The Detached podcast
Welcome to the podcast. This is a space where I get to vocalize my thoughts and dive deep into conversations with some truly remarkable individuals. It’s not about surface-level chit-chat—this is where we get into the real stuff. We talk about the things that matter: health, fitness, relationships, and the process of breaking free from the limitations we place on ourselves.
I don’t believe in small talk, because nothing meaningful ever comes from it. So, let's dig deep into the topics that can actually change your life. I want to bring you value, provoke your thinking, and help you see the world differently.
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Sophia
The Detached podcast
Ep: 90 From Rock Bottom to Empire Builder: Mark Coles Unplugged
Mark Coles takes us on a riveting journey from his early struggles to becoming a fitness industry titan in this deeply personal conversation. After abandoning a seemingly secure path in his father's property business, Mark followed his passion for fitness despite uncertainty about his future. "I said I don't know, but I need to be happy first... whatever I do that I'm happy, I'll know I'll be successful," he reveals, highlighting the courage required to pursue authentic fulfillment.
The transformation wasn't simple. Mark candidly discusses his battle with substance abuse and the pivotal moment that changed everything: "I sat on the end of my bed after doing coke... and I went 'you're done.' Never done it since." This raw honesty unveils the power of decisive self-leadership that has defined his approach to life. What followed was a five-year period of intense isolation where Mark rebuilt himself completely—his body, his business, and his mindset—describing it as "probably the loneliest five years I've ever had." This deliberate retreat from social life formed the foundation for his future success.
Whether you're struggling with personal transformation, building an online coaching business, or seeking to optimize your physical and mental performance, Mark's hard-won wisdom provides a blueprint for authentic success. His journey demonstrates how our greatest challenges, when met with courage and determination, can become the foundation for extraordinary achievement.
Check Mark out on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/markcolesm10?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode, Dm on : https://www.instagram.com/sophiadelavari/
welcome back to another episode of the detached podcast. I have mark calls on and I feel like I already know you because I've literally watched your content for many, many years and a bit of background on me. Anyway. I was a fitness coach for quite some time and you were like the og, so thank you so much. I'm being on the podcast today, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Well, there's been a time where you weren't in Dubai before and you were in the UK, so I'd love to kind of go back on the UK life and where did this whole fitness experience even begin?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm 47. So I've had a longer spell in the UK than I have here. Love the UK. I have a father who was a very successful property investor and in the early days I kind of was guiding down, leaning towards his path. And I think that was very much out of the kind of I don't know what I want to be. I wasn't very intelligent at school, so I went down his path. I was like, well, I don't know what I want to be, I wasn't very intelligent at school, so I went down his path. I was like, well, I'll do property, I'll go to university. Tried twice, failed.
Speaker 2:But the place I was happiest the most was in the gym and something was just leaning into me going you're happy here, you're not happy elsewhere. And I said to my dad the day I'm not happy working for you is the day that I leave. And I went into his office I said dad, I'm not happy. And he said what are you going to do? I said I'm going to become a personal trainer and, being a multimillionaire as he was, he's like how are you going to have the quality of life that we have? And I said I don't know, but I need to be happy first and I said, whatever I do, that I'm happy, I'll know I'll be successful. And so I just leaned into personal training and I went into getting a qualification, teaching people on the gym floor, finding my feet in, speaking to people. I hadn't got a clue what I was doing, nervous as hell. But in four or five months I was full and I felt happy. I felt so happy and I think that helped me to do one thing that I didn't do at school was study.
Speaker 2:I'm not a big fan of conditional schooling systems, just because not only did they not work for me, but they made me question. Most of my success in life has not really fallen back to what I learned in school. It's what I leant into when I found out what I wanted to be passionate about. What I was passionate about that was coaching and fat loss and muscle building. Then I started reading. Before that I hardly read a book, so I just lent all my energy for the next three or four years into consuming every book, every course, traveling all over the world, and just learned everything. I felt so far behind behind.
Speaker 2:The personal training industry in physique development just got a hold of me and I just became obsessed with my reputation, knowledge, skills and, over the next five years, built up my reputation, built up my brand, built my results, and I was kind of working for myself. Then opened up a gym uh, and it was a personal training studio and at this point I'd built a pretty decent reputation in the UK within seven or eight years and then started teaching on circuits and like it's just snowballed from there. But born out of the fact that I wasn't happy in not knowing who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do, lent into the thing I enjoyed the most, which was this gym. And at the time you probably think think well, that's not going to make you any money, but it turned out all right, you know. So that's how I ended up in the fitness industry and ended up, you know, personal training, and the rest is history. Really.
Speaker 1:I noticed quite a pattern in coaching that a lot of people stem into, say, fat loss or fitness because of their body shape. They weren't happy with their body shape. Was that ever an issue for you?
Speaker 2:So I look back, I played rugby for a long time and I was more of the keep eating. I drank a lot of booze as a rugby player and rugby was never about how you'd look aesthetically, it was you're just a rugby lad bod, right, but it wasn't really an issue. And then I dislocated my shoulder and it was pretty bad and for about five, six months I had to do the rehab but I couldn't do anything in the gym, even though I enjoyed the gym apart from cardio. But I couldn't do anything in the gym even though I enjoyed the gym apart from cardio. And as I kept doing my cardio and not eating crap, my abs appeared and I went, wow, I love this. And it was that injury and being at university and saying let me just tighten things up because I'm going to put on a load of weight because I can't move my shoulder, and I started to see my abs. Then I read Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding a guy called Chris Aceto's nutrition book and that taught me that calorie restriction and not restriction, but calorie mindfulness with food and calories play a part in how you look. Well, I started adapting that to my clients and I was and myself and I was like. This has transformed my confidence, my self-belief and how I look. This is what I need to do, because this was at university.
Speaker 2:When I was doing this hadn't become a pt by now. That's why, at university, I was so torn because I was doing property degree maybe six months in, and I was looking at my body changing and going. I want to be in the gym more, I want to keep studying this stuff more and, funny enough, you're studying biology, physiology, all stuff that I didn't even look at at school, but I was studying it, and so my body started to become a really important thing to me. And here was the other thing I started to become a bit more noticed at school. I'll be honest, one insecurity of mine was not being liked and not really having a big social network, and so I was always craving attention at school. And then, funnily enough, as I started to put some muscle on and get some physique, got a bit more attention and you're a bit stronger, and it gave me a lot of confidence. And then I suddenly realized the vehicle towards a degree of self-respect and confidence is your body, and that affected my rugby being stronger affected, uh, people seeing my body and commenting on it and I liked that. And then you started feed into that and I and I saw that if I could now help other people feel the same, that the way it's helped me, that's where I want to be.
