Episode 10: Robert Drysdale

Harry Nalbandyan
What routines did you have, you know, getting ready for these championship fights that you think could apply to the business world or, you know, in the professional setting?

Robert Drysdale
If I sit down with a successful businessman and we’re going to under technicalities, we’ll be speaking different languages. I speak Jiu Jitsu. He speaks accounting and taxes and something else I don’t know about, right? But when it comes to what is it, what that moves him, or what are the values that he needs to have in place to be successful, they’re exactly the same. I guarantee you, there’s no difference. I hate mornings. I hate getting up early in the morning. But if I had to get up at 6am to go run or do eight so I I’d never, never crossed my mind not to do it. Right? That’s what I call discipline. Discipline discipline is doing what you hate, not what you like.

Harry Nalbandyan
Welcome to Harry handles it, podcast where we dive into the world of personal growth, success strategies and everything in between. I’m your host, Harry Nalbandyan, and today we’re going to chat with an incredible guest who has some amazing insights to share. Remember, no matter what life throws your way, I’m here to help you handle it. Let’s get started. Good afternoon. I’m thrilled to welcome our new guest today, Robert Drysdale, MMA champion, jiu jitsu World Champion and Brazilian school owner. Robert Drysdale, Welcome How you doing today?

Robert Drysdale
Very good, Harry. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the kind words and, yeah, good to be here, man. Thank you for the opportunity.

Harry Nalbandyan
I’m excited to have this conversation. I’m I’m also, I am a purple belt in Jiu Jitsu, and I continue to try to practice the sport and get better. You know, on a consistent basis, it’s, it’s a beautiful sport. It’s addicting,

Robert Drysdale
yeah,

Harry Nalbandyan
Big time, big time. And very, very humbling, which is, which is also, it’s needed.

Robert Drysdale
I think it keeps you in the right place, right? It brings the the under confident person up to where they’re supposed to be. And if you’re a little overconfident, taking a little too much of yourself, it humbles you a little bit. It kind of keeps people exactly where they’re supposed to be. That’s what I like about it.

Harry Nalbandyan
Yeah it’s a beautiful sport. Can you describe for our viewers? A little bit about your journey from not having a digital career to becoming a fifth degree black belt.

Robert Drysdale
I started, I mean, my first experience with martial arts was hapkido. I did that for two, three years, when I was, like 9, 10, years old. I really, I liked it, but not enough to, you know, make a living from it. And then I got into some other things, like mountain biking and soccer. I was raised in Brazil. You may not know this. I’m an American citizen, but I was raised in Brazil because my mom is Brazilian, so yeah, and then I got into jiu jitsu around 97 actually started in a style that’s not Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It’s called more gun to Jujutsu, which is like a jab, like Judo with karate. I thought it was a jiu jitsu school about six months to a year late, later, they went out of business and now went to a real Brazil jiu jitsu School, where I train with David a junior for about just under a year. That was around the time I finished a high school in Brazil, and I moved to the US to attend college, to go to college, and I started training with the Louis pineiros Association in 1999 I trained with them. Steve de Silva was my coach, stavo Dantas, John Lewis. I was there from 99-2000 I moved back to Brazil because I wanted to compete. By then, I was, like, totally immersed in Jiu Jitsu. That’s all I wanted to do. And I moved back to Brazil end of 2000 and that’s when my competitive career, really started. I joined a team in Brazil called Marumba with Paulus Strecker and that guy, man, he was having us compete, like every other weekend kind of thing. It was. It was a very busy, busy two years, probably the best two years of my life, really. And from there I started training with after after, one world as a purple belt. I started training with Leo Viera, did it a Damian, Maya, Eduardo, Tellis, those guys, and I trained with them for, I want to say, from 2002 to 2007 end of 2007 when I finished college in Brazil. That was the year I won the ADCC as well. And then I was done with the jiu jitsu chapter, the key chapter of my life. I was done with the NoGi chapter, and I wanted to fight him in May, and that’s why I moved to Vegas, end of 2007 beginning of 2008 and I’ve been in Vegas ever since.

Harry Nalbandyan
That’s a great story, man, I did not know that. You know you started training in Brazil when you did.

Robert Drysdale
Yes, yeah.

