What World-Class Trainers Do Differently (The Secrets)

for coming on the podcast.

Pleasure, thanks for having me and Reece, Matilda.

Just a little bit of a history of Enterprise. What motivated you to start Enterprise Fitness?

Motivated is a good word. I don't think I was motivated as much as it was a forced decision in many ways. So when I started, I was the fat kid at school. That's what got me into PT. From being the fat kid, I fell in love with weights. Long story short, I did my first bodybuilding show in 2004. Came last out of a lineup of 8 and vowed that my experience would never happen to anyone again on my watch. So I dedicated myself to learning, going wherever it was to learn actually how to get people in shape. From that came a huge demand of people wanting to train with me. I met the lovely Janet Kane, who I ended up coaching for over 10 years, and she won 4 Australian titles, 4 Olympias, 3 Arnold Classics, and that led to more clients. And I remember my biggest complaint was that there's too many people who want to train with me and not having enough hours in a day. So I hired this young man, he wouldn't leave me alone. And that was a happy accident because he wouldn't leave me alone. And eventually I hired him because he wouldn't leave me alone. And then that started to grow enterprise. And then I had to learn business and the goal was always to open up something. Yeah, I had a lot of mentors along the way and I learned business because I had to go into business. So when I started as a PT, I was earning $17 $17, about $16.75 an hour. And I was ready to quit after 6 months. And then they launched where I was, Genesis Ringwood. They gave the IBO program, which is the Independent Business Owner program. So you rented the gym and I was the first in Genesis to rent the floor. This was in 2006. So it kind of dates me a little bit. And I had to learn business. There was no other choice. So it was a natural progression. I always wanted to have a gym, but because I loved coaching and I loved training so much, That's what was born out of business. I didn't go into business going, I wanna start a business. It's I wanted to be a coach. That's why I started Enterprise.

Awesome. And how did that failure of like placing last in your first bodybuilding show like shape you as a person?

Oh, it crushed me. It's probably one of those events that I look back on and didn't realize actually how much of an effect it had on me at the time because I put everything into that show and the coach, I 100% believed that he was telling me was the right thing. I put 110%. If he said to me, wake up at 4:57 AM and eat a grape, I would've. And I was, you know, put everything on the line. So I got on stage at 68 kilos. I put on about, I mean, I walk around about 85, 88 kilos generally. So 68 kilos is very light.

That's what I weigh. That's extremely light.

Yeah. Yeah. I looked like an Ethiopian, you know, like it had a massive, I put on 14 kilos in about 3 days 'cause I had massive, I stopped drinking water for 4 days 'cause that was part of like what's on the dryer. I went into the sauna, like I was lucky. Like I didn't end up in hospital. Like realistically, a lot of it obviously was fluid weight, water weight, a lot of fat that I rushed back on as well. But I was starving myself for the comp just 'cause I thought that's what I had to do. So it was a severe experience and coming last was very, very humbling 'cause I thought, you know, obviously I'd do a lot better than I did. And then seeing the photos, you're like, well, it's nowhere near the other standard. And then the next year I competed again, got the advice of Tony Doherty, who's one of the messiahs of muscle in this country. And you know, he's put me on the right track and I did a lot better and competed again in 2007, did a lot better again, and then competed eventually in strongman. But that event, I mean, that was really an event that made me go, right, I can't go to anyone. I need to learn this. I need to be the one who learns this because it was such a severe, emotional triggering event. I remember 3 days out before the show, my coach was supposed to be there on the day. He calls me and says he's not going to be there on the day. I had no idea what I was doing. And I remember like breaking down and crying because I was like, dude, like, what do I do? I have no idea what I'm doing. Yeah. And I really felt out of scope. So it was, it was, it was, it was a great event because it did transform me to take ownership of knowledge.

Yeah.

So it was amazing in that regard. And I always think, I reflect on what if I came first that day. There probably wouldn't be an Enterprise if I came first that day. So I look at that and go, what is the silver lining, the blessings? It was that early event of challenge that motivated me and catapulted me to go, you need to take ownership of this. No one's gonna do it for you. So it was great.

Amazing. Yeah. Fantastic. What is one of the hardest truths you've learned in business and life?

