Hey everybody and welcome to the Much Love podcast.

I'm excited to announce our guest Don Kiolbassa.

Going to read a little bit of an intro to get you up to speed and I think pretty quickly you'll see what a cool guy he is.

Don's the managing partner of a law firm that specializes in estate planning, real estate law, and bankruptcy.

0:28

But why I've got him on today is because he's the author of The Towel of the Side Hustle and Discovery of Dragon.

To me, I'm impressed by Don.

Not only is does he know what he's doing, is he a domain expert?

But he's a badass martial artist and I got a lot of things I want to talk about.

0:43

So first give a warm welcome to Don.

Don, introduce yourself.

Hey Nate.

I love, it's funny when I met you dude, I loved your energy and I love the kind of like, you know your your thinking it was funny like right before everyone, right before we got on here.

0:58

I was talking to Nate about kind of the volatility in the mortgage industry with the interest rates.

And I just, I I thought Nate had a really cool perspective about like, you know you know, getting things were burning back to normal without like government assistance.

1:14

You know I'm a big invisible hand like let the market move itself type person.

So it was, I just really appreciated your perspective on that.

No, absolutely.

I'm grateful you did.

I'm a I'm a big believer that things things need to be rebalanced.

We had a lot of money pumped into the economy during COVID, which was great.

1:33

I benefited from it.

I don't complain.

I find it fascinating when business owners complain about college loan forgiveness because it's like as a business owner, I got a lot of money from PPP.

Like I'm not I'm not at all upset by the college loan forgiveness, but at the same time it's time for things to kind of rebalance.

1:51

So we're we're going through a tough time and it makes sense.

Well, thank you for having me on your your show here.

I don't do a ton of podcasts, so if I'm if I mess this up, please tell me.

No, you can't mess it up.

It's just a conversation.

My name is Don.

2:06

I'm an Attorney CPA.

When I don't practice law, I'm a motion capture model for some of the big action video games in the industry, including Mortal Kombat 9:10 and 11:00.

I'm the author of Discover Your Dragon and Tao the Side Hustle.

Tao the Side Hustle was released yesterday.

Tell the Side Hustle shows the reader how to go from side hustle to stabilize to scale it.

2:28

It basically uses techniques in Buddhism, martial arts and business to, you know, nurture and develop, you know, future would be entrepreneurs.

And it was really interesting, Nate, because I I feel like you're one of the few people who who really understand this, right?

But it's a side hustle book, right?

2:46

And I really worked very hard to make sure that it came out.

Now I don't know if you see all the like kind of layoffs that are happening, you know, out there.

And I really, you know, I'm big.

I like kind of macroeconomics.

3:02

I was trying to like pinpoint the time when I thought it was going to happen.

I actually, I thought we were in the bottom of the ninth of a double header in 2019, right.

But what I didn't expect was COVID, right.

3:18

It was, you know, who could have, you know, who could have anticipated that?

And then after COVID, all the, you know, the federal stimulus stuff, right.

If that didn't happen, you know, probably slid into some sort of recession at that point, right?

Yeah, I thought it was end of the world honestly.

3:34

Even pre COVID, all the people I knew in real estate were telling me, hey expect some price corrections in real estate.

It's just been going up, going up, going up.

You should probably get a good deal.

Coming in the next 12 to 18 months is what I was hearing in 2018.

And then COVID.

3:49

None of us really predicted COVID.

I thought COVID meant our economy is going to collapse, people are going to be looting at the supermarket and everyone was well, relatively well behaved, especially because the government stepped in quickly and in a time that I thought was effective.

Yeah.

4:05

So anyway, you know, I I really wanted to make sure that it hit right now.

Yeah.

It couldn't have come out at a better time like Q4 of 2022, because I think there's a lot of people out there who, you know, with a huge entrepreneurial spirit who will need the opportunity to create their own path.

4:28

So I love Buddhism.

It's like a a weird thing to say.

