Internet Events, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing and SEO

After work tonight, deuces and I decided to go surfing. I had heard there was phosphorescence, which is when there is a certain type of algae, that lights up when disturbed. It is very rare, and only happens every year or two. A few years ago, Jo and I had gone to see it in the evening, and watched the waves break with little bits of light, almost a sparkle. It has to be very dark to see it.

Well, tonight it wasn’t as dark. In fact the only reason we could go night surfing is that the La Jolla Shores Hotel has bright lights, which light up the surf enough, that you can go surfing if it is not too big. The down side is that you can not see the wave until is it about 4 feet away. A few times tonight, we were talking and got slammed by a surprise random wave.

We parked my truck, easy to get good parking since it was night!, and walked to the water. It was a lovely night, a little overcast, and fairly cold. With this years Boz wetsuits, (Go Harry!) we were toasty warm.  I kid you not, these are THE BEST wetsuits in the world, and very affordable. This years suit, is this new super amazing Japanese fabric, which literally feels like you are wearing pajamas, and lets in almost no water. I can duck dive, and it feels like a dry suit.

Well Deuces and I were in up to about our stomachs, and I hear her scream, I look down and scream myself! What I see is that as our legs are moving through the water, it looks like someone has a blue flashlight, and is shining all around them under water. Fricking blew my mind. We start splashing, and laughing, and gushing surprise. She jumps on her board and starts paddling.

Every arm stroke made a splash of this dramatic blue color. I have a picture on this blog, that was taken by Ana Phelps on a different night, which actually shows the color when a wave broke. This is not a touched up photo, this is the actual color and brightness. It was just mind blowing. The trail behind Deuces that she left as she paddled, was a dance of blue light.

I spread my fingers and drug them through the water, and behind each finger was a train of blue light, as if I was finger painting with light.

It was so extreme that I commented that no one was going to believe us, and that if you saw the same thing in a movie, you would think it was bad special effects since it was so extreme. In all the decades I have gone in the ocean I have never seen anything like it.

It was one of the most lovely things I have ever seen in nature in my entire life. Just breathtaking, and I am sure a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Thanks Deuces

So today I was going to stop by Mike Koenigs (huge name in info marketing) and Vivian Glyck’s house to sign an agreement.

I just am getting to know Mike, and I had never met Vivian, but have been trying to promote her charity.

I arrive at their house, in a very lovely suburban neighborhood of San Diego, not far from my house.

I pull up with that, “want to make a great first impression” kind of feeling. I even made sure I had on a fairly new t-shirt,

shaved, brushed teeth, all that fancy stuff.

Vivian thought I was going to drop a document in her mailbox, and I thought that she had left it for me waiting in the mailbox to sign.

So I arrive at the house, grab an envelope out of the mailbox, and head back to my car to get a pen, tearing the envelope open as I walk.

Just as I have ripped open the envelope, Vivan opens the door, and says hello. I turn around, and walk back, holding the contents of the envelope in my hand, and say “hello!”

I then realize, that I am not holding the document I expected, but instead a check for $1800 that is not made out to me. Ooops. Awkward.

I then greet Vivian and say, ha, ha, ha, I just accidentally took this out of your mailbox! ha, ha, ha….ha

Nothing like meeting someone for the first time while stealing checks out of their mailbox.

Great way to make a good first impression.

Of course she was cool with it, and after hitting me with the envelope, we sat and had a good laugh and a two hour talk!

It is really cool hearing the behind the scenes of Mike’s life. He is doing some of the biggest numbers, and possibly THE biggest numbers in info marketing. I loved hearing how he runs his empire, and his plans for the future.

Also, Vivians very excellent group to help Africa is having its fundraiser this Thursday. Should be great.

I sent this out as an email earlier today, 10/4/11 and the spam filters just gobbled it up,

so I am putting it out here and on facebook so peeps can find it.

I just can’t recomend this guys stuff highly enough.

