Adam Torres and Craig Cooke discuss Craig’s book.
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Show Notes:
New book alert! In this episode, Adam Torres and Craig Cooke, CEO & Founder at C-Squared Professional Consulting, explore Craig’s book, Business Kung Fu: Modern Strategy, Ancient Truth, Your Success
About Craig Cooke
Craig Cooke spent twenty-six (26) years of leading Rhythm; a digital-first marketing agency. He Co-founded the company in 1996 marketing and selling independent music online. Over the years, they continued to adapt to market dynamics and the company evolved to become a leading digital marketing agency in Southern California. Their clients included a wide variety of middle market to large enterprise companies. Along the way, they refined their brand and became simply, “Rhythm.” Craig sold the agency in 2019 to a world class digital creative agency and remained CEO for three years
Today, Craig provide professional consulting services in three primary categories:
Executive Leadership, Brand Development and Marketing Communications.
Craig provide a unique approach by applying my experience with energetic practices to enhance performance in the professional world.
About C-Squared Professional Consulting
Providing expertise in organizational leadership, brand strategy, and marketing communications with an emphasis on digital experiences.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to apply. All right, so today I have Craig Cook on the line, and he’s CEO and founder over at C Squared Professional Consulting and also author of the recently released book, Mission Matters.
Business Kung Fu, Modern Strategy, Ancient Truth, Your Success, which we’re going to talk about today. But first off, Craig, just want to say welcome to the show. Thanks Adam. I’m really excited to be talking with you today. Thanks for having me. Oh man, so we got a lot to talk about. We’re going to get into your book, of course and, and a little bit more into your background.
So as an entrepreneur, so , we’ve caught up once or twice before. And one of the reasons I’m excited to have you on the show is because I just think your story, man, you started in digital marketing way back in the nineties. So like that’s super early to be even, I don’t even, was it even called that back then or what did we call it?
It’s hard to remember actually. It’s funny because I’ll tell people. It wasn’t. I’ll tell them, yeah, I started a digital first company in the 20th century. And yeah, terms like digital transformation, digital first, they weren’t even around back then. It was like, hey, you need a website, and people were like, what’s that?
Exactly. Right, right. It was like, what? What’s this internet stuff? What is this? Yeah. Yeah. It’s a fad. It’s a fad. It’s just a fad for computer geeks. Yeah. Oh, man. So as an entrepreneur, like, did you know that that was going to, , how’d this stick? I mean, you were in that industry for quite some time before you eventually exited company and the business.
Like, how did you know that that was your thing? Well, what I did was actually combine two passions, a passion for music and a passion for technology. And one day, as I was coming home, I stopped at this computer store, and I happened to pick up a CD ROM magazine. You know, at that time, there were these things called CD ROMs.
Yeah. Yeah. And there was this MusicNet magazine that was a CD ROM. So I took it home, put it in and saw all these bands I’ve never heard of. I was like, wow, that’s interesting. Fascinating. And at the time I was playing around with the internet and getting on using America online. Remember that old thing?
I don’t know. Too young for that. I don’t know. Picking up the phone line. You had to have the phone line, had to have a second phone line if you wanted. And if you didn’t, oh man, parents with a Mac, cause you’re playing games and it’s like, why is your phone always busy? I don’t know who’s playing games, mom.
I don’t know why that. Game doom came out. I don’t know. Go ahead. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So you know, getting familiar with the internet and really being fascinated by that and other things, technology wise and yeah, I was getting together with one of my friends playing music a lot. I played guitar and piano and so forth and, you know, showed them that CD ROM and just having a conversation of what a great idea would be to, you know, Do that as a service online and you know one thing that doesn’t max next and then I started the company with That friend and another friend from college 1, 300 a piece and a computer that I had an apple computer and we started rhythmnet.
com Which is marketing independent music online and it was a kind of this idea that was anti establishment You know kind of fight the machine, you know, because at the time You Music was all directed through programming via the radio and MTV. It was just A& R. There’s a couple people, right? So like , your Clear Channel, Radio 1, like that’s a couple, like there was like three or four or something like that till it even consolidated worse.