There are so many hard truths in business and in life. I'd probably say one that Marissa and I've spoken about a few times is the death of ego. And I suppose the death of identity. And I think in business to get you to a certain level, you need to show up as the, I'm just gonna say for lack of a better word, the warrior. You need to show up as the one who does everything and has high competency and is able to do all the things. And especially when you're not making tons of money and you can't delegate and you don't have to know how to delegate, you need to have a high level of competency to flow with lots of different things and do all the things and do them well. And there does come that point where You can do a lot of things better than most. And if you just double down on that one thing, you could be world-class at it. But the thing is, to grow a business, it's the absolute opposite. You need to learn how to delegate and empower people. And I think one of, it's not necessarily a hard, well, it is kind of a hard truth is that for me, one of the hard truths was if I wanna grow my business, the death of the guy, you know, I'm the guy that you came for coaching. I'm the guy that was in the corner of, the gold medalist. I'm the guy that was in the corner of the Olympian or the competitor. The death of that needs to occur, and you actually need to let other people be the guy or the girl. And letting go of that and being happy— happier, actually, not even happy, I'd say happier— yeah, supporting others and realizing that's actually going to get your growth. Contributing rather than looking for significance of about you. What about others? And I think it's not necessarily like quote unquote, a hard truth, but it is a reality. If you want to grow a team, if you want to grow people, you need to show up for them, not for yourself. And that's probably been a recurring— because the same skills to get you successful in business is almost the complete opposite that you need to learn to grow your business forward, especially when it comes to maximizing your team. And I mean, unlike, say, other businesses like e-com and that, like an e-com business where you're selling products and stuff, it's not as much about— there is people involved, obviously, But in personal training and fitness, it's all about your people. It's all about you as a coach and how do I support you to motivate those clients if you're working for me. You know, it's like if you're part of my team, I've got to empower you. I can't micromanage you. I have to empower you to be the best version of you, and you are essentially the product. So you do have to step back and give full credit to, you know, the folks who are around you and prop them up, and, and then your role transforms completely.

And also, uh, understanding different personalities, that's Oh yeah. As a business owner, you've got to sort of understand everyone's little personalities and how to get the most— well, not to get the most, how to inspire that person and have them be their best self.

Yeah, correct, correct. Absolutely. Because everyone relates to things differently. And for the introvert, the way you speak, and also cultural differences as well, you know, if you have someone from a different ethnicity and if you say something in front of them, in front of everyone, they're going to take a lot more offense than if it's like, say, an Aussie. Oh yeah, I can say stuff in front of you, you're not gonna— it's like kind of what, yeah, what we do as Aussies, right? So ethnicity and the way people are, their makeup, they're introverted, extroverted. And it is, as Reece said correctly, is unique. It's all about maximizing or making that person the best version of them. So, you know, I'll use honey, but I'll also use vinegar 'cause I'm not attached to what tool, it's about you. It's about what's gonna be the best thing for you to, and sometimes people respond really well with challenge. Other times people respond really well with honey.

That's one thing that Reece does really well is like tailors everything to each individual client. There's no like cookie cutter. It's such like an if and but, and some people may need a completely different method to others. And yeah, you do that very well.

Thank you. Something I want to add to that as well is like not just with staff but also with clients. Like some people, I learned this from you, Mark, and it's like my personality, I need support, support, and then like the harsh hand. Whereas some people can deal with a harsh hand and a slap on the bum and get on with it. I personally need a little bit of support as well. To be able to sort of deal with it. And just on the topic of dealing with getting the most out of someone, that's what I deal well with. And also, as certain clients will probably find, they deal with different sort of, I guess you could say, forms of encouragement and getting the most out of them.

Yeah. So I think on that with clients is I have a saying which is pain will push you until the vision pulls you. And the reality is you're going to move your hand from a hot burning stove much faster than you're going to reach for a cool bottle of water. That's the reality. So if you can find someone's pain, that's awesome. But the problem is when we say related to fat loss, if someone stays stuck in pain, then they're just looping the same experience. So the person who needs to lose 10 kilos forever needs to lose 10 kilos because they're constantly trying to get themselves out of pain. So you— it does come a point where the loss of 10 kilos needs to transform into the want of staying healthy and being a healthy person who loves healthy foods that builds and nourishes their body. Yeah. So regardless of whether you're leading an individual or leading a team of people, you always want to, you want to coach the identity aspect of things. So it's not me versus you, it's us. We are on the same team. This is our objective. Do we agree upon this objective? If yes, okay, you agree that I get to challenge you on these things. Then you can enter a conversation. So say with Rhys and I, when we were working together, we always had the agreement frame that we wanted the same thing. So if I needed to challenge Reece, he knew that it was with love and respect. If I supported him, he knew it was always with love and respect. And I think a lot of time what's missing with trainers is the mentality of us versus them. It's me versus you and it's never me versus you. You're employing me to be on your team. I'm in your corner, literally. I'm in your corner. I couldn't be any more in your corner. I'm gonna be your advocate, but I'm gonna be your biggest critic but I'm also gonna be your biggest cheerleader. And navigating that relationship and dynamic, I think is where magic happens in any coaching relationship because it's different than being a friend. Like I tell a lot of my coaching clients, I'm not your friend in that sense. I'm friend, like it's like, yes, I'm a friend, but I'm more than that. Because if I was just your friend, I might not tell you what you wanna hear all the time. I need to be objective. Not all your friends are gonna be objective. And as a coach, you need to, as long as you can maintain that objectivity, and give people that feedback in a way that encourages them. And that's the thing, like, yeah, you can give feedback in a brutal way, but often feedback in a brutal way is more about the brutality than it is about the feedback. Yeah, it's you're being harsh for the sake of being harsh. Yeah, I'm only going to do that if it's going to get the result. I'm not going to be brutal. That's where some people— you've probably heard me a thousand times where I could say the same thing, they're like, oh, if you said that to me, I'd slap him. But I'd never say that to you because I knew you'd slap me. So while like It's reading the people that you get— not get away with it with, but you know what lever to pull. If I say this to you, you're going to get motivated, where if I say the same thing to you, you're going to slap me. Well, I'm not aiming for the slap, I'm aiming to motivate you, so I'm going to use the tools that's appropriate to the person.