Speaker 2:So 100 changing my body and my physical appearance. Even still today, you know, I'm still in shape, I still got my abs and that's so important to me because I think people say you shouldn't really wrap your identity in your body, but you wrap your identity in your car, your watch, your jewelry, your kids, whatever. A part of my identity is how I look and I'm proud of that. I think we all should. I don't think a lot of people I don't think enough people know look after themselves enough and are literally okay to be naked and go. I look shit hot and that carries over to. I don't think I'll ever have a problem with it, barring any serious health concerns. You know it's important to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do you see a pattern in between someone feeling insecure and having a relationship in between their insecurities and their success? Do you think success is driven from insecurities?
Speaker 2:I think the entrepreneurial thing. There's some. There's some pretty tough stuff going on for people. Because here's the thing when I was a bodybuilder like I trained myself to pain I used to talk pretty nastily to myself. I still do. Some days when I'm in the hurt locker, when I'm training and I don't want to be there, or when it's a tough set, I can lean into that.
Speaker 2:And I always used to say to people if you can train yourself hard, you can channel that, because it's the same emotional energy that you're looking for pain when you train. You're looking for it Because if you give up when there's pain, then that's where the success is. The other side of it, whether it's going for a long run or whether it's doing 20 reps on a hack squat or whatever it is. So there's got to be something inside you that's either proving something to you or to somebody else, or something that you believe or are trying to accomplish that's more powerful than that moment. And so I feel that the body and the business and what internally is that core driver?
Speaker 2:Sometimes we're trying to get rid of it, but others to me it's either I always heard this saying you're you can either use your past as fuel for your future or it can collapse the present. Because at the end of the day, if you, if you leave your, if you leave the past unresolved, it's literally controlling you. But if you can use it to fuel the future, then I think it could be a positive. But I think unless you are emotionally stable with it, it can destroy you. So I've seen some people just literally go headfirst into that thing and carry their pain with them and it takes them to destruction. Which drugs drink party? You know, I feel that at some point we all will have a down and have a lesson to come out of it. But you know, I think every entrepreneur or every successful person has got something that they will say to you that there's an internal driver that fires me 100%.
Speaker 1:When you just mentioned drinking drugs there. Would you drink alcohol now, Not now? Was there a time and point where you just said enough is enough?
Speaker 2:So full transparency, like got a lot. I got pretty lost when I it was just before I became a personal trainer. A lot of my friends had got married and settled down and I just didn't know. It was a really weird transition between wanting to be someone completely different but not knowing how to break out of where I was and it was this kind of rugby cum, wanting to be a physique guy. And I got lost and I did two years of drinking drugs, heavy weekends, and I feel that that was my down as in like.
Speaker 2:I feel that I I'm a big believer in that we guide ourselves where we need to be, and I think I guided myself towards drugs to pull myself down hard enough to wake up and pull myself out. And here's the deal. I had a huge night on coke and the thing is I'm not ashamed of this word, because who I've become I'm so proud of and I think that's a big problem for a lot of people like saying that word. They're like what I'm like, I don't care. It was an amazing part of my life, it's good fun, but I had a night on the coat and it was like six o'clock in the morning and I sat on the end of my bed and this had got to the point, by the way, that I had it to keep me going on the way to sunday lunch with my parents. That's a problem. That's a problem.
Speaker 2:And it was just on the edge of a problem and I had it in the car on the way to my mom's and then came back after sunday lunch. I was embarrassed for myself. First time I'd actually become disgusted with myself. I sat on the end of the bed after doing it that night, sat at home on my own and woke up and well, sat on the end of the bed six o'clock in the morning and I went you're done. No therapy, no clinics, no one around me. I just said you're done. Never done it since. Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:And I give reference to the point of going to my parents and taking off the dashboard of the car to get through Sunday lunch because I was that wrecked and that's tough, because that's when you're at the bottom, and then to sit on the end of the bed and say, whilst you're still off your tree, you're done. That takes some strength.
Speaker 1:What did you feel like you were running away from back then?
Speaker 2:The old identity. Yeah, party boy lost. I said, okay, I couldn't articulate to you what I was telling myself at that point, but I truly do believe that we have an internal genius that is guiding us every step of the way. I don't believe in a higher power personally, or anything like that. I feel we are, we're pretty damn good, but if we take control and at that moment I decided to take control rather than let something else take control of me Some people have to lean towards the faith or whatever. I didn't. I I truly do believe that everything I mean I personally I'm powerful enough to create what I want to create. So something inside of me guided me down and then I went okay, cool, now you're done.
Speaker 2:And from that moment forward, there was hardly any drink, there was no drugs, and then I slowly veered away from, uh, going out and partying. Then I had four to five years of no social and at that point I built my body, my business and my brain and I literally got home in the evening, wrote articles, built my website, built my reputation probably the loneliest five years ever I've ever, ever, ever had. It was horrible, but I said, until I built my body and my business and my brain. I'm not going anywhere and so I just locked, locked down, worked in the gym, did everything, came home and just basically set to work. I spent five years traveling to uk studying from mentors, nlp, going to breakthrough experiences, tearing my, tearing my brain to pieces and rebuilding it from scratch. Not a lot of people know the depth that I went to.
Speaker 2:It was horrible I literally said clear everything out, expose what's what's weak and rebuild this identity. And the funny thing is, a lot of people may start their life. I probably did that for 10 years on and off, building my body, building my brain, building my fitness and bodybuilding experience, building my physique and building my that my my physique, bodybuilding and then building my reputation in the fitness industry without a care in the world for money. I was paid well and I put my prices up, but I wasn't really investing the money and doing smart stuff with it. It was. It didn't have a value on really on me. The thing that I lent into more than anything was rebuilding me, my knowledge, my brain. I got to I'd say I got to 23 without knowing who I was and I only found out who I was at 30.
Speaker 2:I genuinely don't think I was happy till 30.
Speaker 1:That's incredible so.
