IAM296- Podcast Host and Gym Owner Breaks Down Dating and Relationships Questions

“The Lover & The Fighter” is a podcast discussing all things fighting and relationships. Charles is an MMA Fighter, Color Commentator and Gym Owner who has spent countless hours on the mats and in the business, and has been known among his friends as the resident therapist when it comes to dating and relationships, and he will break down any and all questions he receives on the topic.

• CEO Hack: Project management skills and keeping things organised
• CEO Nugget: Looking at things in the long-form picture
• CEO Defined: Being in charge of your own life

Website: https://www.districtmartialarts.com/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-g-digisco-9a82a679/

IG – @cgdigisco 
FB- Charles DiGisco

Full Interview

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I've Charles DiGisco of The Lover & The Fighter. Charles, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Charles DiGisco 0:39

Hey, great to be here, Gresham. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do, which is read a little bit more about Charles so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And “The Lover & The Fighter” is a podcast discussing all things fighting and relationships.

Charles is an MMA Fighter, Color Commentator, and Gym Owner who has spent countless hours on the mats and in the business and has been known among his friends as the resident therapist when it comes to dating and relationships, and he will break down any and all questions he receives on the topic. Charles, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Charles DiGisco 1:12

I sure am, can't wait.

Gresham Harkless 1:13

Awesome. Let's do it. So I want to kick everything off and hear more about what I call your SEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Charles DiGisco 1:21

So my business itself is district martial arts, right? So that's the physical gym that I've now owned for coming up on two years, which is pretty cool. And oddly enough, everything is kind of connected, right? So I started training in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts actually started boxing. And then I went to jujitsu and kind of grew everything from there. About 10 years ago, I was 17, I was in high school.

And over the years, it just became a constant in my life, you know, and I was never really good with commitment. So there were always a lot of things that were changing around me and stuff like that I was moving to new places I was you know, hanging out with new women, right, that's where the dating comes from.

And then, and then sure enough, that just stayed relevant, interesting, stayed a major part of my life. And I got connected with a couple of buddies who are one was fighting in the UFC at the time. A couple of others were professional grapplers.

And we all started training together and coaching. And then when the gym rat was closing, and they would move to a different location, we kind of just seize the day and started a business and we hit the ground running, you know, and in six months, we were making money, and a year and a half later, we're now looking to move to a bigger spot.

Gresham Harkless 2:24

Nice. That's completely awesome. And then the podcast kind of just came about from that standpoint, too.

Charles DiGisco 2:31

Yeah, so you know, the podcast was a natural evolution of everything, because for my friends, you know, I really did become the resident therapist, you know, I gave good advice I read a lot, you know, I was always, I always had older friends. So I always had these guys. I mean, even my father was very close, always giving their wisdom. So I had that at a very young age.

So for guys my age, they would talk to me, and I'd be able to relate to them as a peer, that I'd be able to take the advice I got from somebody who knew much more than I did, you know, especially when it comes to dating and knowing what to look for knowing what's a red flag and what's not. And I was able to kind of translate that for them and put it into terms they can understand.

And then like anything, the more you do it just like in fighting, the more you do it, the better you get, you know, and I don't say develop the talent for it. But I really enjoyed helping people and helping them sort out tough situations they find themselves in, and you know, like dating, you know, it's so tough. You know what I mean?

Like, I've taken so many more Ls than I could ever hook up with. But it's kind of learning, like learning from those losses, and not taking it personally and you know, kind of getting used to rejection, you know, and rejection is so tough, but just like getting punched in the face over time, it doesn't really affect you as much as you think.

That doesn't mean you want it to happen every day. But when it does happen, it doesn't quite seem to bother you as much.

Gresham Harkless 3:42

Yeah, it's funny, you mentioned that because there's definitely a lot of like parallels between you know, that obviously, you talked about, you know, MMA and boxing and then kind of have any type of sports or any athletics. And then of course, the business itself, because you have to, you know, go through those rejections in order to learn from them. But it's not so much you can control those things, but you can't control like, how you look at it, or how you approach it and things that happen from there.

Charles DiGisco 4:04

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, you wouldn't expect dating, owning a business, and fighting to really be related, right? But at its core, the soft skills you learn from all those things really are, you know, I got really good at dealing with conflict and having problem-solving just from owning a business, you know, because so many, if it can happen, and if it can go wrong, it 100% will, you know, and learning how to efficiently solve that problem, you know, as quickly as possible, and as resolute as possible to make sure you find the best solution, not just the fastest. I think that goes a long way, both in fighting and dating too.

Gresham Harkless 4:41

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we all have taken RL so it's important to kind of learn as much as you can from that because I certainly have taken enough myself and in business and in life. So I know you touched on a little bit, did you have any more you can expound upon with your business in your podcast and what you're doing there as people can kind of learn from it, and then what you feel kind of is your secret sauce?

Charles DiGisco 5:03

Absolutely. So, you know the business? Well, well actually, you probably know better than anybody, the business itself, the tangible part of the lessons, I could probably write a book at this point, you know, and there are people who've done it before me who could write an even longer one. But one thing that I've really picked up on is kind of knowing what to make a priority, knowing what you have to solve immediately versus knowing when to like, Look, I need to get this done. But it can happen after X, Y, and Z, you know, the customer service aspect, especially because we own a gym.

