Mark Ottobre tells gym owners that finishing a course isn't expertise. Real credibility comes from relentless curiosity, questioning everything, and learning from anyone. He points to George St-Pierre's willingness to learn from anyone as the model for building a coaching culture that attracts elite athletes.
If you want to own a studio and you want to be high level, you need to become an expert with a white belt mentality. It's not enough just to do a course, do your certs, and that's it. You've got to be constant and never-ending improvement. You've got to be hungry for knowledge, questioning things, learning from those who have the answers, and also challenging yourself for those who disagree with your opinion and put yourself actively into debates. And also, I would say as a business owner, the fact that I can throw down and I have the success that I have as a coach, my team respects me. They respect me as a coach, which they make— respects me as a business. So if I say no, this is not how we squat at my gym, it's not because I'm like the business owner owner and I'm trying to like put people down or anything. It's because it's not correct and this is not what yields results. Because of that experience that I've had training high-level athletes, the level of talent that I get is exponential. We breed industry-leading coaches and it's because our culture breeds industry-leading coaches. That's what I'm about, right? So I like how George St-Pierre puts it: I keep the wipeout mentality that I can learn from anyone, anywhere, at any time. And it's the constant and never-ending improvement mindset.
