James Kemp

Not building a business. Designing offers. Building $3k hours.
Built an Ai Replicant of myself that consults for me and creates coaching clients.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

Banger.

[BROTHER LOBO 🐺⚔️ @ellobosalvaje]

Cardio is mostly mental. I’ve believed this for years but I’m finally able to articulate why.

Watch some of the best wrestlers in the world right now. Bo Bassett. Mitchell Messenbrink. Jax Forrest. These guys look like they have unlimited gas. People assume it’s some elite VO2 max, some superior aerobic engine. That’s not what’s happening.

Pay attention to how they move. They’re playing.

Every shot isn’t life or death. Every scramble is an opportunity rather than a life or death crisis. They attack from bad positions. They back out and reset without hesitation if the feeling isn’t there. There’s a looseness to everything they do that looks almost casual, but on the other side of that casual posture is devastating effectiveness.

That looseness isn’t a technique quirk. It’s a performance state. It’s the reason their cardio looks supernatural.

Here’s what I think is actually going on:

Tightness is metabolically expensive. When you’re stressed aka afraid, afraid of giving up position, afraid of losing, afraid of looking bad, your body begins to brace for impact. Muscles that shouldn’t be working are working overtime. Your breathing changes. Your movement loses fluidity. Every action costs more than it should. You’re not gassing because your lungs are small. You’re gassing because fear has a fuel cost.

The playful athlete doesn’t have that overhead. Their nervous system isn’t running a threat response in the background. This makes movement much cheaper. It makes decisions come faster. They can sustain a pace that looks impossible because for them, it actually is easier.

This is why you can’t just coach someone to “attack more.” Coaches can tell their guys to go out and attack. That’s good solid advice. But if the athlete isn’t in a playful state, if they’re tight, if every offensive sequence feels like a high stakes gamble, the instruction won’t translate. The body can’t cooperate. The mind will second guess everything they do. They’ll gas early with no idea as to why.

The fighters that seem to have infinite endurance have trained themselves, or were born with a different relationship to competition. They reduce competition from a high stakes battle to a simple game.

I’ve watched this in myself for years doing jiu jitsu and boxing. The only time I get tired is when I leave that state. When I’m loose, playing, experimenting, being creative, my energy expenditure is different. I do things I didn’t know I could do. Time moves differently. The round ends and I’m surprised it’s over. The moment I get tight, whether it’s ego, whether it’s fear, bad position, someone catching me off guard, my gas disappears almost immediately.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s the mechanism.

And here’s where it gets deeper: some athletes have to almost die to find that state. You’ve seen it in fights. A guy gets badly hurt, nearly finished, he survives and then something releases. The fear burns off. The body stops bracing. And suddenly the guy who looked dead comes back to life and starts performing at a level he couldn’t access before getting dropped.

That state was available the whole time. He didn’t need to get hurt to find it. He just needed to let go of what was costing him.

The best athletes don’t need the near death experience. They walk out already there.

Ali boxed like Ali talked, light, taunting, dancing, impossible to hold. Tyson boxed like Tyson looked, coiled, explosive, total predator. The ring doesn’t create a new person. It reveals the one that’s already there.

Which means the real question isn’t “how do I build more cardio.” It’s “who am I when I compete, and is that person loose enough to play?”

The future of grappling and combat sports belongs to the athletes who figured out play is the highest performance state. Not getting hyped up. Not being ultra aggression. Not discipline grinding through pain.

Play. Loose. Passionate. Present.

Train your nervous system to live there and your “cardio” will take care of itself.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@orenmeetsworld You missed crapper yap. Best ideas arrive when you’re on the crapper.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@samtayyari @orenmeetsworld That Wes Watson fella tried that.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

It’s funny how many people block models that might be perfect for them because they are terrified of being judged.

‘Ewww selling info and courses is scammy’

Selling 95% margin products is smart.

‘I don’t want to be salesy’

Capitalism literally requires sales to work at all otherwise communism and war.

‘Consulting isn’t a real business’

The oldest most prestigious universities in the world have sold information since before America was a country.

Men used to go to war and kill each other and now they argue on the internet about whose business model is the most noble.

No wonder testosterone levels are in the toilet.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@orenmeetsworld Missed toilet yap. Best ideas arrive on the shitter.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

Wild that you can fly in a metal bird through the sky and get internet faster than most of Australia.
@Starlink @qatarairways

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@yourealazyfvck If you're implying that you've figured it out yourself then to what ends are you living for?

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@WilmoreStandard @yourealazyfvck He can only define 'it' as money.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

These takes are worse than 23 year old life coaches.

I know it's rage bait that they wouldn't stand on in person but...

I've had to 'figure it out' at lease once in every decade.
Each sucked at the time but I got through to a better state.

These guys just haven't lived enough to see that working out how to make money for a season isn't figuring it out, it's making money for a season.

Part of the fun and challenge of life is moving into a new season of life and realising that you can leave behind things that no longer serve you.

If you're 27 and you think you know exactly what life will look like when you're 47, you're deluded.

[David @yourealazyfvck]

If you don't have it figured out by 27, you're fucked.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

The Biggest Personal Branding Opportunity in 2026

[James Kemp @jaaims]

His self awareness is close to zero.

But admitting that right wing is being against deep degeneracy is decent of him.

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

I have never felt more right wing

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@levelsio @danboltz you are not alone

[James Kemp @jaaims]

@kanekallaway (with actual expertise)

[James Kemp @jaaims]

https://t.co/hHrC1ihXYT

[James Kemp @jaaims]

Here lies the classic online trap.

Those who provide the most ardent feedback on your product/pricing/reputation/credibility are not customers and had no chance of being one.

The amount of time I’ve been asked to ‘prove’ something by people who I have not made, and never will make, offers to is too many to count.

Easy to get drawn in to the performance and waste energy and seen plenty of people jump through costly hoops.

[Tania Bell @TaniaBelldotcom]

the concept and execution of @shipordie_ by @marclou and @jackfriks is brilliant. the site looks incredible

but the $249 one-off price point feels slightly exploitative given the target market

by definition, early-stage indie makers are bootstrapped and need to extend their cash runway as long as possible. the marginal cost of running a gamified community platform is incredibly low. this could easily be priced at £30 to £50 and still be highly profitable.

charging $249 for a community where you get kicked out without a refund if you don't ship feels less like providing an accessible launchpad, and more like monetising an audience of beginners who look up to you.

i appreciate that getting a retweet and some exposure from their large followings is a nice bonus, but it is a very steep entry ticket for a solo builder with limited funds

genuinely curious about the pricing strategy here, @marclou and @jackfriks. is the high barrier to entry meant to be a financial filter for commitment, or is it just what the market will bear?

[James Kemp @jaaims]

99% of business partners dont close a skill gap.

They are there because youre too scared to do it on your own.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

Huge difference between knowing and knowledge.

When you follow the knowing you need barely any knowledge to get there.

Most new info is larping and taking you away from the true path.

[BONESAW 🕊️ @BonesawMD]

Again:

You know exactly what you need to do to succeed in life. Your plan is probably solid. If you were consistent you'd make it. Easily.

Still won't do it though.
You're still scared of the person you'd have to become.

Lukewarm and comfortable.
Your life needs to get worse.

[James Kemp @jaaims]

High ticket services rarely build durable businesses because with the commonly taught style.

Conversion rate from manufactured urgency or aggressive closing is a vanity metric.

The numbers that matter is retention, expansion, and referral rate.

Without those it’s a never ending hamster wheel.