Fighter to Coach: Transforming Challenges into Leadership Success
Fighter to Coach: Transforming Challenges into Leadership Success
Leadership often requires resilience, courage, and the ability to navigate high-pressure situations. Few people understand this better than Shaun Shubert, a former professional fighter turned business coach, speaker, and author. Shaun joined The Amanda Kaufman Show to share how lessons from the ring can empower business leaders to thrive under pressure, lead with confidence, and overcome challenges.
Here’s a closer look at Shaun’s inspiring journey and the actionable insights he shared during our conversation.
1. From Fighter to Coach: The Journey
Shaun’s path to coaching is deeply rooted in his personal story. Growing up in a tough environment, he turned to martial arts and contact sports as an outlet for his anger and energy. Over time, fighting became not just a passion but a professional career.
“I knew I was designed for something more, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” Shaun said. “Fighting gave me structure, discipline, and purpose, but eventually, I realized I wanted to do more than just fight—I wanted to help others.”
This realization led Shaun to open his gym, where he initially focused on training fighters. Over time, he recognized the parallels between fighting and business, which sparked his transition into coaching leaders and entrepreneurs.
2. The Fighter’s Mindset: Thriving Under Pressure
One of Shaun’s core philosophies is that the mindset of a fighter can be transformative in leadership and business. He shared the story of a gym client who came to him for advice on preparing for a high-stakes presentation in front of his company’s leadership team.
“He told me, ‘You fight in front of thousands of people and then give a speech afterward—how do you do it?’” Shaun recalled. “That was my lightbulb moment. I realized the techniques I used to prepare for fights could help business leaders perform under pressure.”
Shaun’s process includes:
Pre-deciding your performance: Visualizing success and committing to showing up as your best self.
Building rituals: Creating consistent habits that prepare you mentally and physically for high-pressure situations.
Managing fear: Reframing fear as excitement and using it to fuel focus and energy.
3. Lessons from the Ring: Preparation and Resilience
Shaun emphasized that preparation is key to handling challenges. In fighting, preparation determines how well you perform in the ring, and the same is true in business.
“Leaders often face stress and uncertainty, but preparation gives you an edge,” he explained. “Whether it’s a fight or a boardroom presentation, knowing you’ve put in the work builds confidence.”
He also highlighted the importance of resilience: “In fighting, you get knocked down, but you have to get back up. In business, the same principle applies. Challenges are inevitable, but resilience keeps you moving forward.”
4. From Challenges to Opportunities
Shaun’s journey hasn’t been without struggles. He shared how personal challenges, including the loss of a mentor, shaped his perspective on leadership and resilience.
“My mentor took his own life, and it left me devastated,” Shaun said. “I had no business experience, but I had to step up and run the gym he left behind. It was one of the hardest times of my life, but it taught me to adapt, persevere, and find strength in the face of adversity.”
Shaun now uses his experiences to inspire others, showing leaders how to turn challenges into opportunities for growth and transformation.
5. The Value of Trading Perspectives
Shaun pointed out that one of the greatest values of coaching is the exchange of perspectives.
“Business leaders spend so much time mastering their craft, but often neglect their physical and mental health,” he said. “On the flip side, fighters like me are experts in physical resilience but may lack other skills like financial planning or public speaking. Coaching creates a space to trade insights and grow together.”
Amanda echoed this sentiment, highlighting how coaching allows clients to access new perspectives that improve their performance and decision-making.
6. Shaun’s Advice for Coaches and Leaders
When asked what makes a coach effective, Shaun shared three key qualities:
Forward Thinking: Great coaches help clients envision their goals and develop actionable plans to achieve them.
Showing Up for Your Team: Consistency and presence build trust and credibility with clients.
Self-Recognition: Coaches must continually assess their own strengths and areas for growth to better serve their clients.
Amanda added, “Coaching isn’t just about providing answers—it’s about empowering clients to discover their own solutions and lead with confidence.”