So they had a, they didn’t say that you were out there. You were not out there. Period. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So we wanted to level the playing field and we created a site where people can discover independent music. Find these bands, listen to song samples, and buy their CDs for a secure server using their credit card.
Way back in 1996. You know, it was a good idea. And that’s back when you put your credit card, like, there was, like, was the beginning. So putting your credit card in there was like, what? Don’t put my credit card in there, they’re gonna steal it. Or like, whatever else. Yes. Security, all the other things. It was different.
It was very different. Yes, that was one of the barriers. We’re taking all the kids down memory lane here, like, what? I know, they’re like, what are you talking about? Like, why would people be afraid? But yeah, that was the case. Everyone was afraid. There was only 30 million people worldwide online at the time.
Wow. Yeah, there was no MP3s. And like you said, people are afraid to buy stuff. So, you know, we struggled with that business model for the first couple of years. But yeah, it’s like any cool bands. You remember any cool bands at that time that you were like, man, this is cool. Like that went through your doors.
Do you remember? You know, they were all really cool people, really cool bands, great music, but. Yeah, there was all independent. No one that really made it. I think there was one singer from the all lady band wild orchid or something like that. She was doing something different or a couple of them.
Yeah, all good. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah, so after a couple of years, we adapted and started doing web design for companies and kept the music thing on the side. Because people started talking, you know, this internet stuff. Can you do our website for our company? I was like, yeah, sure. And, , we were successful at that and we said, well, we need to eat.
We need to pay bills and this is a good route to go. So we adapted and Rebranded as Rhythm Net Design Group. Again, kept the music thing on the side, you know, kept that going. And then over the years just started to build different capabilities. I saw a vision in 1998 for the future of what advertising and marketing and what an agency would look like combining online and offline methods in an integrated fashion.
Mm-Hmm. . So we started building up those capabilities and in 2004, rebranded again as Rhythm Interactive. And we had a whole suite of services. We had a great philosophy that was combining strategy, design, and technology, which was unique at the time. We actually started thinking of in those terms in 2001 and, you know, got into all kinds of different skill sets CD ROM development for creating Rich internet applications.
We had our own proprietary method of updating the CD ROMs. And, and also tracking user behavior, which no one at the time was doing. And we did a lot of work with pharma companies for a good 10 years. What was the call back then? It wasn’t user behavior, like all the words that you’re using that are just.
It’s so commonplace right now. I don’t know if that was even it, maybe it was, but a lot of this like terminology we take for granted now, it’s like, yeah, cause you’re talking early. That’s amazing. It was early. Yeah. It’s all these things. They didn’t even like email marketing, right? Yeah. , we’re at the forefront.
There is a platform called exact target that Salesforce. com acquired that is now Salesforce marketing cloud. And we are one of the early resellers of the exact target platform. So we are, we became experts in email marketing and we were sending out like 18 million emails a year on behalf of our clients doing all kinds of email search, SEO and paid search.
Digital content, digital video just a whole suite of services and web design that went from simple landing pages all the way to really large data driven web applications, and then we ended up working with a lot of middle market, the large enterprise companies as we grew and evolved and ended up hitting a great growth stride and started in 2012 and landed on the inch 5, 000 list five years in a row.
And during that time also got best places to work, top places to work. Four years in a row. We actually stopped applying three years too busy. And you know, a whole other host of, you know, awards and success. And yeah, it was, it was a great journey. Yeah, that’s so now , , fast forwarding a bit, , you ran that companies into the, , 2000s, very recent or I think 2019, roughly, is , when you exited.
Am I off on that? I mean, roughly? That, that’s correct. Actually, on the 23rd year anniversary to the day was when our deal funded and yep, yep, sold on January 2nd 2019. And then I stayed on. In my role as CEO for another three years, and that completed a 26 year run and I, I call it a marathon, so I equate each year to a mile.
right? Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So I had a marathon run and it was a great journey and , took some time to relax and decompress from that marathon and, mm-hmm, then in 2023 started doing consulting work. There’s a number of different things that I have going on, and then of course, as you mentioned.
