On episode 14 of the Art of Coaching podcast I interview Gym Jones Certified S&C Coach Noël Brand about strain, sacrifice, self-awareness and why he uses instagram to show off unloaded squats.
Noel is a former Netherlands Royal Marine turned Strength & Conditioning coach. He currently co-owns a gym, Breda Strength & Conditioning, with his wife and is one of the very few fully certified Jim Jones coaches in the world.
Here is an overview of the topics we cover on this episode
- Working with your spouse
- The importance of working on your personal (outside of the gym) weakness
- Giving hard feedback and how to deal with it
- The Gym Jones process of coach development
- Most important thing Noël has learned to deal with from his years of coaching
- Emphasizing the basics
- How Noël self evaluates his coaching and business
- How much has Noël invested in his continuing education
- The 5 movements Noël has to have when training a tactical athlete
Follow Noel here
@breda.sc on Instagram
@brand.sc on Instagram
JOIN MY NEWSLETTER HERE: https://artofcoaching.
TRANSCRIPT
Brett Bartholomew
recommended books, research articles, coaching tips, career advice, clinic dates, these are the things I get asked for the most. They’re also the very things that go out monthly on my newsletter. I try to stay active on social media so I can engage with and learn from all of you. But the deeper discussions take place on my newsletter. Now, I promise I don’t send spam. I personally hate email. So I know what it’s like when you sign up for newsletters or do that, that send you stuff all the time. I Don’t bombard you with nonsense, you’re not going to be bored with everything I’m thinking at every spare minute of the day. This newsletter is simply where I announced everything that I’m doing first. So if you want to stay up to speed, or you feel like you missed out on something in the past, signing up for the newsletter at artofcoaching.com is the absolute best way to ensure that doesn’t happen again, whether that’s episode updates, again, whether that’s exclusive resources, whether that’s information about all the things that we’re continuing to build, to engage with more of you that want to be involved with art of coaching, the best place to go to is artofcoaching.com/start, again, artofcoaching.com/start this podcast, social media stuff, all that stuff comes secondary to whatever I put on that newsletter. So if your only goal is to just get pieces and tidbits, by all means I value guys as a listener, and keep going, I’m gonna give you my best. But if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, if you want to know what’s next, if you want to continue to challenge yourself with different coaching challenges throughout the week are just different resources that I can go a little bit more deep into into the nuance of an application of certain things. artofcoaching.com/start is the place to go. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode, I appreciate all of your feedback, keep sending it in, I’m gonna do my best to keep giving you guys more unique topics, more unique guests. It’s been awesome to hear some of the response about underdogs in our field. People that not a lot of you have heard from people that haven’t always had a chance to share their voice, share their thoughts, share their opinions. So keep the recommendations coming. keep the feedback coming. I’ll do my best to keep getting better for all of you enjoy the episode and I’ll talk to you soon.
Brett Bartholomew
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. I have a good friend on today. We actually met through social media, which it’s funny a lot of strength coaches have poor social media, but it brings so many great coaches together. Or in my case, a good coach with a great coach. I’d like to introduce you guys all to Noël Brand Noël what’s going on, man.
Noël Brand
Hey, Brett. How’s it going my Man?
Brett Bartholomew
It’s going great. Thanks for coming on today. Can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?
Noël Brand
Yeah, of course. My name is Noël Brand. I am a former Royal Netherlands Marine. I was with Royal Netherlands Marine Corps for 14 years deployed to Afghanistan was a physical training instructor at the Marine Corps. And I am currently running my strength and conditioning gym full time here in the Netherlands
Brett Bartholomew
that’s I don’t know, first of all, thank you for your service, you know, and everything that you put into that. Can you go ahead?
Noël Brand
Thank you for your support.
Brett Bartholomew
Ya know, tell us a little bit more about that. How did you go down that decide to go down that path? And then eventually, how did it lead you to where you’re at now?
Noël Brand
So you mean how I got into the Marine Corps?
Brett Bartholomew
Yeah, what made you want to join the Marine Corps? Tell us a little bit about that experience as much as you’re comfortable telling. And then what made you decide to get into coaching and doing what you’re doing now?
Noël Brand
Well, I always liked sports. And I saw an ad somewhere. And it just triggered me to try and see if I was up to the challenge to become a Royal Netherlands Marine. We have a very small Marine Corps, but our country is very small. And it’s pretty tough to get in like, like I’d say 33 to 50% of all people who try and join the Marine Corps actually make it, but I really wanted the challenge. So I got into the Marine Corps I trained for it, I kind of had to figure it out myself. And then join the Marine Corps got through boot camp and school of infantry, but which we call a little different than the in the States. I did that for, you know, for close to 14 years. And I just really enjoyed doing that work. I was a airborne marine with a 23rd airborne Marines, I was a medic, a Special Forces medic with the infantry, I wasn’t Special Forces. I was just the name of the course that I did for a couple of months. And I deployed and I just got really love the work to be in the Marine Corps, the camaraderie jumping out of planes blowing shit up. You might have to edit some of that stuff.
Brett Bartholomew
No, we don’t edit this. This is good.