I aint making a dime off of promoting this either, I just want people to hear what Jon is

doing and buy his training if you think it has the value I do.

I started on the training already myself.

==========

Tomorrow will be one of the webinars people will talk about for months.
If you trust me, go register for it. If you don’t read the rest of this email.

Register here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/695371470
A few months ago, the day Andy was closing his Video Boss program (A rock star training by the way), I was at Andy’s house watching from behind the scenes, and besides they had a killer spread of food, plus ocean views. As a professional networker (or netstalker as Dan Ryan likes to call me), I was in heaven.

Andy was live all day, and one by one some of the biggest names in the info marketing world wandered in to give testimonials.

So I know everyone walking in the door is a player, and I should get to meet them. This is where I first met Joe Polish and Filsaime as well.

Then in walks this super buff dude with this super hot girl on his arm, who looks me in the eye and is as confident as I am. I said to myself…hmm….this guy must be somebody.

I asked him his name and he says his name. Doesn’t ring a bell. I asked him if he was here to give a testimonial, and he says no, he is helping Andy with his close.

So my mind is going WTF, helping Any Jenkins with his close? I consider Andy to be one of the absolute best marketers in the world, hands down. To me his first Video Boss promo changed my life forever, just the fricken promo. So if this guy was advising Andy, I wanted to know him.

So Jon and I went upstairs to Andy’s room, and hung out on the couch and talked for some hours. The talk went into the highest protein and fat dinner I’ve ever had at Mortons Steak House, and on and on and on.

Turns out that Jon is possibly the greatest conversion expert in the world. And the boy can close. It turns out that he got involved with Mike Geary and his truth about abs campaign, Jon re-wrote the sales copy, and doubled Mikes conversions. Truth about abs was already the number one selling product on click bank, and DOUBLED the conversion.

Jon currently has two products in the top 10 in clickbank, The Every Other Day Diet, using a Video Sales Letter and selling was recently selling over 2,000 units per day.

He also has this crazy story of a video he did where he talked to Joe Polish, while Joe was onstage, and closed so many people from his video, that there was a line around the room to sign up.

Join us on the webinar tomorrow where we will be talking conversions, sales copy, and bottom line how to get sales, from a guy who the gurus hire to help them.

If for any reason this email was lousy, know that I wrote it and not Jon. LOL

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/695371470

Again, this will not be recorded. These webinars have become legendary, and if you miss it, you lose

Much Love,
dk

This year was a kinder gentler thinktank.

The bar to get in was massively raised, both by what you had accomplished, but also more importantly by who you are as a person, and how you treat others.

Something weird happened at thinktank this year that I wasn’t expecting. It was an amazing time for my own personal growth. Not intended, in fact actually I really try to keep my own personal life out of thinktank, so I can really focus on the attendees. What happened to me was quite amazing, but as they say, What happened at thinktank…….. is covered under an N.D.A.

Nathaniel Broughton rolled in with Brandon Laughridge. The two of them found a lot of interest in their new link building service, spread effect. What I am seeing happening now, from a lot of the insider talk at thinktank, is that large businesses now know they need SEO, and many realize they need links. So while the hidden skills of SEO that many of us have known are becoming much wider known, the need for links is growing. As long as google keeps their algorithm mostly based on how many good links you have, the demand will be endless.

The event started with Mike Salvagio of SEOBrand, one of my great friends, Michael Mindes, and Shamus Brown, BBQ’ing breakfast for all of us. Two kinds of bacon, scrambled eggs, and organic pancakes, all made on a charcoal BBQ. After our tests, we knew it would be good, but it was beyond exceptional.  We got huge raves on the bacon.

Having white peaches with Robert Drysdale in the morning, Sunday on the beach with his wife and baby, this guy who beats the crap out of people, gets hurt regularly, and having him look at my shin, and go, “What happened to your let?”, and me looking down to see two lines of blood and it swollen out about half an inch and about as around as an egg.

