milk that winds up in most Americans’ glasses is far from this unadulterated state and may be a veritable chemical cocktail containing as many as 20 painkillers, antibiotics, and growth hormones.

Drinking pasteurized 1% milk from hormone-drenched grain fed cows is no better than drinking sugar-water with some added chemicals (read: Coke). Of course, it passes not only as acceptable to USDA guidelines, but as a recommendation. And they think that adding chocolate syrup to this chemical-cocktail is perfectly fine as long as the milk is “fat-free.” Smh.

The USDA guidelines also make a push to limit saturated fat, a vital form of fat to human beings. In fact, saturated fats are good for you. The reason everyone believes otherwise is because the government (read: USDA) paid a scientist named Ancel Keyes a salary of $200,000 a year to convince people that there is a relationship between consumption of saturated fat, blood cholesterol levels, and risk of coronary heart disease.

Keyes’ most famous study, linking consumption of saturated fat with heart disease by country, was released in 1953. But, if you analyze the data that Keyes conveniently discarded from his own study, you find a result that directly contradicts Keyes’ published findings.

The research of Ancel Keys has been criticized by Uffe Ravnskov amongst others for having selection bias when supporting his conclusions. Ravnskov examined the data that Keys used and found no correlation to back up Keys’ findings.

The real causes of increased rates of heart disease and obesity is increased consumption of grains and hydrogenated oils. But the USDA says those are okay while telling you to not give your children saturated fats which are necessary for the optimal function of cell membranes, heart, bones (to assimilate calcium), liver, lungs, hormones, immune system, satiety (reducing hunger), and genetic regulation.

The new USDA guidelines, along with the USDA food pyramid are a prime example of why government should not be involved in this discussion or the health and wellbeing of our children. The findings and recommendations of the USDA are the result of politics, lobby money, and ignorance. And our children suffer while the USDA collect their money, protect their donors, and do the bidding of certain industries against others.

I choose not to be fooled. Nutrition is vital if you want to avoid joining the tribe of millions of fat, sick, and nearly dead people walking the globe. My daughter will be born this Summer and I will make sure she knows the difference between real food and the garbage everyone else eats.

Why do certain employees always get skipped over for promotion?

Why does life seem to present opportunities to some while it appears to ignore others?

My analysis is that it’s because those individuals would never pick themselves. If you’re not willing to pick yourself, neither are your peers. Doors close. Opportunities slip away. You’re last again.

If you want a spot on the team, if you want the job or the promotion, and if you want the once in a lifetime opportunities you have to be willing to pick yourself. Completely. Without a doubt.

Are you willing to pick yourself? Be honest.

I’m worried about martial arts school owners and how they’re marketing and advertising themselves these days. I live in Georgia but I’m confident that if I moved to Washington state, at the opposite corner of the country, and opened a local circulation I’d see an ad for a martial arts school that looks identical to a non-affiliated school back in Georgia (and probably equally as ineffective). That’s shameful.

To be clear, it’s important that everyone understands that advertising and marketing are not the same thing (here’s a good, short Quora answer on the difference). Martial arts schools typically use print ads and websites for advertising, so that’s mostly what I’m referring to here.

If you want to be successful, avoid the following 11 mistakes:

1. Throwing too many darts at the demographic map.
   If you’re lucky enough to get someone to stop and look at your print ad, can they clearly comprehend what demographic you’re targeting? And if it’s them, do they feel it? Many martial arts schools offer programs for young children, older children, teens, adults, and kickboxing for moms. If your print ad is trying to speak to all of those groups simultaneously, the prospect isn’t getting the message you need them to get and your response rate is going to suffer. Only target one group with each ad.
2. Providing too much information in each ad.
   Your ad can’t double as a sales rep. Your prospects can’t ask it questions and you don’t have enough room or enough of your prospect’s time to educate them to a sale in a single ad. Stop trying. Instead, focus your ad around one single concept with a great headline, your top competitive advantage, social proof (e.g. testimonial), your CTA (call to action), and any absolutely pertinent information someone would need to respond to your CTA. Leave everything else out.
   