Noël Brand
Oh, great, colorful language. And I finally was like, Well, you know, this is all fun and games, but I wanted to become an instructor because I wanted to help other people do a better job, I learned more responsibility. So I became a corporal which is an NCO rank in the Netherlands Marine Corps. So you do like a year to nine months of a course to become a corporal. then I became a PTI, a physical training instructor, and it landed me a job, a major asked me to fill a certain position at the remedial training group, where we, with a team of doctors and physios where we try and fix marine third class who were unable to continue the Marine Corps training because of an injury. And our Marine Corps training is 24 weeks bootcamp and school of infantry. But we would see a lot of problems with hips, shins, ankles, knees, back, shoulders, the regular stuff, basically, in the military. And sometimes it would be a written or practical test. But I became an instructor there. And I really liked the coaching. And even though I was in the Marine Corps as a physical training instructor, I was also working my own gym, because I’ve owned my gym, co owned my gym along with my wife. I’ve been a co owner and co founder for seven years. And my wife came on board not too long ago, about three years ago, but I was doing that, besides the Marine Corps, and the love of the Marine Corps, never diminished. But the love for coaching started to grow more and more. So eventually, I was in the right position. That I was like, okay, my, current job at the Marine Corps is going to end after a certain time, you have to switch to a different position. And I was like, Okay, well, I guess now or never, and I gave them my one year notice. And that allowed me to do different courses in my last year, and then I took the leap and left the Marine Corps left the safety of the Marine Corps or the military, and then ventured into the private sector, and did that full time. And now I’m helping. This is where the circle is complete. And now I’m helping other people kind of prep for their military career to become Army, Air Assault, Army Special Forces or Marine Corps.
Brett Bartholomew
That’s absolutely perfect is sorry, I’m fighting a cold. And sorry, to all the listeners out there. That’s exactly the amount of detail man that that I think is helpful to people because you highlight some key things here that I want to review and correct me if any of them that are wrong. So a couple of unique challenges that I think make you and your journey really unique. And everybody’s got their own challenges. But you know, not only were you in the Marine Corps, but English is your second language, correct?
Noël Brand
Yes.
Brett Bartholomew
And ironically, you probably speak that second language better than most people speak their first, but I think that’s awesome. And especially to come on a podcast I can’t imagine how nerve racking that would be you know, there. My wife and I continually study Spanish. You know, when I go speak I spoke in Portugal for two and a half weeks this year. So I try to learn a bit of Portuguese I always try to learn but I’m not fluent in another language like you are and I think that’s something that is really a bit saddening about most Americans and you know, at the same time, we’re not really kind of in that same direct contact with so many other regions like you guys are with the proximity. You know, when with English kind of being a primary language. It’s an easy excuse to fall back on. But I think that is so commendable that not only did you go through something physically and mentally that most people could not get through with the Marine Corps. But now You know, being able to speak English as a second language, especially very well, a challenge that that represents when so much information is, you know, comes out of the States for a sports performance. And of course, much of it has its bedrock or provenance from Eastern European stuff. And European literature, there’s so much great research that comes out of Europe and other parts of the world. But it still is tough when you have other quote unquote, influencers that come out of the states, right. And we’ll talk about that in a moment. But you open your own gym, and as you said, that’s in a small country. So opening your own gym is is hard in general, let alone in a small country where I’m sure you have quite a bit of competition. And then not only that, you own your own gym and run it with your wife, which, you know, to most casual listeners would think like, that’s great. He gets to see the woman that he loves every day they get to spend time around each other. But working with your significant others not always easy, isn’t it?
Noël Brand
My wife says she is a delight. So
Brett Bartholomew
I’m sure she is.
Noël Brand
Well, actually, yes. Well, actually, she came on as a member first because I started the gym with somebody else. We went our different ways. business wise, now he runs a gym somewhere else about, like, 10 miles from here, like 10 to 15 miles from here, but she came along as a member, but she was always also into coaching and, sports. So it was a natural fit. And it just coincided where I’m thinking I’m using that word correctly coincide.
Brett Bartholomew
Yeah, absolutely.
Noël Brand
We started our relationship and she signed the paper going like, Okay, I’m cool owning this flying circus now. And that’s how that’ll happen. But it is tough. Being your partner and you both being invested literally, financially, emotionally in the same business, but also, I would say it is our strongest point as well. It’s just tough that we have to go and say Okay, now we’re done with work. And now it’s time for for Sona, my wife and for me.
And so that is tough. And to go back to what you said about the language about my English, I basically thank Saturday morning cartoons for that because we have when I was like three to four years old, we didn’t have subtitles, but I could listen. So basically he man and mask man and like all those good cartoons from Ninja Turtles, were all like, responsible for that. So to go back to what you just said, it is fun to have the business with my wife, but also if, shit turns sour is going to be a problem. So we have to make this work too. So we love doing this. I love doing this. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left the Marine Corps. But we have to make this work.