My book, which I released the very end of 2023. Yeah, let’s get into the book. Let’s dive into the book. So business kung fu modern strategy, ancient truth your success. , what inspired this? So the big thing is books were my very first passion in life. When, as soon as I could read, I was always reading.
I always had a book in my face. And later on in my teenage years, I knew I wanted to write a book one day just because I was so passionate about books. I didn’t know what, and then fast forward to around 2011, I came up with the idea. Oh, business Kung Fu. Yeah, because I studied Chinese Kung Fu when I was younger from 17 to 25 really intensely.
And I actually took the principles that I learned from studying martial arts and applied it to the company as far as mindset, discipline, even some structural aspects running the company and so forth. And I said, that’s what I need to write about. And that took me 12 years, but I, but I got it done.
I stuck with it. And it’s good because it’s a better book than if I would have , finished it back then and say that year or 2012 or whatever. Yeah, lots of growth after that part. I feel like you added some chapters or some content. It had to be some limit. Nobody, no entrepreneur goes 12 years and doesn’t add some learning.
That’s for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So it’s a lot of lessons that stories from running the company, especially during those growth years and, and then beginning to you know, one of the things I talked about is building a foundation. That’s chapter one. And it’s just filled with a lot of what I refer to as business wisdom that is really geared towards helping entrepreneurs have the proper mindset to overcome challenges that they’ll face on their journey.
And the title, Kung Fu, where does that come from? Are you, do you practice martial arts or anything like that? I was just curious sometimes. I still do actually. So yeah, based it on studying Chinese Kung Fu from 17 to 25. And my instructor’s instructor actually started his own system right around when I was 21.
And it was like, all encompassing. It just embraced all arts. And but as soon as I started my company, I got, went, like, a thousand percent all in. And I just eventually kind of Faded away. I’m practicing, but I did get back into it a few years ago, and I’m practicing quite a bit these days. I kept it up.
I’m also part of what’s related to martial arts is a practice called Qi Gong. And I’ve been studying Chinese medical qigong for the past 10 years, actually. I’m in a doctorate program right now for Chinese energy medicine that I’ll finish up in August here. And it’s interesting because I incorporate that into my work, my business consulting even.
That’s a whole other, other topic. But yeah, I just had this passion with martial arts and business kung fu. It’s just a natural thing for me to write about because I lived it. It’s actually what I did. It’s not, it’s just not a fancy title. It’s actually my experience. But it still is a fancy title.
It’s an authentic fancy title. I’ll take that. Yes, I’ll take that too. Thank you. So circling back to the book a bit and for everybody listening, just so you know, we’re going to keep it high level today. Don’t worry. We want you to, this is a teaser. I want you to go pick up a copy of this book. You know, we like supporting authors, but keeping it high level there’s five elements of entrepreneurship laid out in the book.
Maybe, maybe go into that a bit. Sure. So the five element model I describe is based on Chinese five element theory, which is really a theory in life that in Chinese culture really permeates across all aspects of life. So music, food, martial arts, medicine, even spiritual systems. And those five elements are fire.
Earth, metal, water, and wood. And it’s all about balancing of those elements and everything. Everyone has a constitution of these elements, and it’s all about maintaining the balance of these elements. So borrowing upon that theory. I identified five elements of success, especially in the world of entrepreneurship, but it really could apply And the, those elements are, I like to, they can start from anywhere, but I like to start with passion. So passion is one. Passion leads to discipline. Discipline leads to expertise. Expertise leads to confidence and confidence leads to faith. And there’s a generative cycle that like say we start with passion as it leads into discipline.
you build the potential, the capacity of these elements and then fulfill it, which then leads to the next element, right? But it could also go in the reverse. If you’re any element starts to diminish, it can then have a negative impact on the prior element and starts to diminish. And then you’re like a downward spiral in a sense.
And then there’s interrelationships between each of the elements. Can have positive and negative impacts just based on the influence of the elements with each other. I’m sure there are many takeaways out of the book that you hope the readers get, , but if there was like one major takeaway that you hope like all the readers walk away with what would that be?
