About Jake Smolarek

Who is Jake Smolarek

Jake Smolarek is a London-based business coach and entrepreneur. He is the first choice for founders, business owners and senior leaders who would rather hear an uncomfortable truth today than pay the price for it in their business and life tomorrow.

With more than 22 years in business and 18 years in coaching, Jake helps clients make better decisions, strengthen leadership, remove themselves as the bottleneck and build companies that can grow without depending on them for every answer. His work combines business strategy, accountability, high-performance systems and a practical understanding of the psychology behind leadership, behaviour and decision-making.

Smolarek’s authority comes from experience, not just theory. He has built and operated businesses across construction, digital marketing, technology and public relations, and founded a UK non-profit organisation that grew from two volunteers to more than 600. His work has involved organisations including Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Football Association, BBC, ITV, Heart Radio, Kiss FM and the Mayor of London’s Office. The Times has featured his work and direct, results-focused coaching approach.

Jake Smolarek’s Clients

Jake Smolarek works with founders, CEOs, owner-operators, C-suite executives and accomplished professionals who operate under significant pressure and prefer a direct approach. His clients have come from SaaS, finance, law, medicine, private equity, technology, media and the creative industries, ranging from PE partners and surgeons to award-winning creators and leaders of established companies.

One thing unites them: they need clarity, precision, and someone who tells them the truth without flinching.

Jake’s clients choose him because he works at their pace: fast, direct, and without emotional noise. ABC Money quoted him: “Most leaders don’t have a strategy problem; they have a performance execution gap that bleeds money slowly over time. You don’t scale a business by thinking more. You scale it by deciding faster, acting cleaner, and recalibrating more often.”

High performers come to him for structured pressure, strategic clarity and a perspective capable of identifying bottlenecks they have overlooked for years.

Jake does not overcomplicate decisions. He thinks like an elite football manager, reading the whole pitch, assessing risk, recognising weak links and applying pressure where it creates the greatest leverage. His approach is calm, precise and persistent.

From Poland to The UK: A Life Built on Systems

His story didn’t start in London boardrooms or Silicon Valley. When Jake arrived in the UK from Poland, he had just £150 in his pocket and no clear plan, but a massive dream and a non-negotiable decision to build a life on his own terms. He shared the raw details of that journey, from culture shock to creating momentum, in a powerful interview on the UnleashHer Podcast with Roberta Campbell, where they discussed how resilience, structure, and purpose shaped every step forward. After months of working regular jobs, he eventually moved to London, where a pivotal conversation with a mentor shifted everything. The next day, he printed business cards and decided to launch his first construction business. Within a few weeks, he had assembled a team and signed his first client. He didn’t have formal training, but he instinctively understood systems. That was enough.

He credits much of his early mindset shift to a conversation with his mentor, Patrick, who once told him, “Don’t build yourself a job. Build a system – a system where you will hire other people to do the work for you.“

But Patrick wasn’t the only one. Later in his career, Jake was mentored by John Corey, the original CFO of NeXT, the company Steve Jobs founded after Apple. Corey had learned from Jobs himself and passed on his own no-compromise approach. “He pushed me harder than anyone,” Jake recalls. “Sometimes I hated him. But a few days later, I always realised: he was right.” One of the key lessons John drilled into Jake was simple and unforgiving: “You can always improve.” That line would become the seed of Jake’s belief that life and business are video games, you’re never maxed out. There’s always another level. That feedback loop defines Jake’s coaching now. He doesn’t pamper. He upgrades.

It resonated not from ego, but because it captured Jake’s method: precise, calm, strategic. He doesn’t fight your battles for you. He equips you to win them, decisively, without drama. Like the old emperor, he brings philosophy into pressure. Calm into chaos.

Today, Jake operates businesses across coaching, digital growth and construction-related lead generation. Working directly inside these companies keeps his coaching grounded in current commercial decisions, operational pressure and the realities of building teams and generating growth.

