Sculpted body; Instagram star aka Influencer; drives a Porsche … This is not a story about a starlet from Dubai, this is not a story about me either, although all of the above stands apart from the fact that I travel by tram. However, that is just to feel like I belong to the people and to cough a few times in the direction of our senior citizens thus helping Bill Gates in depopulating the Earth.
This is the story of fitness trainer Marko Lončar who called me and said: ”Write a few good words about me. I know that your Flash.hr portal has more readers than Catholic newspapers. If anyone has influence in this country, it is you, Dear Leader Joe.”
We agreed to meet at Bistro Pappar for lunch after which we did an interview and training at OrlandoFit.
One of the reasons you became a fitness trainer is that you didn’t listen to medical professionals. You had a tumor, 11 surgeries and after falling off your motorcycle, the doctors told you you would be disabled. Jeremiah of Alan Ford doesn’t have that many diagnoses either. You could have sat in a wheelchair like Stephen Hawking, but you persistently wanted to be healthy … Why didn’t you listen to the profession, why didn’t you want to be a paraplegic? What message are you sending to the public? Should I listen to the profession at all? Why would anyone listen to you when Steve and Barry from the hood lift 150 kilos and know everything? What are your references?
I still have the tumor. It is a part of me, but the day will come when I will rise above it. I actually had 13 surgeries and I’m arranging the 14th hahaha. I’m worse than Kylie Jenner. I’m kidding of course, my surgeries are not aesthetic but connected to my health. I know, it is just silly of me to want to walk, work, train and live a good life. I don’t know, it just wasn’t an option for me to give up and say “Okay, that’s it.” I think that mind and mental strength play a big role in recovery of any type and, as easy as it would be to just lie down and give up, for me it was not an option. I always go head first through the wall and actually always end up listening only to myself. Yes, I will listen to both experts and some who may have more experience than me in some things but ultimately I know my body the most and I know what it is capable of. All the schooling and certifications I collected as if they were Pokemon are pretty useful. My goal is to be even better in my job as well as in life each year and also to gain another certificate or education in the field that I work in and that interests me because I think that lifelong learning is very important. There is an old saying – a man learns all his life and dies stupid.
You had a normal job at HGspot and now you’re wasting your time with weights. I heard you charge 300 kn per hour for training! I must tell you, cashier Helga does not earn that much in an entire shift at the local grocery store. Who can afford it? Is that normal? Do you know what Karen from the suburbs does for 300 kn per hour? Do you train people or enforce tax compliance? Our government doesn‘t even take as much from people!
I am well aware that in Croatia 300 kn is not a small amount of money and that not everyone can afford it therefore I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I have. I have luckily found my clients who can invest that much in their health. For that price they get quality and something they wouldn’t be able to learn by reading a few fitness articles online or in some newspapers. However, I have been educated for this for years, several hundred clients have passed through my hands, both live in private trainings and online coaching. I justify this price with my knowledge, experience, certificates and most importantly with my honour. I am not only available to my clients for an hour a day in training, but also throughout the day, answering emails, messages, advising on nutrition and dietary supplements and often acting as a psychiatrist. So I think in such a relationship both sides get what they ask for and expect. Competition is a healthy thing. Everyone has the right to put up the price they want. It’s best to simplify it this way – my dream car is a Lamborghini Aventador. I don’t have enough money for it at the moment, one day I will get it though. Some people have it and I don’t envy them, I’m happy and I smile every time I see that car and I say to myself wow! Jealousy is a disease.
I immediately emphasized that I was not like other influencers. I would never allow myself to ask some service for free. I would die of shame. I charge everything. Marko said he fully understood me. He immediately extended his hand and stressed that he would pay me 300 kn per hour to have the honour of training me. He even added 100 more so that I would not think he was a fitness jew.
You told me you were not only a coach but also a psychologist. You have an individual approach to each client. If you see that the poor guy lost his job that day due to the Headquarters decision about lockdown, what kind of training will you do with him to make sure he will come home too tired to beat his wife? The entire matter of the Istanbul Convention is up to you. Watch what you say.