Like, I love Buddhism, especially something that's very much in my opinion, about just reconciling with the now and seeing so many different sides of something to really see what that thing is.

I love martial arts.

I was in martial arts as a child from 5 to 17, and I love business.

4:47

I've I've been in business in some capacity really since high school.

So talk to me about like the core idea of the book, and like maybe some things that would be cool to jam on from.

Can I?

Can I ask you what?

What are are You religious at?

All so I'm very culturally and proud to be Jewish.

5:04

Cool.

I'm very much a spiritual seeker in that I'm willing to try on almost any cultures practice to see if I get a benefit.

I keep what I like and whatever else just kind of disappears.

So, you know, I'm a, you know, I'm a lawyer, CPA, right?

So my mentor was a rabbi.

5:22

A.

Lot of Jewish, you know, service professionals, right?

So a lot of lawyers who are Jewish.

So it was cool.

You know, I have kind of this funny story when I first came out of law school, right?

And listen, this is not a social conversation, so I'm not talking about like discrimination or anything like that.

5:42

But I couldn't get a job anywhere.

The only person who was willing to give me a job was this rabbi, and he took me under his wing.

He was like an apprentice.

And one of the cool things that I really appreciated about him was the artist storytelling, Right.

And Judaism has really kind of this cool, rich, colorful history on storytelling, right, Which is very congruent with Buddhism.

6:05

Like, you know, you you tell these like little short stories on like to to kind of simplify life lessons, 'cause if you tell somebody, hey, you know, don't drink or smoke, right, They're like, yeah, yeah.

And when you're out the other.

But for some reason, when you do do it in the form of story, sometimes it resonates better.

6:24

Oh, totally.

Yeah, So Buddhism in and of itself is kind of like it works with other religions.

And the the thing I love about the the way I approach or my interpretation of it, Buddha teaches us there's no truth, just perspective, right?

6:41

And my interpretation or perspective of it is really to provide like a certain level of social responsibility with business, right?

I think the days of like the Jack Welsh 1970s scorched, scorched earth, like maximize profit to the benefit of the stockholders and screw everybody else, I just feel like those days are over.

7:03

Right, I would agree.

And I think Buddhism provides kind of a middle of the road path for a lot of people to kind of bring social responsibility into business.

Yeah, no, I love it.

I think even like the symbol of the the yin and the Yang to me is so profound in ways most people like, don't grasp.

7:26

You've got this idea, like even within the white you can find black, and within the black you can find white.

And when you take a step back, it's not black and white, it's this whole thing and it's the whole shape.

But it's it's taught me to look at life.

What is that person going through?

7:42

And like, I can, I'm so liberal in so many ways that I'm conservative.

Like, I believe that if you like I'm libertarian in a lot of ways.

But I know there's certain things you need the government to get involved.

So like I can see where the shade of what you wouldn't expect comes into place.

7:59

So I I just, I love that that symbol.

Like, is there just a reminder to me that like, it's never exactly as I see it.

There's always another way to be looking at it.

So here, check this out.

You know that's like the yin and Yang symbol right there, right?

Here's what I want you to do.

8:17

I want you to take that yin and Yang symbol and then make a second yin and Yang symbol.

So two, I want you to flip the top one upside down in your head and then combine the two.

What's do you make?

8:34

It becomes almost like this eight kind of thing and it's.

Yeah, what's 8 this?

Infinite, yeah.

So Yin and Yang is really means Infinity, right?

There is no like opposing opposite, it's more of like blending or managing of coexisting forces, right?

8:50

So straight in line with what you just said.

Yes, that's you just took took what I loved and flipped it and doubled it and that it remixed it.

I love it, my background with martial arts.

I grew up studying a couple different forms of Karate and Taekwondo, and then got into Krav Maga as a young adult in Jiu jitsu.

9:12

You're a total badass who was like in in the Mortal Kombat games, Like talk to, talk to us about like how you got there, What was your martial arts journey?

Oh my God.

Hey, I know this is super like left field and random.