Sunday, trying to drop in on Deuces, and she pearls, and her board goes under water, and then pops up with the edge straight into my shin, feeling like my leg got broken, realizing no break, seeing blood running out, knowing that great whites have been spotted lately, and paddling back out into some excellent 3 foot waves in the sunshine at 15th street.

Sunday waking up with a splitting headache, after 3 hours of sleep, and texting deuces that I can’t get up and need to wait till 10 to surf.

Seeing two of my favorite thinktankers doing jiu jitsu on the concrete, on the patio of the Del Mar Motel at 3 am.

It was super exceptional to really connect with Nate Ritter, a fellow San Diegan. I had done a small amount of work with him in the past. Turns out he is a masterful programmer, who is doing some very, very high end work. A lot of the guys really got a lot out of him.

Having everyone laugh at me that I did not know you can not buy alcohol after 2 am in California. Then racing to find my friends something to drink, arriving at 7-11 at 2:00 am and 30 seconds, and the guy not willing to sell me any.

Having a group of Afgani girls sure I was in my mid 30′s. After hearing them talk for a while about what they had been up to, me saying, “I have a sneaking suspicion you guys did not celebrate Ramadan.”

Chris Daigle, and Ryan Deiss really helped thinktank massively with a last minute huge sponsorship. As a result the event was crazily better. Better food, better venues, the fact that we got to hang out at Flavor Del Mar, this super posh bar, with a view of the ocean. We would take it over each afternoon, and do our mastermind sessions to take it to the next level.  Chris and Ryan are providing such amazing stuff at Digital Marketer Lab, It is basically everything they have figured out after selling more stuff online, in so many niches, that it would blow you away.

Now about the afternoon mastermind. After doing this for four years, and after being a trainer and a public speaker now, for much longer than most of my readers have been alive, we really figured out how to make this part of it work.

Dan Ryan and I at Seaside Chiropractic were talking, and I said, do you want to help me figure out how to run the mastermind, business, take it to the next level part. Dan and I talk, for probably 15 minutes, and when we were done came up with what was unquestionably the best thing I have ever seen take place at an internet business event of any type. Without giving away the secret, with the whole group working for two hours one day, and two hours the second day, all but two people in the room had solved their own biggest problem that was preventing them from achieving their goal. Then with the last two people who had not done it yet, we ganged up on them on Sunday and figured out solution.

It was the most generous, efficient, fun, unselfish, non-competitive application of brilliance I have ever seen in a business setting. The reasons it worked were because:

1. Dan and my brilliant format for running it.

2. My experience in working with this group for four years now.

3. The level of brilliance of the group.

4. The massive, successfull experience of the group.

5. The level of generosity and openness of the group.

6. The N.D.A. which gave everyone a safe place to comunicate.

At the beginning of the event, someone who turned out to be one of my favorite attendees, had not read the NDA before arriving. He said he was not going to sign it, and I told him I would refund his money and he could go. We negotiated for a while, got it all handled, and then by the end of the event we are great friends. LOL

I’ve learned on running this event to have very few rules, but if something is important, to be tough as nails in enforcing it. These are incredibly successful tough guys, who haven’t made it where they are by being soft. On the other hand, they are such independent creative creatures, that they excel in an environment with as much freedom as possible. As an example, if we don’t have a schedule, like the first year, then there is a small revolution. On the other hand this year, the sun finally came out on the third day, and about half the attendees were surfing, so instead of bringing them in (I was one of them), and putting them inside in a bar for the next event, I just let everyone surf as long as they wanted. Probably about a third of the things on the schedule never took place, as a result of everyone being so in to what they were doing at the moment.

And the winner of the best surfer of thinktank goes to Jeromy Stallings. He was just  ripping it the first day when we had big waves, with big off the tops, and killer nose rides. If Tyler from Inusionsoft had gotten there the first day, I think he may have given you a run for your money.