Speaker 2:I've had 17 years happy, I think.
Speaker 1:During those five years of rebuilding yourself, was there ever a moment where you thought I can't do this, I can't continue on, because when you isolate yourself and you're trying to rebuild something without the evidence to show that you're going to be successful, there wasn't any evidence, as in like it was just delayed gratification, because every time you looked in the mirror, I expected to look like a bodybuilder.
Speaker 2:Till I looked like a bodybuilder, I hadn't got it. And the funny thing is I um, I wanted to. There's a an event called body power in the uk for many years and, uh, I wanted to speak of body power.
Speaker 2:I I said, if you can get in men's health and you can speak of body power, there's a tick. And until you're there, nah, nothing really materialized. No one read my articles, no one noticed me. I kept producing transformations and then, I don't know how it happened, I was sat on the step at my gym in Nottingham and Steve Orton from Body Power messaged me and said we'd like you to speak. And I went just like it, just like I'd done it, like I'd said I want to do that Whatever, I'd just done the right things to get noticed by the right people.
Speaker 2:And then, about a month later I can't remember what his name is, it might come to me, but he was one of the writers for Men's Health and through a guy called matt lovell, who was the ex-england rugby nutritionist, matt had connected him to me, ray clerk, and matt connected ray to me without me asking anything, and ray messaged me and said oh, matt knows you and so do you be good to write an article about himself? I would. How has that happened? So these, these things all happened Now. Those things happening and me becoming a coach just gives me optimism more than anything in the world because you just I trust me every time.
Speaker 2:Every time there's an, there's an intuition. I'm right, you know about me and my journey. So, uh, yeah, it's. It was you said to me, and you know the delayed gratification is a is a know for me, having five years. I used to go home at night and my mom used to love Elton John, but she used to listen to Elton John a lot when she was unhappy, when she was going through some tough bits, and so sometimes I'd just put it on and I'd cry in the apartment. Get it out of my system and get back to work.
Speaker 1:How would a stranger describe you during those five years? Do you think?
Speaker 2:loner yeah yeah, a bit weird. Uh, just bodybuilding training, uh, caring about my body, eating incredibly well, generous with my time. I cared for my clients incredibly, but just went back to my apartment or my house on my own. I didn't spend a lot of. My friends would be like you know, they didn't really understand that I'm going for a seawall but I'm not having a drink, so I just abstained from it.
Speaker 2:To be fair, I used to, when I'm in my gym in Nottingham, I'd go to David Lloyd at the weekend. I'd go to the gym, I'd go to the store and I'd do kind of online check-ins for my clients at the gym in the afternoon, then to go home and cook some food and go to bed. I didn't really see anybody, apart from going to see my family odd weekend. So, um, yeah, it was a a lonely time, but I just I didn't think about it. I just I actually given myself such a long time frame to build the reputation.
Speaker 2:There was no end game. So I don't think I got anything to be sad about, because I'm just waiting for this thing to happen, but I'm so optimistic that it will, that it was no real deep depression come with it. You know, if, like now like we're in a very interesting time in in our industry um, great in some respects, challenging and others but I have such internal optimism that I just show up every single day at the same time every morning and just keep going because whatever ups and downs you go through, if I compare everything else so far, I've proven myself right that if you stay on track and do the things you know you need to do, you come through the other side. You know, and that's what happened those five years.
Speaker 1:Did you integrate this internal dialect to be a positive thinker, like? Were you always a positive thinker, were you always optimistic, or did you reprogram that yourself?
Speaker 2:yeah, a pessimistic 100 when I when I was younger. So my internal dialogue I identified through school as thick same thick, not good looking, um, and just not appealing to other people, not just women, just just company I just clearly have just I'm either not funny or not good to be around. Uh, yeah, absolutely I identified as that thick as fuck did anyone tell you that when you were younger?
Speaker 2:yeah, teachers yeah, that's why I'm big anti-school. And I'm having this conversation with my wife at the moment and we've got an 18-month-old son who I adore, and I'm not telling her no, he's not going to school, but I'm just talking to her and introducing her to different ways of thinking, because I remember sitting in a classroom, clear as day, and said you're thick, go to the back classroom, clear as day, and said you're thick, go to the back. And that at that age hit me and buried deep. And it wasn't till I had nlp. When I was asked to write an article for men's health, I had anxiety like you wouldn't believe. I couldn't actually do it because at that moment the imposter syndrome call it what you like was too big. It was going to go out there to everybody. I was okay to write on my website, you know, but suddenly something that goes out there. Now I could get judged and called stupid like everybody else. So I went for nlp. We went to uh, through a deep meditation and a deep um, what's the word?
Speaker 1:for the listener. Can you explain what nlp?
Speaker 2:Neuro-linguistic programming. It's reprogramming the conscious and subconscious of the mind and we have conscious thoughts that we're aware of and then subconscious thoughts that are buried. And nlp helps to bring the subconscious to the surface. And what I felt, oh god, I can feel it every single time I discuss this topic. She said what can you feel?
Speaker 2:And I and we went to a moment where I was at school and I got told I was thick and that moment's associated with every time when I was a kid I'd ask to be doing the, the school, school board, at darts, at the pub, and I would. I would hide away from asking them, asking me to do the numbers and add them up on the spot, because on the spot, yeah, you don't know. Now you don't know. I just run away from anything like that. And then being asked to write for men's health. Anyway, the nlp session got me to get to the core of where this emotion comes up, this, this association. Every time I'm asked to do anything that could make me look a particular way, I'd frightened and anyway, through that nlp session, we brought it to the surface and then positioned myself on a turret in a castle looking down, and it's too lengthy to explain the process we went through. But a week later I wrote an article, without anxiety, without pain, without fear, with pride for men's health, and then went and wrote for them for a year. I wrote double the amount of articles. I started a youtube channel.
Speaker 2:I started teaching on stage, I put events on and it just true, true, true, the subconscious has a very powerful way of of programming us, but it's not that we can program it. Very often your parents values, your parents beliefs and I had to unprogram quite a lot of what my parents not forced upon me because you got to remember, I don't think, until you become. That's why I'm going to talk to my son about personal development and emotional awareness. Um, I'm going to help him. Why I'm going to talk to my son about personal development and emotional awareness? I'm going to help him and I'm going to learn with him because I feel that, as a human being, we owe it to ourselves to become emotionally intelligent. I mean, I said to somebody the other day go through your life naive, about your brain, your body, your health. You know this thing here. Most people go through life not knowing anything about it that's incredible.