And it's a fight gym, right? So we have a lot of it's a very high testosterone environment, we have active competitors, you know, I'm still in the mix competing, one of the other coaches is still actively competing, but we have to train with these people who are kind of paying us but we also have to teach them.

So we very quickly, you know, you can see that it can easily become a tough environment too, that people would want to go to, you know because I've been to five gyms in the past where you walk in and you're sweating already, you get tired of you to start sparring. Because you know, it's not sparring your fight. You just have headgear on, you know what I mean?

You gotta mouth he's got headgear. But usually, these guys are about to go and it's gonna get rough and violent, you know. But what we've done at this martial arts is we've created a reel. And I want to preface this by saying, I always thought it was ridiculous when you hear about like community and environment as a kid, I was like, Yeah, whatever. It's just the people you hang out with right?

Now, when we've hit over, we got over 100 members. And we have a real genuine environment where people want to just hang out with one another, you know, people are just talking and hanging around. And I guess I didn't really see that comment when I first started the gym. Right? When I first started the business, I was thinking, you know, revenue, training, and satisfaction in life. But I didn't realize this fourth factor would come in, which would be how, how much I enjoy hanging out with people, right?

Like, I'm not running a store where I'm selling a product, I'm selling a service, right? I'm selling my knowledge and everything I know. But with that comes this human nature of understanding how to teach people certain ways, knowing what's going to resonate with one person that might not resonate with another, knowing when sometimes people just having bad days, you got to just kind of listen, let them talk it out, and figure out what kind of training what to do from that, right? When I have a bad day, I want to get after it, I want to bite down I want to get rough, right?

Sometimes when people have a bad day, they just need to calm down and relax, and catch their breath. You know. And now when we have like gym events and parties, or you know, anything, we have, like, everybody there, everybody's piling around, they're hanging out, you know, it's kind of become we're just a group of friends, you know.

And the podcast actually kind of came as an extension, I started the podcast just after opening the gym, because you know, my group of friends that we have would have these conversations and I would give them fight advice because I do commentary. I've worked in the industry from a business perspective. So I know the sport. And obviously, the dating advice that we talked about, well, instead of telling, you know, 8, 10, 15 people, I was telling, like 40 to 60 people, right?

And I'm like, well, there's gotta be a better way to do this, you know, and Joe Rogan's, like my hero, besides my father, so I was like, Well, let me just start a podcast and my girlfriend Grace is a video on production with so she does, like all the cool graphics, and she does all the technical editing and stuff. And she'll come on the podcast, too, and offer a very, you know, a strong female perspective.

So that's just like one more way that it all kind of came together, you know what I mean? Like, having her there to kind of put the polish so to speak, on rough edges that I kind of present was really was really, really helpful. I couldn't, I couldn't do without her.

Gresham Harkless 8:24

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I absolutely love that. And I love how things kind of just organically grow. Because a lot of times you create something you have, like a vision for what it is that you want to build. And, you know, you think it's going to be x, y, and z but a lot of times they just kind of organically happens where you know, to me I'm big into like passion and following you know, your gift and listening to that, you know, that quiet voice sometimes on a lot of times when you do that, you start to build something that's truly phenomenal.

Charles DiGisco 8:49

Yeah, I mean, the organic growth is, it's like an X factor, right? Like, you can't really predict it. You know, it's that's not something I put on my revenue forecasting, or I put on my business plan, but it's such, it's like one of the best benefits from it. Because, you know, I still work a day job, and I'm a government consultant for the Defense Department.

Like, I have it's a good day job, no doubt. But as soon as I leave there, for most people, they'd be like, Wow, so you work, you know, anywhere from, you know, 10 to 15 hours a day string through between work in the gym, and I'm like, Well, you know what, the gym while it is work, it doesn't feel like the same type of work, it feels like a different thing.

It's an environment that I get to kind of be a part of, and I get a lot of relaxation from not to maybe not in the sparring and the violence. But everything that comes with it has definitely helped you take the edge off of the day job, which is a little bit more of a grind, you know?

Gresham Harkless 9:39

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I absolutely love that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Charles DiGisco 9:52

You know, we were just talking about this section on the last episode, a lover and a Fighter and I think, in general, basic project management skills, right? Just being able to keep things where we keep ourselves organized and having a process to do things, you know.

I originally started doing that in my day job, right, because that was my role. But then it quickly expanded to everything I did chin training camps, commentary, like my the way I go about, you know, sending my follow-up emails, when I'm trying to get a commentary gig, you know, anything I'm doing just to, to further my life in terms of my careers, that's all project management and organization, you know.

Everybody knows that you need to pretty much it's all about the grid, no, stop, trying to keep pushing forward. And you just, you're relentless. That's right. There's, I'm not telling you to do anything new there. But the boring part, you know, that project management, that keeping things organized, that also has such an important aspect to reaching your goals and getting to that next level?