Brett Bartholomew
Sure. Yeah. And I think it’s such a interesting topic to touch on because so many people that listen to this podcast are managers and owners of some kind of business as well. It’s not just high level teams strength and conditioning coaches and, and coaches starting their journey. There’s people out there that you know, run their own facility. There’s people out there that are in completely unrelated fields that own but like I think what’s tough about working with your significant other in particular on my end is, you know, my wife helps with the nutrition support for the athletes that I work with. Now, she’s got a full time job as well. She just kind of jumps in and assists with this, but she also helps, you know, we just did a giveaway, a book giveaway and we’re giving away 100 copies of the book personalising. I always just want people to know how much I didn’t think anybody would do anything with my book other than throw it in the trash or the fire. She you know, she’s a soldier, she sits down and she helps me address them mail them out, like and why it’s tough, in my opinion, is because there are some times where there’s these very blurry lines between that’s the person that you love, but that’s also somebody that has to be accountable for something that’s really important, you know, so for example, if I mess up writing down and address we have to ship something to or she happens to or she doesn’t follow up with an athlete during a time that I said we had a schedule meeting, you know, you have to find that line between like, Alright, how do I address this with you without it following us home that night? You know, without it kind of affecting our marriage? How do we criticize one another like and help each other get better? Without kind of you know what I mean without it impacting the marriage and then most people think, well, if you have a strong marriage that shouldn’t be an issue. It’s, not so much about that is it is just finding this, line of of being able to kind of have openness, criticism, vulnerability, and Patience, which is something I’ve always been really bad with, like, having patience, and understanding. And so have there been times where, I don’t know maybe you mess something up at the gym, or you guys didn’t agree on on something even as something as silly as where to put a piece of equipment or a platform. What do you guys do to make sure that any kind of conflict that you have when running that business together, doesn’t follow you home? Or doesn’t impact your friendship and relationship?
Noël Brand
Well, that’s a great question. Because Sona was a member at the gym first, and I was already coaching you there, as the owner or co owner, we are very, very methodical where we put our stuff our material, we want to cut the balls to be lined up like this, you want the bars to be over here, we want the plates to be like this. And that might be my OCD, or that might be my military. I don’t know, like my military flair, or whatever I like in the military with were throws and schedules and blah, blah, blah. But OCD isn’t really a problem unless you embrace it and just go like, we’re going to do it like this, because it feels the right way to do this. But also, if you have someone like your wife or your significant other, that also is able to listen to you and understand why you are doing certain things. And it’ll run smoothly or whatever. She understands she’s on the same page. Also, I used to be pretty stubborn certain way. And then she would convince me like, hey, we need to do this this way. Because we are all on the same page, we were both on the same page, or teams on the same page. And this is our goal. So it’s not about ego, it has to be my way or it has to be her way or his way. No, we’re a team, we’re going to make this work. And sometimes teamwork means, you know, not being stubborn, and just listening to the other person and going all right, I’m wrong. You’re right, this is better. And a good idea is a good idea. And doesn’t matter who says the who mentions the good idea. Just you have to accept like, Oh, damn, she’s right. Okay, your honey, we’re gonna do it that way. So it’s communication, and it’s not with just you and the athlete, or you and the other coach, it’s with you, again, with yourself. And also with the person you’re talking to, in this case, my wife. So it’s, basically being honest with her being honest with myself and listening to what we’re trying to achieve. So, we never go to bed with a fight, or we never leave trying to leave the gym, you know, with tension, we talk about it. And that is what really works. And obviously, sometimes you have to, you know, eat shit and accept that you’re wrong. But you know, you get better by just accepting that sometimes you’re not always right.
Brett Bartholomew
Yeah, yeah. And a couple of key points. And I think you touched on there specifically were in this drew me to you, you, are very self aware, you have a high sense of self awareness, you know, how you come across, I appreciate that. You’re unapologetic for that because I think that we live in a world now where we’re almost, we’re told to be ourselves, but then if we are we’re reprimanded really quickly, you know, for not being politically correct or sensitive. And so it’s this weird dichotomy where it’s like, Hey, be yourself Be authentic. But people really don’t often want us to be ourselves at times, you know, so, but you talking about your OCD and having that self awareness and how much it can help if they understand why and so it sounds like you and your wife, you have a sense of cohesiveness, compassion, and really great communication between the two of you. All of that making up self awareness. But why do you think it is so hard for a lot of coaches? And you could say, managers, leaders, what have you coaches being a universal term? Why is intense self reflection? hard for people? Why is it hard for people to become self aware? And have you ever come across people that they really think that you know, that they’re self aware and that, you know, they’re really locked in with the communication side of things and relational side of things, but they’re actually very far off? Let’s start with the first one. Why is it hard for people to be self aware in your opinion?
Noël Brand
Well, it’s tough to self reflect. Nobody wants to work on their weakness, and nobody wants to hear like, Hey, man, I know you think you’re doing a good job, but actually, you’re pretty shitty. Nobody wants to hear that because everybody wants acknowledgement that they’re doing a good job. But like I say, when I’m coaching people, and I value, people being coachable that you listen, you come on time you work hard, you put a You, the details matter, stuff like that. But also you have to really look at yourself and go like, Am I doing that? So when I, did a couple of courses and seminars and whatever and I thought, hey, I got this coaching down, I know my sets, my reps my tempo, I know Philippines chart by heart and blah, blah, blah, no, I got it made. But every time you know, you can have a shit ton of tools. But if you don’t know how to use those tools, and tell people how to use those tools, you know, a lot can go wrong, or it’s not as effective as you think it might be. So self reflection is tough because you need to work on your weakness because if you work on your weakness, that sucks. Your ego gets in the way and you’re like, man I need there’s so much more I need to do and learn. I didn’t even think I’d have to do this. But self reflection it sucks because the roof of ruthless honesty yet you might have with others, you will now have to focus on yourself. And that’s difficult. Nobody really enjoys being told that the work isn’t as good as they think it is. But that’s the way you get better.