Speaker 2:What an idiot. What an idiotic thing to think like. I'm gonna call it a person an idiot, right? What I'm saying is what an idiotic thing to do in your life where you're allowing the world, chemicals, drugs, influence politics, people to just govern the outcome in 80 years time. No.
Speaker 2:So when I was 23, I said I'm taking control, I'm taking control of my mind. I don't give a shit about politics, I don't give a shit about what people say. I just wanted to take control my thoughts. And then when I look at things, I go, I can segment them and I can go. What do I believe to be true, aligned with what I value the most? Of course, when I say I don't give a toss about politics, I listen to it and I see if it's going to potentially have an impact on a judgment or anything that's going on around. Anything I do every single day. But when I got to 23, I took control and I went.
Speaker 2:You know I said to my wife the other day how wonderful is it that I understand the, how every joint moves in the body, the ligaments, the tendons, the bones. I understand information, longevity, mindset, business, entrepreneurship, money, like. I've spent the last 15 years obsessing over all of that. So now I feel in control, completely in control, and then that then gives me this life skill to teach other coaches, other people because I don't just teach them business, I'm helping somebody develop entrepreneurial skills, life skills, you know. So it's now set me up to be, hopefully, a pretty good teacher and leader to my son and empower him. But everything that I've unlearned is everything that I don't want him to be forcefully taught. If I spent 10 years unlearning it, why the hell am I going to put him through six hours a day in a school to be taught crap that he doesn't need to know?
Speaker 2:Because I didn't need to know it, and so I want to give him the freedom to be able to think and act himself, but not be led make decisions, because I think that I, through naivety, was led, based, led, based on well, you do this and everyone does that, we do this and you eat that, and then you do that, and I did and I did drink and partying and eat food. What everybody said, but I think that's, I don't think the people that are doing that are in control. I think they're just following and following along with what it's not even what you're supposed to do. It's just well, if you want a packet chris, you have a packet chris. If you want a beer, you have a beer.
Speaker 2:And then that very naive or even subconscious thinking creates your reality fat, unhappy, not very intelligent, not a great business, you know, not much money and not much fulfillment. And that's where I think you know it's taken me a long time to do it, but I think everybody that's out, a lot of entrepreneurs have basically said I'm not just, it's not just, screw the system, entrepreneur. I think a lot of people got that wrong, right, in my opinion, I don't think that entrepreneurs are saying fuck you to the system. I think they're saying I'm taking control of myself yeah and that's what threatens people, because it's powerful.
Speaker 2:When you're in control of your thoughts, your actions, your behavior. You're able to decide your health, whether you're going to need as much health care because you can afford it. You can buy, you know whatever you you need to help with longevity, good quality food, have people help you, whatever then you're choosing how you build your business, but you're in control of your business because of what you know. That's that's quite, uh, challenging for a lot of people that want you to follow an ideal or a norm, because that's an easy way to be.
Speaker 2:So I think that, um, I, I haven't bucked a system. I think I've just taken control of me, and that's where I think taking control of you is not just well, sod that I'm going to move to Dubai and sod the system I'm going to have tax-free. I think that's a very naive way of it's not sodding the system. Really, if you're still kind of doing the same type of stuff here because your body's still degrading, your brain is degrading, you're doing the same thing and getting wasted here or whatever, or whatever you know, you may be just not paying tax, but I think, taking control of you mind, body, health, spirit, relationships, money. All of that, if you could take all seven of those areas, I think.
Speaker 1:I think you're quite a powerful force what do you see the future is going to head towards now, with personal trainers who are online coaches? As we can see, the the market is aggressively becoming so competitive. Right, because even I know from when I started online coaching to now the it's incredible. Do you see a lot more competitive and difficult to build a successful business for an entrepreneur in this day and age than, say, five years ago?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah yeah, I feel that the a few good few years ago, five or six years ago, you could post a few results on social media and you would have an inbox of inquiries going back 12, 13 years ago when I started. I mean, I would just post. As soon as facebook and instagram started, I just put results out there. Before I know, I had 40 online clients and they were paying me 300 quid a month. So what's that 12k a month just from some online clients? I had my gym and personal training. It was like I didn't even know it was a thing. It was just somebody that knew. My mate, dave, who I trained for pt, said well, I live in london, can you help me? And I was like uh, I'll give you dave's programs, do you do what? I mean? It was that simple. Um, now I think what's what's?
Speaker 2:Firstly, it's hugely possible, but you have to understand that being an online, being a coach, is secondary to what it takes to build an online business. The coaching is when you've got a client, but the marketing and the entrepreneurship and the emotional stability and the branding is the thing that everybody lacks. And as the world becomes more and more competitive and more busy and busier and people are getting better at content and they're better at speaking on camera and they're better at getting attention. What's happening is, the more that there are, the more good ones there are, which means to punch through, you need to be very good. So before you could be average, you could be a coach.
Speaker 2:Put a few results out there. Um that now you need to be a great coach and a great marketer and a great brand builder, and if you can build a personal brand, I still think you're in the age of obscene success. I really do. I mean, I'm working with coaches right now that are 23, earning 20,000 to 30,000 a month with a 65%, 55%, 60% profit margin, which is unbelievable, and they're living in Dubai, so they're not paying any tax. So when you're a coach like that, that's making 15 grand in your pocket a month that's good.
Speaker 1:15 grand in your pocket a month, that's good, good life. What's the expectancy from someone going from a to b, starting off, like you're saying, 25 grand a month? How quickly do you think a coach can make it there?
Speaker 2:I think there's a few things that determine this, and I keep mentioning it is not emotional stability, which is massive. I don't think a coach should be in a rush, but if you are lock yourself in a room and build a business, uh I mean I spoke to somebody only two days ago that's done. 18 months, 20 K, zero. Like imagine going to zero to 20 K in 18 months. That's ridiculous. I've seen coaches go from who have got amazing authority go from zero to 20k in 18 months. That's ridiculous. I've seen coaches go from who have got amazing authority go from zero to 50, you know, in 12 months. So what's realistic? Because you and I just talking right now about how quickly can you make money yeah how quickly can you get shredded?
