Jon Kelly and I put together something pretty radical for the Think Tank.

I know folks at Internet business events come because they want to connect and have fun. They usually learn more from each other than they do from speakers. That’s why I had this event in the first place. No Speakers!

What better way to get to know your fellow attendees, than by throwing each other around?

This is actually going to be very safe and controlled, because Shawn Tompkins is considered by many in the know to be the greatest fight trainer alive. Randy Couture, the five time world champion in Mixed Martial Arts (Ultimate Fighting), uses Shawn as his trainer. Shawn also trains many of the other top competitive martial artists in the world, and has been the coach of many world champions.

Shawn is probably the top professional fight trainer in the world, and SureHits is paying for him to train us. Jon is really into athletics and wanted to help me pull this off. For those who don’t know, SureHits is an affiliate company that gives webmasters like us adds to run on our sites to get our users to insurance and mortgage companies. Both Jon, and his company SureHits have an amazingly good reputation in this industry as an affiliate company to work with.

I know most of internet business guys are pretty out of shape, although some of the Think Tankers are quite good athletes, Jon Kelly included. I love martial arts, studied a little in the past, and am really looking forward to Shawn Training us.

I am going out to Vegas next week for Defcon, anyone else going? and will stop by the Couture gym to meet up with a few people, and possibly train.

Shawn will be going over practical methods of self defense that are actually usable for beginners, and if we have any experts in our crowd, Shawn will customize a bit of training for them personally.

I know from my own experiences as a professional skimboarder and expert swim coach, that often you can correct a certain guy on one thing, and then suddenly their ability increases dramatically.

Shawn is also an amazingly great guy. When Jeremy Schoemaker first hooked me up with the Couture camp, I expected them to be a bunch of arrogant tough guys. In reality they are a bunch of the warmest sweetest people I have ever met, no kidding! They do change a bit when they get in the ring! Ha Ha!

We had a blast today at Comic Con. Lived in San Diego almost 20 years, and have never gone. As many of you know, I use a lot of cartoons in my marketing so this was right up my alley.

Most of it was focused on Space Aliens and super heroes.

In a place like this, you have to keep an eye on your hot wife, since everyone else is too.

Jo enjoyed it a lot too.

You get to run into lots of random cartoon characters brought to life,

But also random uber-hot undead cheerleaders.

One of the main reasons i went there was to find Dean Yeagle, famous Playboy cartoonist for a project that we are working on.

Initially, the only Playboy cartoonist we could find was Doug Sneyd, who has been cartooning for playboy magazines for around 40 years!

Ya gotta love his work!

He was nice enough to do a little sketch of Jo.

He was amazingly full of the joy of life! Can you imagine 40 years of taking the hottest girls in the world, and having to carefully study them and turn them into cartoons?

Then I found Dean. He is famous for his cartoon Mandy. Dean told me that until the head brass made them take her down, she was painted on many vehicles and planes in Iraq. You can see Mandy in the background with the blonde hair. The drawing I am holding is the girl that the poker tournament graphic will be based on this year. Dean is going to make us something very special!

Here is the new poker girl in closeup from a print we got to hang at home.

Here is another drawing that is also going up.

Dean’s works have all been copyrighted, so please don’t copy these images.

They have a wonderful place called Artists Alley. You can find amazing artists, many of whom have not become fully appreciated yet, meaning their work is very affordable.

Because of the small format, a lot of these sites don’t do justice to the artists.

Alain Viesca  does lots of women, and fantasy stuff. It is just breathtaking to see these in large format prints.

Stephen Silver is much more polished at promoting himself, and has had good commercial success. He has some great characters. He also keeps a blog of his cartoon work.

Molly is from Santa Barbara and does really light fun characters.  You can even buy these high fashion t-shirts with her characters on them.

There was a fascinating guy by the name of Todd Klein, not a relation that I know of, who does lettering for comic books and has for decades. One never thinks about it until you sit there and look at his work. In a world of fonts it is amazing to see someone who creates fonts from his mind, and does these amazing hand written styles of lettering.

One of our final places we stopped at was the booth of Travis Hanson. The first thing you notice about Travis is himself. He just glows. You can tell from the second you talk to him that he is a hard working, friendly, good guy. In a place like Comic Con, the majority of the work involved demons and devils, and the lighter funner work was naked women. Travis does incredibly detailed works that focus on the creativity and inspiration that live inside of us. Looking at his work just makes one happy!