Because it's not just what is said, it's how it's received.

Yes.

Yeah, the background of the person. Yeah, incredible. Something you guys do really well is community and culture at Enterprise. Can you explain a bit more about that and why you do that so well, what's really helped to create that.

Yeah, so I was never conscious about our culture. In fact, I would say I actually fought against it and fought against community for that fact. And it was this recurring theme where people said to me, you have an amazing culture, your team's amazing, you have an amazing community. And it'd always be like, really? 'Cause it was never something I was conscious of. I really, I think, led from the front and was, this is what we're doing, get on board. And it wasn't till I think much later that I realized the value of culture and what culture actually is. So I think it's also important to define what culture is. I would say culture in a business or any environment, it's the code of conduct that everyone— it's the invisible code of conduct that everyone agrees upon that holds the team together to the standard that you want them to be at. So for example, at Enterprise, there was a time where the culture wasn't very strong, and the reason why I would say that is because when I went home or the key players went home, the standards were not maintained. Whereas if you come into Enterprise now, and I'll give I'll give you a small example. If one of our trainers are late, I will have at least 6 of my trainers come up to me or my manager James and say, this person was late, or this person did this, or this person did that. And it gets, but not even that, it gets reported and called out to the person. So if someone's late, it's not even that they, like it's even more than that. It's 6 trainers will go up to that person and say, dude, why the fuck were you late today? What's going on? And because everyone has agreed upon, this is what we agree upon, this is what we want to create, and no one in that team is going to let you off the hook of what we've agreed upon that's important to us collectively. So we have our— I suppose values are invisible, right? I can say I value trust, and I can say I value knowledge and integrity and all these kind of things. They're just words. How do you demonstrate these through your actions? That's what I want to see. And when you look at our team and our culture, this is what we stand for, this is what we're about. Every day that gets demonstrated by our team holding each other to a higher standard because that's what we're about. So I think culture is, if you're trying to build a culture, number one, you're never going to build it unless you are that. One of our things, and Rhys would know this from working with me, I value urgency. Like if I say I'm going to do something, consider it done, right? And also honestly, if I say I'm not going to do it, then don't expect it done as well. And that instills, because I see these things, urgency. And a small example of this is, you know, I came back from the US, I was running a seminar, and one of my guys wanted me to review his 12-week plan. I did it at 10:30 at night. I made him a Loom and sent it. I didn't think anything of it because that's just what I do. He came to me the next day, he goes, I really appreciate it. I saw the time that you sent it to me. You just ran a whole course and you sent me this thing. I wasn't doing that to impress him. It's just the way I operate. I wanted to get it done. Yeah, for him.

Absolutely.

And he was, he was relying on it. But those things, if that's what you're trying to be about, like urgency, you can say you're about urgency, but unless as a leader you demonstrate that, people aren't going to feel it. Absolutely. So yeah, align your culture with who you are because then it's just going to become a lot easier to instill. And also things that you strive to be, and also have the honesty, I think, in yourself to call yourself out on, yeah, when you don't align and Being transparent with people and saying, hey, you know, I acted not in our values, let me correct this. You can make a mistake and this is good, you know, in parenting there's this thing, right? You can get angry at your kids, for example, you can say the wrong thing and lose your cool, right? Okay, it's not the greatest thing, but if you don't repair, that's where the damage is. And kids, like team members, they need to see the ability of a leader. The leader isn't the one who thinks they're perfect because no leader is perfect. It's the ability for a leader to say, I got this wrong, let me repair the relationship, let me repair the situation, let me act now in a better way. I misspoke, can I repair this? And I think that is also what's gonna gain. And it's kind of, again, the opposite intention of what most people think. Most people think they have to be perfect all the time and then they get upset 'cause they're not. Whereas taking that veil down and realizing that no one's perfect and actually calling out your own bullshit and having a laugh about it, I think, creates a much deeper sense but also creates vulnerability. People actually get to know you, which people want to follow that, right?