We never, by the way, everybody, we never talked about this ever, right.

9:28

So I have written other books besides Tower Side Hustle.

I've written Discovery of Dragon, but I wrote other books that were just never released.

You know, we write them and then we pitch them.

And sometimes when you get, you pitch these stories, they just don't get picked up, right.

9:46

You know, you try, but it doesn't get picked up.

So it was funny.

I wrote a story about a Jewish Israeli.

He was the, he was the, he was the hero.

And he's a Krav Maga guy, right?

Because it was like, it was kind of like it, it wasn't quite a tournament setting, right?

10:08

But I wrote this, it's a martial arts theme book, right?

Where like you had guys from different, like, backgrounds, very similar kind of theory from Mortal Kombat, right?

But in this particular theory that the protagonist was this Israeli Krav Maga person, right?

10:25

And the reason why I chose him, because I was able to blend in so much like Judaism and stuff like that.

And his decisions when he was like, you know, going from bad guy to bad guy, right?

Trying to rescue everybody, right.

Trying to save the world from imminent destruction, right.

But it was funny.

10:41

I wrote a book on this guy.

I, I, I was so fascinated by it.

Unfortunately the book didn't get picked up, but I I always joked that one day I wanted to just like self publish it because you.

Know.

I'd love to.

I'd read that.

So thank you.

You know, if you ever want to pass that along, I'd be happy to give it a read.

I I got the manuscript.

I thought it was.

I thought the reason why I liked it, I just love blending like religious theories.

11:02

Because some of these religious stories and theories, they've been with us for so long right?

And I was trying to figure out how can I bring like some of these, like super cool, like like Judaism concepts, but like in a contemporary funky fashion.

11:21

So I was like, man, what if we did like a Kung Fu movie, but it's a crowd MAGA guy, right?

And that would be cooling in all these things, right?

So anyway, I tried.

I couldn't get it off the ground, but maybe one day in the future I could get it off the ground.

You know what?

I think that would be awesome.

11:37

And what's funny is that, you know, there's there's a lot going on in the in the media right now with like anti-Semitism and and stuff with you know, Jews in the media and it's just funny, you know, whether or not there's a large Jewish influence in Hollywood.

11:52

You struggled to get a a production made about this Jewish protagonist.

So it just makes me laugh, right?

Yeah, well, The funny thing is he was like, it was kind of like a Kung Fu movie ish book, right?

But the protagonist was this Jewish guy because you know, one of the things that I think is so cool about the Jewish culture, right.

12:12

And it's just like, man, the stories are so like they grab you, man.

They got these wonderful stories that like at least I was told that like for some, some of them they just never made like the mainstream media.

And it just provides such like a cool perspective on life.

12:29

But like, yeah, like I I recognize, you know, there's a lot of this, you know, anti-Semitic stuff, which is horrible.

Like I I just my brain like just based on my background and like you know, the way I was developed, like like I just don't understand how it's how it happens.

12:48

Like from my perspective, it like the the people, the Jewish people who I've had were nothing but welcoming and they helped develop me into who I am, right?

Well, I think it's the perspective of your experience.

Like, I've I've played a really interesting role in the last three weeks in general, and I've used Buddhism to help me frame my opinions because so I'm in an interracial marriage, My wife's, black, but well before I was married, just had a lot of black friends.

13:18

And I know enough friends who've been athletes who've grown up in a system that maybe marginalized them or took advantage of them, and they've been skeptical of the way the system works because it hasn't worked for them.

So when I hear somebody like Kyrie Irving not understand why the thing he posted on social media and the statements that were made could have been derogatory towards Jews, I'm able to do this calculus in my head very quickly where I'm like, oh, I get his perspective.

13:47

He wasn't doing it to be belligerent or rude.

He just simply doesn't know.

And he's prone to do that kind of thing because he's a very open minded person who's skeptical of the status quo.

Like and my brain could do that math very quickly.