Brett Bartholomew
That’s good. And as a coach building off of that, what is your biggest weakness? You know, as it pertains to? It could be verbal communication, technical instruction, logistics, programming, nonverbal, what have you found? If somebody were to say that to you and say, Noël, here, you know, this is your weakness? What would that be? And what would you what have you pinned down?
Noël Brand
Actually, and like I said, A good idea is a good idea doesn’t matter. Who says it? My mother in law, which I love, told me that I might have a trait from my mom, who I love as well. And who actually trains at my gym. She is almost 70. She’s our oldest member. So just just, we’re gonna let me elaborate here, our youngest member is MOUT. She’s a former roller, she’s 17. Our oldest member is my mom. And everything in between, we have like jits guys, military hopefuls, military police, whatever. And I’m coaching my mom to try and keep her healthy. But anyway, she told me that a trait I might have picked up from my mom or inherited was, I have trouble listening to people, I listen or read half of the sentence. And then I’m like, Oh, I already know where this is going. And I already have 17 Answers lined up. Oh, shit, I didn’t listen to the rest of the question. So that’s probably a problem that I’m working on. Because I want to get better at it. Because it’s super impressive, super important part of communication. Also, what used to be a problem is that I didn’t understand why people would sometimes ask me why we’re doing something. And I would thought I would think they would. They’re like, they’re being stubborn, or they’re questioning me on my intelligence, or my programming, and blah, blah, blah, and I’d get super defensive about it. But I learned to be more, I think the word’s empathetic or empathy in, trying to feel where are they coming from their own insecurities, their, you know, whatever their own, like ideas or preconceived notions that they have. But right now, I would say listening was is my biggest thing I need to work on my weak link at the moment. And only recently did I feel more competent in the empathy part. And that is also because of your book. And that’s why I also told a lot of people they should get the book because it helped me out a lot because you can only you if you have a ton of tools, that’s cool. But you also have to be able to communicate how to work those tools. So that’s why I was thumping that book so hard.
Brett Bartholomew
No, I appreciate that. And I think that what a lot of people maybe don’t realize and I don’t know if I’ve ever said this really publicly before, is that book was a manifestation of my own self reflection, I think, there’s periods of time where I was trying to really figure out different strengths and weaknesses I had. I was kind of tired of the typical review process you’d get at work. It kind of just seemed like we did a three 60 Review meant that everybody at your work got to review you. And they could do so anonymously, which I don’t know how I feel about that either. I mean, I think that there was one guy that I worked with, and I loved him for this. He said one time in a meeting, why are we doing this anonymously, if somebody’s reviewing me whether they have good or bad things to say, I’d like to know that because I want to have that discussion with that individual, you know, now, of course, you always have to consider the other side, some people may feel like they can’t be honest, if they’re not anonymous, and that’s why trolls exist on social media. But, that book it was a manifestation of me trying to be self reflective. And sadly, I feel like one part of the book that a lot of people skip over, because they just get to the archetypes was the three stages of internal identification, the part that is all about intense self reflection, right, like questioning who you are owning who you are trying to figure out things like, it’s so much more and, I don’t know the guy, but all respect to Simon Sinek. But it’s so much more than just starting with why I think that was a really catchy catchphrase. And God bless him good book, good message. But it’s so much more than starting with why. And that’s hard for people to get by. And again, that’s just something that really stood out about you is, you’ve always told it like it is at least since I’ve followed you, what role do you think that plays in coaching, especially today? And can you provide an example where you gave someone really straightforward, gut punching, Soul stealing type of feedback, and it helped them turn a corner? I know that’s a bit I know that I know, that’s hard to do off the top of your head. But
Noël Brand
yeah, I would say, what I usually do is I would tell them,why, I am helping them or, Hey, I remind them, hey, you’re coming to me, because this is the civilian sector now, because in the military sector is really easy. You just tell people to do shit, and they need to do shit or otherwise, there’s going to be like just a hazing or like an ass beating, or whatever. But that doesn’t work in the civilian sector. So here, and I used started using this in the military sector as well, while I was coaching people, was I tell them about being coachable. I tell them, I want to help them with their goal, I want to help them I want to provide something of value, something that they can take now and help them in the short term in the longer term and in the super long term. So I would say, because I build a relationship with them, that I was able to be really honest, and I can’t really think of one specific example. But usually I would tell them, given my example, that I made a mistake in one part of my life that they are now about to make or making. And I would go like this does set me back, and this and that way, and I want you to not make this mistake. So that’s why I want you to do it like this. So I’ll tell them real honest, if there isn’t a lot of time, I’ll just blurt out, I want you to do this, this and that and do it now. And then afterwards, I’ll tell him like, this is the reason why. So I can’t really tell you a good example. So sorry, audience. I wasn’t, I have no
Brett Bartholomew
we’d rather have honesty over bullshit, man. That’s, perfect. I mean, I just think that like, that’s a good reflection for the audience. I always try to give them action points in order to so that they don’t kind of passively listen, because I think that can be easy to do with podcasts today. But I’m kind of a good reflection point for everybody listening, if you want an action item step is think about a time when somebody gave you feedback or intense criticism, or vice versa, whatever. And you reacted really strongly about that maybe even kept you up that night. You’re like what did they mean by that? Like, screw that? I’m not like that. And then the more you kind of let it sink in kind of like a delayed training effect. Yes. And what we realize SON OF A BITCH they were, right? Like, so I’d love to hear from any of you guys in the audience that have dealt with that. Like what was that and what was so hard about it, you can hit me on Instagram or info@artofcoaching.com with that building off that Noel and correct me if I’m wrong here. But I’ve seen you mentioned it a couple of times. You’re part of kind of that Jim Jones family meeting like you’ve kind of gone through some of their training. Is that first off, is that correct?
