What if becoming a coach isn’t about becoming someone new, but recognizing what you already bring with you?

Carrie sits down with Coach Training Alliance graduate Julian Maliszewski: professional paintball and lacrosse player, entrepreneur, and founder of Paintball for Purpose. Julian started as a teacher and spent years coaching athletes before a chance airport conversation with a former therapist pointed him toward professional coaching.

They talk about what felt familiar in coach training and what he had to unlearn. Julian covers learning the structure of a session and going deeper with his questions, and how acknowledging a win but asking “what’s next?” differs from cheerleading. He also explains how he now brings that curiosity to his athletes, and why he works to be the same coach on and off the field.

• You can stay yourself. Julian was drawn to coaching because he could keep his own style, with a conversation structure to work within.
• Acknowledge, then move forward. Celebrate the win briefly, then ask what’s next. This differs from the cheerleader role of a team coach.
• Better questions open doors. Clients often just need space to be heard, and a good question lets them decide whether to open a door they’ve kept closed.
• Listen for the repeated word. Shifts in tone and phrases a client keeps returning to can point to what matters.
• Embodiment goes beyond the session. Julian applies coaching presence everywhere, including when he gets cut off in traffic.
• Not every coach fits every client. That’s normal and not personal.
• Build your support team. Julian outsourced his financial setup so he could focus on coaching, and he is blending his own practice with work for a coaching platform.
• Coaching changes how you lead athletes. Instead of “you’re wrong, do it this way,” he asks players what they’re thinking, then sends them back to the field.

00:00Introduction and welcome

02:05Julian’s path from teaching to lacrosse and paintball coaching, and the airport conversation that led him to coaching

05:08What felt familiar at the CTA coaching demo, and why he calls himself a “personal development coach”

07:32What coach training changed: session structure, moving past cheerleading, and deeper questions

09:16Opening doors for clients, listening for tone and repeated words

11:56Embodying the coach in and out of session

15:11Letting your path unfold while building a business: frameworks, outsourcing, and combining a private practice with platform work

18:05How coaching changed his approach with high-level paintball and lacrosse athletes

22:49Advice for anyone wondering how coaching fits their life

About the Guest

Julian Maliszewski is a Coach Training Alliance graduate, professional paintball and lacrosse player, entrepreneur, and founder of Paintball for Purpose. He coaches through his company, T2F Coaching, and can be reached by DM on TikTok, Instagram (@t2fcoaching), and Facebook. Linked in: linkedin.com/in/julianthewhale

Coaching and Thriving is produced by Coach Training Alliance. Explore our free becoming a coach workshop, or visit www.coachtrainingalliance.com to learn about our ICF-accredited Certified Coach Program for anyone new to coaching as well as ongoing training for established coaches. HumanGrowthCapital, LLC

About the Host "Coach Carrie" (Carrie Martello) is a certified mentor coach and E-RYT with more than twenty years of experience in self-development, teaching, and entrepreneurship. She has trained coaching students around the world, and now hosts Coaching and Thriving with one goal: that every listener walks away with renewed confidence, fresh perspective, and a deeper connection to the coaching community.

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Ron Turner has spent more than 30 years in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He's fought professionally, opened seven gyms and trained UFC fighters. Now he's a certified coach. Coach Carrie talks with Ron about going from the one with all the answers to the one who asks the questions. They also cover why strength is mostly mental, and why your unusual life story may be exactly what a future client needs.

Show notes

What does a professional fighter know about coaching? More than you'd think.

In this episode of Coaching and Thriving, Coach Carrie Martello talks with Ron Turner. Ron is a martial artist, gym owner, fight coach and graduate of Coach Training Alliance. His martial arts life started when he saw The Karate Kid at a drive-in theater. It turned into a lifelong love of jiu-jitsu and a professional fighting career, and a mentor stepped in when Ron needed a father figure. Years later, with his body wearing down but his passion for helping people stronger than ever, Ron found professional coaching.

