Transcript:
How my last $500 turned into a full time remote coaching job
I remember wanting to be a remote coach so badly that I moved to San Diego for two and a half months to do this internship for free. It was costing me money to be there, and the hope was that, hey, this will maybe turn into a full-time gig, or if not there, then somewhere in this time span, I will use this experience to get the gig at this time.
You know, Marcus Filly was.
A coach and a professional athlete who I really resonated with. I had him on my podcast on episode 17 and it was one of my top episodes. He also used that episode to, you know, share it with his fan base and that drew a lot of attention to it. And he came back on two or three times and basically for the third time that he was gonna come on the show, I just felt this pull that I wanted to go visit him.
And he was in the Bay Area, right? So in San Francisco up north. And so it, it wasn’t like a quick drive. I had to take a plane. I remember it being kind of like July 4th weekend, you know, it was like July 2nd or third. It was a small window and. My plan was also to possibly bring my GoPro, which I hate and hated, but it was what I had at the time along with my cell phone.
And I was gonna help record some content that could be used for another company of his. And this was totally for free. Just was like, Hey, I would love to help you out and create some stuff and get to kind finally meet you in person.
Now, I was down to. My last like $500 at this point, like this was gonna take almost everything that I had.
And I remember I still have the plane ticket saved. Obviously you’re booking it kind of last second, so it’s even more expensive. And it was just one of those situations where you’re like, I really hope something comes outta this. And I know it’s a crazy risk, but like I may not be able to take risks like these.
In my life as I get older, and it just felt like the right thing to do at this point. I actually had one or two kind of job offers that were beginning to come in, but they weren’t exactly like what I wanted. Once I got on the plane, I made sure to once watch as many movies as I could while also preparing for.
You know, the timeline of what I was gonna do and the reason I watch a bunch of movies is cuz I wanted to extract the value out of this plane ticket. I was really pissed that I had to pay this much, but I was like, yo, this is gonna be worth it. I think I took Ubers everywhere. Ubers are expensive in Bay Area, right?
So it was one of those things where you’re just like, cha chaching cha ching, chaching every step of the way, getting to the gym from wherever I was, you know, dropped off or even walking, staying at the Airbnb that I was staring at.
Oh my God, like that. I remember just that being so stressful. I got there in person and, you know, it was very casual, like, you know, professional athletes working out and, uh, training himself.
And I’m kind of capturing while, you know, he’s doing that. And then at the same time I’m getting to, you know, go and see the behind the scenes of how he works in his office. The small space that it was like, this was like a real storm was brewing where the startup was about to just take off. And I saw it, I saw it from afar.
I was the first person. To interview this professional athlete outside of like ESPN and CrossFit and just like ones that were highlights and talk show snippet type thingies versus like, who are you? You know what I mean? Like this is really cool what you’re doing. Tell me more about that. And I just felt a pull to kind of be a part of it.
And I knew that he was kind of doing a little bit of like the remote coaching and I remember.
At the end of that day, like we had such a great conversation in his office. Like, I ha, I remember I filmed it with my GoPro. It was like so, so amateur, you know, like putting it on top of his filing cabinet up top.
Like, it was just so ridiculous. But at the same time, it was like I wanted to help. There was something I guess he saw in me because I remember after that conversation he was like, he was about to leave, and he was like, yeah, you know, let me know if you need anything else. Like, it was great. Hanging out.
And that night as I was kind of like brewing in my head, I’m like, dude, I feel like I wanna make it known that I wanna be a part of this in some way. Whether this is my next free internship or you know, like a job or whatever, op, like I was looking for ways that I could help. Right. And I remember him kind of expressing that there was like they were looking for.
Like he was looking for a remote coach, like he had a lot of leads, more demand, couldn’t fulfill it all. You know, that kind of thing. And there was already like one other or two other coaches, the third one in progress, maybe I was the fourth one on board, like I guess asking to chat about this or something.
Like I texted him and I remember he took the time to chat with me in the morning. It was basically advice on my career and I remember it was not even just like asking for a job or something, it was like, I have these opportunities available. With this other place, here’s what I’m afraid of, is giving up my own stuff.