Noël Brand
Yes. Yes, I’m a fully certified Jim Jones instructor. It was only a few of them in the world and Okay. and even less in Europe and even less in the Netherlands where I live. And I have to say this in the same breath are the same sentence. My wife was the first female, European Jim Jones instructor
Brett Bartholomew
Oh, wow. Yes, well, congratulations that definitely something that sets you apart. And we’re gonna go into what Jim Jones here is in a minute just so people can fully understand that because even though it’s a huge global brand, there might, there’s always some listeners that we just want to make sure everybody’s on the same page. But what I’m interested in, and this is because a lot of my doctoral work is going to focus on power dynamics, influence, persuasion, psychology, and the role that it plays in coach development, and also dealing with kind of just conflict in general. But what was their approach to coach development and what has helped you most when going through that kind of whole process?
Noël Brand
Well, for the people who don’t know about Jim Jones, it’s a strength conditioning facility in Salt Lake City. I was always drawn to it for some reason, like years and years and years ago, and I never had the financial means or the time to go to Salt Lake City. Because while it’s not cheap, to travel from Europe to Salt Lake, and then attend the seminars, and it’s a multi, it’s more than one seminar that you need to attend, and there’s physical standards or to become a fully certified instructor. It’s attainable. It’s not like I’m not like most like gifted athletes ever. But if you work hard, you can make the physical standards. And if you kind of know what you’re doing coaching wise, and you coach, and you practice what you preach, then you can attain the two, then you can become a fully certified instructor. So, damn, I’m rambling. Oh, what was your question? Again? I’m sorry?
Brett Bartholomew
No, no, you’re fine. So What was their approach to coach development? Meaning, you know, what? And I know, you can’t give everything away. That’s, intellectual property. But, you know, what was it their whole kind of manifesto? What differentiated Jim Jones in terms of you talked about how you’re one of the only ones in Europe, the only one of the few in general? What does that mean? What are the principles of their development, their method, specifically, as it pertains to instructing others coaching others? That make more sense?
Noël Brand
Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, that comes back basically to their training philosophy, and the first one that they mentioned, and the first one that they stand with is and so the why is the mind is primary. And that sounds like a super cool catchphrase or whatever, like start with why or, whatever, but they really elaborate on this during the courses, but it’s basically how you coach yourself and that’s where it is day won’t make you an instructor unless they see you put in the work physically working out, but also coaching. So it is the mind is primary functional training, outcome based training training for an objective, high degree of transferability power to weight ratio, all that stuff in their basic training philosophy, which sounds simple, but as simple as easy. They want you to do the work and you need to come up fruit Yeah, I kind of hate the phrase but work your way up you know in from the trenches, work your way up, actually do the work. It’s not just a sit there and attend the seminars and you’ll be fine and you’ll become a coach kind of program you really need to work on on first making the physical standards then also, they’re not easy, they’re attainable, but they’re not easy. And then you also need to they would love for you to come and an intern there an internship for a couple of weeks if you can, and then they want to see you coach and they help you with your program development and your coaching cues and stuff like that. And it is the internship isn’t like a cookie cutter way it’s just what do you need to become a competent qualified instructor in their way of coaching and teaching.
Brett Bartholomew
That’s perfect very thorough. And because coach development is an area that’s lacking right now you know, there’s a lot of internships there’s a lot of programs there’s a lot of this and that but not so much on its one to two ends of the spectrum. It’s either highly academic and very rarely applicable. we kind of talked about it’s married in theory but divorced from reality, or
Noël Brand
that’s a great
Brett Bartholomew
thanks, man. Then or, you know, it’s just kind of show up, you know, go through the ropes, stay on the floor, keep your mouth shut, you know, kind of thing. And it’s an area that needs to be improved. So it’s interesting to hear everybody’s kind of take on that. And like, you know, when you first started out as a coach, Staying on the topic of coach development, what were some previously unseen obstacles? That you kind of went through that if you went back and talk to yourself now and you’re like, Noel you don’t think this is going to be an issue, man, or you don’t think this is going to be important now, but I have to tell you, it is one of the most important things you’re going to have to learn or deal with what were some of those things for you?
Noël Brand
Well, First thing that comes to mind would be the like the the back end, the office, the the admin, the taxes, just like simple number stuff that some people might be like, I do. I’m an accountant, I do taxes all the time I do that I run the numbers all the time. But that was something I really underestimated. Well, I’ve just mentioned this, but coaching, learning how to coach different the same thing in different ways, because everybody understands, and learns or improves in a different rate or in a different way. Because I used to think, Oh, you do show up, okay. Did you pay? Yes, okay, then you could come in a gym, and we’ll do a session, or I’m just gonna go to coach my way. And if they don’t learn, then they need to leave. But that’s not how it works. What else I think that this, we have like a, there’s a commercial in the Netherlands. And it’s, I have to translate it on the fly. But the message was, if you stay normal long enough, you end up being special.
