No.1 Coaching’s Alchemical Philosophy — Turning Hardships into High-Performance

I have a reputation for being one of the hardest coaches wherever I go. The most common comparison I get these days is the character Fletcher in Whiplash (although I have yet to slap anyone or throw a chair, lol).

I wasn’t born this way, and it didn’t come naturally. It was put upon me first, then I embraced it. No, I did more than embrace it; I actively pursued it.

It was put upon me due to an exceptionally rough childhood plagued with multiple broken homes (some of them abusive) and severe illnesses (with serious iatrogenic consequences like gangrene poisoning, chemotherapy, radiation, etc). I became inoculated to a hard life BY BECOMING HARDER. When confronted without the option of flight, you must learn to fight.

When I was a child dependent upon adults (i.e., the "authorities" of my childhood), it was hell for me. In fact, it nearly killed me a couple of times. Fuck that.

I knew that, no matter how hard it would be to take complete responsibility for my independence, it would be easier than being dependent on the judgment of others.

At 21 years old, after overcoming drug addictions (that I picked up at college), I moved from Boulder to San Francisco by myself, penniless. It was tough to move to one of the most expensive cities with no money, no experience, and no contacts.

I was so poor. I juggled four minimum wage jobs and still went into debt. I persisted. I pushed harder than the difficulties did.

I originally went to San Francisco to study something complicated: mixed martial arts. I attended UFC 2 in Denver in person, and it changed my life. This is before it was called MMA. It was called no-holds-barred fighting.

I had no connections, but I was committed to learning it. Along the way, I learned very quickly that money is essential.

I came to San Francisco in poverty, but 7 years later, I left with a Master of Science in Financial Engineering. I had a six-figure salary way back in the early 2000s (when that put you in the top 1% of earners, before inflation), by the time I was 30.

This allowed me to go even harder. I had trained with Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts like Pedro Sauer, Kaseka Muniz, Ricardo Gurgel, and Kurt Osiander. Still, as I rolled with tons of different martial artists, I noticed something early on. The only people I could not consistently beat were those with some history in American Folkstyle (aka “scholastic”) wrestling.

I had wrestled as a child (4–6 years old), so I was open to learning it. I started learning folkstyle in Oakland with a gentleman named Dan Coltrin. He never let me win. Guess what? I learned.

This coincided with UFC Japan, where catch-wrestling influenced martial artists like Frank Shamrock, Kazushi Sakuraba, and Tra Telligman won big.

The only place to learn catch-as-catch-can was to pick up traces with certain scholastic wrestlers like Wade Schalles and select old-school professional wrestlers like Karl Gotch, Billy Robinson, Dick Cardinal, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara.

These were some of the hardest men alive.

This is where I learned coaching. I apprenticed directly with Billy Robinson for 7 years. I mentored under Karl Gotch for 4 years. Wade has mentored me for more than 2 decades.

These men had proven they knew how to get performance and results from others and themselves. Their time with me lives at the very core of who I am AND what I do with both Scientific Wrestling and No.1 Coaching.

Look, doctors don’t perform open-heart surgery on themselves. Dentists don’t perform their own root canals. High performers need to be pushed, and bosses need a boss.

When you need to be pushed, when you need to be held accountable to the highest standard, then you need to find the best coach you can. This is what I did. This is why I am Grant Cardone's multi-time 10X Performance Coach of the Year. This is why I have traveled the world professionally coaching grappling with World Champions, Hall of Famers, and World-Record Holders.

So I will leave you with a question from my coach and mentor, Grant Cardone:

“When are you going to make the decision to be great?”

Go get you a coach and start winning!