And you know what? I’ve worked so hard to build in trading it for this, this full-time thing. I would love to be able to do both, but honestly I don’t know if I’ll be able to like, it seems really difficult if I take this on and I remember like him, if you’re serious about this, like you wanna, you know, move up here and like you wanna, you know, do this thought that I.
Had what it took to be the fourth coach on staff and to really act out the brand and his name and act out the, you know, the coaching principles and all that stuff with all the clients I got to work with. And it was this crazy, wild, unique time at the startup where like I realized that within a month and a half, so it was July 4th weekend, right?
So by August. First it was kind of the, the deal was kind of sealed, right? Like, all right, here’s the deal. You’re going to work here in like, you know, starting on August 15th, right? Which was actually the last day of my internship and the mental thing I had given myself like, I gotta make something work before this is over.
And so I remember that moment where, We’re deciding over the next few weeks chatting about like what this could look like. We’re both thinking about what we both want and it’s kind of this nice trade where it’s not like, it doesn’t feel like just a traditional, I applied on LinkedIn and got this, like this wasn’t even available there.
So that’s the first thing I learned, which is off market opportunities, like getting off market opportunities are accessible when you take. Crazy, but controlled risks. Right? But putting myself out there, inviting this person on my podcast in the first place is what led down the mino effect of being able to get to go fly out there it leading to, wow, maybe this person will be a great fit man.
I, okay. And then boom, getting hired and it being literally the dream gig because here’s what I took outta that was like, I was a little, like, I had failed doing that on my own, like trying to make the remote gig. Work first time around, right? I had a couple coaching clients, but it wasn’t full time. So getting to do this at a startup where this was the thing was like gonna change my life because I got to observe.
Learn the ins and outs of everything you can possibly imagine. I got to learn on someone else’s dollar. Right. So it’s basically like mistakes that were made or a thing like it wasn’t affecting my bottom line ultimately. I mean, there was, but at the same time it was just enough ownership where it was like, you’re running a mini business inside of this business, right?
I think that getting to be a number 3, 4, 5, at a startup, It was one of the most invaluable experiences of my life because just seeing the things that I thought or were were hearing like, oh man, this is how hard you gotta work if you own a remote coaching business, and what that looks like, and these are the things you gotta focus on, like.
That’s all just like a mystical thing in your head until it actually works out and you see it, right? And it takes a long time for that to work out sometimes for yourself. But me seeing that from a bird’s eye view, from a fly on the wall view, what it’s working like for my boss, what it’s working like for me now, that knowledge could never have come in a certification or a seminar.
It was just purely forged. So the takeaway from this episode is where can you take a really big risk? That seems scary, but it’s controlled and it’s not just the spending $400 on the plane ticket, right? That’s one of these things. That’s one of the things where it’s like you don’t feel like spending money on it, but it’s like this could be the thing that got me the 75 k a year plus job, right?
And so, That’s one. But the second thing is off market opportunities. Building your own table so you can go after these opportunities, whether it’s clients one-to-one, or it’s these jobs at a startup where, you know, or a gym, right. That’s a little bit more future forward. And this was at a time, by the way, where remote coaching like.
Was not as normal as it is now post covid, right? So now it’s super accessible for you to get in with a company and help it grow, and that is big, big experience for when you go out and you do it yourself. So what do you need to do? To accumulate the next set of experiences for yourself to grow in this field.
That’s the question that I would like to leave you with because some of those experiences are available for free. Some of them require a sacrifice of time, sacrifice of being in your comfort zone. Just like I moved into this internship for free and was honestly prepared to like figure out a way to move.
So getting access to these off-market opportunities. Are not gonna be on LinkedIn and you know, all these job sites, this is totally something that, you know, you can negotiate and forge one-to-one. When you build up a little mini portfolio, and for me, remember the beginning of this was episode 17, it took 17 episodes every week.
I published before the inception of this experience happened, and then by episode 36 to 42, episode 36 to 42, I had gotten, you know, this gig. So within one year. So what kind of experiences do you need to accumulate to level up and what are you gonna do over the next week to. And get that in motion. I hope this helps.
If you have any questions, make sure to hit me up. Check out all the freak tools and links and all that good stuff in the description below. But I appreciate you hanging out. Thank you for listening, and I will see you next time.