One of Jake’s most repeated mantras is simple: “You’re not supposed to do everything yourself.” Delegation isn’t optional; it’s oxygen. Without it, founders drown in decision fatigue and stall their own growth. In a feature for NerdWallet, Jake warned against what he calls Superman Syndrome, the self-imposed pressure to be the CEO, marketer, copywriter, accountant, and everything else at once. “Delegation is the difference between scaling and stagnating,” he says. “It’s not a tactic. It’s a mindset.”

Jake is a visibility strategist. While many coaches only talk about mindset, Jake helps clients dominate online visibility through tailored strategies. He coaches top business leaders and simultaneously helps them own Page 1 of Google through SEO, LLMO (Large Language Model Optimisation), content architecture, and Google Ads strategy. He doesn’t just scale people, he scales their presence. As a business coach, he works with founders, CEOs, and creatives who want not just personal growth, but strategic, market control, and momentum.

These distinctions, between executive, mindset, business, and performance coaching, are outlined in Jake’s article on Different Types of Coaches, where clarity meets application.

In Business Matters, Jake compared scaling without a plan to sailing across the Atlantic with no map. He shared insights on responsible growth, brand building, and why personal positioning is as important as your product. “People buy from people. When you position yourself as a thought leader, your business reaps the rewards.”

These business fundamentals are expanded in The Art of Selling and Branding, where he outlines how positioning, trust-building, and high-clarity messaging convert to revenue.

He shared his boldest insights on strategic visibility in the podcast Mistakes You Must Avoid, where he unpacked what most entrepreneurs get wrong when building their personal brand, and why clarity trumps content.

Few coaches operate at this intersection of high performance, brand dominance, and digital visibility. Jake doesn’t just change how his clients think; he changes how the world sees them.

He’s also spent years quietly refining his first book, a strategic, no-fluff field guide for high performers.

Jake identifies as an INTJ and is naturally drawn to systems, structure and patterns that others often miss. Clients frequently describe his ability to recognise what has not yet been said explicitly.

For Jake, strategy is oxygen. Silence is power. And structure is love. That’s why his coaching never feels improvised; it feels inevitable.

He reflected on that early journey, from £150 in his pocket to running multiple companies, in an interview on The Cafe Networking Podcast with Tom Reaoch, recorded from Brazil and streamed worldwide.

Coaching Style: What Clients Actually Say

He often describes himself as someone who runs on a personal “operating system”, a stack of beliefs and decisions he doesn’t negotiate with:

Progress equals happiness. Decisiveness beats hesitation. Feedback is sacred. Strategy without execution is just fiction. Obsession outperforms balance. Systems are superior to willpower. And perhaps most of all: don’t be f*cking average.

These aren’t mottos. They’re embedded commands, mental architecture. His clients don’t come for motivation. They come for structure, precision, and velocity. And Jake, true to type, always delivers a few moves ahead.

Jake helps clients examine the beliefs, behaviours and patterns influencing their decisions, combining psychological insight with a structured decision-making process.

One client described Jake as “my own Marcus Aurelius, still guiding me after the war.”

In 15 Good Leadership Qualities, Jake outlines what actually builds credibility and trust when no one’s watching.

The Thinkers Who Shaped Jake’s Coaching Philosophy

Jake has read more than 1,200 books in the past 25 years, including biographies, psychology, philosophy, business, and behavioural science. But he doesn’t read for volume. He reads for architecture.

His thinking draws on business, psychology, philosophy and behavioural science. Authors who have influenced his work include Richard Branson, Seth Godin, Michael Gerber, Alan Watts, James Clear, Jordan Peterson, David Goggins and Philip Zimbardo. Their work helped shape Jake’s focus on ownership, systems, identity, disciplined action and personal responsibility.

Signature Coaching Frameworks

Jake doesn’t rely on hype, hacks, or improvisation. He works through mental scaffolding, repeatable mental models that produce clarity under pressure and speed under uncertainty. To him, frameworks aren’t optional. They’re how you win without burning out. Each one he uses has been forged through real coaching with real people in the real world. Each framework has been refined through years of real coaching and practical application.