Wordcamp San Francisco registration just opened!

Don’t get confused, this site you are on is about The ThinkTank in Del Mar in September, but this post is about WordCamp San Francisco.

Word Camp rocks!!!

Word Camp is a wayyy super casual event for Word Press users.

Where else can you hang out with Matt Cutts for a half hour eating lunch, and only two or three other people in the room even know who he is! (Sorry Matt if you are going this year!)

(Matt said no one ever noticed him in public. I wonder when that will change ;))

A huge percentage of us run our sites, and or our blogs off of WordPress.

At Word Camp you have unbelievable access to Matt Mullenweg,

lead founder and developer of Word Camp.

You also can chat with Donncha (you never respond to my e-mails! :)),

an amazing guy in person, who also is one of the founding developers, as well as the rest of the technical crew.

Matt has put together a group of the absolute nicest, goodest (yes I know not really a word) , and most brilliant people and I predict they will all be there!

The cost to get in is a staggering $20, and I predict it will include lunch. The San Fran version of Word Camp is where Matt Mullenweg lives, and many cool Internet folks also live.

Last year they had a page that linked to everyone who signed up, which is where I got the idea to do that for the poker tournament, and the ThinkTank.

Last year we had everyone from Matt Cutts to a guy who was thinking about maybe getting a website soon, as well as a cast of about 200 others.

It will be the weekend before SES San Jose, and I highly recommend it!

If nothing else you can come, find me, and we can do something fun while other people are speaking!

I’m a little worried because this year it sounds like it is going to be in a nice place. But I am sure with the surely wordpress crowd, the place will feel like home in no time!

Go To Wordcamp!

By the way, if you are wondering what the ThinkTank is, you can read about it here.

If you are looking for something cryptic and angry, go here.

dk

(The $999 slots sold out. There are now a few at $1099,

Full Price is $2,499)

I am excited that you are reading about ThinkTank2008
It is me, dk, the guy who threw the poker tournament.

What you are about to read is going to rock!
ThinkTank 2008 will be in Del Mar California on September 26th, 27th, and 28th.
There will be no formal speakers, but just guys and gals getting together to help each other learn, grow, problem solve, network and succeed. (While hanging out by the pool, at the restaurants and bars, and by the beach!)
There will be great food and drinks, and a wayyy super casual atmosphere by the beach.

It is an invite only event, and the invites will be going out today. I really want quality, nice people at this thing who are willing to open up, network and help each other. We already have some top guys and gals signed up. If you did not get an invite, but feel you belong, just send me an e-mail letting me know who you are!

I apologize if anyone does not get the chance to register. There are a limited number of slots available. There are some very discounted slots available for the early signer-upers. Some people who know me found the site and already signed up.

The hotel is super nice, they just spent ba-jillions on its renovations.

The different locales of the event are a few minutes walk from each other, and they are all right near the beach.

Details about what the ThinkTank2008 is Here

Hotel info is here.

Info about getting invited and registering is here.

After you register for the Think Tank, then send me an e-mail and I will give you the most recent information on the hotel costs, and the best way at the time to reserve the room.

My e-mail is dk (the funny at sign) purposeinc.com

If you contact me, I may or may not be able to point you to a much, much lower rate.

This is going to be fun!

dk

The hotel sent over the contract for me to sign securing the first block of rooms. There were a few surprises in it previously undisclosed.

I pride myself in being very “open source” and “transparent” in all of my activities, so did not enjoy being surprised. (But boy can I keep a secret! )
It may still take me a few days to beat out the details on the agreement before I sign it.

There is no question of the rooms as they are all available for everyone as we speak at $380.00 per night plus taxes. It is simply that I am fighting to get everyone a $280.00 per night rate. I predict the hotel will eventually sell out, but at this moment there are plenty of rooms for our ThinkTankers!

The event itself will most likely not be taking place at the hotel, but in some cool places within a two minute walk of the hotel. These venues are being organized and negotiated as we speak. I have some very good options available! It should be quite fun!

Randy Couture, his family, and pro M.M.A. fighters raise money for disabled American Veterans with a little help from Shoemoney and Purposeinc. A story in pictures.