I would rather call it a mental trainer. A psychologist does much more serious but not significantly less valuable job than the one I do. I hear about family problems, financial, annoying bosses, exhausting meetings, unfaithful husbands… everything is there. But it’s all part of the job. It often happens to me that a client comes to class and has neither the strength nor the will to do training – in that case we walk together around the park and talk – sometimes such “trainings” mean a lot to people. Or I treat them to a good meal. Everyone feels better on a full stomach. It’s also a kind of customization to the client so that each of them really has an individual approach and people appreciate that. You have to understand that over 75% of people come to trainings out of dissatisfaction with appearance and only 25% percent for health or general fitness improvement. Dissatisfaction with physical appearance is first of all a mental problem and only then a physical one because dissatisfaction leads to depression, anxiety, insecurity, anger, rage, sadness, etc. A true coach needs to recognize this and work on building the confidence of their clients and instilling in them faith in themselves. If you don’t believe in yourself, who else will?
I’ve heard that nutrition is more important than training. Kebabs without bread are for definition, and with bread for mass. That’s how they taught me at home. Can I eat a meat pie before training or only after? Do you give clients nutritional advice included in the price or do you charge extra for it?
I give my clients a “whole package” – both a training plan and a detailed, completely individually composed diet plan. And as I said before, a few hours of psychotherapy for free. You can eat whatever you want but don’t expect any special results. You can train all you want, but if you don‘t eat properly, it pretty much goes to waste. It is better to eat a good steak than a meat pie – you are still treated and the training will not suffer. People need to remember that muscle fibers are torn in the gym, they are fed in the kitchen and grow while we sleep and rest. If you eliminate any of these factors there is no progression or it is very small. EAT-SLEEP-GYM.
Marko treated me with a steak at Bistro Pappar. He also ordered potatoes and I naively asked him: “Can we mix proteins and carbs?” Marko replied: “Of course we can. We are not Hipsters”.
How important is a coach for a beginner and how important is to equip oneself with the right pills and change needles regularly? Can we do more with good chemistry than with a good coach? How to recognize a good, ie bad coach?
The coach is very important, no matter how much some try to downplay it. It’s easiest to run into the gym and start throwing weights around, but you don’t know what to combine, how and how much to eat, what dietary supplements to take, how to schedule your workouts… There are a lot of different factors that will affect your desired results and there is no chemistry and needles which will help you if you have not arranged your diet and workouts. There are a lot of coaches and at least as many wannabe coaches.
Unfortunately, a lot of people nowadays think how easy it is to be a coach and that anyone could do it but the truth is completely different. A good coach is one who lives what he promotes, who invests in himself and his education, who treats each client with respect and appreciation and completely individually instead just like the next client in line. Ask yourself if you would give your child or sick mother to that coach and that will be the best possible answer for you!
Video proof: After the first training with Marko, Dear Leader aka Vin Diesel for the poor, lifts more than Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman together 🙂
Marko is not like other coaches who just hang on their cell phones while they should be watching what you are doing. The picture may lead you to the wrong conclusion, but Marko tells you that you can have the best coach in the world, but all this is in vain if you have no motivation and there is no better motivation than Lidija Bačić and her song: “Work Work Work”
I read in the paper that you earn $ 10,000.00 a month as an influencer. I saw you promoting a Garmin watch, glasses from Stepinac optics, you get free clothes, food, … Where is this world going? My neighbour Susan has a son and he was the best student at the Philosophy University. I mean that kid is just nailing Indology and still he can‘t get a job anywhere while you get so much for a couple of photos on Instagram … If this is not proof that God does not exist, then I don’t know what is.
I think it’s distasteful to talk about certain numbers. Each of us works for ourselves, what we can and how much we can. I feel sorry for Susan‘s kid, but he should have chosen his studies better. Why in the world Indology haha… I’m kidding of course. Yes, being an influencer today can certainly “thicken” the monthly budget, but even after that there is a lot of work, regardless of the fact that most people think we are just taking photos with our phones. There are a lot of meetings, emails and agreements behind it. not to mention how long it takes to “shoot” the best photo, process it, put together a story and a caption. And now consider doing it all with a dozen clients in private trainings a day, two of your own workouts, writing articles, nutrition plans for your online clients… Yes, it can be lucrative, but it also takes a lot of effort. I also make sure that I choose brands that I really believe in, that I also use in my private life because I want to have credibility even when it comes to advertising. After all, my name is behind it all. Nothing ever fell from the sky. I often joke at my own expense that I wake up every morning at 5:30 a.m. to polish all the silver spoons I was born with.
