Hey Steve here with a guest post from one of my "unofficial" coaching clients form way back-in-the-day.

His name is Jaiya Figueras and he's one of my coolest, funniest and most talented trainers I've ever met.

We spent some wild, crazy and special times training clients in the trenches together back when I used to train.

So when he told me he wanted to do a guess post I was super pumped.

Ok, so without further ado, here's Jaiya!

Hey Jaiya here with the 5 most important things Steve Hochman taught me

There's a ton of stuff that I learned from Steve over the years.

Most if it was picked up in between jokes and fall on the ground "both hands flat on the ground" laughing at his fitness studio in Irvine, Ca.

You see I was one of the trainers that got to train clients side-by-side with Steve "in the trenches" in his fitness center back-in-the-day when he used to train clients.

(This was about 5 years 4 years ago when we met)

It was the perfect storm and the perfect time back in the day.

Now I had seen a ton of trainers sit down with Steve when they first got to the gym and nod their heads excitedly as if they were going to receive a magic anointing from the Gods.

Some quit on their potential but the special ones flourished (I've never seen so many 6-figure trainers under one roof in my life)

One of the things Steve told me when I first met him was to pretend like there was a camera on me all of the time and that’s what I always did.

When I first walked in his fitness studio and talked to him, I imagined that I was anointed by the Gods on some crazy movie where the struggling human being meets the oracle.

I felt like my life was about to change.

And it did.

You see it didn't really matter if I sat down there with Steve that day.

I will always be determined to live the life I dream of.

HOWEVER, WITHOUT STEVE, IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN ME 3 YEARS INSTEAD OF 3 MONTHS To Go From $2600 to $14,000 A Month

I went from each month barely making $2600 to $10 to $14,000 in about 3 months.

No sh*t.

One of the most important things Steve did was create a road-map (a game plan) for me to get there as fast as humanly possible with the tools that I had:

1. A broken down Ford Explorer

2. 3 clients that I brought over with me from 24 hour fitness.

3. A “take no prisoners, die on my feet, who's coming with me” attitude.

So I’m going to call this the 5 most important things I learned from Steve Hochman.

1. Model a mentor/coach or someone uberly successful in your industry.

Don't just go and buy a book.

Have someone that you can actually talk to, shake hands with and touch.

I had Steve to talk to me and let me know when I was slipping or when I was doing great.

Tony Robbins talks about this concept called “modeling” in his book Unlimited Power.

Having a mentor who has made all of the mistakes already will save you months and even years of turmoil.

Most personal trainers just get certified with some crazy expensive service and think that the waters are going to part for them.

Most clients don’t care about your cert. They want to know if they can get results with you.

They want to see proof.

And if you don’t have 1 client to show, you need to convey that to your prospects with your drive and confidence.

And the only way you can have drive and confidence is if you have a clear vision of what you want to do.

A coach can help you clear the distractions to see exactly what you want.

And that brings me to the 2^nd most important thing that I learned from Steve.

2. Create a map and give it a timeline.

Then pull out a magazine, cut a bunch of pictures out, and create vision board (a cool word that doesn't sound lame like collage) that you can look at everyday.

This is how we were when we were kids, and we didn’t know how to ride a bike, we looked at all the big kids who rode bikes and confidently knew that one day we were going to ride just like them.

We drew pictures and talked about it all the time. We were determined to keep trying even though we fell and scraped our knees up. A little blood never stopped any kid from achieving their goals.

But something happens when people get older, they start to lose that passion and vision that they had as children.

Bills, relationships, deaths, and all of the other normal factors of life begin to chip away at them.

Creating a map will be your passion and the light at the end of the tunnel.

It will give you purpose and a reason for staying up late and working on that project that you're going to pitch, or waking up at 4 am in the morning to work on your vision like I did with Steve.

3. Become a part of a mastermind group full of people with contagious positive and productive energy.

For about 6 months, me, Steve, and 4 other trainers would meet at 4:30 am for a roundtable of success.

It was early as you know what.

We got an opportunity to take our current challenge and throw it in the middle of the table for 10 minutes a piece.

Before we started, we would close our eyes, take 5 deep breaths, and clear our minds.

Yeah it sounds a little weird but now that I'm looking at it 4 years later, every person in that room is kicking ass and taking names.

We would talk about deep things like meditation and visualization and more down to earth things like having corporations and accountants.

I came up with my company name: Your Next Victory at this mastermind group.

Make sure the people are dependable and driven.

You DO NOT want to have people jumping in and out every other week.

You'll find that it might mess up the flow.

And many times, you’ll cover topics from the week before.

4. Take action. Make swift decisions and don't over think them.

A lot of times, ideas and premonitions come to our head in the blink of an eye.

When they do, write them down and take action.

I have seen Steve transform from being a phenomenal 6 figure trainer in a small gym to becoming the most sought after boot camp dominator coach in the country.

I spent about 4 years under his wing and saw him have to make decisions that most people would be too pussy to do and it didn’t make everybody happy.

Sometimes when you take action, you will not be able to please the masses.

You will rub people’s feathers and they will talk about you behind your back.

But that’s exactly where they will be left…Behind!

5. When you take action, your going to piss people off. Do it anyways.

And most of the reason they are pissed is because they can’t be you.

Their DNA is not designed like yours and it frustrates them.

You'll here things like, "How could you ______” or “I would never do ________. "

It doesn’t matter.

Keep moving forward and do what resonates within you.

One of the greatest quotes I heard was from the movie "Troy" when a little boy runs into Achilles' (Brad Pitt) tent and tells him to come out for a battle with a 7 ft. 300 pound steroid looking dude .

Achilles makes his way outside, and the boy says to him something like, "I wouldn't go if I were you."

Brad Pitt gets on his horse and tells the kid, "That’s why no one will ever no your name!"

That’s the epitome of our industry.

If their not talking about you (good or bad), how are other people going to hear about you?

Me and Steve used to hide a fake rat under our clients towels and scare the sh*t out of our clients during the workout.

(BTW I wish we video taped that stuff... I still roll thinking about those times)

I dressed with a clown nose and wig for a new prospect and closed it for a $3000 bucks and at some point everyday, we would fall on the ground laughing at something crazy funny.

Was the rest of the industry doing this?

No.

Could we have done it differently? Hell yeah.

But it would have sucked for us and our energy wouldn’t have been contagious.

Make waves and stop worrying about rocking people with little boats.

Follow your vision and know that you are walking on a golden road to your destiny.

It is a road made only for your feet, your mind, and your DNA woven within it.

And if you haven't already, get a coach who has already been there and done that... I know it's SO OBVIOUS but I had to say it.

See you at the finish line!

Jaiya Figueras

Jaiya Figueras is an amazing and awesome personal trainer in Orange County Ca and owner of Your Next Victory

This entry was posted on November 19, 2010 at 7:44 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Uncategorized by Steve Hochman | 12 Comments