About Mike Barefoot · Leadership speaker & coach:Life isn't linear. Discipline is.
Entrepreneur, martial artist and strategist — Mike Barefoot has spent his life mastering two seemingly different worlds, only to discover they share the exact same playbook for elite success.
01The story
Seven chapters.
- 01
Raleigh, Dunn & Campbell basketball camp
Born in Fayetteville, Mike grew up in the Raleigh area and spent six years in nearby Dunn, North Carolina. At 11 he spent his first week away from home at Campbell University's basketball camp — then the oldest and largest in the country — and kept coming back for five summers, watching counselors like Michael Jordan, Ralph Sampson, James Worthy and Sam Perkins.
- 02
NC State, a tough job market, and an MBA detour
At NC State he called women's ACC tournament games on WKNC, the campus radio station, and spent two months working out with Jim Valvano's basketball team as a walk-on — until a blunt “reality lecture” convinced him the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. He earned his degree in Business Management in 1991, the worst year in a quarter-century for new grads to find work. A former coach pointed him to Campbell's MBA program. Life wasn't linear: he drifted, nearly ran out of time, earned a one-year extension, and “lived like a monk” to finish. Mike credits that year with teaching him to buckle down.
- 03
Service before the sale
While earning his MBA, Mike worked customer service at Centel Cellular (later Alltel), taking 60 to 80 calls a day. A company course taught him that everyone is a customer, and that each caller is a person, not a ticket. He carried that into sales and networking: service first, relationships over transactions. “I don't look at it as what can I get from you,” he says. “I look at it as how can I serve you?”
- 04
An elite recruiter
Mike worked for three of the largest staffing firms in the world, first as a recruiter and then as an account executive, earning Rookie of the Year, multiple Performer of the Year awards and regular President's Club honors. That included four and a half years working commission-only at Matrix Resources, then the largest IT staffing firm in the Southeast. He kept notes on every contact — their kids, their schools, their favorite teams — so clients who hadn't spoken to him in a year called him first. Over 27 years he personally placed more than 1,000 professionals, including roughly 40 at Wake Tech alone, and advised thousands of executives on building winning teams.
- 05
Founder, through the Great Recession
When the 2008 downturn shrank his office from five practice groups to one, Mike's IT group was the only one still profitable — and he was its only salesperson. He was offered the general manager role three times and declined each one. The third offer sparked a question: if they trusted him to run this office, why not run his own company? He measured twice, studied the back office for a year, and in 2010 launched RedZone Resources, a boutique IT staffing firm that stayed profitable every one of its 15+ years. North Carolina Central University became its biggest client, with at least 100 placements. In 2025 he closed the firm to focus on speaking and coaching.
- 06
37 years on the mat
Mike started Karate in 1989 almost by accident: basketball was winding down, and a friend could see he needed something to fill the hours. Six months in he discovered sparring, and it stuck. From 2000 to 2009 his school trained in the system of Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, one of the greatest Kickboxers of all time, and in 2006 he added Combat Ju-Jitsu. He has trained in all three ever since, earning a 7th-degree black belt in Karate and 4th-degree ranks in Ju-Jitsu and Kickboxing. He was recognized in the #1 Amazon bestselling Who's Who in Martial Arts Legacy biography book, and found in the martial artists' credo — Kaizen, continuous improvement — the backbone of his leadership system. “I don't like to say I'm a master of anything,” he says. “I'm a big student of everything.”
- 07
Giving back
Mike has mentored future executives at institutions like NC State University, and his insights have been featured 60+ times in outlets including USA Today and CareerBuilder. Today his goal is simple: help people find their successes and their victories.
02Recognition
Honored on the mat and at the desk.
Martial arts
- 7th-degree black belt in Karate
- 4th-degree black belts in Ju-Jitsu and Kickboxing
- Multiple-time Hall of Fame inductee
- AMAA Who's Who in the Martial Arts Legacy Award
- Inducted into the AMAA Who's Who in the Martial Arts Hall of Honors
- Profiled in the #1 Amazon bestselling Who's Who in the Martial Arts Legacy biography book
Recruiting
- Rookie of the Year
- Multiple Performer of the Year awards
- Regular President's Club honors
Featured By
- 60+ media features
03By the numbers
Built over decades.
- Years in martial arts
- 37Years in martial arts7th-degree black belt in Karate
- Year staffing career
- 27Year staffing careerRecruiter, account executive, founder
- Professionals placed
- 1,000+Professionals placedPersonally
- Revenue generated
- $50M+Revenue generatedAcross his career
- Years of unbroken profitability
- 15+Years of unbroken profitabilityAt the IT staffing firm he founded
- Media features
- 60+Media featuresIncluding USA Today & CareerBuilder
Discipline in the dojo. Results in the workplace.
Now booking
Bring the KAIZEN playbook to your stage.
Leadership summits, sales kickoffs, university events and executive offsites. Tell Mike about your audience and he'll be in touch.