I’ve always loved Bruce Lee’s quote:

“I do not fear the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times.”

Then one day I thought- what if I take that literally?

So I set out to train a single Muay Thai roundhouse kick (right side) 10,000 times.

What I realised:

1. Be like water​
Power is not brute force- it’s a balance between effort and flow. A clean, devastating kick comes from knowing when to relax and when to strike. Many people tense up, thinking trying to kick hard = more power; but the Muay Thai kick only reaches full potential with flexibility. Business is the same. When I chase too hard, deals slip away. When I relax, trust the process, and stay in the flow, things often click.

2. Radical honesty​
In martial arts, you can’t fake it. If your fundamentals are weak, they show instantly. Business is no different. You can’t shortcut due diligence. Skip the groundwork and cracks eventually appear.

3. Laser focus compounds​
Reps = data. Every kick revealed something to refine- hip rotation, balance, timing. The same applies in business: focus on one thing, iterate fast, and compound improvements. Over time, precision and efficiency grow exponentially.

4. Shoot your shot​
The more I thought about the kick, the worse it became. The best ones landed almost effortlessly- pure instinct. Deals are similar. Overthinking kills momentum. Action > perfection. Move, learn, adjust.

5. The hidden complexity​
To the untrained eye, a Muay Thai roundhouse kick is just someone swinging a leg. In reality, dozens of variables determine its power- foot placement, angle, hand movement, whether you kick “at” the object (like karate or kickboxing) or kick “through” it... The same goes for deals. A 15% IRR is the product of many moving parts. Robust fundamentals make both a kick (or a deal) look simple from the outside, but they take years to master.

6. Leverage

A well-executed Muay Thai kick delivers force far beyond the fighter’s body weight- like a well-leveraged deal, where a small base of equity can generate outsized results. At the professional level, a single kick can break bones. That’s not my purpose (rest assured), but it amazes me how much power the human body and mind can generate when technique, repetition, and intent align.