3. Failing to tie each advertisement into an integrated marketing strategy.
   Ads that attempt to stand alone will fail alone. Think of an ad as a single piece in a larger marketing puzzle. It needs supporting pieces to click into or the prospect is never going to see the big picture. For example: If my end goal is to get the prospect to sign up for a 2 week trial I won’t sell the 2 week trial in the ad. That’s too difficult and messy. Instead, the ad’s sole job will be to send the prospect to a landing page online that will sell the two-week trial more interactively and hopefully more effectively. And I’ll use the landing page traffic analysis to measure my advertisement ROI and effective reach.
   
4. Using low-quality or generic stock photos.
   Do not, I repeat, do not use a photograph that any of your competitors could also find and use or buy and use. The photographs you use in your advertising campaigns need to be custom and should be your real students or staff. It needs to bleed your brand and you need complete control over the look and feel. The photographs also need to be similar in style and processing to create a consistent look. If you don’t know any students, parents, or staff who can do quality photography for you then another option is to ask whoever does your school’s annual student photo day to give you a CD of all the photos. If you have to pay extra, pay extra.  A photo is truly worth 1000 words and you can’t afford to miss out on that.
   
5. Failing to use consistent design, colors, style, and typography.
   Just as you can’t skimp on photography, you can’t skimp on design. Consistency is key. When it takes up to seven impressions for a prospect to act on an advertisement, you can’t afford for them to not be able to align all those instances with your brand. If all of your ads look completely different with no consistent style or type then it’s very possible you’ll fly below the radar. Use the same designer for all of your ads and find a couple of fonts and colors that align with your brand and use the same two or three every time.
   
6. DIY amateur hour.
   You can do a lot of this stuff yourself, but the key to success is knowing when you need to outsource. I’ve seen far too many DIY ad projects that looked like the owner outsourced the design to their Little Ninjas class. That’s unacceptable. If you take your business seriously and want your prospects and customers to take your business seriously then you need to put forth a consistent image of professionalism.
7. Being boring – Using the same copy, format, and offer everyone else in the industry is using.
   Tell the truth, does your latest ad feature any of the following words: respect, discipline, focus, family, degree/dan, sq. ft. facility, master instructor, or self-defense? Those are just a few of the words I see in nearly every single martial arts ad I come across. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s that they’re meaningless because they’re overused. What are you doing differently? What story do you want to tell? What are you doing that’s important?
   
8. Failing to decide what you want the prospect’s action step to be.
   The purpose of an advertisement is to get the viewer to take a specific action. Unfortunately, we often fail to make that desired action clear to the viewer. Do you want them to visit a website and fill out a form? Do you want them to call you? Do you want them to stop in and see you? Do you want them to tell a friend? What do you want? Choose a very specific action that you want the viewer to take and make it painfully obvious to them.
   
9. Racing to the bottom with your offer.
   The easiest way to get people in the door is by letting them try your school for themselves. They may not believe all the marketing hype but if you can get them in the door on a short, no-obligation trial program and they experience your greatness first-hand that goes a long way toward making them a full-time member. But take care when designing the trial program. If the trial is too cheap you’ll attract all the budget prospects who can’t afford your regular tuition. If you make it too expensive, you might turn away prime prospects who just don’t want to take that much risk. If the trial is too short they may feel like they’ll waste the money because they won’t get a good feel for your program and if you make it too long you’ll lose too much money. I follow the principle of refusing to race to the bottom. I don’t engage in price wars with the competition and I don’t try to undercut anybody; I offer a fair and honest trial program that makes me a little money and allows the prospect to try my school. And I never discount my tuition. I know what a spot in the program is worth and I demand that amount.
   