And then at the same time, since COVID, we saw a huge rise not only in in anti Jewish hate crimes but also anti Asian hate crimes and before we we started to stop Asian hate, I've always thought it should be start loving Asians.

14:15

It sounds more positive than stop I.

Love that.

I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I I appreciate it.

Well, getting back.

I'm sorry.

I have to get back to your question.

Your question was, how did I get into it?

I've done martial arts since I was a little kid.

Right.

And like I I took the, I know this is super random.

14:34

I'm going to give you this like kind of ridiculous string of stories.

So I took the bar in, I think July of 2006, but you don't get the results till like November.

This is 2006, right?

So I'm sitting around.

14:50

I have nothing to do from like July to November.

So Walt Disney Wide World of Sports is having their, like massive championship in October.

Now I I do, I always have done martial arts.

So I didn't just like kind of wake up one day and just fly down there, right?

15:09

But I like, I was like, oh man, that gives me like 3 months to get ready.

Let me just train while I'm waiting for the results of my bar exam, right?

So I start training, I fly down to Walt Disney World, and I win, like the whole thing, right?

And you know, it was kind of like, not like this huge thing.

15:24

But what that thing did is it got me this magazine and DVD deal, right?

Where I was in all these magazines and like these DVDs, which if you go on Amazon, they're still for sale there, right?

Well, those magazines made their way to China.

And this is 2006, and I don't know if you know this guy named Donny yen it.

15:44

He's the IP Man.

He's the blind Jedi in Star Wars Rogue One.

He's the new Asian dude in the new John Wick movie, right?

Anyway, he gets a hold of my magazine and he flies me out in 2007 for his big tournament at the Shaolin Temple, right?

16:07

So I go there and like, I do really, really well at this tournament.

I I was kind of, it wasn't that I was so good or anything like that.

I just do this one thing that I'm like really good at.

It's very difficult to like compete with that one thing, right?

16:22

So I go to this tournament, I'm hanging out with these monks, right?

And the Shaolin monks, Shaolin temple monks.

Yeah.

Is that how you eventually met the RZA?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So anyway, I'm going through these guys.

Yeah.

So Wu Tang, they're really into Shaolin.

So I was at the Shaolin temple and I was more of like the Comic Relief because I was doing like goofy stuff that, like everybody was, like, laughing at me because I didn't realize how stupid I was at the time.

16:47

Like, here, I'll give you an example, Like, I do some jiu jitsu and I go up to this like old Monk dude.

And I was like, hey bro, Kung Fu is totally fake.

It doesn't work right.

Like, you know, the cameras are all on me.

I'm trolling this old dude.

I swear to God, he takes a freaking knife and he puts it on his neck and he.

17:05

Broke it.

And I was like, I, you know, I was like stunned.

And I look at all the producers.

I was like, somebody needs to tell me when there's a Superman Marvel character, so I don't make an ass of myself, right?

So the audience kind of, like liked me because I was like, you know, it was like the Comic Relief, all the other people so serious.

17:25

And I was like a Internet troll before.

There are Internet trolls, right?

So that was like 2007.

I do really good at this tournament.

I get all kinds of exposure out in China.

When that happens, I get signed in 2008 to the US team to compete for wushu.

17:42

Wushu is the China national sport.

It means Chinese martial arts.

And in 2008, Beijing hosted the Olympics, right?

So I go there and I won a gold medal for the US team, right?

I come back and that's when somebody at Warner Brothers heard about me, You know, because I did Disney, Donnie Ann and then gold medal, right?

18:04

And that's how I got signed to Warner Brothers, right?

That's 2009 to do Mortal Kombat 9.

All of a sudden I started doing this stuff and I'm having a lot of fun.

And I was like, dude, I want to make a brand that's a little bit more rated G, right?

That's more practical for, like, Americans.

18:20

So I wrote Discover Your Dragon.

We had some very strong local success, but that was written for middle schoolers.

Flash forward.

I started my law practice.

I started with a laptop in my basement.