Speaker 2:what minerals have you got like? How hard are you going to train in the gym and how locked in are you going to be with your nutrition? And have you got the foundations and fundamentals of muscle without dieting down and looking like a little shriveled little rat? Do you know what I mean? So when somebody says I want to build a business and make a lot of money, I go through a fatherly audit in my head what's your kind of experience in building a business? What's your results? What have you got going on in your life right now and what does your brand look like and what is your appetite for money look like? And I kind of do that little audit in my head because if I don't feel it, I'm going to be absolutely honest. I'm like you have no need to build a 20k a month business in 12 months. Let me talk to you about your finances, because the level of your identity dictates the level that you're going to get to.
Speaker 2:So if a coach identifies as a coach, they'll spend most of their time coaching.
Speaker 2:They'll probably spend 15 of their day selling stuff, whereas if somebody identifies more as a business owner, as a leader, then they'll spend 50% 60% of their time building the business, making money, doing marketing. If you've got somebody that identifies more of an entrepreneur as a CEO, they'll spend 80% 90% of their time making money and 10% coaching, because they've got a team that does it for them. And so if you've got somebody that's literally all they ever talk about is coaching all they're ever doing is wanting to coach their clients you're not gonna have enough hours in the day to actually sell. So I have to watch that and then be honest, because you know, with the marketing that we do, of course we're posting that people are making bloody good money because, at the end of the day, people see that and they're inspired by it. But the reality is it it really comes down to a person specific case of who can, but what they can make if they've got it unbelievable what makes a person successful?
Speaker 1:do you think as an online coach?
Speaker 2:underpinned by integrity around coaching. Underpinned by integrity around coaching, caring for clients and a skill set and knowledge, because my version of successful versus somebody else's if somebody else's version successful is how much money there's in the bank, how much profits in the bank uh, I'm not playing that game. I'm playing the game of helping coaches make money, but I'm also helping coaches build brands. So when I look at what a successful coach is, it's retention of clients, it's high quality results, it's a coaching community and a service delivery and it's very high standards. Those things, together with a brand and clear evidence of the results that they're achieving, is the foundations that underpins a long-term online coaching business. You can make a short-term quick buck funnels, ads, whatever and money comes in but for me, that first layer of success is the coaching brand that they built, because that's the thing that's going to be here in 10 years' time. The quick ads move to a different strategy. Move to LinkedInin, try that like. You can literally scramble for money all you like, but a successful business is one that's got clients, got a great community, because, with ai coming in, if you do not build a good community, then clients are going to be bouncing from one thing to the other. Clients now need human interaction, engagement and connection, and online coaches are well positioned to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:So I think a successful business is one that's um, based around high quality coaching service and high standards and results and a really, really great community, and then a profitable business, as is another successful business because, as we know, with the clients we work with and I've had this challenge we've won with client numbers and with team and then profit margin has gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've had that. And then we've had to have a big cleanup operation where we've like let's move some people out the way, let's lower what revenue we're trying to make, just to balance things out a little bit more, because the bigger you try and get in a business, the more you're going to attract potentially the wrong types of clients, the quicker you try, try and go. So you know, if I look at something that's not necessarily successful, it's a business with all the wrong types of clients churning left, right and center, low profit margins and a very unhappy team. So the opposite of that for me is a team that love working for a brand, a very clear vision and a mission that's long game, not short, and then they've got a you know, a great profit margin, um, and a great coaching brand underpinned by great results. That's that's. That's how I kind of differentiate my my place in the market.
Speaker 1:So coaches come to me not just to make money but to build a long-time personal and coaching brand that stands the test of time do you think the quality is going to be lost in coaching with the raise of AI and people not working on the gym floor anymore and going directly to online?
Speaker 2:I'd like to think that personal training state remains. I'd like to think that personal training, it's where I started. I'd like to think that people who are in Canary Wharf in London or, you know, in DIFC, they want, they want PTs. You know it's still very busy here. People are having personal trainers I train at in a gym in JVC, um, and they have great trainers on the gym floor all the time. I don't think that'll go. Uh, I don't think that'll go. I think.
Speaker 2:Think that the way that AI may disrupt things is that it'll get to the point where people will be and I still think we're quite a long way off. Give me a diet, da-da-da-da. Because the emotional awareness, like if you're following a diet and you say to AI oh, I've not lost any weight this week, but I've done this, what do you reckon? Like there's a bias there. But if you look at a coach and he looks at your body language and knows exactly what what's up, or he changes it based on what he's seen, you training or your recovery levels, I think that skill won't go away. I think we will miss that human touch. But I think that the online world there will become easier ways and quicker ways to program and have adjustments to nutrition and the. The clients that will potentially leave are the ones that do crave community. They do crave, so a great coaching brand now will include the community, the connection, the live client events, photo shoots, all these things which some of the best coaches do and which what we teach.
Speaker 1:But the ones that will lose it are the ones that are providing training programs and nutrition plans, and that's it where do you forecast the future in terms of people really upgrading their health with regenerative medicine now and getting their blood work done dna tests and how important do you think that is now?
Speaker 2:I think that's amazing. I think the technology that we have available to us. I mean longevity and health, and I looked at my true age recently.
Speaker 1:I did a test with the True diagnostics. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I did that one. Yeah, yeah. So I looked at my biological age and my physiological age. Chronological age How's it going? 38, 39. Well done, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was pretty pleased. I do, you know peptides. Occasionally I'm on TRT. I have been for ten, eight, nine years. I mean, obviously I was an assisted bodybuilder. So I took, you know, one thing another during bodybuilding.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about being assisted, right, yeah, what kind of advice would you give to the young athlete out there to hold off on being assisted? What's your advice would you give to him? Or would you say, absolutely go ahead?
Speaker 2:Well, first and first disclaimer here. You know I'm not endorsing anybody take anabolic steroids. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But what didn't work for me was being advised early doors to go on a large amount. And I went on a large amount and just blew up and then when I came off, I just blew up and then came back down again, as in like I put a load of water weight on an unnecessary way. If I had my time again to do it, I would have taken a very small amount to increase my physiological amount and then just start building and then do it over one or two or three years. I rushed it very quickly so that my blood's all over the place, skin breakouts. I wouldn't do that again. So I personally would have done it slower, with smaller amounts and taken my time. I wouldn't change my life, but yeah, that's one thing.