Marko asked me to subtly photograph his Garmin watch so that it would not look like an advertisement.
It is said in Japanese circles at my parent‘s village that the Yakuza idolize you because of your tattoos. How many tattoos do you have, where did you get tattooed and what exactly do the Yakuza who have their whole body covered in tattoos see in you? Maybe they admire you because you still have all the fingers on your hands?
Possible, possible. I know for sure that they admire me for tattooing my armpits (It is in fact the most painful part of the body and no one gets tattooed there). I heard that at a tattoo convention in Hong Kong. Literally the most tattooed team was shocked that I was just so mental that I went to tattoo my armpits. Maybe they even felt a little sorry for me because, bro, it really hurts!
But lo and behold, like I said, I like to push, go head first through a wall and test my own limits. I love tattooing, that kind of art means a lot to me. Tattoos have definitely become a kind of addiction for me as well as a way of expression. My tattoo artist and friend Xeno Tatooink knows exactly what I want and how I want it and I am very pleased with everything we have designed and made so far. We have over 400 hours of work on me and we are not done yet. I maintain my tattoos and minding all the details so if I have to go one more time so that the line, as he would say, is “uf …fucking awesome”… then we are done! I adore him and thank him for all he has endured with me and pushed me in his schedule every time I asked him.
Next to so many hungry children in Čučerje, you and the professor of Geography, Dejan Nemčić, chose to visit the children in Tanzania and Zanzibar. You’re not Angelina Jolie, Marko! Why? How? Why again? If it’s because of the color of the skin, then there are many Romani around in that dodgy neighbourhood right here in Zagreb.
I don’t know what to tell you … It’s stronger than me. That has been my wish for a long time. I traveled all over the world, saw a lot, but I learned the most in some of the poorest and most remote places with people that everyone has forgotten. There are hungry children everywhere unfortunately and it hurts me. I participate in various actions here too but I do that to feed my soul, not to promote myself. Just imagine each of us helping anyone with some little thing, this world would be such a nicer place. I’m looking forward to sleeping in the open air. Hopefully I won‘t get eaten by a lion. My goal is to get away from everything here, do some good things, think about everything, and ultimately come back as a better person. Such trips teach you many things that we do not think about every day because we are burdened with so many obligations. At the end of this I want to thank once again Dejan Nemčić, my friend who takes me with him to participate in his project. I believe that lecturing these children, living, eating and sleeping with them under the same sky will give me superhuman strength and build me into a better person.
You are an animal lover. How many dogs do you have and do you think that crossbreeds are less valuable than purebreds? There is nothing worse when someone adopts a dog and calls it Yellow or Rex. I expect an attack by the Society of Animal Lovers from the Asylum in 3,2,1 … If one of the Chinese fitness experts told you that the Sharplanins were the best source of protein, would you replace chicken and steak with young dog meat? At the end of the day, appearance is most important.
I am a huge animal lover! There is no purer love than the love you get from your dog. There is no difference between a mixed breed, adopted dogs from an asylum or a purebred. They are all beings full of love and eager for love and each of them deserves the best home and owner to cuddle and take care of it. I also had a dog as a kid for many years and recently I enriched my life with another little heartthrob – Bull Terrier Thor. I can’t describe the feeling when I come home after 12+ hours of work all tired, sweaty, hungry and he is waiting for me at the door, giving kisses, waving his tail so much it looks like it is going to fall off. Of course he urinates on me out of pure joy as well… Those fifteen minutes cuddling after coming home is definitely the highlight of my day and I don’t know what I would do without it. It calms me down, recharges the batteries and relaxes. Chicken and beefsteak are pure enough sources of protein, nothing else comes into play … except some insects or crocodiles that I ate in Asia.
