What makes a great coach, teacher, or mentor?

In Part 2 of the InnerFight Coach Series, Marcus dives deeper into the art of coaching by exploring how we guide, support, and impact others not just in sport, but in everyday life.

Featuring conversations with InnerFight coaches Dan, Tom, Sarah, Rob J, and Andy, this episode unpacks the philosophies, behaviors, and mindset behind truly effective coaching.

From leading with empathy and listening first, to building long-term progress and creating meaningful human connection—this is a powerful reflection on what it really means to coach.

🎙 In this episode:

• Coaching philosophy and long-term development
• The role of empathy, honesty, and patience
• Building consistency and motivation
• Coaching beyond the gym—into life, relationships, and mindset

#InnerFight #Coaching #Mindset #PersonalGrowth #DubaiGym #Dubai #Coaching

Training programs can be effective, but real life doesn’t always follow a plan.

In this episode, Marcus opens up the conversation around the role of coaching in a world full of structured programs, using real-life examples to highlight how unpredictable life can be.

This also marks the start of a new series featuring the InnerFight coaches.

Over the coming weeks, Marcus sits down with each coach to explore who they are, how they think, and how they approach helping people become better, not just in training, but in life.

The best coaching is more than just the training program, it’s about what happens when life doesn’t go to plan, as it rarely does!

What actually makes a great coach?

In this episode, Marcus Smith explores the qualities that define great coaching and why the most valuable thing a coach can offer an human isn’t motivation or encouragement, but honesty.

Marcus reflects on the foundations of strong coaching relationships and how trust is built through clarity, consistency and accountability over time.

In this conversation he discusses:

• Why honesty is one of the most powerful tools in coaching
• How trust develops between coaches and athletes
• Why great coaching focuses on systems rather than trends
• The responsibility coaches carry when guiding athletes toward big goals
• The standards that define an InnerFight coach

Marcus also shares insights from the InnerFight endurance coaching team on what truly separates good coaching from great coaching.

This episode goes beyond sport and explores leadership, performance and helping people become the best version of themselves.

In Episode 1005, Marcus reflects on a phrase he has said hundreds of times on the show: “I hope you had a good week.”But what actually makes a week good?

Marcus explores why judging weeks purely on emotion can be misleading and why progress in life, work, and training rarely happens evenly across every area at once. He explains the importance of prioritisation, understanding capacity, and aligning expectations across the different silos of life.

The episode dives into practical ways to structure weeks intentionally, planning ahead, managing your calendar effectively, and approaching challenges with the mindset of a coach rather than reacting emotionally. Marcus also discusses why the idea of being “1% better every day at everything” is unrealistic for most people, and how focusing on the right things at the right time leads to more consistent progress.

In this episode, Marcus challenges the idea that you need help with your food. He explains why most people already know what’s healthy and why the real issue is stress, sleep, structure, and the behaviours that quietly drive daily choices.

Key points:

• Why food isn’t the real problem but your behaviour may be.
• How stress, poor sleep, and long workdays fuel bad decisions.
• The traps of restriction, meal plans, macro obsession, and “cheat days.”
• A practical 7-day behaviour audit to uncover what’s really driving your eating.

The evolution of InnerFight Endurance. This week Marcus and Tom have a chat in the car on their way back from Muscat 70.3. Great time for a podcast.

They talk all about how InnerFight Endurance started and how it is way more than just training plans. A great reminder that the goal isn’t only better endurance performance. It’s better humans, doing hard things, and keeping it fun along the way.

Key Points:

• InnerFight Endurance Story & Vision: Where it started, the problem it was built to solve, and the standards that shaped it from day one

• The Pillars of Endurance: Weekly non-negotiables that drive consistency, accountability, and community

• Get Better at Life: Training that develops better humans

• Values Over Trends: Long-term thinking, culture-first coaching.

• Making It Enjoyable: Because if it’s not fun, it won’t last

Today we’re joined by our in-house Kiwi, Jamie Clarke, to dive into the culture of the All Blacks and what it reveals about legacy, humility, and, most importantly, how human beings show up for and interact with each other.