10. Selling without teaching or storytelling. – Use your ad to sell the next step and use the next step to sell your service.
    Sales is not about telling the prospect all the great services you offer and expecting them to fork over their hard-earned cash. Sales is about problem solving, understanding the prospect, and telling them a story they can relate to that’s also honest and reflects what your services can offer them. Stop using your ad space to list all of your services and talk about how amazing you are. If you’ve properly identified your target demographic, you can teach them what you want them to know or tell them a story that they can relate to. Ideally, you want to simply get their attention and then send them to an extra step where they will be willing to listen deeper to your offerings. Use your ad to sell the next step and use the next step to sell your program.
    
11. Failing to test and refine.
    Some ideas work where others fail miserably. Some colors work better than others. Some calls to action garner upwards of 80% response rates where others fail to even get 2%. Headlines are important and you have to figure out which ones capture attention the best. Which words are working and which aren’t? Which publications/circulations are working and which aren’t? There is always something you can test and re-test; do it religiously so you can spend your advertising dollars more efficiently and cut down on waste. In today’s world, testing is simple using tools on the internet before an ad ever goes out to the public. I’ll touch on that in a future article. If you don’t want to miss it, make sure you subscribe now!
    
12. Bonus: Not having anything special to advertise.
    The fact is that you can’t market chicken shit as chicken salad for very long. Even if you’re “just as good as” the guy down the street, that’s a failing position. And don’t just pursue being better, pursue different. Pursue drastically different. In a world where martial arts schools are popping up as often as McDonalds, the only way to attract attention and create a buzz is to offer something that nobody else is offering or offering the typical in a way nobody else is offering it. When the school down the street zigs, it’s time to zag. 

Have you made any of these mistakes? If so, the good news is that you can fix it immediately. Sit down with your team and outline a broad-based marketing strategy and then figure out how you’re going to use different advertising components to make that marketing strategy successful while following the above guidelines.

And start thinking differently. You’re not just a martial arts instructor, you’re a business owner. You can’t afford to ignore the important side of business and marketing. While you might not care about getting rich, there’s never a good reason to throw money down the drain on poorly executed advertising campaigns. Respect your business and respect yourself; promote responsibly!

I’ve talked a bit about why I don’t like shoes, but nothing explains it quite as well as a well-made infographic. This, in a nutshell, is why I am waging a strike against shoes and why you should join me:

Courtesy X Ray Technician Schools

Do you have knee pain? Hip pain? Lower back pain? Other lower body joint discomfort? It’s almost certainly your shoes!

Many of my students suffer from ADD symptoms and many are officially diagnosed. A large percentage of my ADD students came to me because their doctor recommended martial arts training to help them with structure, focus, self-control, and so on. After all, martial arts is branded as a perfect program that can help children in those areas.

Even if your child doesn’t have ADD, keep reading because this information will help all students.

Unfortunately, martial arts doesn’t cure ADD. Martial arts alone may not even improve it. It all depends on what the student and family are willing to do beyond martial arts training. There’s a secret weapon I recommend to all parents who seek my advice in this area. And no, doc, it’s not medication.

The medical community trains (and often rewards) doctors to prescribe medication as the first approach. I’ve taught tens of thousands of children over a decade in a dynamic physical and social environment. I also worked for half a decade as a pharmacy tech and got to talk to pharmacists who know the exact short and long-term effects of different medications on the human body. Those two experiences lead me to suggest that parents avoid medication as a first line of defense as there are alternatives that can be far more effective and less costly that you should try first.

So what’s the secret weapon?

Before your jump to medicate your child, please consider revamping their nutritional habits and see what effect it has on them. Don’t write me off, it’ll cost you nothing to do the following experiment and it may save you thousands of dollars in health care costs and may save your children years of not solving the core issue.

The fact is that the typical American diet is poisonous to long-term health. For developing children, it presents a road block to brain development and wreaks havoc on their physical, mental, social, and emotional well-being. When children fail to consume the core nutrients they need and instead consume empty, anti-nutritious fillers, chemicals, and poisons they become confined to a constant state of malnutrition and toxic response that–depending on the child–can manifest itself as a lack of focus, a surplus of energy, poor behavior, bad attitude, and so on.