Final Thoughts
Shaun Shubert’s journey from fighter to coach is a testament to the power of resilience, preparation, and a growth mindset. By applying the lessons he learned in the ring, Shaun now helps business leaders navigate high-pressure situations, build confidence, and achieve their goals.
If you’re a leader or coach looking to thrive under pressure, consider these takeaways from Shaun’s story:
Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth.
Develop rituals and habits that prepare you for success.
Focus on resilience and adaptability to navigate uncertainty.
Connect with Shaun and Amanda
Want to learn more from Shaun Shubert? Connect with him here:
Stay tuned for more episodes and resources from Amanda Kaufman:
What’s your biggest takeaway from Shaun’s story? Share your thoughts in the comments or send this article to a leader or coach who needs to hear it!
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Sean Schubert
04:39 The Journey from Fighter to Coach
08:33 Building a Business: Lessons from the Gym
14:10 The Psychology of Performance in Business
19:52 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways
Full Transcript
Shaun Shubert (00:00)
The fighting was something that I did to really keep me out of trouble when I was in my youth. I had like a good heart, but I was like super angry. I had a broken home and a rough childhood experience. Going through school was a really tough time for me. So I just grew up in this kind of really rugged world of
Contacts, sports, martial arts, growing up in that kind of environment just pushed me to love the physical aspect of it and that really made me need to sit down and figure some things out like there's got to be more to this kind of fighting journey than what's really here because owning a gym is like one part of it but
how am I going to reach more people? How am I going to get my message out to the world a little bit more? And I just had such a humbling experience growing up in that world, going from learning martial arts to learning that the style that I was coached in had almost no practicality for personal protection.
had limited ability for sport fighting and it just gave me another place to have to go to level up and grind out and be determined and stick to that kind of path and I knew I was designed for something more I was just never really sure of what it was and after I retired from professional fighting I kind of fell
more in love with doing the business. read a bunch of business books and I read most recently Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time, which got me into his elite business group, which is actually how I came across you and all your page and all of the other phenomenal entrepreneurs in the group. I'm just here to like really turn that next chapter in my life.
Amanda Kaufman (02:03)
I love it.
Well, hello and welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show and we are continuing our showcase of the coaches that don't suck. And you guys, I am so excited to welcome my friend, Sean Schubert here to the show. Sean, welcome.
Shaun Shubert (02:50)
Yes, sub-ended. Thank you, sick opening. I appreciate you having me on. Let's rock and roll.
Amanda Kaufman (02:55)
Let's rock and roll. love it. okay, Sean, Sean reached out to me to do this podcast to find out if there would be any kind of interest here. And I was so interested. And let me tell you why. He is a professional fighter, coach, author and speaker on a mission to help business leaders thrive under pressure. And if I might say, Sean did an especially prepared and good job of getting ready for this podcast.
A lot of people when they come on the podcast, it's like we schedule it, they show up and then that's it. But I heard from Sean several days before, he posted about the fact we're doing this interview on his Instagram. Like this man really cares about the diligence of preparation. And it didn't take me long on his Instagram feed to kind of understand that that's a key part of his strategy is to be prepared.
He has a unique background in the high stakes world of fighting, and he now shares psychological strategies with CEOs, business owners, and top managers so that they can master their mindset, eliminate fear, and lead with resilience. He's been featured on UFC's Fight Pass and has had recent guest appearances on two legit and high performance podcasts. And Sean connects the discipline of fighting to the demands of leadership, showing how mental and physical training can empower
leaders to perform at their peak and handle stress with confidence. So let's dive into your insights, man. I'm so excited that you're here. Really. This is this is a really cool conversation we're about to have. Yeah. So, Sean, you mentioned that you you started your business, your gym, like a decade ago, and you've been a fighter this whole time. And then more recently, you've decided to expand into business coaching. I am so curious, like
Shaun Shubert (04:21)
simple problems.
Amanda Kaufman (04:39)
What's driving that desire to coach? Why?