Brett Bartholomew
So it is repeat that one more time.
Noël Brand
If you stay normal long enough, you become special. So
Brett Bartholomew
elaborate,
Noël Brand
what I meant was, everybody likes to see something fancy on Instagram, because it’s a snapshot of one thing of the training program and you see some highly skilled athlete doing some insane, I don’t know, cold drill, or whatever, and he’s on doing something super special. And you’re like, damn, I want to do that. Like, you can barely squat and do an air squat with nothing on you, and you want to do this. So everybody wants something that they can put on Instagram, that looks really cool. And then that’s the hot new thing to do. But like well, you or Dan John or Steve Maxwell or a plethora of other great strength coaches say is stick with the basics, the basics done at an extremely complicated level, the basics, just at an advanced level, so not to not falling for the lore of something that looks good, but it’s not repeatable or is not applicable. And just, just stick with the basics, but at a high level, I would say I would tell myself that if I could go back in time and tell myself Hey, man, get your administration in order that’s tough needs to be okay. Otherwise you can’t coach learn how to coach you’re programming your principles in more ways than one so more people can benefit from this and you can be of more value and more use to other people. And don’t fall for the shiny object. Just it’s not everything that shines is gold.
Brett Bartholomew
Yeah, and I think you know, you mentioned something shiny objects, Instagram, all that there is a great quote, great quote that I was reading the other night while doing some research for a presentation I’m working on where a gentleman and I don’t want to give too much of it away right now. But you know, he talked about the interesting thing about innovation is that when you make something of course, you will also create kind of its devil’s advocate or your alternate. So for example, when you invent the airplane, you also have invented the airplane crash. You invented the automobile, you’ve also, invented the highway accident when social media gets bashed a lot, but it’s not going anywhere. And it’s funny. So many people look at that. And I myself at time, and we’ve talked about this a lot on the show, so we won’t belabor it, but people think, Oh, this is what I see there. Therefore, that medium is shit. And it’s like, well, no, it’s only crap. If you’re not contributing to it at all. You have good stuff to share, or you’re contributing into it just kind of by, I would say not contributing at all, or just kind of feeding into the bullcrap and losing your identity within it trying to kind of play the game without being informed, you know, but I’ll tell you one answer. It’s not to complain about it. And it’s not to just like, There’s nothing good out there, like you said, Put the good shit, the basic stuff out there. And that’ll help you have an approach. I mean, we found each other on social media, I think you have an approach. So I’ll be interested to see what you say about this. But what is your approach through what you share and why you share? And if you had a mantra and you talked about Jim Jones being the mind is primary? What is your mantra or primary strategy as it pertains to social media?
Noël Brand
Well, first off, when I talk about the basics, or the fundamentals, or whatever, at a high level, I always go back to what we do at our gym. And we have like a mantra at our gym, and it is on the wall were for everybody to see at the gym, for the instructors for the coaches that coach there. And for the clients and the athletes and PT clients that come there. Do you mind if I share our message? Because no,
Brett Bartholomew
by all means, I want you to share everything.
Noël Brand
Okay, good. So I translated from Dutch to English. And it’s on the wall. It’s our manifesto, and it says, but in our strength and conditioning, we make people physically and mentally stronger. Our training is simple, but not easy. We use minimal means for maximum results, we value quality technique, hard work and helping each other. We want to give our members the best training we can, every time that they are in the gym. We don’t care what your 100% effort is, but give us your 100% effort. So that is our basis. those are our fundamentals at the gym. And from there, we have to have our different programs. So my wife has strong women, I have a defensive training schema, which means defense training schedule, by helping others prepare for the military. We have our GPP class, our General, jump up training. But we always start with good movement, good fundamentals basics. And that’s what we try and show that if you are injury free, or we get you out of injury we make you we help you move better, so you can perform better, whatever the task is that you want to perform better at so triathlete that I trained Brazilian Jujitsu, no key grappling guide, did I train military hopefuls, they all benefit from the same thing, good movement, being able to understand how their body functions because sometimes it looks like somebody’s 38 years old, but they never use their body a day or their life. You’re like, yeah, did you just get this body this? Did you never do this before your arm or so when we do the basics correctly, everything will fall into place. And it’s basically I joke about this. But it’s basically we give you superpowers. Now you go ahead and use those superpowers hopefully for good. Maybe for evil. I don’t know. So what we put on social media is the basics at a high level. So I’ll have somebody do a hip mobility drill. Well, it’s called the elevator situp. It’s from wolf brigade. Well forget New York, I saw from them, I started incorporating it into warm up specific warm up for a person for a female who had hip issues for about 19 years. So we made her do dat in progression. And now she barely has any more hip problems after 19 years. So we just put out that we put out the basics at a high level. And then we tell people why it was important. And we add value to other people’s lives and hopefully make coaches kind of think about what they put out because they put out there snapshot wise on Instagram. They’re like, Hey, man, this looks super fancy. This might not look too super fancy, but it works. Maybe it will work for your client too. Because I don’t know everything. But together we know a lot. So if I can share something, which I think is a good idea, I’ll share it but it’s usually only the basic stuff. But the problem is people look at the basic stuff and go like yeah, it’s not fancy. It doesn’t work well maybe if you try it you’ll find out that the basics Well, you can’t beat the basics. And
Brett Bartholomew
it was super sick. And I think it’s easy for people to ignore that because it’s just so it seems so trite. And I think a lot of people don’t train with the right effort, focus and intensity. So they don’t understand that the basics really allow you to strain at a higher level. And strain is such an important term to use, whether you’re talking about management, training, coaching, it’s this inherent discomfort, it’s not pain, it’s strain. It’s tension, it’s kind of chaos manifested in this kind of, this feeling. And that’s why the basics are so good. I mean, the strain involved. And if you get cute, you can’t do that you can get tired, but being tired is not the same as straining. And it also does not elicit the same kind of growth. Would you agree?