Gresham Harkless 10:45

Yeah. And I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO, nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Charles DiGisco 10:54

Oh, man, if I could happen to a time machine, I think I'd probably go back to like, just right at the end of middle school, you know, right when you get out of puberty, but you know, I think when you when you look back and you look at it from an aggregate, right, you look at it on a macro level, and the big picture, it's so easy to talk yourself out of things in the big picture.

Like if I think about commentary, for example, which is my dream, right? And that I didn't that third tier, I've taken the most losses in anything. It's amazing that I even get a rejection, I'm happy when somebody says no, because I'm so used to getting no response. You know, I mean, when it's a yes, I'm ready to throw, you know, throw a fiesta. But the thing is that if I looked at it how much effort am I going to put into something versus what am I going to get in return?

And again, not just financially but just in success? Right? How many yeses? Or maybe it is compared to nos? Man, I would never have done it, I would never have done it. But when I look at it on a day to day, when I say okay, this is going to be an hour of my day, it's not going to be 365 hours of the year, right? It's not going to be, you know, however many work weeks that add up to I don't want to do quick math. But when you look at it on the day-to-day I could put an hour towards my dream, I could put five hours towards my dream today.

And maybe I'm gonna get a return. And maybe those five hours are going to turn into 500 hours, maybe that's going to turn into a new career, and maybe will turn into anything, but I can't look at it in this long form. Picture because if I do, it's, you're looking at the mountain, not the step, right? And I actually got that, and not the exact words but effectively an aggregate of it from I used to read a lot of memoirs. And it was one of the memoirs that I read.

I'm not sure which one I believe was the creator of Delta Force, which is the US Army's like top-tier unit. And he was saying how hard it was then a 40-mile ruck, which is like a 40-mile effective, like, like hiking, but you got, you know, 60 pounds of gear in your rucksack, and it's a disaster. And you just get a compass and a map. And they don't tell you where you go, that you just have points you have to reach where they give you the next compass points. So you're going wherever they say you're going.

And he said he got to a certain point where he just couldn't think of how much more he had to go. And he was ready to quit. But instead, he just said, Just take one more step. Just take one more step. Just take one more step.

Gresham Harkless 13:04

Absolutely. You know, I love that. And I love that perspective of looking at it as a step by that rather than a mountain because you can, you know, lose sight of the process and lose sight of just the small things that you could do every day to get to that mountain get over that mountain. So I appreciate that CEO nugget. Now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is a definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So Charles, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Charles DiGisco 13:27

So to me, it was pretty interesting. I think, to me, it means to be interested in being in charge of my own life, right? Like, I'm not a CEO of my day job. In the business that I own, I have a couple of partners and commentary. Well, technically, I'm just a contractor, right? And so really what it is, is and you know, even the podcast, I have a partner and my girlfriend Grace.

So I might not have 100% Say, in all these different things I do, I might not be able to dictate who does water and obviously, I have my input. But I'm a CEO in my life at Charles to just go LLC, I am the CEO, right? So I'm choosing to put my effort and energy into each of these individual things. And in turn, it's up to me to really understand what that return is. Sometimes it's just being able to rest my head on the pillow and be like, Wow, I'm really doing some cool things. I'm doing what I need to do. You know, that hit me one-time commentary where I interviewed Cowboy Donald Cowboy Cerrone on air.

And if you're an MMA fan, he's a pretty popular guy. So I interviewed him on air and I couldn't believe it was happening. And it didn't really hit me till I laid down that night. I was like, Wow, I'm doing this. Like I did that right. Like it was like that ground that was ground up operation I did to get there. It was constantly harassing this poor guy. Shout out to Brian Hanford McCloskey. I mean, I just was relentlessly texting him, calling them emailing, sending them highlight tapes, whatever I had to do. But from that, that hour I took, right, that extra step I took, it resulted in one of the biggest moments in my career from commentary.

Gresham Harkless 14:57

Absolutely. And I think that's a great reminder and incredible perspective, a lot of why, you know, I wanted to create the podcast. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And Charles, I appreciate your time what I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers or listeners know and then how best they can get ahold of you.

Charles DiGisco 15:15

Guys are Gresh first of all, thank you so much. This has been such an honor. You know, I just want to hopefully sound encouraging and not too inspirational or anything like that, you know, just don't stop chasing what you really want. You know, and if you have to, if you have to keep that baseline with that day job, don't let that talk you out of pursuing your other interests.

In order to get in touch with me guys. If you want to pay listen, subscribe, and download The Lover & The Fighter, it'll complement this podcast quite well. We talked about a whole host of things from fighting to dating, to owning a gym and everything that comes with that and in the business world. And also you can get in touch with me on Instagram, it's @cgdigiseo on Instagram.

And I don't really use any of the social media, but I'll actually give out my email as well in case anybody has any personal questions they want to ask me if they need just like some kind of one on one advice for anything I touched on. And that's the same thing cgdigiseo79@gmail.com.

Gresham Harkless 16:12

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, have that link those links in the information in the show notes as well. So Charles, appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Charles DiGisco 16:19

Gresham, thank you so much, man. Same to you, bro.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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