Shaun Shubert (04:44)
I really, really love coaching and it's such a passion of mine. I always really was into it when I was growing up. I used to volunteer as a kid during summers. I'd go down to youth programs, stay after school. I would volunteer for giving food to the homeless at Thanksgiving, giving away presents at Christmas time. So
That kind of just giving spirit was always like a super central part to me. The fighting was something that I did to really keep me out of trouble when I was in my youth. I had like a good heart, but I was like super angry. I had a broken home and a rough childhood experience. Going through school was a really tough time for me. So I just grew up in this kind of really rugged world of
Contacts, sports, martial arts, growing up in that kind of environment just pushed me to love the physical aspect of it and that really made me need to sit down and figure some things out like there's got to be more to this kind of fighting journey than what's really here because owning a gym is like one part of it but
how am I going to reach more people? How am I going to get my message out to the world a little bit more? And I just had such a humbling experience growing up in that world, going from learning martial arts to learning that the style that I was coached in had almost no practicality for personal protection.
had limited ability for sport fighting and it just gave me another place to have to go to level up and grind out and be determined and stick to that kind of path and I knew I was designed for something more I was just never really sure of what it was and after I retired from professional fighting I kind of fell
more in love with doing the business. read a bunch of business books and I read most recently Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time, which got me into his elite business group, which is actually how I came across you and all your page and all of the other phenomenal entrepreneurs in the group. I'm just here to like really turn that next chapter in my life.
Amanda Kaufman (07:21)
I love it.
Shaun Shubert (07:31)
I'm
like full blast and I'm coming at this business with this hungry fighter's mindset and that's where I'm at right now.
Amanda Kaufman (07:41)
I love it. love it. You know what's so funny is I was not a fighter whatsoever growing up. However, I an athlete and I did do figure skating and a lot of what you actually just shared about your background. I'm like, me too, except figure skating. me too, except figure skating. Yeah, me too, except figure skating. And you know that desire to give back to the community, that desire to connect with other people using sport to give your life structure and meaning. Like I resonate with like everything that you're
saying, except it was figure skating. And it's so interesting, even the part where you said that the fighting style that you learned wasn't necessarily practical, you know, for defense purposes or something like that. was reminding me of like figure skating was such a powerful force in my life until it became completely impractical.
And but the thing is, is that just because you're not physically doing necessarily that same thing doesn't mean that you don't carry forward a lot of those lessons that you get from being in sport and being in structure and that yen to keep growing. Totally. Yeah, that that vibes. I get it. I am really curious. Like you've been in business in a local business for about a decade. And a lot of the people that listen to this podcast, they've got all kinds of backgrounds. They might they might be
working in like a job or a corporate kind of position and now they're thinking of pivoting into a coaching business. And one of the things that's been really key for my success and growth is to think a little more like a brick and mortar business owner. So I'm really curious, like, if a coach was to build a business, but let's say that it was more of a physical one, like yours as a studio, what would the top piece of advice be, just given all of your experience that you have in business building?
Shaun Shubert (09:30)
think that knowing exactly what you want to do is paramount, especially if you're going to start putting more overhead into your cash flow. you're going to have to start expensing out different things. Like I'm looking to grow because I have a brick and mortar, because there's so many limitations to being stuck in this one spot where
I'm looking to see how many avenues I can create now that this has the notoriety that it's developed. I actually started my work life as a chef. I was going to be a career culinary arts expert. went to culinary school. I rented kitchens and had a whole bunch of stuff where I was working in
bars and doing nightclub security and the martial arts like I said was always something that was just keeping me out of real trouble it was keeping me busy and active and
When I was working the culinary fields, I got way too into the party scene. I was doing the nightclub stuff. I was doing private parties, that kind of more fancy high end stuff, trying to, again, make a name for myself, make some business, make some money doing what I was doing. And it led me down a path where I started getting into more troubles, more hangouts. I got into some real
big trouble, ended up getting in trouble with the law, going to court. It was a big ordeal. I lost a bunch of money. I had lost a bunch of my reputation and I was just lucky enough to have a mentor where I was taking martial arts that offered me an opportunity to open up a karate school and run the programs. He was going to be the base of it.