Well, I learned a major lesson in my entrepreneurial journey, and that is to Make yourself a priority. What do I mean by that? I’m talking about prioritizing your own self care. When I started the company, yeah, I was in great shape, you know, from all the martial arts training I was doing and also strength training, just fantastic shape.
Like I mentioned, I was all in, in the company, a thousand percent. I just kind of For sure, everything else just kind of fell. For everything, I just allowed it to fall and You know, sitting all day, just coding, designing and just being all in and fast forward 10 years later I said the opposite end of the spectrum just overweighed out of shape and I just lost my my health and Then fast forward another Five years or so.
I really start feeling it Yeah as soon as I like in my 40s and I Remember 42 I was like I got to do something about this and so I started kind of gradually , trying to supplement and then do a little exercise here and there. I was fortunate enough to come across a Qigong practitioner named Russ Anderson, great guy, in 2014 that really helped me get back to centered and balanced, like emotionally, mentally from all the stress of running , that we’re growing on the E5000 list at that time, right?
Yeah. So that’s one aspect. But then also a couple of years later, I learned that I was diagnosed with diabetes. And I was like, Oh man, this is, this is bad. I got to turn this around. So yeah, yeah. But I’m happy to report today. I have reversed it completely. 100 percent naturally without any drugs whatsoever.
Just through a combination of self care. So there’s the physical self care, your physical health. There’s your mental, emotional health, even , your spiritual walk. It’s all important. And I have a saying in my book. Be of service to self so you can be of service to others for a lifetime. What I’ve, yeah, what I’ve found myself.
Was that I was burned out. I was really tired in the afternoon. I’d get home. I eat dinner. Then normally I would keep working, but I would find myself crashing, passing out on the couch for like two hours that would never happened before. But once I got that diagnosis of diabetes, it all makes sense. Foggy brain being tired out of energy, et cetera, et cetera.
And what good is that? You’re not able to perform at an optimal level, right? So that’s the big thing. Even though it seems like you gotta go, go, go, go, which you do, especially duty calls, you gotta, you know, do what you gotta do. But you really need to, yeah, you need to prioritize your self care. You just gotta make the time for it.
With me, what I decided to do, because again, this is like during a period of when we’re on the E 5000 and then also making a decision to sell the company, So there’s a whole bunch of additional work on top of that to keep things profitable and trying to get the company sold. Yeah, I said, all right, the only way I’m going to make this work is I got to just get up early.
So I started waking up at 4. 20 a. m. And that’s when I started prioritizing me, you know, myself there, because once 7 a. m. rolled around is just crazy, right? , between clients and employees and vendors and, , all the things that you gotta do. And you know, that’s what I did. I turned around.
I feel great. I feel like I did it in my 20s again. And I can be of service to others. For as long as I want plenty of energy and I can be of service to others for, for a lifetime Man, that’s a, great story. And in, I can’t wait to, I haven’t read the book yet, but I plan on.
So that being said. Craig, if somebody wants to follow up, they want to learn more, they want to pick up the book, and also maybe dig into what you’re doing on the consulting side as well, which we didn’t have enough time to go on in today’s episode, but for C Squared professional consulting as well how do people follow up?
How do they connect with you? Sure. So, two best ways to connect with me is, one, LinkedIn, obviously, because everyone’s on LinkedIn. It’s super simple, linkedin. com slash n slash Craig Cook, and that’s an e at the end of Cook. Also on my website, csquaredpro. io, so the letter c squared pro dot i o. People can go visit there fill out the form.
I, monitor it daily, so I will respond. Also, my first chapter of my book is available for free as a download on my website as well. And then it is available for purchase, hardcover, paperback, and Kindle on Amazon. com. I plan on releasing it through other channels hopefully soon, working on that. But as of today, it’s on Amazon.
Yeah, , always another thing to do. I’m not worried about that. And to the audience, we’ll we’ll put all that information in the show notes, just so you know, so you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet, check it out.
Hit that subscribe button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re putting out new content and new episodes, and we don’t want you to miss a thing. Craig again, man, it was great having you on the show. I’m glad we could finally get together and do this and wishing you much more continued success.
No, thank you, Adam. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.