Adam Torres and Shelene Hearring discuss martial arts.
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Show Notes:
How does discipline and adaptability contribute to high-performing leadership? In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Shelene Hearring, CEO, Head Instructor at Two Dragons Martial Arts Studio, explore entrepreneurship and Two Dragons Martial Arts Studio.
About Two Dragons Martial Arts Studio
Two Dragons believes that Martial Arts training serves as a foundation for developing students’ character, judgment, and sensitivity. Through this training, students are expected to become self-disciplined, demonstrate leadership, and express creativity across all areas of instruction. They will also develop strong problem-solving abilities, excel in social interactions, and embody the qualities of model citizens who uphold integrity and respect for others.
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 in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, today my guest is Shaleen Herring, and she’s CEO and head instructor over at two Dragons Marshall Arts Studio.
Shalene, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me. Oh, so happy to have you. And I’ll tell you, when I saw today’s topic, how leaders can thrive through adversity and and uncertainty, and then I saw your profession, I’m like, oh, we’re in for some fun today. I I gotta learn some stuff from Shalene.
This is awesome. I guess just to get us kicked. Off here. Pun intended. See what I did there? Shill. I had to at least one my law one heard. That was good. Come on. At least one. Whatever. Yeah, it’s allowed. I guess just to get us, just to get us started here, two Dragons Martial arts studio. how’d you get into Bar Arts and how’d you get into this business originally?
Where’d all that start for you? Wow. That’s a journey I’ve been in for over 50 years now. And so when I initially started, I was looking for a way to defend myself. Wow. And I didn’t have any clue that I was going to have a life journey with it. It was just more of something that I wanted to do as part of my things that I needed to do in life.
And it ended up being a life journey because once I joined and found out it was more than a kick and a punch, then I met and I married my late husband and. Years progressed, then we had the business going and the rest is history to, to this day I’m still doing it, so. Wow. Yeah. What an amazing story.
And where, where is it located by the way? Well, it was located in Altadena, California. Hmm. And unfortunately, the wildfires destroyed home and business for me. Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Hmm. Yeah. So right now we’re in the temporary location. We’re pulling it back together. Mm-hmm. I have, just kind of navigating through new territories, trying to figure out how, what does the future look like for us and where we’re going to be.
Mm-hmm. There was a lot of destruction in the wildfires in Altadena, and pretty much the town was taken out. Hmm. So I think this is just a great topic today. When we talk about resiliency, when we talk about overcoming setbacks. Like what keeps you strong? What keeps you strong through the journey?
You know there’s so many things that keep me strong, but things that stand out for me is my faith. Mm-hmm. And my martial arts. The journey that I’ve had over these last 50 years in martial arts has taken me to a place to understand that life will bring the ups and downs, but when they hit. We dig deep.
We find that that resilience that we need, we find that determination. We find that perseverance. Mm-hmm. All those characters on the journey to black belt that we work on daily as a martial artist, those are the things that kick in and they take over and they help you get through it. Hmm. Talk to me about discipline.
Like I think that’s something that we don’t talk about too often outside of sports or some, or things like martial arts, like discipline and like why, or even entrepreneurship, sometimes entrepreneurs, a lot of entrepreneurship content out there that’s about discipline. But like, talk to me about discipline and what that means to you.
You know, discipline is a journey. People think it’s something that you just do. One time or a couple of times. But I believe in my life story this discipline is something that you are on a journey. Sometimes you’re really good at it, sometimes you’re not so good. But I think discipline comes from constantly doing a thing and practicing that thing over and over.
You get good at it. Mm-hmm. And it may be something hard that you have to do, but. You have the discipline to keep at it. you wake up the next day and you do it again, and you do it again. And that constant practice is what it takes. That’s what I tell people about being a podcaster. I said, you wake up, you do it again, you do it again.
You gotta get another interview in there. You gotta get another rep. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, I tell my students at the end of every class, you know, they, it is like, what is your key to success? Mm-hmm. Your key to success is constant practice. Mm-hmm. Until you get it, and we say till it’s perfect, but perfect is whatever that is at the time.
Yeah. What do you find, I mean, you’ve worked with a lot of students through the years, I’m sure. What do you find are some of the key traits or things that separate, let’s say, the people that are, you know, on their way to being champions or champions to the rest of the crowd? Because you, I’m just so curious, ’cause to see the world through your eyes, you know, you, you see different things.
What, what do you think are some of those differences? Being able to persevere. I think that’s the difference. There’s some that come and they are coming just for the moment, and there’s some that come to go all the way and mm-hmm to go to the end and, and reach the success of getting to whatever goals they have that whether it be black belt, blue built, whatever, color built level.