Shoemoney, Friday morning. This is a typical reaction to my driving.

We spent the day at Randy Coutures Gym for Mixed Martial Arts.

This place was seriously for training. Note above “By the Shake Machine”

We met with Ryan Couture, Randy’s son. Also are Jeremy’s new Fighters.com shirts. They are actually red, and look cool, but show up orange in some of my photos.

This is Gina Carano fighting. She also is Crush on American Gladiators. She was lighthearted, funny, bad ass and hot all at the same time. The pros train there from 4 to 6 each day. Ryan and Randy were gracious enough to let us sneak in. You can also watch the training each day online for a fee.

Gina going to town. She was only training with guys by the way, and they did not seem to be pulling any punches.

This is Mike Whitehead in the middle of training. He trained hard. At first glance like myself he looks like a big, mean guy. Once you get to know him, he is really nice, and fun.

Here is one of the gloves they use. You will notice there is a little padding but not much. Jeremy says that when they have tested these, the force of a punch is about the same as if you had no gloves on at all.

Friday night, my wife Jo (Jorunn) and I, went to Mainland, a new restaurant in the Palazzo hotel and casino by the Venetian. Mainland was unreal, a good bargain, and has a picture of Mao and Elvis as their main graphic.

Pad Thai, I wish I had some now.

Saturday morning Randy Couture had the 5K to raise money for his charity, the Xtreme Couture GI Foundation. Shoemoney and I posed with a group of Marines there to run the event.

Here is Randy with everyone ready to start the race.

This is Randy, his pretty wife Kim (Sugar Free) Couture (also an MMA fighter) and some of the guys who have gone face to face with I.E.D.’s and other Middle Eastern Explosives. Notice the artificial running legs. These were way cool!, and Randy’s charity buys these for some of the guys.

The U.S. Marines had a color guard. The played the national anthem. As they played the national anthem with me and Shoemoney standing by Randy, and the disabled Veterans, I really felt a sense of responsibility as an American to help take care of these individuals who had sacrificed so much for America.

Randy was so surprisingly sweet and nice it would have blown you away. He is not that huge of a guy, but simply a brilliant and able fighter. His eyes just glowed and he exuded warmth and took time to talk to anyone who walked up to him. Having someone like this at the pinnacle of such a sport serves as an incredible role model for millions, of warmth, generosity, and patience. I was really moved by Mr. Randy Couture.

Randy Couture and me! As a kid I studied a few types of martial arts. The argument was always there as to which martial art is best, Kung Fu, Thai Kwon Do, Kempo, Shotokan, or one of the others. The fascinating thing about Ultimate Fighting, or MMA, is that it sorts this out. You feel very safe when standing next to the best fighter in the world.

When the race started the marines took off running in cadence, which means that they have a Marine chant that they sing as they run.

Here is Shoemoney with Randy Couture. I was real happy to be part of that moment, because I know how much Jeremy loves M.M.A.

These were two of the veterans coming across the finish. The one guy obviously is running on one of the cool racing legs. The other guy lost both of his eyes doing what he believed in. It really brings to mind how committed is one to the things he believes in. How much are you willing to sacrifice for what you believe in?

Here is Kim Couture and Mike Whitehead finishing the race. By this point it was probably coming up on 100 degrees.

Here come the Marines at the end of the run. Randy stood right out there in the heat, smiling and taking pictures through the whole run.

Here is Mr. Jeremy Schoemaker and Kim Couture.

This was awesome. This guy came up to Shoemoney and said that he was a reader of Shoe’s blog.

This is Douglas Charlie Fenton. He has been blown up by I.E.D.s (those improvised bombs) three different times. If you ever find yourself giving up after a little adversity, just think of him. Can you imagine after having two of those things blow up on you still sticking with it and going out to do your job again?

Jeremy (Shoemoney) was the major sponsor of the run, so they put the new fighters.com logo on all of the bottles.

I asked Kim if she would put on a Fighters.com t-shirt for a photo. She happily agreed. Then afterwards I asked if she wanted to keep it. She said “Of Course!”

I then asked Kim Couture if she would get me in a Choke Hold for a photo. It looks cute and funny, but I could feel the pressure, and there is no way that I could have gotten out of it.