Harry Nalbandyan
That’s a great that’s great place to start.

Robert Drysdale
It was, I was at the right place at the right time. You know, like even in Brazil, people don’t really, I mean, jiu jitsu was becoming popular in Brazil. In US, most people, I never heard of it. But it was, I was an identity. I liked. I was craving an identity and ju jitsu and that craving for an identity fell in hand in glove, and it was just love at first sight. I knew that’s that’s what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life. I had no expectations to be an athlete. My expectations were to be a good coach. I’m like, I’m probably not a good athlete, but I could be a good coach. I think my career went okay. Didn’t go as I didn’t win everything I wanted to win my my big dream was win the UFC belt. I didn’t get that. But other than that, I achieved all the things I wanted to achieve, and I had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, and no regrets. My body’s beat up. My body regrets it. My mind does it, my heart does it. But my body’s like, man, you should maybe, maybe should have been an accountant, you know? But it’s rough on the body and it takes a toll on you, you know, but I love it. I still love it. Now I get to coach and watch my students thrive, and that’s it’s not as rewarding as having your own hand raised, to be honest, but it’s still very rewarding.

Harry Nalbandyan
How has that transition been from, you know, winning those world titles to bringing that into your coaching. Have you brought any principles from that experience into coaching?

Robert Drysdale
Yeah, man, but I had difficulty doing that, to be honest, man. I think I was always too hard on myself, and that was my strength. I think really, when I look back, I was never a great athlete. I was a mediocre athlete as a child. If you put me in a weight room, or if you’re talking to my conditioning coaches, they’ll tell you I’m nothing special as an athlete, I was not the most technical. I was consistent. I had heart, and I was very hard on myself, like I would on my drive back from practice. I’d be just like brainstorming, why did I get swept? Why it’s not happening tomorrow, like if you beat me in practice today, I just had to get you back the next day. That was my mindset. I just refused to accept that anyone could beat me in practice, you know. And that was my strength, that was my power. And I think that having that mindset comes along with certain values that I think are very, very important. I think they’re at the bottom of everything. It doesn’t matter how gifted you are, how hard you train, if you don’t have these values in order, it’s nothing works like Courage, accountability, discipline, like what I mean by courage, like you run at the best guy in the room who’s the best guy in the room? That’s the guy that’s that’s the guy you gotta top. You understand, like accountability when you lose, it’s not the referee’s fault, man, it’s not the rules, it’s not the maths, it’s not the weather. It’s you. You lost. Like, take it, take it. You know, to take it to heart and go, like, just improve on it. Be better. You know, like, discipline show up. Well, I don’t feel like it. Well, you have to, don’t give yourself a choice. Why is this discussion even taking place? And those are the values that to me, you know, made you too special, made allowed me to achieve the things that I did achieve. Be hard on yourself. Don’t be easy on yourself. Don’t be a cry baby. Don’t be running away from a challenge, you know. And I think as because that was my strength, I think I always came out too hard on my students, demanding the same of them. And most people don’t like that kind of pressure. Most people just want to feel good about themselves, and I it was very difficult for me. It still is difficult for me to adapt, because when I see someone, they just want to do it as a practitioner. I never hold them to those standards. You’re a practitioner, you’re a hobbyist. There’s nothing wrong with that. But then I get people with the talk that they want to be champions, and they think so highly of themselves, right? And then, but they don’t. They don’t. They don’t have what it takes. And I’m trying to and I demand those standards, but the standard is lower than the standard I demand of myself, but they still can’t meet it. And then I butt heads with people because, like, Hey, man, I don’t care if, if you’re famous on Instagram, that means nothing to me. This is absolutely nothing to me. Like, okay, well, Rob, I’m on flow grappling. I don’t care. Like, show me on the mask what you can do, man, like your your video going viral means zero to me, but in their minds, it means they made it. And their heads, they’ve climbed Mount Everest already. And I’m like, No, you have it. You’re trying to take a helicopter ride the top of Mount Everest and then claiming the view is your own. It’s not you didn’t earn it. It’s not there. You’re far away, buddy, you have it. You’re not even at base camp yet. And I, and I’m explicit about these things, not because I dislike people, it’s because I love them and I want to help them, and I don’t know how to help people as a coach, other than by being truthful. And when people can’t meet basic standards. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help, right? Particularly people that are talking about being champions, but don’t have the heart to do it. They’re just small talk. And that’s a big part of the juice of community today. And it’s, it’s kind of a bummer, man, because I really want to show people the way to the top of Mount Everest, but most people don’t want to pay the price. Man, they want the helicopter ride. It’s a very, very rare kind of human that the digital competitor that actually has it, most of them would rather, you know, work for followers and make money and, you know, be Insta famous kind of thing. So I’m old school, yeah.