When presented with those symptoms, doctors do two things: prescribe medication and suggest the parents bring the child to me. The fact is that unless we resolve the underlying issue, there’s little I can do. Medication alters the child’s behavior, but does nothing to quell the war his body is waging to fight against the constant assault from the toxins and anti-nutrients the child is consuming throughout the day. Even if the child doesn’t present ADD symptoms, poor nutrition negatively affects brain development, learning, and behavior. Revamping their nutrition can only promote improvement.

So what’s the experiment?

I want you to experiment with the following information for 90 days. If your child is already on medication, I cannot suggest you take them off, but will instead leave that decision up to you. If you’re thinking about putting your child on medication, try this experiment first. If your child doesn’t have ADD, try the experiment anyway and see what happens: there’s never a reason to knowingly give your child poison and that could very well be what you’re doing day in and day out.

I don’t have the room necessary to give you every detail and all the background information for every step in the experiment. It would make the post too long and you probably wouldn’t read it all anyway. Just try the experiment and then if you want more information you can email me.

Do this for 90 days…

• Cut out all grain-based foods from your child’s diet. This is bread, pasta, rice, corn, wheat, etc. Grains are highly processed, toxic to animals, and full of anti-nutrients called Lectins and Phytates and a poison called Gluten.
• Do not feed your child Gluten. It’s a poison designed to prevent animals from eating the grain it protects. It’s in a bunch of stuff; cutting out grains will help you avoid 98% of it but you should still proceed with caution.
• Do not drink calories: no soda and no juice. Not even natural juice. One glass of orange juice has almost as much sugar as a can of Coke and more fructose than your child should consume in an entire day. Drink water only.
• No sports drinks. They’re coke with different marketing. No fake sports drinks either (e.g. Powerade Zero), they’re full of chemicals. Again, water only.
• Do not consume dairy. Even people who aren’t lactose intolerant can suffer negative side effects from dairy consumption. You have to cut it out to find out if it’s a problem. After 90 days, you can add it back in (but pasteurized dairy lacks nutrition anyway) slowly but keep an eye out for any strange symptoms.
• Limit carbohydrate consumption to less than 150 grams per day. Most carb consumption should come from vegetables. If you remember ANYTHING, remember this: carb consumption = insulin = fat.
• Limit sugar as much as possible. If you’re eating right, sugar is naturally limited as an issue unless you’re chowing down high-sugar fruits all day long. Even natural sugar is bad in excess. Your job is to limit insulin spikes (caused by too much of ANY kind of sugar intake).
• Consume only high quality animal products. Steak, chicken, pork, eggs, bacon, etc. is all fine. If you want to go the extra mile, only consume grass-fed & finished beef and free range organic versions of the other animal products.
• Limit your cooking oils to real butter (not margarine), avocado, or coconut oil. No hydrogenated oils. (Definitive guide to oils)
• No caffeine.
• Make sure your child gets at least 8 hours of sleep each night.
• Let them play outside every chance they get.
• Attend martial arts training at least three days per week.
• Give them an Omega-3 supplement such as Barleans Fish Oil supplement (tastes amazing). The body cannot produce Omega 3 or 6 by itself, so it is essential that humans consume these fatty acids. It’s real brain food because Omega 3 is found primarily in the brain and the brain depends on it for cognitive and behavioral function. The typical American diet is very high in Omega 6 and very low in Omega 3. It’s important to balance that out.
• Pack your child’s lunch every day. School cafeteria food is a nutritional disaster. It’s amazing how schools will feed kids dog food and then suggest that parents medicate the side effects.
• If all that’s hard to remember, just print out this food pyramid and tape it to the fridge.

I know the experiment is difficult, it’s frustrating, and it’s a general PITA, but it’s absolutely worth it. With Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, the task is even more difficult. But this isn’t about you, it’s about your child and their well-being. It’s time to take charge, do the uncomfortable thing, and force change.

Remember, you can always go back to chemicals, medications, and food ingredients that you can’t pronounce should you feel the need. But at the very least, give it a shot for 90 days of your life and see what happens. Oh, and if you actually do the experiment please email me with your results!!!