Noël Brand
Definitely people come that you want to work out or you want a training plan, because if you want a training plan, I’m the guy for you. If you want to work out, you can go grab a rock outside and have outstretched hands with a they’ll make you do some weird stuff and just go stand there for 30 minutes. Are you tired? Yes. Did you sweat? Yes, elevated heart rate, check. That will be 100 bucks, please. No, That’s not training. that doesn’t help you get better tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. So I would say people want to do like the fancy stuff. But before you get to the fancy stuff, or maybe you shouldn’t get to the fancy stuff at all, do the basics at a high level. So that’s why I try and say, do the basics very well, because it’ll be a superpower on its own common sense. And the basics at a high level are superpowers. So how about we use both of those? How about we use common sense as an athlete or as a client, common sense as a coach, and then do the basics at a high level? And we’ll see how we go from there.
Brett Bartholomew
Yeah, and talking about the basics, right. And let’s switch gears and talk about basics from a coaching standpoint. And evaluation. Because we’ve talked about self awareness, we’ve talked about programming, we’ve talked about kind of just philosophical tenants of what it means to strain. And I really think strain could almost be the primary theme of this episode, because it’s this inherent discomfort and finding ways around those obstacles. But I think that one of the biggest obstacles is coaches not knowing how to evaluate themselves or not being able to be evaluated cleanly, and purely objectively to begin with, which, that’s why we don’t work in a purely objective profession. It’s a social field. And we’re we’re in a social environment that’s going to be inherently messy, but how do you evaluate yourself as a coach, either after each session or you know, quarterly? Do you have a form you guys use? You meet regularly as a staff? But how do you evaluate and critique and break down really the way you coach and how and why and man are you deliver everything?
Noël Brand
So this might sound like I’m like, trying to get on my wife’s good side, but because she was a coach, too. She’s a coach, too. But she comes from a different background and me from the military. And she has been like a group fitness instructor, the aerobics class kind of instructor and then she slowly slowly came into strength and conditioning, and me from the military going into strength and conditioning. She will call me on some shit. She be like, Noel, that ain’t cool. You gotta change that and be like, okay, so she keeps me honest. Also, when I’m like, Well, maybe you should do this. I keep her honest in that way, or well, honest, I help her. But that’s not like a very structured thing. We’ll just tell one another when we think this could help or that could help. But actually, when you were talking about, like an evaluation, or how I evaluate myself, which, like I said, it’s tough. I was about to start with the coaching evaluation sheet that you put out not too long ago, but I haven’t gotten around to using it yet. Where you mentioned, like that we achieved the goals of the session, why not? And how it could be improved, what kind of coaching styles that we incorporate? Because you put that out not too long ago, am I right?
Brett Bartholomew
Yeah, it’s part of body and it’s part of the online course, you’re talking about the coaching evaluation form where so just so everybody’s got a brief, there’s a coach, there’s a coach evaluation, like a self evaluation, an athlete evaluation, and then a session evaluation. And we put a lot of different questions and reflection techniques and practices in there so you guys can print them off. Like a lot of teams have kind of printed them off and put them on the inside of their door and so they have to come in, you know, after they’re done coaching and put that in, is that where you’re referring to the one in the course right?
Noël Brand
Yes, yes, I am gonna do that. Please excuse me my dogs barking
Brett Bartholomew
No, no worries, man, I got rescues, you’re good.