Harry Nalbandyan
And I was going to ask you about that, because competing in 2007 that community is much different than the jujitsu community of, you know, 2025 right?

Robert Drysdale
Oh, wildly. I wrote a book about this, like, you know, I got a copy here. I mean, it’s not just about this, but it’s the rise and evolution of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And I talk about these changes. I talk about these changes over the years, and how it went from a, you know, a warrior culture, to business culture, right? The customer is always right kind of thing, whereas, in, you know, when I started training, if you’re a blue belt, you couldn’t even give your opinion, like, you couldn’t open if there was, like, a group of people talking, and you’re a blue belt, you couldn’t even open your mouth to talk. If you’re a really good purple belt, like a, like a brown black belt, level purple belt, you can give an opinion. Like, I remember being in a group of like, black belts as a brown belt, and I didn’t open my mouth because there was a hierarchy there. I was like, oh, that’s unfair. Like, no, it’s not. I haven’t earned my spot here. I’m like, a noob. Like, why should I walk in the group and give an opinion and tell people like, these guys been doing it five times longer than me? You know, it’s like the soldier giving the general his opinion on battle plans. I’m like, shut up. I’m a general. You’re a foot soldier. Like there’s a hierarchy in everything we do, man, and I don’t have an issue with that. Like, you’re an attorney, right? I would never argue law with you. Like, if we’re in a room with you’re talking, well, I’m going to shut up, because that in that department, I’m a foot soldier. You’re a general, you understand? So when I’m on my mats, that’s how I look at things. I’m the General. You’re the foot soldier. And to me, this is common sense, but it’s not so common, right? So it’s a difficult thing, man, because you know people, everyone’s an authority these days. You know everyone’s everyone’s an expert. YouTube has made everyone an expert.

Harry Nalbandyan
I saw him YouTube, but I saw him YouTube coach. Why can’t? Why can’t I do it?

Robert Drysdale
Yeah, and the thing I’m not against people, you know, seeking other sources of knowledge far from me. I am, by no means, a know it all coach. I plan. I’m learning new things every day. But I think that the issue really is, is people want to have things that they don’t want. They’re not willing to pay the price to be the man. You understand, they everyone wants to be the man, and they want the shortcut. They want the helicopter ride to the top. And it’s, it’s a it’s just changed a lot in that regard, because the accountability thing was huge before, like you lost. The idea of blaming your coach, your training partners or the referee, is was unthinkable. It didn’t cross your mind to blame anyone other than yourself, because the accountability was so ingrained in the culture. Now, people lose, they blame everyone except themselves. It’s never them, it’s always someone else. It’s never them, and it’s that’s the norm. Now I have to apologize to parents. Now, when kids lose, kids lose a match, I have to apologize to the parents like it’s my fault that the kid lost. This is the norm, right? That that spirit has been it’s been flipped 180 and that’s not better. That’s not an improvement. In my opinion.

Harry Nalbandyan
I see, I mean, that’s rough, and you’ve seen that transition, and I’ve only had my limited experience from from me being a practitioner, but based on that, I mean, what draw what really draws me to jiu jitsu is that accountability piece. I mean, you’re in your roles, and you get caught. There’s a reason why you got caught. And you know, on the drive home, when you think about it, you go through those and it just makes you better. You kind of take that from jiu jitsu and apply it to everywhere else in your life. Then you constantly start to see different ways that you could handle the situations, uh, different outcomes you could have made happen.