No More Mediocrity is a manifesto that I’ve been contemplating for some time now. It’s a project that has stopped and started over the last year. Parts of it are controversial and challenge both the industry as well as my immediate teaching and business situation. For that reason, I have stalled a few times while writing it, unsure of whether I should actually make my thoughts public.

I’ve firmly decided that I must be true to my beliefs and share them. The martial arts industry needs to shift directions or it will cease to exist as a legitimate industry and I care too much about my students and my future to stand by and watch that happen without stepping up and trying to influence a different outcome.

So please stand by while I finish this project. I will still post articles sporadically, but understand that volume will be severely affected while I focus on shipping this important collection of ideas. Thanks for being a reader and thanks for supporting me!

Being that I dedicate a good portion of my blog content to school owners and instructors, I had to check them out just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. After I signed up for a free account, I immediately started looking for a competitive advantage or some tangible difference between them and the competition. Here’s what I found:

They have personality

The corporate octopus has suffocated the big suppliers. They have a large selection and they’re reliable, but they no longer feel human. Zengu feels human and I like doing business with humans.

They make repetitive orders easy

Ordering more uniforms is boring and for some reason the big supply warehouses haven’t figured out that I have better things to do than manually add the same uniform order to my cart week after week. Zengu uses a list feature that allows you to place repetitive orders without playing a mindless game of patty cake with their shopping cart. You can even adjust the quantities of the items on the list so that it’s repetitive yet still customizable. Nice!

You can make notes about items or see what other people think!

I hate sizing on some martial arts items. A size from one manufacturer is often totally different from another. I’ll use rash guards as an example: an adult small from one manufacturer might fit a student perfectly while an adult small from another manufacturer makes my student look like they got in a grappling match with a parachute. Zengu lets me write notes on items so that I can easily remember details about each item to help me cut down on costly mistakes.

If I’ve never tried an item before, I can consult “The Wall”, which has opinions from other school owners about the item I’m thinking about purchasing. That’s good insight that will lead me to make better decisions the first time around.

Try them out!

Zengu has a great selection of items, some of which I can’t even get at the larger suppliers and they’ve done a great job of building a community while adding some helpful features that separate them from other suppliers. School owners can get a free account and they make it easy to complete the process of being approved for wholesale. Check ‘em out!

Athletes become intentional through thousands of hours of practice and dedication. Through intense and prolonged training the athlete’s focus becomes razor-sharp and the depth of her understanding of each part of the game gets harder to quantify. This, along with her patience, her spirit, and her will to win are what set her apart.

Every martial artist should strive to be intentional, but the concept of being intentional is not just applicable to fighting. Being intentional is also the mark of a great human being. What can you do going forward to be an intentional friend, an intentional business person, an intentional husband or wife, an intentional teacher, and an intentional son or daughter?

This is what we mean when we talk about taking martial arts off of the mat and into the world. This is what the application of martial arts practice to our lives looks like. This type of thought should be the foundation for 21st century martial arts pedagogy.

Are you a martial arts teacher or school owner? I want to invite you to join me on Google+ for weekly “hangouts.” We’ll be discussing curriculum, marketing, pedagogy, growth, HR, and more! It’s free and it can help you grow your school.

What’s Google+?

Google+ is like a mix between Facebook, Twitter, and Skype. It’s a powerful social network and people are finding different ways to take advantage of its features. Google will soon be releasing business pages for Google+ which will potentially change the face of social network marketing for your school, which is another reason you need to be on Google+ and be involved in the group we’re starting over there.

What’s a hangout?

A “hangout” is Google’s term for a group video chat. You invite people on Google+ to a “hangout” and the technology allows you to have an online video meeting with up to 10 people. Pretty cool right?

How do I get invited to the next hangout?

If you want to receive an invitation to the next hangout, just follow the steps below:

1. Get on the notification list.
2. Follow me on Google+.
3. Follow me on Twitter.