More on infusionsoft. First off, thank you so much Tyler Garns for the massive sponsorship from Infusionsoft. Tyler is a killer internet marketer, and business guy, and is currently the head of marketing for infusionsoft. Tyler made thinktank for me, when while we were eating crepes at this cool French Cafe in Del Mar, Tyler says to me, “One of the girls at infuisonsoft ran in to my office after our webinar, and said “Did he really just say Monkey Balls on a webinar?” ROFL

Tyler works a lot with Frank Kern, so is used to a little bit of odd language in a webinar, but I think monkey balls was a first. I also totally dug learning more about Infusionsofts ability to do smart emails. Basically when someone opts in, it sends you an email, and then based on what you do, open or don’t open, click on the link or not, buy or not buy, it then changes what it sends you. All of it is totally programmable in a simple interface. I am trying to get Tyler to do a webinar to show everyone how to do this, since I know about half of the thinktank attendees are allready using Infusionsoft.

Having Mike Koenigs come to thinktank was really bitchen for me. I have been a fan of his for a while, and this was the third time we have hung out together. We are in that getting to be really good friends stage, and the more I get to know about this guy, the more I see he is the real deal. It is amazing to me that even though his info products do close to 10 million in sales sometimes, half of the attendees had never heard of him. Just a great, generous guy.

More memories:

Sadly realizing thinktank is over, realizing it was the best one ever, and that I need to get out of my wetsuit and into real clothes.

Saturday night 9:29 pm standing up on a wave, surfing in the dark, while carrying a tiki torch.

Saturday night 9:25 walking out into the water with a 10 foot board, pitch black, and carrying a lit torch. The water all around me just glowing in the orange light, just breathtaking, with Joe Fier, and Deuces, each carrying a torch and paddling out with me.

I have a bajillion more memories, but have to run now for an appointment.

Thank you all for coming, you guys rocked.

Staff….

You guys know how bad ass each and everyone of you are.

We created something no one had ever heard of, a non-speaker business event in the internet industry, where no one EVER sits around listening to someone talk, with an open bar, phenomenal food, an outdoor setting for most of it, and injuries and adventures, and turned it into what most of the attendees say is teh best business event they have ever been to.

Fajar thank you for handling the boxes, and being there from the beginning.

Cait, you became a real executive this time, and literally did a perfect job. (never yelled at you once

Roseanna, thank you for tolerating thinktank again, and running the business events, so I could be an attendee.

Sara, you have given so much of your life for us, are so incredibly loyal and hard working, and ask for so little in return. I love you.

Deuces, thank you for taking out the bosses trash, and helping with surfing and being such a great friend.

Joel, thank you for sacrificing so much for thinktank, so much. Next thinktank we will put you in protective custody so nothing happens.

And here is to each and every injury of thinktank. It isn’t for nothing you sign the release of liability. Just my own list of injuries,

1. Hit in the jaw while teaching someone to surf. (It should be good by tomorrow, just a little sore LOL)

2. Getting hit in the shin at full force by a board that drew blood, and made a half inch bump, and then went back out surfing even with the great whites we have had around lately.

Oh, and let me thank the great white sharks that have been in our waters lately for not eating us when we went night surfing with the tiki torches. This will become a new thinktank tradition for the last day. So start practicing now, it wasn’t easy to stand up with a burning torch where you could only see 3 feet in front of you coming in on a wave!

Dave and Max, we are bro’s for life. Just can’t thank you guys enough for the friendship and fun.

As you know I have spent the last year diving into the info marketing space. My first product is almost done. (Little does anyone know it, but I did a medium size launch, $180k gross in 2 months, way back before landing pages existed.)

So one of the guys I have been the biggest fans of is Ryan Deis. He is one of the few folks that I stay subscribed to, and have actually purchased his products. Nate Hopkins, my buddy I am working with on my own info product, was Ryan Deis’s roommate back in the day, and worked with Ryan for years.