Robert Drysdale
Yeah, and I think that’s the lesson. That’s the beauty of it, you know, I think what it comes down to, man, when we’re having these conversations, is people always want the easy way of doing things, like people want the reward, but they don’t want the hard work. And what I always tell my students, is the hard work is the reward. That’s where the that’s where the reward is. The reward does not lie in the money, the fame, the outcome, the metal, right? That’s all fun, but the true reward is what you have to do to achieve those things, the knowledge you gain, the insight. And when you skip these steps because you’re trying to cut the line and you’re trying to make it easy, like on yourself, right by staying in this comfort zone, or by just telling yourself comforting lies in order not to be accountable and not to say I lost because that was better than me, or I made a stupid mistake, it’s easier to blame someone else, so you don’t have to actually internalize those mistakes and actually work harder next time. Yada yada yada. It’s easy to just always project right, looking for external solutions for internal problems, essentially and and when I see that, I see people missing out on an important lesson, because it’s one thing that jiu jitsu does. It exposes the truth. You can lie to yourself for only so long, unless you’re complete denial about it. But the facts are the facts, like, Oh, I’m better than that guy who got to prove it. Then you can’t just talk about, I can tap that guy. Well, let’s see. Let’s find out. You know, it’s very empirical like that. And that’s one of the things I love about Jiu Jitsu, is that it was a martial art that was empirical, you know. And it’s, it’s lost some of that, like, you have to prove it. Now, there’s a lot of, you know, talking and. And marking has become a such a strong power in shaping culture and people’s opinions that you no longer have to prove and now, if you talk about it, well enough, people believe you, which is very, very strange to me.

Harry Nalbandyan
Interesting. I mean, based on that, and you mentioned the situation with the parents, where you had to apologize to them when, when the kid was a match, my boy, he’s He’s 24 years old, and I just got him into Jiu Jitsu. He’s done a handful of classes. He seems like he’s having a good time. But as a parent, what can I do to make sure that the student that comes, you know, to get coaching, to get better at Jiu Jitsu, is in the right frame of mind,

Robert Drysdale
The coach you mean, or like, the student?

Harry Nalbandyan
The parent. What can a parent do to help the coaches help their their children succeed?

Robert Drysdale
I think that, look, kids are programmed to cry, to get attention and victimize themselves, right? Because they learn very early on. I’ll give an example, right? If you watch, if the two year old is learning how to run or whatever, and he falls. The first thing he does, very first thing he does, Harry, is not cry. He looks at you, yes, and your reaction will determine what he will do next. If you go, Oh, my God, oh my god, he fell on his knees. Let’s get a doctor. What do you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to cry because he Oh, that’s what I’m supposed to I’m a victim, right? That’s the mentality starts there. If you go, Hey, that was nothing. You look at the kid, he really hurt himself. If he really hurt himself, yeah, let’s go to the emergency room. But if it’s just a bruise, just a scrape, it’s just him crying. You know what I do? Like, Hey, man, it’s okay. Cried enough Get up. Let’s do it again, right? And I think parents have to have that mentality, because I see this all the time, that your kid cries and he runs to mom and mom cuddles him, and I’m saying it’s fine, because it’s his first week, whatever. It’s a new environment. He’s four or five years old, whatever. But at some point you got to go, Hey, no, it’s okay. You want to you don’t have a good, hard time to go in the corner. You’re not going to go to mom, and you’re starting to break that bond. So he’s not running to mom every time he’s in he’s crying, or some things aren’t going his way, right? And I think that if the child discovers that they can overcome this on their own in time, they will no longer need it. But if the, if the if the if the behavior is reinforced over and over and over, at some point it becomes an adult, and it’s not going to change, right? Because that’s too late to change. So, yeah, the programming is there. The programming is there. It’s an emotional reaction to a hard, difficult situation, right? I would, I’d recommend parents that, you know, like, I look, I have a friend of mine who’s a military right? This is maybe an extreme example, but it goes, it goes to show, I think parents need to, need to learn a little bit from from this guy, right? Since, when his kids were crying, they were newborn in the middle of the night, you go check on them. Had they shacked themselves? No, did they pee themselves? No, are they hungry? No, are they cold? No. Are they crying? Then let them cry. And it sounds rough, because, Oh, you want to hold them. I’m like, but it starts very young, right? It starts very young. It’s like, if it’s not hungry, it’s not cold, it didn’t didn’t shit itself, didn’t pee itself. And what’s the issue? It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. Like, he will be fine. And I think parents need to have a little bit of that in Jiu Jitsu, so they look at the kid and the kid’s not doing what was losing his crime, or he doesn’t want to go to Jiu Jitsu, and you go, Hey, are you hurt? Is someone abusing you? There is anything terrible happening? No, then what’s the issue? You know, and I think parents have, we’ve conceded too much to children and by giving them too much freedom. And I think freedom is something you earn in adulthood. It’s something you earn. It’s not something that has given you when you’re five, because if you give your five year old the freedom to do what he wants, he will eat cookies all day, play on tick tock and Roblox all day, and he won’t ever go to school. And that’s that’s the if you give a child freedom, that’s what they will do. So I don’t think freedom is something because we we praise that word freedom, freedom so much as adults that we end up extending the concept that a child does not prepare to handle right? And we get, we grant that to show we let them choose, and we let them choose, and we let them choose, they’re going to choose Tik Tok every time. And, you know, and chocolate, like, they’re never going to eat broccoli. Like, what would take chocolate taste better, you know? So I think that’s my recommendation to parents, is, like, tough love is real love. That’s why you bring them to jiu jitsu in the first place. Let the coach do their jobs. Don’t Don’t cuddle them like they’re fine. And take them to jiu jitsu if they don’t want to go. Don’t give them a choice. When they’re adults, they can decide not to go if they don’t want to, while their children put the hammer down. I think it works better.