Speaker 1:What kind of side effects did you have?
Speaker 2:I was an irritable little shit anyway, uh, to myself. But I, I see, I always do believe that if you give a can of stella to somebody who's nice, they don't turn into an angry person. But if you give a can of stella, or 10 cans of stella, to nice and then 10 cans of stella to somebody that's got internal emotional triggers, it'll probably turn them into a bit of an animal. Yeah, and I think that I've never become an aggressive, angry, nasty person. Uh, the times when I've become a bit short and aggressive was when I had no calories and I was doing an aerocardio a day. That's because I'm tired, not because, oh yeah, but look at him, you know. So, uh, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that testosterone for me impacted my personality, but certainly now, at 47, taking a TRT dosage for me, I feel amazing.
Speaker 1:I've heard such great reviews from. They say isn't it? The decline starts to happen in between Late 35.
Speaker 2:So I went to a good friend of mine is called the queen of men's health in America, Ali Gilbert, and she has a company that help men In America. They're very pro-TRT. Uk no way here. A little bit looser as well. Uk no way here, a little bit looser as well. And essentially, my blood tests.
Speaker 2:And when you are taking TRT you're looking at your blood tests, You're looking at all the physiological markers. You've got somebody that drinks every weekend, parties every weekend, with low muscle aches and pains, bad back sleeps, bad, angry, angry. Okay, no money in the bank, no business. Physiologically their bloods look terrible. So you've got a declining person right and we kind of leave that to one side. Then you've got somebody else that takes a bit of trt whose blood works perfect, they're successful, they've got great physique, they've got a great life, business is going well and it's like you take drugs, I'm like dude, I'm optimally healthy, I'm in a really good healthy way.
Speaker 2:So you've got this person on the one side whose body's declining, their life's declining, their health's declining. When I talk about their body and their business and everything like that, a lot of it's linked to how they feel in themselves. I feel clear, focused, sleep well, love well great sex, drive, train well in the gym, still look good, have great energy on a day-to-day basis. But I'm just supporting the physiological potential decline. My testosterone level is the same as a normal human being's, but I'm just having it replaced with testosterone Exogenous, so there's a lot of pros to it. I know there's a lot of people that would give the cons to it, but I'm not just looking for the pros, but a lot of the functional medicine research and forward-thinking medical doctors out there are very pro-TRT.
Speaker 1:What other supplements would you have in your stack that you would say I take?
Speaker 2:collagen, glutamineamine, creatine, more for my brain. Uh, a lot of people take creatine use for training, but I take creatine for brain glutamine. Uh, I take two peptides very good for tendon and joint recovery and healing, probably every couple of months I'll do a month on, couple of months off but they're bp 157 and tb 500, uh, which I find like fantastic. Um, what else do I take?
Speaker 2:I have a big, quite a decent sleep stack so I take magnesium, glycinate, ashwagandha and l-theanine about an hour and a half before bed, two hours before bed, and that helps calm my central nervous system down and really get my body into more of a state of sleep and relaxation and wind me down from a very stimulated laptop kind of life.
Speaker 2:I start my morning with vitamins, nac, fish oils and electrolytes and I'm very meticulous with my health and my recovery and, to be honest, from about now I'm going to start looking into some little bit more of the longevity stuff, looking at my heart and looking at plaque and starting to be a bit more interested in cancer risk and I'm very interested to know if I've got everything coming my way. I'd be very intrigued to know is cancer on the radar? Is heart problems on the radar so I can fix it now? So I'm going to, probably in the next 18 months, do the actual modern tests that are out there and then the next thing I certainly will, on joint, start looking at things like stem cells and the like. That fascinates me.
Speaker 1:Whilst we're talking about this, what's your thoughts on ozempic?
Speaker 2:I've got no thoughts on it, only because I've read a little bit. I think it's see here, because I've talked a lot about mindset today. Yeah, I think mindset's quite loose. I think I call it emotional regulation, like being in control of you. I find it quite sad that if somebody has to take a drug to control something that is psychologically controllable, they're quite far down, um, and I find that somebody might say to me yeah, but not everybody can control their brain. And I say my answer to that is have they actually tried, like, have you sat down with somebody and opened your mind to the possibility that some of the beliefs that you have right now about how you are and how your life is can be changed by thought, emotion?
Speaker 2:You look at the work of joe dispenser energy right meditation. You look at the work I've done with dr John DiMartini over the years about your emotions when you've studied as much as I've had and you realize that I knew nothing. And you look at the transformative benefits of a three-day retreat with Joe Dispenza on energy medicine. Did you do this Vibrations? I haven't done it, but I've studied his work.
Speaker 2:I've done a lot of his meditations. You know if people knew how much their brain and their energy, because I think a lot of people externally will reduce their calories and expect that to change their life. But I think the simplest thing to change, without even calories, is your self-perception. Because if you change your self-perception you're able to look at something and go I don't need that. Like my wife and I over the last two weeks. She said I just want to tighten up a bit. And I said, cool, I'll tighten up with you. And two weeks later I'm leaner and I feel great. But we've just not had a couple of ice creams at the weekend because we both just say no, we don't need it. So you just walk past it. But the whole idea of being in better shape is more important than stronger state of mind. So go back to the ozempic thing. It's like if god gave you a brain over a chemical, why don't you just put a bit of time into retraining the brain? Because once the brain's retrained you won't eat the crap and I think that.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was taking the coke and the pills and the partying. I was at rock bottom but I still worked out of it. So it's very hard for somebody to convince me that you need to take something to fix a dis, something that's dysregulated, because I fixed myself. But I fixed myself by spending tens of thousands traveling to different people. I've worked with functional medicine doctors, nrp practitioners. I've paid a lot of money to dr john demartini. I've had his team work with me and every probably four or five months I have one of his team members.
Speaker 2:I get on a call um and there are times I go off track and when I hire somebody they just I call them blind spot coaches. They just you're saying this, pull you back. So, going back to his MP, my. I looked at Sharon Osbourne recently and I thought, wow, it's stripping everything off, including it. It's literally tearing everything off, including. It's literally tearing everything away. Now, when you pull that much out of the body, it's pulling out everything in the brain, the fats, the muscles, everything that makes you physiologically you and I just think it's dangerous. I've not got the clinical research.