Ryan’s company consistently releases excellent info products, not just in the internet marketing space, but products you will not have heard of, cause you are not on their other lists.

So with all this info coming in, and releasing more info products than I think any other person or company, Ryan and his team have access to a massive amount of data.

What they have done is put this data into a membership site, where you can sign up, and learn what they just learned.

As we all know what is killing it this week, may not be next week, so you need access to what is working and what is not.

That’s why Ryan sent his number one guy Chris Daigle to thinktank, to keep a finger on the pulse, and meet the newest best guys around.

They are always on the road to keep an eye on what is happeneing.

So now I have been inside their new site, digitalmarketer.com and it is bad ass. There are honestly very few sites that I go to online to watch and learn. I guarantee this will be one of them. Quickly I watched an analysis of how someone has been killing it on Amazon, and getting Amazon to push their products for them. Really solid valuable stuff. They have a 30 day money back guarantee but you won’t need it, it is a no brainer.

And thank you Ryan for the mondo sponsorship of thinktank. Really first class, and from me and entire crew, thank you!

Earlier this week Frank Kern, invited me to go surfing.

I got to his house, waiting for the typical Rolls Royce to arrive to go surfing. No I am not kidding.

While I was waiting, there was another surfer guy hanging out in front of the house as well.

We introduced ourselves to each other, and it turned out to be Tyler, the head of marketing at Infusionsoft.

I had just signed up for Infusionsoft about two weeks ago. Goodbye Constant Contact and my inability to send out an email without a logo on it, and goodbye aweber, who would not just let me add in anyone I wanted to without opt ins.

After talking to Tyler about where we grew up surfing and what not, the conversation turned to what Infusionsoft could do. Turns out it is a hell of a lot more than email marketing.

So Tyler agreed to do a teleconference going over what infusionsoft can do which we will be doing next week hopefully.

Then Tyler says, hey, we could drop $XXXXX dollars for thinktank if you want. Do I want! Me loves me some thinktank, and the more $$ the better the party! So Infusionsoft is now our biggest sponsor of the event, but the others are not too far behind.

In the middle of a jacked up economy where a lot of people are still just plain old out of work, the ability to sponsor an event like ours really shows who is doing a good job, and still rolling in the dollars.

And yes, Frank rolled up in a new SUV, which is much, much more practical for surfing!

So Tyler, and infusionsoft, from all the thinktankers I am super greatly appreciative! The party will be even more rocking with your help!

@CrowdGatherer, one of our big sponsors along with Spread Effect, SEOBrand, and Infusionsoft, just did the webinar with us.

Here are the links to the pages he mentioned.

It was another first for live webinars in the internet money space, I did part of it live from in teh water! LOL

CrowdGather

CRWG stock

Erox sign-up page

ER303 Scientific Study

First reviews for Erox

That should be good…

First about the webinar today!

Sanjay, the well known thinktanker, who is the master of the forums, calls me up last week, and says, I want to give you $XXXXX for thinktank. I was like, totally, cool, the more the merrier! This post and webinar are happening as a result of the sponsorship, although I would have talked about Sanjay for free! His story is bad ass.

So last year, Sanjay was able to turn his company, in a way I don’t totally understand yet, into a publicly traded company, whose stock symbol is CRWG. Sanjay started this company when a couple of angry nerds were arguing on a forum, and Sanjay started another forum to get them somewhere to vent. At it’s peak, before the stock market dipped, his company was valued at 90 million dollars. WFT for forums?

Along the way Crowd Gatherer picked up a whole mess of forums, obviously 90 million dollars worth of forums is a lot of forums! and they also picked up a partial ownership in a fragrance company.

OK, so here was my own test results, honestly swear to god. I put some of the stuff on yesterday, and when I was talking to some girls in their 20′s who had no idea I was wearing it, they seemed to stare at me like a hot fudge sunday. Almost to the point where I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Then I asked my staff about the smell of the cologne, and one of them used the word enticing. Enticing is a good word you want people to say about your cologne.