Noël Brand
So I was going to use the coaching evaluation sheets, I think you put it out there on your website. But also every six weeks our other coaches and we get together, and we talk through how we are going to work the next six weeks and what practices they use and how it can be better or their questions for me and my questions for them. We do that every six weeks, even though we only it’s my wife and I and and our two other coaches. even if it’s because it’s a small team, we have to be on the same page. And on the business side of that we also have the business. The business of strength helped us with from Dan and Joe from for crcm. It made us aware that we also need on our business side, we have an evaluation meeting, which is called our advisory board, where we have like a couple of our, like a couple of members that we asked if they wanted to help us on a volunteer basis to help us improve our business, our coaching our gym. And that’s how we also get very honest feedback from some of the clients that come to our small group training. So on one hand, it’s the other coaches and my wife and also the co owner. It’s the other coaches and also some of the people that we coach that might be entrepreneurs themselves, or they might have been with us for a long time or for other reasons we asked him to help us out. And that’s how we try and evaluate ourselves as a coach. And as a gym and the quality of the value of our product,
Brett Bartholomew
so to speak. It’s helpful. And one of the we talked about this offline. One of the final things I wanted to ask you, because we’re coming up on time here. And you’ve given such great information. Again, I hope people I mean, everything we’ve talked about whether it’s overcoming, we get a lot of people listening in that have a lot of unique challenges they write me all the time on Instagram saying hey, I don’t have this, I don’t have a mentor, I don’t have money, I don’t have this, I can’t get a job, you know. And so just recapping the challenges the Marine Corps, learning a separate language, owning your own gym, all the money, you’ve had to invest. And like most of us as coaches, like none of us have an abundance of money. None of us are rich by any means. But the amount of money you invested, which and I don’t want to put you on the spot here. And this isn’t the final question. But it did. I do want to give coaches an idea because people are very warped on the difference between costs and investment. Noel, would you be comfortable telling us like, and you don’t need to tell us what it is. But what is the most you’ve spent on a continuing education resource, whether it was coming over for a clinic, whether it was something online you bought, whether it was what is the most money you’ve invested in that because and I want you to say this not not to brag, but just because there are some people that think this stuff should be free or easy. They don’t get that everybody’s got a they don’t get the sacrifices people make. So could you share that?
Noël Brand
Sure. So when we started seven years ago, I’ll give you a couple of numbers when we started seven years ago, we could start a different way because now people want like daycare and a smoothie bar and a shower. We don’t have that at my gym. So we got in into it with I think just around this is going to be I have to estimate in dollars, but we started the gym with like maybe 10 $12,000 and just to get it going and then we continually groove with that and then got some more stuff a fancier rag more kettlebells blah, blah, blah, and airbike ski or roar, but obviously you need more some more education. So I would say here to Netherlands I did a great did some great like continuous education with the overload principle that was just shy of $5,000 and then I got it into my head that I finally wanted to pursue the lifelong dream of or well very long dream that I had of Jim Jones but traveling to Salt Lake the Airbnb estadia a car I would say Jim Jones was another like just a with everything so the flights in full Yeah
Brett Bartholomew
All in all Lin,
Noël Brand
I’d say about 15,000
Brett Bartholomew
again. And is that money? Is that easy for you to just grab out of a duffel bag?
Noël Brand
No, I print my own. So it’s really?
Brett Bartholomew
Like, I just touched on that again, like before we close out. touch on that again, because I got checked by a friend a couple years ago. I remember I was bitching and moaning because I think I’d paid like, I don’t know, it’s like $1,000, which was a crazy amount of money for me for some clinic. And he was like, Dude, your field has it easy. If that’s expensive, and I go, What do you mean, he’s like, the stuff I have to pay for and with what he does for a living, he’s like, you don’t get clinics for any less than about 3500 to five G’s. And that’s like, for base level information, you know, and he’s like, that’s a reality of our professional development. And I said, Yeah, but you guys probably get paid a lot more. He’s like, marginally, man, you know, the starting salary for what I do, is and this will, is 65,000. Us, and coaches, you know, strength coaches will start sometimes that at 20. My graduate assistantship, I made 10,000 US a year or so very, and I did two unpaid internships. But I just think sometimes we get in this like, ah, you know, it should be easy. People don’t understand the sacrifices people have to make. So you’ve done a good job talking about the challenges, evaluation, the importance of basics, I want to close this off with this, and you only get one minute to answer this question, because we try to make sure that people can just like, it’s like a freestyle battle rap, right? Like, we don’t want overthinking and people just boom. So you have a tactical background, right? With military. Yes. What are five exercises or modalities that you think should always be prioritized in the programming for that population? Go
Noël Brand
Alright, so Well, you got to elicit look at the demands, what does the work the man but also what do the physical standards demands so you’ll have to be able to run so endurance needs to be a part of it, but also bodyweight strength. So I would say exercises bodyweight stuff simple stuff like push ups and pull ups obviously, you need to be able to move you’ll be able to run, I would say and this is something that gets overlooked all the time for people that try and prepare for the military grip strength and you can get that with weighted carries. So farmers rock rack walk a bottom up walk stuff with kettlebells with yoke whatever sandbags heavy sandbags, heavy kettlebells weighted carries are not silver bullets, but they’re getting there. So I would say push ups pull ups running endurance wise. Weighted carries grip strength. You’ll be solid gold if you work on those in the right form in the right programming.
Brett Bartholomew
I love it. That’s perfect man clean and to the point. No, I want to thank you for coming on man. You’re a tremendous thanks for being a good sport. Thanks for being straightforward and yourself. And guys, if you want to get a hold of Noel, the best way on Instagram or what’s the best way? I’ll put it in the show notes as well?
Noël Brand
Yep, sure. It my gym is on Instagram has been laid out which is Bravo Romeo echo, delta alpha.sc, Shara Charlie breda.sc. And my own is brands, brand.sc is my last name. And I know the left my last name and the city that I live in sound the same. But you can find me on Instagram we’re on Well, while we’re on the website, but sc.com. And if anybody wants to get in touch with me, my email is hmfic@betasc.com. And do you know where? What H M fic stands for Brett? No. What is it? Head motherfucker in charge.
Brett Bartholomew
Guys, there’s no better way to end it and that I appreciate it, buddy. We’ll talk soon. Thanks again for all the great information.
Noël Brand
You’re welcome My man.