Amanda Kaufman (11:13)
Mm.
Shaun Shubert (11:33)
And I was gonna run the gym and help him kind of expand and he was gonna give me a new fresh start. And about a year into our business together, he took his own life. was facing his own demons and the passing the business on to me was kind of like one of his last outs that he just felt like he needed to get off his plate.
And that was it for him. He, he checked out and he left me holding the bag. I had no business experience. had no real name in the martial arts community. And I was just kind of like in this earth shattered world where my mentor who was teaching me all about, you know, honor and pride and
kind of all these amenities that go with martial arts and just the environment and his demons caught up with him and it was just too heavy for him and that was it man, he checked out and it was like...
Amanda Kaufman (12:43)
Hmm.
I'm so sorry
for your loss. Like that that must have been an absolutely devastating season.
Shaun Shubert (12:53)
It was earth shattering and it took me a real, real long time to kind of find my bearings after that because it was a lot of like pain and trying to pick up the pieces and trying to hold stuff together for other people and myself. And it
then got to a point where it was like enough time had passed some pain had healed and we had to start doing what was good for who was here right now and things took a shift I ended up getting some more students I ended up keeping some people that wanted to
Amanda Kaufman (13:31)
Mmm.
Shaun Shubert (13:42)
kind of rekindle and carry the torch into the next generation. I got new teachers and mentors and just got sucked into this kind of new world of combat analytics, combat sports. I was fighting and working my way into the professional realm of that sport. I was doing all kinds of sports, psychology, hypnosis,
You name it, just trying to level up to get to these kind of higher echelons of fighting. And it was really the driver of fighting for notoriety. was fighting for my name. was fighting for the respect among my peers, whether they were respecting me or disrespecting me. I had no idea. was just like, I just thought like, I have to go in.
and level up. I had no respect for myself in that realm. I knew where I was educated and uneducated and I went out and got in the trenches and did what I needed to do to make myself reputable.
Amanda Kaufman (14:54)
love that. That takes so much intention, so much work, so much development. And I'm really curious, know, the psychology side of things and bringing this to business owners, what's the inspiration there?
Shaun Shubert (15:08)
It was about a month or two after I retired from professional fighting. Like I told you in our pre-interview.
I was in business for 10 years, but I only started doing business about nine months ago. And I'm coming up on my one year anniversary where I retired from professional fighting. The gym was kind of floating just on my fight resume. I had a couple of guys that were doing some other big things under the banner. And again, that was the advertisement. It was just.
us fighting and it was free advertisement. People would come because they saw us fight. People would stay because they liked the vibe here. But other than that, there were no systems in place. There was no real kind of etiquette or leveling up, or it was just a bunch of people that loved being here. And the vibe was right. So it was enough for me to make a couple of bucks. was enough for me to make French fry money. And
Amanda Kaufman (15:52)
Mm-hmm.
Shaun Shubert (16:17)
I had one client who was pretty new to the scene around here and again just a guy that wanted to switch up his workout routine. We have a class that's got some weightlifting but it's a lot more geared towards kickboxing but different than cardio kickboxing that people typically take where there's a lot of jumping around. This is a lot more geared towards guys that are doing stuff that's more practical.
And he tells me that he's getting promoted and his company wants him to give a speech in Las Vegas. He tells me he made the biggest sale for his company to GE aerospace. And now he has to go to give a speech in front of all of his peers, in front of all the other departments in his company.
talk about how he made the sale and kind of now move into a mentoring spot. Attached to this was a promotion for him and would be necessary for him to have more speaking engagements. It'd be necessary for him to start leading more groups. He comes to me on the side and says to me,
You know, I'd really like to pick your brain about how you get ready for fights because to me, you go out there and you're getting undressed into your underwear and you're getting in a fight with a guy in front of all these thousands of people. And then you get on the microphone and you give this articulate speech and take a bow and walk out.