I just think this picture is adorable. Jeremy puts out an image of being kind of tough and edgy. There is also what I consider the real him underneath, and I think this picture really captures it.

Just a dam fun photo.

Mike was just the coolest guy. When you saw him fight he looked bad ass as all hell. As soon as he was off the mat he was all smiles and jokes. Right after this picture I asked Mike if he would take off his shirt and trade with me so we could get a fighters.com shirt on him for a photo. He didn’t even hesitate, and just ripped off his shirt. I did too, but I think Mike looked more impressive.

This is Mike Whitehead with Shawn Tompkins Bulldog. Shawn, not in the picture, is Randy Couture’s trainer.

From left to right we have Kim Couture, then Ryan Couture’s girlfriend who was so cute i could barely stand it, then Ryan Couture, then Valerie who handles scheduling and business matters for Randy who was also drop dead beautiful. Randy surrounded himself with gorgeous women working with him.

More importantly each and every one of them were as sweet as can be including Randy, his kid, and Shawn who i never got a photo of. I honestly expected a little bravado and tough guy fronts from their group.

I personally have interviewed thousands of people over the past 20 years, and consider myself and expert on judging and choosing staff. Randy has hand picked a group of the nicest, warmest people I have ever met. In fact the ONLY other place I have ever seen such a concentration of sweet people is my chiropractic office.

Randy Couture with me in a rear naked choke. What can I say about this one?

They had a raffle and after the first few prizes were won, I looked over at Jeremy and said “You will win the next one!” He didn’t, but he won the prize after that. Jeremy won a t-shirt with a bunch of the top pros signatures on it. The next prize was the same thing, and I won!

This nice woman looked at me and said with a sad look in her eyes, “You won my prize! I wanted to win that!” I almost felt guilty enough to give it to her. I am glad I didn’t because of what happened next.

The same woman then won the next two prizes in a row! First she won a signed lithograph or poster of Randy. Then on the next drawing she won a ONE HOUR TRAINING SESSION WITH RANDY!!!! Then I was jealous of her.

As we left the event Jeremy whipped out his Airbook. He has a way cool, I am going to buy one this week, Sprint internet card. You can see it hanging off the back right part of his computer, and resting on the armrest. It looked like a little cord that plugs into the USB and that is it. It was way fast. He then downloaded all of the photos off of my camera and got them onto his blog before I even was back to the hotel!

I went back to the gym and ran into Shawn Tompkins. This guy is Randy Coutures trainer. A formidable fighter himself, he has also trained 10 different national and international champions in different styles. So there were a few things that were pretty crazy about meeting him. First off, again, was this warm smile and truly open heart. You could just feel it. The other thing, and I hate to even mention it because I feel like it is my personal secret, is this. For $150 you can get trained by Shawn. Look, I am in Vegas about 4 plus times per year on business. I usually mostly work, walk around with my wife, eat, and go swimming. From now on when I go to Vegas I am going to call Shawn.

For the price of what you will lose in Las Vegas at the lowest limit table at the Mirage in 30 minutes, you can get trained by someone who is arguably the best fight trainer in the world. I am so pumped about this, that I might just need to take another trip out there soon to take advantage of this.

You may have seen this fight on pay per view. They charged 25 cents and we had 2 viewers.

Just standing in that ring bouncing up and down makes you feel like you want to fight someone. I am sure if someone had just tapped my nose, I would have ended up crying and getting the Lysol and gloves by the shake machine.

My wife and Shoemoney at the Wynn hotel. I always think it is kind of funny when my real life world and the cyber world intersect. Usually it is my wife sitting on the couch while I tell her about this or that that Shoe or Matt Cutts said.

Just a cool picture.

Thanks for looking at all of this.

To the whole Couture family, Love you guys! Thanks for being such gracious hosts!

Readers, Please leave a comment so I can hear what you thought!

Internet Marketing can take you places.

Places you never dreamed of.

Most of what I have done has been to do well in Google, so I have followed the Google Sensei Matt.

He has led me on the path of do first, write what you do, then others may link to you.

As a result of this, I try to do things, especially things that help others, even if only to make them happy.

My other teachers like the old Chinese Monks in the Temple, Stefan Juhl, the Mad Hat, Mr. Shoe, Pamelund, and others have taught me other ways to view the same elephant.