Speaker 2:But I'm of the belief and of my own experiences that stage one in fat loss which I've done with clients all over. But I'm of the belief and of my own experiences that stage one in fat loss which I've done with clients all over the years. And it's the same idea with business coaching. 90% of business problems are personal development problems in my opinion, With personal development.
Speaker 1:have you ever had therapy before?
Speaker 2:So when you say therapy right.
Speaker 1:Sitting down with a counsellor having therapy.
Speaker 2:Unpacking because I don't, I don't, I don't believe in um, I don't believe in somebody giving me a perspective. See, here's how I think therapy. I believe therapy to be. Let me unpack to you what I'm, how I'm feeling, and then you give me your perspective on what you hear. Right to a certain degree right, or the person unpacks it and actually there is a psychological therapy process that that person goes through. Get it. Whereas if you go through self-development, it's a complete rewiring of your perspective on what you see to be true. And so the answer your is no. I've never sat down with a therapist, but I've worked with personal development coaches. Is NLP therapy? Nlp is reprogramming. So I haven't sat down with a therapist, but I've reprogrammed me and I've gone through reprogramming in a different format than therapy. So no, I haven't. But I believe personally that the power has come from the change that I've made in myself through alternative methods other than sitting down and unpacking what other alternative methods have you used that have been so additional to the success in your life right now?
Speaker 2:Mentors Tens and tens and tens of thousands of mentors, just seeking out people that are ahead of me, that can see blind spots or fill a gap. That's something that's missing. I had one this morning.
Speaker 2:Who are these mentors, business people, successful people. So I paid thousands to bodybuilding prep coaches. So in the early days when I wanted to get my clients in shape, rather than spending time studying how to get them in shape, I'd just pay somebody and say look at these three people, what would you do? And they said I'd change this, this, this Cool, I've just collapsed time. And then, by doing that, they've taught me what I need to do. And then given me a couple of books, which are always us people a couple of books that you recommend I read, or, nowadays, podcasts I should listen to, or people I should learn from, and then they'll tell me and they give me advice.
Speaker 2:And then, when it comes to business, who's done, what I'd like to do and where could I learn from those people and how could I learn from those people? And, like today, we're going through a few marketing challenges. So I reached out to my current mentorship that's based in Australia and said can I speak to your head of marketing? And got on a call at six o'clock this morning and had an hour going over our marketing and that then speeds up what we're doing in our business. So I've had a lot of mindset coaching, a lot of bodybuilding coaching and a lot of education coaching. A lot of bodybuilding coaching and a lot of education coaching around the science and theory of coaching actual fat loss, muscle building and bodybuilding. And then, as soon as I'd actually started to build my body and my business, I then started reaching out to business mentors that have basically built the thing I'm trying to build.
Speaker 1:So what's the thing that you are trying to build now, in the future you?
Speaker 2:So what's the thing that you are trying to build now, in the future, you, what I'm trying to build at the moment is a business coaching program for fitness professionals and fitness entrepreneurs that help them to build a long-term, stable fitness business. Not cash, not cash. We actually have the business but, as every business, it goes through its seasons of whether it's retention, whether or not it's marketing, whether it's lead generation. So we're in our fourth year of building this business. So, in terms of what we're building out right now, it's still building all the intricacies of the scalable model that we have to help coaches who are building and then scaling their businesses to 15, 20k plus per month.
Speaker 2:The vision for the future, if I'm honest, is to continue to build this business.
Speaker 2:I'm actually very inspired to help other people in a realm that I've not really dialed into yet. That would feed into the life journey that I've had. I feel I've got another book in me and the book will unlock the second part of the business, part of my journey. So I feel that fitness business and going from bodybuilding, physique training, building my own business and teach people how to do that going from bodybuilding, physique training, building my own business and teach people how to do that. But I'm in the next season of building my life off the back of my business and I feel, when I've ticked that third box, I don't want to look too far in the future because I know what I'm building for me and my family and investments, et cetera. So that part of the vision is very, very clear. But what I'm building right now is transferring into the life and then, when I've done body, business, brain, life, I feel that that's going to be a complete package for me to then transfer into the next part of the model.
Speaker 1:There's a saying by Marshall Goldsmith. He says what got you here is not what's going to get you there. Marshall Goldsmith, he says what got you here is not what's going to get you there. Do you find it quite difficult now to transition and let go of some of those elements, because it is like shedding a skin to rebuild.
Speaker 2:Yes, one of the biggest things I struggled to let go of was coach. I'm very proud I studied, I studied so much. I'm very proud of what I know as a professional coach. But the way that I transferred that is that my responsibility now is to coach my family. So every day I'm not doing fat loss.
Speaker 2:Like my son had a fall banged his head and I said we go to a chiro straight away. Why we go to a chiro? Because it will affect the jaw. As soon as. As soon as we got there, my wife was like my god, the chiro is like. It's affected his jaw. His mouth moves to the side. He's done.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was a fall but he's only 18 months right, so now she's correcting his spine. Then I said to my wife okay, cool, we need to look at his gait and all the stuff that I studied when I was coaching. I've transferred now into me my own body and my family. But there was this void in between where I was like I don't want anybody to not know, I don't want them to just see me as a business coach. I want to still have the training. But only three weeks ago I let go of the last part of my coach, which was I closed down a part of our business, which was the complete coaching academy, which was teaching coaches the science and theory of coaching, and I had a. My company name was m10 and that's no more, and that's three weeks ago and how do you feel?
Speaker 1:uh free, proud, but ready for the next chapter that's amazing, because I know what it feels like to shed the skin of coaching and it is quite difficult when you, when you put so much effort and a lot of your pride and joy came from that. It is quite a dark kind of period because it's and also I still find, even when I hear fitness professionals talk about certain things when it comes to nutrition, fitness and some of the jargon that they say and you think it's untrue, I'm still like wanting to go into coaching mode.