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's really good. That can be one of the hardest things to do is calling yourself out on your own bullshit, but it's, it's so important. Yeah, I think keep authentic to yourself.

Time management would be a good one to touch on.

Yeah, well, I get called out on my own bullshit all the time. My guys don't let me, you know, what did one of my employees came up to me the other day, team members I don't like to call them employees, team members, and grabbed my stomach and said, "What's this?" I'm like, I love how like out of everyone, like if I'm just a little bit over, I get called out straight away on anything. It's great, it's awesome.

That's brutal, but that's really good. Okay, time management, how?

So Mark, something about you that's always inspired me is your ability to manage your time. You obviously juggle so many things. And I remember there was times when I would, you would go away and I'd get a taste of what it was like to be Mark Ottobre. And I'd say what I think you summarized that when we had a conversation, it was like if anyone wanted, if anyone was me, they'd probably want to jump off the West Gate Bridge. So I think that that summarized it really well. So how, how do you go about juggling? How do you go about juggling all of that?

Most people think they want to be Batman when actually they want to be Robin, and that's the truth. So Batman gets all the responsibility, he fronts all the bills, he gets blamed for absolutely everything, whereas Robin gets to play with all the cool toys. He has no responsibility, comes and goes as he pleases. He gets blamed for nothing. And if Batman makes a mistake, guess who gets blamed? Robin makes a mistake, guess who gets blamed? Batman. So people don't really want to be Batman. People want to be Robin because it's way easier to be Robin, right? With Batman comes a huge responsibility. So now to your question, so that's the next frame, right? Then yeah, now it's the question that I say, because it is hard. It is hard being a business owner because it's not like when you go away you get to switch off. If the website goes down, if your ads stop working, if you get hacked, if someone leaves, if the responsibility is on you, no one's going to come and save you. And also, why should they, right? It's kind of trade your expectation for appreciation for the people with it, and you get a lot more out of life. So it's one thing I've learned. In saying that, time management— the thing you need to understand is time just is. So everyone on this planet has the same amount of time, and we can either do it, delegate it, or dump it. And if you kind of put it through this framework of, am I going to do this task, am I going to delegate it, am I just going to completely dump it, you start to make decisions a lot easier. So you need to ask those decisions, and there's a few vectors that you can analyze this at. What's personally important to me versus what's going to move the business forward versus what's going to make me the most amount of money, which is versus what's the most fulfilling thing that I could do with my time versus what's the easiest thing that I could do with my time. These are all very different vectors at which you can analyze. So you need to create a strategy and a constraint over what you're actually aiming at, and it might be a mixture of all, of a couple of them. So for example, the way you make decisions, if you're focusing on what is the most enjoyable thing you can do, you're gonna make decisions differently than what is the most profitable thing that you can do. They're two different vectors that are gonna give you completely different outcomes because the most profitable thing that you could do could be real estate, for example, or investing in crypto or whatever it may be. It might not be fitness related versus what's the most enjoyable thing that you can do may just be coaching clients. So you need to make a decision on how you're gonna make decisions and then you manage your time accordingly. I don't know if there's a follow-up.

Urgent and important, important but not urgent. Like I remember reading this book and there was like 4 quads of like, yeah, categories. But 'cause sometimes I just look at the paper and I just swim.

Well, everything is urgent in my world. Like everything, it's just whether I'm gonna do it now. So I know what needs to be done and things take varying— so the way I look at things, actually, the way I look at things is how easy is it to do versus how impactful is it to do. And if something's really, really easy to do, I'll do it right away. But I'm also going to eliminate things that if it's not impactful and it's easy, well, if it's, if it's hard and it's not impactful So I'm looking at things as what's— I don't— look, you're going to have stages of business where you have incremental growth, and that's— you just have to accept that. And then you can have stages where you can have exponential growth. And I like to have 1 to 2 things that are working towards exponential growth, and then I'm going to keep the other things of incremental growth. Because exponential growth, a lot of time to pull off those projects, it's hard. So we're building a new studio. That's an example of saying exponential growth. It's taken me 3 years. Right, even longer to find the property. So that's something that will have exponential growth on the business. Writing the book took me 3 years. That will have exponential growth. And these are, these are evergreen strategies that I'm going to be able to run for decades.