The poker tournament is coming up in November at Pubcon. Today was crazy with all the e-mails going back and forth with the Venetian hotel, dealing with everything from Security to what I can do for the sponsors, to how we can get enough food and drinks for the players and guests.

This weekend, for reasons I can not yet disclose, I am going to Vegas to meet up Mr. Shoe himself.

The destination?

On Friday Jeremy and I are going to the Xtreme Couture Mixed Martial Arts Gym to meet with Ryan Couture the son of Randy Couture. Randy is the 5X world champion in mixed martial arts. He has been the world champ in two classes.

Jeremy is the main sponsor of their charity 5K run to raise money for American Veterans who have been severely injured. I am not a huge fan of any war, but as an American, and a friend to many warriors (meaning Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Air Force guys), I take responsibility for the actions of our country even if I don’t agree with those actions 100%.

I am very proud to help support Randy’s charity, which is doing some real good, for some guys who gave it all for us, and are now being asked to give it all every day for the rest of their lives as a result of what they lost.

On Saturday during the run, Jeremy and I are scheduled to meet with Randy Couture, 5 time Heavyweight Mixed Martial Arts Champion of the world.

So here I sit, writing my blog, tomorrow night I pack, and then on Thursday night I am off to Vegas, to meet up with Jeremy (Shoemoney) Schoemaker, and Randy Couture, the heavyweight champ.

This Internet Marketing Stuff really can take you places, huh?

Much Love

dk

Over the past 6 months I have run into this really nice guy by the name of Scott Skinger.

First he was in the poker tournament. Here he is seated between Dan Perry, the guy who won, and some other bald guy wearing sun glasses. He blogs on mountany stuff and also has a site that does computer stuff video training.

Then I ran into him again at the Elite Retreat.

Scott is the one with the red arrow pointing toward his head.

By the way, that was one heck of a dinner with one heck of a group of people. The amount of brilliance at the table that night was amazing.

So anyways, Scott is this really nice guy who I keep bumping into. There are many people like this we all meet. Great guy, but I can’t remember exactly what he does. You remember he is polite, considerate, warm, which are all the basics, but it is not enough to really seal the deal in business.

So what does it take?

It takes Brownies!!

Yesterday I am at my chiropractic office. Usually my chiropractic office and my Internet businesses do not intersect very often. But I am standing at work, right after treating a patient, and one of my staff walks over and goes “Who is Scott Skinger”?? I think for a moment, Scott? Scott? Oh yeh! They nice guy from the poker tournament and the Elite Retreat.

I ask her why?

She says, he sent you brownies!

My ears perk up, and curiosity sets in.

Sitting in front of me is a box of brownies. They had a nice personal note with them thanking me for having dinner with him, and how nice it was to meet me and my wife.

There is no sales pitch in the note. No asking for anything. In fact I had to Google Scott to even see what his sites were.

So my wife and I have eaten two of the brownies, and the rest are in the freezer to be consumed slowly over time.

Scott got my attention. I already knew and liked him, but now with the brownies I will never forget him for the rest of my life.

As a result of Scott being a great guy and getting my attention he got this article written about him.

So what is the lesson in this. Do something nice. Send someone some fricken brownies for gosh sake, knit them a hat, especially someone with a blog, and see what happens? Just ask yourself, unless you are Jeremy, who gets more free crap than anyone else in the universe , how often does someone send you a nice thank you?

You can’t pay for links or you will get busted by Google right? But no one can ever stop you from being nice. All of the cool links I have ever gotten were simply by doing nice stuff for people. I have had cartoons drawn of people, had a poker tournament, brought burritos and chiropractic to firefighters etc. etc. Just do nice stuff for people with websites, and see what happens!

We have been working with Randy Couture’s organization, Xtreme Couture GI Foundation to try to come up with something special for a project coming up. If you don’t know who he is, Randy is the 5 time world champ in mixed martial arts.

In talking to Randy’s son, I found out about the 5K charity run they are having in Vegas weekend after the one coming up.

The money from Randy’s charity goes to help American troops who have suffered massive losses. Examples of this would be guys who lost their arms or legs, and are on their way to becoming homeless.

If you want to mention it on your blog, I am sure Randy will be very appreciative.

Stay tuned to this blog for something exciting to be announced in the next few weeks!