So, this cologne, partially owned by Crowd Gatherer, if I understand it correctly contains some coral extract that is similar to a human pheromone.

Today I am going to do a live webinar with Sanjay, and I want to hear much more of the details of what this stuff is.

To me the cologne smelled very nice, not a fruity cologne, and not as dark and heavy as many of them, but a pleasant in between.

I will continue the experiment!

I’d love you to join us at 10:15 pacific time today for the webinar.

I am going to try to do it live from the beach again, we will see how that goes!

Sanjay is going to go over how he took his company public, and about the cologne.

Expect this cologne to probably be an affiliate offer sometime soon.

Register for todays webinar with the man! Sanjay, here:

Yesterday was quite an interesting day.

I got an email, followed by a phone call, about a CEO position of one of the most ridiculously cool websites in the world. It is the website of one of the absolute coolest companies in the world. I mean, like Most Interesting Man In The World, cool. Probably not something I am going to do at the moment, but the thought of it was flattering, and the 0′s were pretty cool too.

So just to make the point, right while this thought was rummaging around in my mind, I was on the phone with Deuces, when blammo! God spoke to me, and the power went out in all of southern California.

Now this is kind of funny, because I was supposed to be doing a webinar last night from SoCali, Nathaniel Broughton’s secret cool internet kids of San Diego club. We kept rolling at the chiropractic office. Then when it came time to leave, I heard that freeways and roads were backed up like crazy, then started to wonder if we could even have the event.

Nathaniel got a text through, that maybe we would go to casa Robinson (Dana Robinsons mini mansion by the beach). Now about the food?

I just happened to have a BBQ, charcoal and matches in the back of my truck, leftover from the thinktank test breakfast.

So off to find food, and everything is closed. Jonathan’s market was taking people in one at a time with flashlights, and having you pay by cash, the approximate amount. That was so fucking bad ass. Everyone else just closed and ran for the hills. They will get a lifetime of loyalty from me for doing that. So I ran in and grabbed some baguettes, cheese, and spagetti sauce so I could make some mini pizzas for the party, and when I got home for the wife.

The line took about a half hour, and by the time I was running out, the webinar was supposed to begin.

So I tossed on my wireless card, fired up the laptop, and started the webinar while driving my car, through the blacked out parking lot! LOL

No comment about the drive from Jonathan’s to Dana Robinsons house.

I get to Dana’s house, I am doing the webinar, and I announce, we are now going in to Casa Robinson, where the party is going. By the way, I have the camera on so people can see me and what is behind me. We go into Dana’s house, me and the webinar attendees, and it is totally fucking black inside with a few candles. Door was unocked. I walk into the living room, and am shouting hello! We are live on air! but nothing but silence. It looked like the blair witch project, which is funny because Andy Jenkins lives a few blocks from there, and he did the special effects on the movie.

So I realized I am in Dana’s house, technically breaking and entering, (although the door was locked), and thought me and the webinar guests better get out of his house! So I found my way out, only to find Dana walking in. Awkward.

Dana of course is a good friend, and my own attorney, so we were cool. I wonder if it would have been a conflict of interest for him to represent me in a case where I had broken into his house

So all the boys were there, Dana, Nathaniel, Brandon, and some of their new Spread Effect employees/friends they had flown in from Saint Louis.

Dana and Heather got some chicken going on the BBQ, I found the most amazing tomato hiding on their counter, and made a French Brucetta if there is such a thing, all on the BBQ, and we had a make shift Socali feast! Dana made the comment that by about 9:30 everyone was getting tired just like we were camping, and we would all be up by 5:00. The odd thing was everything was not working, cell phones, TV, and anything electric. Oddly enough my mac air had some juice, and the wireless card was charged, so we were able to check things online a bit.