Speaker 2:I do. I get. I get the ability to be in coach mode with how I look after myself and talk to my wife and our family and what we're doing. But I also find it gives me a really relatable arm when I talk about 25 years as a professional coach and over a decade teaching business. All of that combined I then go.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't want to get rid of it because it's what's going to keep me young. Everything I've learned is going to keep me mobile, strong, fit and healthy. I do it all again young. Everything I've learned is going to keep me mobile, strong, fit and healthy. I do it all again. Um, but yeah, I, I think part and parcel of me wanting to keep the size that I have or the shape that I have is, you know, just to make sure that it's reinforcing that I'm part of the fitness industry, not just a business coach. So that may be a bit of identity that's just hanging on a little bit, but I think it's hanging on for a very good reason, because I think it gives me an edge as a business coach as well.
Speaker 1:I know that how does father life impact business life now?
Speaker 2:it's giving me. It's giving me so much more clarity around wealth and money. You know, as I was making more and more money, uh, I wasn't as attached to investing to the level that my brain is now and wealth creation of future planning. So having mason now has and I said in a post recently, I feel that, yes, I know I had a son, but I feel like a father now because he now calls me daddy and that level of responsibility when I look at him, has put a fire in me in the morning. That's bigger than the business.
Speaker 2:And so my father, you know, left the world three years ago and he was building a legacy for his reputation in the industry, which didn't really have a finish line, and his other one was to not leave a poison chalice for us guys in terms of his business model when he passed away, and make sure that we were safe and secure. And so when you watch what he's done and who he has become, as I'm getting older, I'm starting to look at some of the values he's got and I'm like now I know what it's like to feel like you're on the second phase of your life and I've never said this, but I haven't said this because it's just come to my head. I feel like my second phase is building their life. My first phase has been building my life and my second phase is building the life that I'll leave behind. And that's only just hit me just now and it's, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I suppose these conversations here open up a lot of emotions, but but, um, I've had quite a lot of thoughts to myself recently, early in the morning when I get up about like you just keep building a business and keep building a business, but what's the end line, what's the work? You know, if you, if you've got a profitable business that's paying you well and it's giving you enough profit to build a life and leave stuff behind for your children. But I wasn't bothered about that years ago, even three years ago, but now, now it's. It's made me hungry and really address the business in a completely different way, to make sure that it's setting up not just for the success of the business and my team, but for my family.
Speaker 1:You're very business driven, as I can see, and do you have an idea where you see yourself in retirement phase where you'll park the business forever?
Speaker 2:You know I've got a lot of my friends who are very focused on freedom and time to do other stuff. I don't think I've reached that point yet. Uh, and I think I will. Like I look at my week, it's still very, very busy and if you look at organizing my week and time, I'm not somebody that has a hobby like golf. I love the gym and I love being with my family and I really thrive off work and what I'm building, but it's not built yet and so I feel, just like anything in my life, like it'll come to me when it's a time to pull back a little bit more and have a little bit more time. It'll come, but not yet.
Speaker 1:What do you think retirement does to people?
Speaker 2:Well, I see some downsides with it, right, because my father and my godfather when my dad got cancer, he kind of zoned out and he was like, oh, that's my out. I also saw my godfather as well, who I can't remember whether he was made redundant or just stopped work or retired. But when the mind's not sharp, I believe that we have some degree of decline because we lose our purpose and focus. So if you can wrap your purpose up in something else, but I think the word retirement if you get wealthy people, they don't retire because they're still working on investments. My dad was working till the day day before he died. He was doing work even though he wasn't as kind of switched on as he was a few months prior to that. He was sharp, he was it still got his investments, he was still doing everything.
Speaker 2:So I think the the idea of retiring is stopping, but the idea of finding a peace and a balance and a quality of life which allows you to do what you want when you want and then have a degree of income that allows you the freedom to choose what you do, I don't think that's really retirement. I don't think richard branson retires, I just think that he's got his eggs in a ducks in a row so well that he can live an amazing life and have obscene you know wealth and success alongside that. So the idea of retiring doesn't come to me, because for every shift I make, everything I'm doing is going to be deeply inspiring and if it is working to continue to grow something, I don't think I'm gonna have to retire for it, for anything. I'll just have different seasons of my life hmm, good answer.
Speaker 1:So, with the last question that I have in mind, because it's the detached podcast, what would you detach yourself away from that's limiting you today?
Speaker 2:I think it's people in business yeah uh, I'm starting to realize that the way that tech is going, we're not going to need as big a team, and I've been so focused on building a bigger team over the years that it's affected profit margins of the business as we grow. But detaching myself from the idea that a bigger team is better, a more efficient, streamlined, systemized team with tech as we're all heading forward, is going to be the future of a lot of entrepreneurship. We're still going to need people, but but a players, a players and integrators over a lot of people that needed to be in the company to just fill a space. So, detaching from the idea that that's needed to grow a business the old way versus the new way um, that's something that I welcome, but it is something I'm going to start detaching myself from the idea and building more of a 2025 to 2026 business, as opposed to the, the model of 2020 and before hope max team's not listening to this.
Speaker 2:No no, I've got wonderful people, but I think that there are huge opportunities for great people. It doesn't mean I want a zero team. I just think that the structure of companies and the detachment of you just need every single person for every single thing is going to be a thing of the future, because I think the way tech's going it's going to be a future. A thing of the future because I think the way tech's going it's going to help us speed things up it really is.
Speaker 2:I think it's a really exciting time to be in business it is, and I think here's the final thing I'll say with this.
Speaker 2:You know, because you said oh, I hope mark's team's not listening to this like if you're in a relationship a man or a woman and it doesn't work out, you know what, in six months' time, whilst they both think they can't live with each other, that relationship right now is not serving them, and then, six months' time, you talk to each other, they've probably got a new partner and their lives are better.
Speaker 2:That detachment of the idea that you need to be where you are right now, this technological phase that we're going to go through, somebody may lose their job, but they may have been stagnant and it now teaches them that they need to be better at their craft and more indispensable to people and therefore they need to upskill. And if they hadn't have upskilled and stayed in that company for the next five to ten years, they would have just stayed on the same boring, mundane job. So now they get this opportunity to expand and I think that's what's exciting for people. So you know I'm detaching from it, but it's going to give a lot of opportunities from a lot of for a lot of other people.
Speaker 1:I love it. Where can people find you, mark?
Speaker 2:Mark Coles, m10 on Instagram. Youtube same. I've got the mastery podcast which is all fitness business, so it's not really going to relate to a lot of other people but there's some nuggets in there to do with business and life. But the way that most people find me is through wildcallsm10 on instagram thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for inviting me.