But martial arts is a way of life. Working out, being physically active is a way of life. Mm-hmm. And those are things that don’t just you don’t just do for a period of time. You do it for the rest of your life. Mm-hmm. You know, that, that’s what keeps the spirit, the mind, the body and the physical aspects of it together.
It’s all one, it’s all connected. So. If you can get that understanding and know that whether you’re doing martial arts or whether you are running, walking, or whether you are even running our businesses, if we persevere, then we can do all those things. And it may not be in like what you planned, you might have to redirect, you might have to reinvent like I’m doing right now.
Mm-hmm. My, my life journey, I. I’m reinventing what it is that I used to do and changing it to fit what needs to be the best thing for me right now. Hmm. Wow. that’s pretty inspiring. Like when I think about it, because obviously you weren’t expecting some of these things to happen, like nobody was.
Right. Like that’s probably the last thing we thought was gonna happen, right? Like Right, definitely. and so most of my community was people who lived in the area. Mm-hmm. And so they all, it’s a collaborative mass sense of loss and destruction. Mm-hmm. And everyone’s trying to get back up and It’s, I think, important to have people come together as they do it because, what is it? I’m, what am I trying to say? Souls and spirits work and they inspire each other. Hmm. Rise. And so that’s an important factor in business. I think in terms of our team that we were working with, everybody’s displaced. Coming together for the good of everybody is the cause that we’re working on right now.
And so the, the reason that I said we needed a space and a place to do it in which we have a temporary space right now is because. I realize that it’s not just the kids. I have adults and kids in my program, and it’s mostly youth, and it’s not just the kids, it’s the adults, it’s the parents. They need to know that there’s something that can bring that, that unraveling of the community, the sense of place and space.
They need something to say that some place to go, someone to talk to, some way to live their life that seems familiar in a way. Mm-hmm. That’s comforting and that they can appreciate that this is life and it will continue despite anything that comes un, un unfolds Before you. Yeah, that’s well said.
That’s well said. and I think about the faith component of this, how sometimes some things happen and you don’t exactly know why you don’t know how, and then you kind of look back in years to come and you’re like, huh. I guess I can kind of see why that happened and was that I would’ve never thought, and I’m not saying, I’m definitely not trying to project or claim that I know why, you know, all of this happened, but sometimes in my life I look at it, I’m like, wow, I didn’t, I didn’t think at that time that was a very good thing.
But now it’s like some of the best things that happened to me are that I didn’t get what I wanted, like in some saved. Yeah, I think about that. Like god knows what he’s doing. It’s cool. That can be a whiny little brat sometimes. Whatever. I know I’m whatever. But you know, you, you are right. You, you’re so right Adam.
And what is that saying? I think my mom used to say, bad things happen to good people too. So when you see that bad thing and you, you say, oh wow, what did I do? Or Why me? Or that kind of a thing. That can take you down. And, and it can make you, it hard for you to try to get a grip to get back up. But I think in my mind it’s like, oh, there’s a message here.
I need to listen. Mm-hmm. I need to dig deep inside and go to my faith to understand what is it. ’cause I feel like God speaks to me all the time. And sometimes I’m that stubborn person that’s not listening. ’cause I got it. I, I, I have a plan and I’m trying to work my plan. Mm-hmm. And then sometimes. I just have to breathe and understand that you know it’s gonna be okay, and that we have to understand that we’re not alone and that there’s something bigger than us.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I’m blessed and grateful for all those things that come because of it. Because I, think I get up, I’m, I’m grateful, I’m thankful. And that puts another perspective. ’cause the perspective could go ugly. But I try to stay in the perspective of, oh no, this is for a reason. I’m gonna be better.
You know, diamonds go through a lot to be a beautiful diamond. I gotta go through some things to get to some things. And it’s gonna be okay. Yeah, I think that’s a good way to end it. I gotta go through some things to get to some things I get. I get it. I like it. Celine, how do people connect with you?
How do they get involved? If there’s any type of effort for people to support in the rebuilding or otherwise, like how do people connect? The best place to connect is in our website. Mm-hmm. Two dragons ma.com. That’s T-W-O-D-R-A-G-O-N-S-M a.com. On our website, we have online classes and we have in-person classes, and we are, we have a GoFundMe.
Where we have been having good success with people supporting us and sending us things unbelievable. Human compassion has come out of all of this. The good in people has shown so brightly in my life right now. Mm-hmm. It’s amazing and I’m, I’m grateful and I’m thankful. So if you get on our website, you’ll see all the different places that you can support us and help us and stay tuned ‘ cause we’re rising.
Wonderful. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll definitely put those links in the show notes so you can just click on the link and head right on over and support and speaking to the audience. If this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and shalene, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you, Adam. You take care and have a wonderful day.