Today I'm like 23 in the state in volume in my respective field.

I was like, man, you know what would be cool?

18:37

If I wrote a side hustle to scale book using martial arts, so that's how I created Tao the side hustle.

That's kind of like the chronological order that brought me to where I'm at today.

I love it.

It's it's very organic.

A few things stand out.

You followed your passions so it wasn't like you.

18:53

Like I I identified and researched where was an incredible market.

How am I going to use just, hey, this is what I know.

This is what I like.

I'm a creative.

I want to create AG.

And it just turned into something that, you know, now we're talking about and hopefully you sell a bunch of books, but more importantly, you make a big impact on on people to to grow their side hustle.

19:13

You know what?

You know what's interesting?

I appreciate that you said that.

You know, the publisher said the same thing to me.

So hey, Liz, God, I hope you sell a lot of books, right?

And I said, listen, you know, I was like, look, my goal isn't really to sell a lot of books, right?

Here's my goal and if you could help me out, I appreciate it.

19:30

I'm trying to get, my first goal is I'm going to get 105 star reviews on Amazon.

I'm not trying to sell a million books.

There's a lot of gimmicks and goofy math calculations and goofy stuff that you can do to become a New York Times, the best seller right off the bat.

19:49

That is not what I want to do.

My number one priority, my number one goal is I want 105 star Amazon reviews because if I can get 100 people to show that, they really like it to me.

Like book sales will come if it works.

20:06

Right.

I right now what I'm focused on is getting a hundred people to say dude, I love this thing, right.

You know we our our sales are strong.

I was like, allegedly, according to somebody, I was a very high organic sale seller, like, you know, right out the gate.

20:28

But that's not I want 105 star reviews.

OK, well, I could definitely make that happen.

The book you said came out two days ago, so where would be a good place for me?

So on Amazon.

Yeah, order it on Amazon, Tower, the side hustle, and yeah, I I love your spirit, I love your energy and your approach to stuff and kind of, I had such a fun interaction with you and like forward thinking and stuff like that.

20:50

No, I I appreciate that.

I mean, I it's kind of why I created this platform.

I feel like God puts me in front of really interesting people and I want to show the world sides of people that they don't normally get to see.

So this podcast is really just like, hey, let me talk to people who are doing cool things or who I just think have an interesting personality and let's explore where it goes.

21:12

I always like to ask each guest if there's somebody they could meet, who would it be and why?

And and can we try and get our platform to help you reach that person.

So I'm just kind of throwing that out to you, but maybe it's in.

OK I.

There is somebody I want or I've.

I've always wanted to meet.

21:28

I know this is crazy, but actually in some ways you remind me of him.

I always wanted to meet Joe Rogan.

Really.

Yeah.

And the reason why I want to meet Joe Rogan is like, you know, he's a martial art.

He's a, you know, I'm Korean.

He's a Korean martial arts guy, right.

And you know, he's from Boston, but you know, my big bro, Donnie Anne's from Boston, right?

21:50

But like, sometimes I watch his, his stuff.

And so some of his like, commentary is so crazy.

And I just think he's such a, he has such an interesting perspective.

I always wanted to meet Joe Rogan.

I've never had a chance to meet him.

I love that you say that because I I too want to meet him.

22:06

And it's funny because for a lot of the same same reasons, right?

He's got the largest podcast in the world, and he didn't do it by doing anything other than interviewing people he found fascinating.

And he's also hilarious.

22:21

And we'll have people on to just learn from, talk about like a Buddhist perspective never doesn't go into a meeting with his mind fixed.

He is very open, very willing to to see things differently.

I think that's a great skill.

So I didn't know you were Korean.

22:38

I was just talking with the Korean friend the other day, a Korean told me a long time ago Koreans are the Jews of the Asians and and I laughed my ass off when I heard it, 'cause I never heard anyone want to be associated as like the Jews of anything.

So now I have a special kinship with Koreans.