You train many famous people, you write for famous portals, but who cares about that. Is coaching Dear Leader aka Vin Diesel for the poor and an interview for Flash.hr portal the highlight of your coaching career? If not, feel free to agree that it is. PS: Feel free to invite all wealthy people to follow Dear Leader on Instagram @DearLeaderJoe
Of course, I haven‘t really felt fulfilled until this moment! Everything I did so far was just a path that led me to this moment and only now my life makes some sense. Give me the number of your bank account so that all of those wealthy people can pay a fee to your royal highness while they are at it.Thank you for everything Dear Leader! Actually, the highlight of my career were not the magazine covers but one lecture in my elementary school where I grew up when the kids asked for me to give a lecture to all eighth graders. I teared up on my way home because back in the day, I was a mischievous kid who did pranks in those classes. Imagine the feeling when the principal calls you, the kids thank you and you teach in the same classroom where your teacher use to teach you. Ugh … emotions…I am growing old… Thanks to Dejan Nemčić who asked me to do that same lecture in his classroom as well. I just hugged him and asked when.
I asked Marko to take a photo of me, but not in a way that would make me look like a loan shark.
Marko also asked me to take a photo of him, but in a way that makes him looks sophisticated, as if he had just come out of the library after borrowing Yesenin.
It is not easy to reconcile private and business life without being a professional criminal. You train people all day, after that you take photos for Instagram, then you write columns … Does your girlfriend ever say to you: ”I’m tired of your bullshit! You are never home! You’re sleeping on the couch today!” Do you ever call time out and tell her: ”No one is to bother me today! I just want to watch the reruns of The Kardashians in peace”.
Yes, it is very difficult, not to say impossible, to reconcile private and business life. No matter how hard I try, it just doesn’t work. Believe it or not, I miss just sitting in peace and quiet on my balcony for five minutes without the cell phone ringing, people calling, texting… I would kill for an hour spent in the bathtub without any sounds and distractions – I am in such a period that it has become a luxury for me. But I am definitely going in that direction and I hope to achieve that because I think that balance is very important. I don’t have a girlfriend – none of them want me…I’m joking, I don’t have one for that very reason – I’m focused on work and I can’t dedicate enough time to anyone as much as they deserve and need. I hope that someone will appear who will have tolerance for my work and who will be my biggest support. Family is my dream and I hope when the right person comes who will become my priority and who will stand by me, I will be ready for my own little pack of wolves. And one dog Thor, of course.
Where were you in 1991?
Given that without my schedule I don’t even know where I was last week, let me take a look!
Of course in the diaspora, like all of our other great Croats. I’m kidding, of course…I was with my mother in the basement while my father was on the battlefield.
The war is behind us and it is one of the topics I do not talk about except among the closest people.
Although OrlandoFit adhered to all epidemiological measures (disinfectants everywhere, coaches wore masks, everyone had their own towel …), in the end the Headquarters closed Orlando, as well as all other fitness centers. It was as if God was telling Marko: “Does it really make sense to train anyone else after you have had the honour of training the Dear Leader? I will now call the Headquarters to close everything, and you, if you want to practice something, hop over to get your Bible and build your spirituality. Mercedes‘ don’t just fall into priests hands from heaven. “
When asked if he had ever got sick from Corona, he replied that he had not, but that he had recently gotten a T-shirt from the Hells Angels.
What more to say after spending the whole day with Marko Lončar? Everything was perfect, but again there was a trace of bitterness. You know that feeling from Dinner for Five? The food was great, but due to the decoration on the table, the rating will be 3. So it is with Mark. He treated me to a great meal, we did top-notch training, he paid me in cash like a man, we sat in his Porsche and he drove me home…
Lay people would say – “Perfect service”, but I’m not a layman. I am Dear Leader. I couldn’t forgive him for driving a Porsche on gas. Some things I can’t get over. If you don’t have enough to pay for fuel, why drive a Porsche? It is a car with 500 horsepower, but if word gets out around town that I’m being driven in a car that runs on gas, what will people say? We all know very well how gas cost Adolf Hitler his head.
Follow Marko on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitifit_by_marko_loncar/
Author: Josip Novosel aka Dear Leader Joe aka Vin Diesel for the poor – a self-deprecating curse thrower from Čučerje, a corresponding member of the magazine “With faith in Christ against gyms and communists”, a friend of the wealthy, a tycoon and Gastro Snob, but above all a human.
www.instagram.com/dearleaderjoe
www.facebook.com/dearleaderjoe
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