Harry Nalbandyan
Build the habit, a habit.

Robert Drysdale
A habit. You know my younger daughter hated it. She still hates it, but I don’t give her a choice. I don’t give her a choice. She’s going to Fujitsu, and that’s it. And then she goes. She always complained. She stopped complaining because she’s realized she’s not going to win that war. She tries to like it as best she can’t. Her friends are there. She doesn’t have a terrible time. It’s just not her thing. She likes gymnastics more, you know, but I didn’t mean. To me teaching a child how to defend themselves, how to fight and have the confidence to do so if they need to, then it’s not a that’s not a hobby, that’s not a it’s not a commodity, man, that’s that’s a life saving skill. So I want my children to have that.

Harry Nalbandyan
Big time at a minimum it’s a life skill, just like, you know, people are a sport. This is one of the things that everyone should have in their back pocket. Yeah, absolutely. What routines did you have, you know, getting ready for these championship fights that you think can apply to the business world, or, you know, in the professional setting, when stakes are also high?

Robert Drysdale
I mean, you know, it’s funny, like, I’m, I was, I run a business, right? I am a I always tell people this, I am a martial artist who owns a business. I’m not a businessman. Big difference. I never cared for business. To be honest, it’s not something I’m interested in. People give me business books like, oh, Rob, if you read this, you’ll make more money. Like, yeah, I probably would, but I would rather read something else. Is this not who I am. I love martial arts. I love other topics, but, but I understand there’s a lot of overlapping with, I think, success, right? Whatever you mean by saying that you success, you mean reaching the top of Mount Everest. And for a businessman, that’s mean, means making a lot of money. For me, it was winning the tournament ADCC and ibjf and whatever. Right? For someone else, it’s something else to each their own. I don’t make judgments on value of what’s better and what’s worse. It’s what’s important to me, is what’s best for me, right?

Harry Nalbandyan
I think that the climb to Mount Everest, it’s the same across the board, right? The same.