And he says, want to know what are you thinking? What's the connections? And that was the light bulb moment. That was my aha moment that said, man, this is my path from this fighting world into the corporate world, into the business world. This is the connection that I need to help these ladies and gentlemen make because
A lot of them have spent most of their time studying and educating themselves academically and a lot of them are uneducated when it comes to health, fitness, that kind of stuff has fallen to the wayside. Just like for me, a lot of my knowledge comes from health, fitness, anatomy. That was the stuff that was plugging me along that was making me
money that was helping my career out. So that's what helps me. I have a lot of trouble sitting down and writing papers. have a lot of time spent where I'm getting lost doing Excel sheets where other people whizz through this stuff. you know, it's just like trading those kind of secrets back and forth. But my gear has been kind of drawing those parallels between fighting and business where
Amanda Kaufman (19:28)
That's it.
Shaun Shubert (19:34)
Okay man, you're just gonna get up and give a speech to Betty and Tim and everybody's gonna clap and give you a high five. Nobody's gonna punch you in the face. Like easy dude, I can teach you how to do this. No problem.
Amanda Kaufman (19:50)
I love it. Fewer bruises and bloody noses. My gosh. know, Sean, this is such a great example. I loved that call out of you're basically trading insight. You're trading perspective. like that's a...
Shaun Shubert (19:52)
Thank you.
Amanda Kaufman (20:08)
a huge value of a coach. I think encouraging that mindset, you know, the mindset of a fighter, the mindset of somebody who goes in and is deciding, you know, pre-deciding their performance and like, how are they going to show up in the ring? There's so many parallels to what we have to do in business. you know, active, you can read all the books you want on courage. And I think that there's a very powerful
a very powerful device here in being able to like give the metaphor of fighting or even the experience of fighting to someone who's never actually experienced that. And it gives them an edge and a performance edge. And that's really, really cool. Sean, if people wanted to follow you, what's the best way for them to do so?
Shaun Shubert (20:57)
I am extremely active on Instagram right now. It's Sean Red Seal martial arts and all of the separations of the words are underscored. It's really super simple. Just my name Red Seal martial arts. Very active. You guys can DM me. I have these one pager blueprints on what I do to kind of build a ritual and start putting some of these
pieces of getting your mindset in place. The first thing that we do is identify what we're doing, then we're building these rituals, and then we're setting our plans into motion. So follow me on Instagram, send me a DM, Amanda Kaufman blueprint, and I'll send you the one pager and we can get started. Anybody that wants to hit me up and do some one-to-one coaching, I'm available.
24 7 for that stuff too, so hit me up on Instagram anytime
Amanda Kaufman (21:56)
I love it, I love it, that's so powerful. And one thing I wanna make sure I ask before we go is what are three things that help a coach not to suck?
Shaun Shubert (22:05)
Wow. I would say forward thinking, showing up for your team and self recognition.
Amanda Kaufman (22:12)
Ooh.
it. That's a solid answer, Sean. I love it. I love it. So good. Well, listener, be sure to subscribe and leave a five star review. mean, Sean did a great job. He definitely deserves it. But it also helps other people find the episode and find the show so that they can stay inspired as they're building their business. And you know what? Come to think of it, why don't you just go ahead and share this episode with three of your friends and just send them the link to it through DM or text it to them?
however you guys communicate, because they need to hear that they can transition from one career to another. They need to hear that the experience that they have is going to be translatable to somebody who doesn't have that experience. And that's one of the biggest values that a coach can really bring to a relationship. So I'm sure you've got three friends that need to hear that. Do share it with them. Thank you so much for joining me, Sean.
Shaun Shubert (23:06)
Thanks for having me. It was awesome.
Amanda Kaufman (23:09)
My pleasure and listener, will see you next time. Take care.