Ron is candid about his biggest hurdle as a new coach: letting go of giving the answers. He shares how asking instead of telling builds his clients' confidence, and why "I don't know" is the start of a good coaching conversation. He also has a message for anyone who doubts they have the "right" background to become a coach.

In this episode:

• How a mentor in the gym shaped Ron's view of coaching and community
• Why fighting, public speaking and big life decisions are about 90% mental
• Going from instructor mode ("I have the answers") to coaching mode ("you have the answers")
• How small wins build momentum and self-trust
• Ron's favorite coaching question: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
• Why your life experience is an asset, whatever your story

Words of Wisdom in this episode

"Losing and defeat is the easiest thing… that answer is always there. Winning is hard."

"It is not my life. It is their life, their journey."

"There's a coach for everybody. There's someone out there that needs your story."

"You're not your job. Your career does not define you."

Connect with Ron Turner:

• Website: ironstandardcoaching.com
• Instagram: @ironstandardcoaching and @dirtyronturner

Coaching and Thriving is produced by Coach Training Alliance. Explore our free becoming a coach workshop, or visit www.coachtrainingalliance.com to learn about our ICF-accredited Certified Coach Program for anyone new to coaching as well as ongoing training for established coaches. HumanGrowthCapital, LLC

About the Host "Coach Carrie" (Carrie Martello) is a certified mentor coach and E-RYT with more than twenty years of experience in self-development, teaching, and entrepreneurship. She has trained coaching students around the world, and now hosts Coaching and Thriving with one goal: that every listener walks away with renewed confidence, fresh perspective, and a deeper connection to the coaching community.

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Here's an uncomfortable idea for anyone who coaches: when you offer advice, you usually make your client more entrenched in what they already believed.

Dr. David Krueger calls it the boomerang effect. Share a belief, and the other person immediately measures it against their own. Agree, and they confirm. Disagree, and they refute. Either way they end up more firmly where they started — and the coaching conversation has done the opposite of its job.

In this episode of Coaching and Thriving, Dr. Dave and I get into what's happening beneath the surface of a conversation that actually changes something. He spent 25 years as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst before coming to coaching, he was one of my very first mentors at Coach Training Alliance back in 2011, and we now serve together on the faculty.

He shares the most elegant piece of supervision he ever received. He'd offered an executive client an interpretation he was sure would help. After a long pause, she said: "First you've got to be with me before I can go someplace new with you."

In this conversation:

• The boomerang effect — why information, facts, and advice don't change minds
• Why the client has to stay the point of reference, and what it signals when we step in with a suggestion
• The map: where the client is, where they want to go, and how those two coordinates let you tell progress from detour
• The circle exercise Dr. Dave teaches — how a coach gets inside it before going anywhere new
• How the first few words of a conversation boot up connection or defensiveness, and set the tone for everything after
• Why insight alone fades, and what it takes to move a change into someone's operating system — the 90 to 95 percent that runs without deciding
• Change as identity, not decision: "at two o'clock, I'm working out" rather than choosing again every day
• Why motivation isn't required — you need a plan and you need to stick to it
• The habits that most often get in the way for new coaches

He closes with two quotes worth writing down, including one from his grandmother: if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.

About the guest: Dr. David Krueger is an executive coach, author, and faculty member at Coach Training Alliance. He practiced for 25 years as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst before moving into coaching, and his work focuses on the science of human behavior, decision-making, and lasting change.

Coaching and Thriving is produced by Coach Training Alliance. Explore our free becoming a coach workshop, or visit www.coachtrainingalliance.com to learn about our ICF-accredited Certified Coach Program for anyone new to coaching as well as ongoing training for established coaches. HumanGrowthCapital, LLC

About the Host "Coach Carrie" (Carrie Martello) is a certified mentor coach and E-RYT with more than twenty years of experience in self-development, teaching, and entrepreneurship. She has trained coaching students around the world, and now hosts Coaching and Thriving with one goal: that every listener walks away with renewed confidence, fresh perspective, and a deeper connection to the coaching community.

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