Yeah.

In saying that, there are the 1%. So adding supplements, adding a better upsell, adding slides to your sales presentation, optimizing your Facebook, optimizing your Google, optimizing your website, these things will give you, they will move the needle, but you need to look at it as incremental rather than exponential. I mean, sometimes these things can be exponential if you have a massive change on things. But it's picking those projects and I'm always working on things to make them better. But in terms of time management, no, time just is. I manage the priorities and my to-do list, I write everything I want to do and then I turn my to-do list into my calendar. So anything that, I don't have a to-do list, I have a goals list. And then I put my goals and schedule the time that I'm gonna work on those goals in my calendar so they become real. Because it's one thing to write a goal, but it's another thing to work on it, right?

And how frequently do you re-go over your goals? Do you daily, do you visualize them? Like, do you weekly rewrite them?

I write them out, I stick them on my computer, I see them every day. If I have lulls of, quote unquote, procrastination, I look at my goals and what am I actually working on? What is the one thing I could do that would make everything else easier by comparison? I ask these type of questions. I even write that out on, I've got a little Post-it on my computer that has questions that I wanna think about when I'm kind of daydreaming. So that's where it guides my mind. So I use these tools in my external environment to guide my focus, to ask the question like, this is what I'm working on. Okay, if I'm not working on something to achieve this, then what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I going down this rabbit hole? Because the more successful you become in business, the more distractions you'll attract for sure.

That's what Alex Morisi said, it's like the woman in the red dress, you know, the Matrix.

Yeah, 100%. So there will be opportunities and you need to stick to your strategy and be able to say no and eliminate things because business is noisy. There's no shortage of opportunities that people will come, hey, do this, do this, do this. I remember when I was setting up Enterprise and I look back and I found this years ago, years ago when I was setting up Enterprise and I found this in my messages and I forgot that it even happened. Right? But I got— when I was setting up Enterprise, this guy reached out to me and said, we've been following your stuff for a long time and we want to invite you to be a trainer in Cancun and everything will be paid for. And it's just— I looked at it and it took me 2 seconds to respond to him. I just said no, I'm setting up Enterprise. I deleted it. And I looked back at that and I go, wow, that was actually a really amazing opportunity I could have had. But I, I considered it not even for a second because I was so focused on I'm opening up enterprises. This is what I'm doing. This is a great opportunity, just not for me.

Yeah.

And I think if you can double down, it's business isn't, I think life in many regards, it's not about what you say yes to. It's also about what you say no to.

Yeah.

Because there's more things that you could do. There's more possibilities that you could do. So you need the ability to cut off, to double down and focus on.

Absolutely. Or like a season of no.

Season of no. Season of no. I mean, look, today people have FOMO. Fear of missing out. I mean, look at Instagram. All you need to do is go on someone's page. Oh, they're doing this. Maybe I should do this. Oh, they're doing this. Maybe I should do this.

Yeah.

But is that even what you want to be doing?

Mm-hmm. If I'm as real.

You need to check in with yourself first.

I think there's this illusion out there of like things that aren't actually reality and we can get like tricked by that sometimes.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at Instagram as a platform that it is or TikTok or whatever, people are posting their highlights and you're comparing it to what happens backstage. Yeah, so all your fuck-up shortcomings, every time that it went wrong, absolutely, that's your reference point. And then this person's putting out their reference point of everything that went right. Yeah, now what's wrong is always available, but what's right is also available. And no two people are the same. And if you compare someone's wealth to your wealth, I mean, of course, if you compare your wealth to Elon Musk, of course you're always going to look bad. Yeah, you know, if you compare your physical prowess to the fitness model who just won, who dieted 2 years to get to that point but doesn't have the same relationship as you may have or whatever business that you have. And you can always make yourself look bad, but you can always make yourself look better by comparison.

I think gratitude just changes everything. Like whenever I'm in a bad mood, compare myself, I just start thinking, listing everything I'm grateful for and it really turns around your mood.

Absolutely. And comparison is the thief of joy. So one thing I've got on my Facebook and desktop and things is I've got a feed blocker. So I don't see people's stuff because I don't want to see stuff, it distracts me. So I want to limit the information that comes in.

Yeah.

So I can focus on actually what's real for me.

That's really good. Yeah, absolutely. I don't want to see my auntie's casserole from