By the way, I got to start my day being interrogated by an attorney in an arbitration. Some of our patients, were going after an insurance company to pay their bill, so I got to go over what we did, how much it cost and why. The guy was a total #$%#, but it was a bitchen experience for me. I was able to be my typical relaxed happy self, answered his questions, and had a good time doing it. Nice to know I can do that one well if ever needed again

I am now a webinar guy.

At 10:00 in a few minutes, I am doing my first webinar

with Joe Fier, master of videos that convert.

Here is the link to register: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/347703822

Then tonight, all of this is Pacific Time, (is there any other time?) I am doing

a webinar with Matt Mickiewicz of 99 designs, who jut got 35 million in VC money

to develop more sites. We are going to be going over how to build software, build companies, and how he pulled it off. Here is the link to register for that one.

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/499778934

These are literally my first webinars ever, so all bets are off!

It is all some light promo to draw attention to thinktank.

Shawn Tompkins, a friend of many who read this blog passed away.
He was only 37 years old and apparently had a heart attack.

(In this pic, Shawn sitting and laughing, in the red shorts Wanderlei  Silva, Closest to camera Josh Haines, and dk in white shirt)

Shawn was one of the most alive, vibrant and wonderful guys I have known, and his death is devastating.

I am sitting here in tears, and I still can not believe it.

Some of the most memorable moments of my life took place because of Shawns generosity and friendship.

The night Randy Couture fought Brock Lesner for the UFC heavyweight championship, was a worknight for Shawn, being Randy’s coach.
That night after the fight Shawn showed up a bit bruised and bloody himself after sparring with Randy before the fight. What was one of the biggest nights career wise for Shawn, the most famous MMA trainer in the world, Shawn hooked up with my wife and I right after the fight to introduce us and show us around. That night I got to meet many of the pro UFC fighters, and got invited into the club with Shawn by Kim Couture, Randy’s wife.

Shawn also flew out to San Diego to train all of us during thinktank, and brought his favorite fighter and close friend Sam Stout. Shawn married Sams beautiful and wonderful sister, Emilie.

Shawn was always there for me, to hold trainings during Pubcon and Affiliate Summit, to introduce me to any of the big fighters I wanted to meet. There was always a smile on his face, but he was never afraid to train the fighters hard.

Oddly, a few hours before I heard of Shawns death, I was telling a story about him. In fact it is the way I will always remember him. Jenny (whiteshorts) and I were at the Couture gym in Vegas. The gym was closed, except for the pro fighters, who meet to have their MMA training there each day. Every weekday from 4 to 6, the biggest names in the UFC would get together at the Couture gym, and Shawn would lead the training. That day, Jenny and I were screwing around out on the matt where the fighters were training.

Jenny and I were in a bit of a blocked in area surrounded by padded walls, thinking we were out of the way. We are watching Wanderlei Silva and Shawn play Rockem Sockem Robots with each other. I swear neither of them were blocking, and both of them were hitting at full force, full contact, no pulling of the punches at all. They both had smiles on their faces, and were pounding each other so hard, I swear you couldn’t just hear the hits, you could feel them. Shawn was a pretty boy, with a lovely face, and bleached white hair, but he could hit like a mother f$%ker.

As they pounded each other, hit after hit, boom, boom, boom like the back of a lowrider blasting base, they were inching toward Jenny and I. We started hiding more and more into our little corner, with these two charging bulls moving toward us. They may have known they were heading toward us, or they may not of. Jenny and I were laughing hysterically while these two killing machines were pounding closer and closer to us.

Jeanny and I both knew we were in the presence of something magestic, like sitting in your tent while tigers are fighting each other just outside the door.

Shawn will be forever alive in my mind, just the way he was then, bleach blonde hair, throwing punches that could break a mans jaw, and taking hits full in the face by one of the hardest hitters there ever has been, all the time with this classic smile on his face.