• The All Blacks blueprint: Why they’ve won 76.6% of games over 122 years — and why they focus on standards, not winning

• The Kiwi perspective: How New Zealand and Māori culture shape identity, humility, and connection

• Legacy & leadership: “Sweep the sheds,” “no dickheads,” and leaving the jersey better than you found it

• Culture in your world: How to apply these principles to your team, business, family, and life

This episode is about culture — how it’s built, how it’s protected, and why it ultimately determines performance.

After 1,000 episodes and a short break, this isn’t a reset or a rebrand. It’s a continuation. Fewer rules, less structure, more honesty. Some episodes will be long, some short. Some solo, some with guests. When there’s something worth saying, the mic comes on.

Episode 1001 reflects on the pause, the coaches summits, community, performance, regulation, and why February felt like the right time to return.

For the 1,000th episode of the InnerFight Podcast, Marcus turns the mic on someone very close to home – his dad. In this deeply personal and powerful conversation, Marcus explores the man behind so many of his own values: hard work, simplicity, honesty, and doing the right thing even when it’s hard.

They talk about:

• Taking bold career leaps – from Yorkshire to Africa, Jeddah, and Dubai, and how those risks shaped his life.
• Values that withstand time – discipline, honesty, simplicity, and doing the right thing even when it's hard.
• Choosing fulfilment over comfort – walking away from a well-paid job because he no longer enjoyed it, and why that decision defined his integrity.

This episode is full of wisdom, humour, straight-talking honesty, and emotion. It’s also a gentle challenge: if your parents are still around, sit down with them, ask the questions you don’t know the answers to, and record the conversation if you can.

A milestone episode, the final show of 2025, and an hour of pure gold from Marcus’ dad.

In episode 999 of the InnerFight Podcast, Marcus sits down for a long-awaited and deeply personal conversation with his wife, Holly — his emergency number, and the quiet force behind much of InnerFight’s growth over the past two decades.

The episode follows Holly’s journey from small-town Australia to Dubai in 2003, where she joined Emirates and spent 13 years flying long-haul around the world. She shares how her love of travel began, how she embraced exploring every layover while many crew stayed inside, and how the physical demands of flying eventually pushed her to radically improve her nutrition, leading to the creation of Smith Street Paleo.

Listeners will hear Holly open up about:

• Growing up Australian with British roots and how identity fuels curiosity
• Why she never wasted a layover and often explored cities solo between flights
• The real health challenges cabin crew face — swelling, fatigue and jet lag — and how she transformed her wellbeing through food, movement and sleep
• The shift from the structure of airline life to entrepreneurship
• What it has been like supporting Marcus through endurance challenges, uncertainty, injuries and big dreams
• Her simple but powerful formula for living well: stay healthy, stay grounded, choose good people and be unapologetically authentic

Episode 999 is an honest, heartfelt portrait of partnership, resilience and the unseen support behind a big life.

👉 If Holly’s story inspires you to clean up your nutrition or get more creative in the kitchen, go dive into her recipes and resources at smithstpaleo.com.

In this episode, Marcus is joined by coaches Vic, Andy, and Eduan for a fast-paced mix of banter, coaching insight, and real talk about training and life.

You’ll hear how the friendly rivalry between Andy and Eduan is playing out in workouts (and Movember moustaches), what actually happens when coaches train together, and why “suffering side by side” can be such a powerful part of community. The team dives into how they fuel during heavy training blocks, navigating weight changes, meal plans, under-fuelling, and why 3,500–4,000 calories of mostly whole foods isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

They also break down what makes an InnerFight class different from the noise in the fitness industry—simple basics done exceptionally well, a clear structure behind the program, and a heavy emphasis on educating members so they truly understand how to move. Vic talks gymnastics progress and smart skill work, while all three explain when it might be time to add personal training to your routine, and what a good coach should really give you beyond just a hard session.

Expect laughs, a bit of roasting, plenty of honesty, and zero actual fights—just three coaches who care deeply about making people better at life.