22:56

You know, I I mean, what can I ask what do you what do you mean by that?

I think he was just saying something funny and he was just like he's like the Koreans, like the Koreans.

You know there's a lot is like there's a lot of Asian countries and we're we times have been picked on by Japan, times have been picked on by China.

23:14

But we always, he's like we always overcome and we're resourceful.

We figure a way out.

And I'm like, hey, you know, we could be the Jews or the Asians.

Yeah, so I was.

I worked at a big law firm in South Korea, Yolchun.

And you know, if the land is so small, you know it's a peninsula, right?

23:31

You can't go north because North Korea.

So it's kind of landlocked place, right?

If you sold South Korea, you could buy France 8 times.

That's how expensive the land is.

You have to build up.

Well, you got the Super aggressive Japanese, you know, to the east of you, and you got the Super aggressive Chinese and Mongols to the West of you, right?

23:52

And you know, it's interesting like how many times Korea has been invaded.

So, like, there's such a mixed diverse of genetics there, right?

Because people come and they might invade and all that other stuff, right?

But you know, it, it's interesting.

24:09

I I've never heard that particular, but I, I, I could see the perspective.

I could see the perspective.

Well, and even hearing that, if you think about the geography of Israel and the different genetic diversity based on, you know, like a lot of people know about Ashkenazi Jews, you know, Jews from Eastern Europe, they know about Sephardic Jews, those who are more in like the Spanish regions or maybe North Africa, you don't hear as much.

24:33

But today you hear more about Mizrahi Jews who are in Iraq.

Iran, they're like and and then we've got Jews in Ethiopia, we've we've even had Jewish tribes who have gone as far as Japan.

So it's it's fascinating to know that you know we're not just like a a one thing where this mix but also having the being surrounded by other countries trying to go after you.

24:55

So I guess maybe that was part of his his logic too.

But the friend I told the other day liked it.

He laughed that it was a good, good thing.

Well, hopefully one day my my concept of the Jewish Karma Gaga, the Kung Fu, the Kung Fu Israeli goes through just because I it's not that I really want, like, I just want, I think it would be a super cool platform.

25:22

You know how, like there's all these super cool, like Buddhist stories, like when you talk about like samurai, like Ushido and like, you know, all this stuff I like, man, there's so many of those cool stories in Judaism, right?

But there hasn't been like like this super cool platform to like tell those little stories, those little anecdotal, short kind of, you know, not shoving religion down your throat like more of a reality morality.

25:51

Yeah, no, They've usually been like more of the absurd, like there was on Comedy Central, the Hebrew hammer, a long time.

Ago.

Yeah.

OK Yeah.

I wish there was a cooler.

Kind of like I feel like this Kung Fu Israeli guy would be a super cool platform to deliver some of those stories.

26:09

Oh, I'd love it.

I think that sounds great.

Well, I I know you were on a limited time today.

I appreciate you carving the time out.

Absolutely sending it back at you.

This was wonderful.

Any any parting words?

Listen, it's awesome what you're doing like and all that other stuff.

26:28

You know, the one thing I would like, I'd like to leave everybody is, you know, the cool thing about, like getting, you know, putting your material out there and, you know, letting everybody know who you are.

You're kind of calling out to people who are, like, minded, right?

And I just want to tell you, I think it's really cool that you're building a community that like, look, you're Jewish, I'm Asian, Like, you know, we come, you know, Jewish.

26:52

I do Buddhism, right?

And I think it's cool that you're sharing the platform with someone who's not like you.

I just think it's really cool.

Oh, thank you.

It means the world to me.

I'm going to go grab your book.

I'll let you know what I think about it.

I'll get you that review.

And I'll everybody else, if you're watching this, please go go look up.

27:09

It's The Tower of the Side Hustle, a Brutus Buddhist martial arts approach to your new business, Available now on Amazon.

Check it out.

And if you don't like it, it makes a great coffee coaster.

That's right.

And who is another coaster?

Cheers guys.

Bye, bye.