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

I have a reputation for being one of the hardests 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 pursued it.

It was put upon me with an exceptionally rough childhood plagued with multiple broken homes (some abusive) and severe illnesses (with 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 learn to fight.

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

I knew that no matter how hard it would be to take complete responsibility and be independent, it would be harder than being dependent on the judgment of others.

At 21 years old, after overcoming drug addictions I picked up at college, I moved from Boulder to San Francisco by myself, penniless. It was exceptionally difficult 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. But I pursued this. This challenge was not put upon me, and I was in control. So I pushed harder than the difficulties did.

I originally went to San Francisco to pursue the study of something very difficult; mixed martial arts. In the midst of my traumatic childhood, I earned my blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do (just before my cancer diagnosis). 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. I learned very quickly that money is important.

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

This allowed me to go even harder. I had trained with Brazilian jiu-jitsu blackbelts like Pedro Sauer, Kaseka Muniz, Ricardo Gurgel, and Kurt Osiander, but as I rolled with tons of different martial artists, I had noticed something early on. The only people that I could not consistently beat were those with some history with 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 by the name of 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 to know about getting performance and tesults from others and themselves. Their time with me lives at the core of who I am and what I do with both Scientific Wrestling and No1 Coaching.

Look, doctors don’t perform open-heart surgery on themselves and 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, to be held accountable to the highest standard, you need to find the best coach you can. This is what I did. This is why I am the #1 Elite 10X Business Coach for Grant Cardone. This is why I have traveled the world professionaly coaching grappling with Wolrd 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?”