Robert Drysdale
The values are the same. You’re right about that, right? So if I, if I sit down with a successful businessman, and we’re going to under technicalities, we’ll be speaking different languages. I speak Jiu Jitsu. He speaks accounting and taxes and something else I don’t know about, right? But when it comes to what is it, what that moves him, or what are the values that he needs to have in place to be successful, they’re exactly the same. I guarantee you. There’s no difference, right? You gotta get I like, I hate mornings. I hate getting up early in the morning. But if I had to get up at 6am to go run or do wait so I I’d never, never crossed my mind not to do it, right? That’s what I call discipline. Discipline is doing what you hate, not what you like, doing what you like is easy. Like, I like to sleep, like, I can’t call myself discipline. I do it every night, you know, but it’s, it’s the discipline, the accountability. Something went wrong with your marketing campaign, or there’s something going wrong. And you know, a department in your business, you can blame the government if you want. You can blame your employee if you want, but it comes down to you, man, you’re the leader. It comes down to you. It’s always on you. And it sucks to tell yourself that horrific truth, because it means you have to be checking yourself, and you never get to feel comfortable. And that’s the other thing about the client. Man, you’re never comfortable. You’re always miserable. There’s no happiness and achievement. Man, because we don’t get you. Thought it’s a happy place, but you know, it’s not. It’s miserable. You’re never happy. That’s why you climb, because you’re unhappy. Because if you were happy, you would stop climbing, you would graze. You at the very bottom of the mountain. You go, I’m happy here. It’s the opposite. You look at the mountain, go, that’s that’s where happiness is, because you’re not happy, right? And I think a lot of people miss that, and that road is not a happy road. There’s a movie I love. Whenever this conversation comes up, I always bring it up. Ever see that movie, Rush, the two F-1 drivers, great movie, and it’s got, it’s a Niki Lauda and James Hunt. There were two rivals. They’re brilliant. Both of them, really, they’re very different kind of champions, one from the brainiac, the other one’s like pure talent. And there’s a scene in the movie I never forget where Nikki allowed us his performance starts dropping because he’s finally happy. He gets married and has a wife, and he loves her. He’s super happy. And there’s a scene there that I love. He’s very, very symbolic. He’s staring at the fire, and he looks staring at the fire. He goes, happiness is the enemy. And I absolutely love that scene because he summarized the life of any driven competitor or person. Because the second you you are happy, you lose a fire. Fire’s no longer there. You understand. And I think that’s something a lot of people that want to feel good about themselves all the time and feel comfortable, but also want to be successful don’t understand. Being successful means being uncomfortable all the time. It’s being used to that that’s the norm, you understand. And I as an athlete, man like I was dragging myself, I was over trained, and I’m using the rail a flight of stairs because I have nothing left in my legs. I didn’t know what not being over trained was until I retired. I’m like, Oh, this is what a normal person feels like every day. Because I was training six days a week for 20 years straight. I’m all beat up. I have the body of a 67 year old man, and I’m 43 I need help, like sometimes I use the rail on the flight of stairs. I’m 43 man. You know, my knees are destroyed. I don’t regret it, but I pay the cost. And I think that any successful business person will have a lot of internal scars, and maybe not their knees might be doing. Okay, but they have a lot of internal scars, because they messed up a whole bunch. They messed up a whole bunch. But I guarantee you talk to any of those guys, they’re proud of their scars. None of them are going out that was a bad No, no. They look back and they go, that was the greatest thing go. Going bankrupt was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, right? Because as long as you have that mentality, you look at a problem, you go, Nah, I just fell off the top of the mountain. I was close, but if I did it once, I could do it again. And that’s something that’s universal. I think that’s what you’re talking about, right?

Harry Nalbandyan
Yeah, man, that’s perfect. Well, thank thank you for your time today, Robert, it was a sincere pleasure talking to you, and I hope to the one day in Vegas, come to your gym and we’ll train together.

Robert Drysdale
Absolutely right? Anyone listening to always welcome. It’s an have an open mat policy. You guys are all welcome. I’d love to have you.

Harry Nalbandyan
Awesome, thank you. And how can our users and listeners find you?

Robert Drysdale
I’m in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you Google Zenith by Robert Drysdale, you know it’s kind of Zenith Ju Jitsu by Robert Drysdale, you can find me on Instagram. It’s the only social media I’m really active on. So if you write me anywhere else, I won’t, I won’t see it. Robert Drysdale, jj, jj, for Jiu Jitsu, right? Robert Drysdale, that’s my Instagram handle. That’s the only one I’m I’m active on, yeah, and you’re more than welcome to stop by for some training. I’d love to have you.

Harry Nalbandyan
Thank you so much, Robert. Appreciate the time. Thanks for joining us today on Harry handles it. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found some valuable takeaways if you’re facing challenges in your own life or business, whoever, then you’re not alone together. We can handle anything that comes our way. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you liked what you heard until next time, keep pushing forward and having life with confidence you.