Jake’s coaching isn’t based on inspiration. It’s based on architecture. He breaks this down further in his article on the benefits of life coaching, where he outlines how strategic coaching decisions compound over time.

Over the years, he’s developed a set of signature frameworks designed to create clarity under pressure and results that scale.

Learn → Practice → Master → Become a F*cking Legend

The first, Learn → Practice → Master → Become a F*cking Legend, is the backbone of everything he teaches. This sequence is how transformation happens in the real world. Jake didn’t learn this in a book; he built it from personal experience, failure, and relentless experimentation.

It’s the sequence most people try to skip. But as Jake often says, “There’s always a sequence. If you mess up the order, the result won’t come.” Whether it’s cooking, Olympic training, or growing a business, you can’t bypass the middle. One of his athlete clients, Alex, proved this by becoming world #1 two months after losing both his coach and father, by trusting the process.

Jake went deeper on this exact mindset during an interview on the Effort Over Results Podcast with Quinn Magnusson. The host loved the framework so much he made it the theme of the entire show. They explored what it really takes to go from good to legendary: why most people collapse in the “Practice” phase, how to use feedback loops to master any skill, and what separates high-performers from those who stay stuck at the “learning” stage.

Vision GPS

His second model, Vision GPS, was featured in Yahoo Finance as a breakthrough approach to goal alignment and execution. It combines four components, Vision, Goals, Planning, and Systems, into a dynamic recalibration model. Just like your car’s GPS, it doesn’t freeze when you make a wrong turn. It recalculates. Fast. On Barchart, Jake expanded on this model, explaining how Vision GPS 2.0 also accelerates decision-making. He also expanded on this in a podcast conversation with Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations.

“Most people procrastinate not because they’re lazy, but because they’re unclear. When your vision is clear, decisions get easy.” In his article on how to stop procrastinating, he explains how mental resolution, speed, and action loops are engineered into daily behaviour.

On the ProductiviTree podcast, Jake explained how resourcefulness, clarity, and daily consistency drive long-term growth, especially for entrepreneurs juggling productivity and identity.

One podcast guest described it perfectly: “Think of Jake as your financial GPS.”

In The Gentleman’s Journal, Jake was quoted saying: “If I ask ‘Do you love your job’ and you say, ‘No’: it’s time to leave. ASAP.” The piece focused on the courage it takes to quit a role that no longer serves you, a message Jake often delivers to clients who feel stuck, burnt out, or simply uninspired.

One of his most-read pieces, How to Escape the 9–5 Job, breaks down the real path out of stagnation and into strategic movement.

No 0% Days

Next comes No 0% Days, a mindset that’s been featured and discussed across several podcast platforms, each from a different angle.
On The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, Jake explored how daily micro-actions compound into meaningful momentum, even in chaotic entrepreneurial environments.
On To Your Health, the discussion focused on building mental discipline and the psychology behind follow-through.
On Non-Profit Digital Success, Jake applied the framework to leadership burnout and consistency in mission-driven teams.
And on optYOUmize with Brett Ingram, he broke down the mindset behind entrepreneurial resilience and how small, consistent wins can reshape identity.

The principle is simple: you move the needle every day, even by 1%. No zeroes. No excuses. You don’t wait for motivation. You build identity through action.

Elisabeth, one of his clients, lost 45kg using this framework by committing to daily action, no matter what.

The 10–80–10 Rule

Then there’s the 10–80–10 Rule, a mental model designed for momentum and consistency. The first 10% is vision. The middle 80% is repetition, boredom, doubt. That’s where most people quit. The final 10% is when results show up, but only for those who endured the valley. As Jake puts it, “Everyone wants to be great, but most people quit right before they become someone great.”

The 3 Steps to Winning a Gold Medal

Finally, the 3 Steps to Winning a Gold Medal framework outlines the emotional architecture of success: belief, repetition, and obsession. Trying is optional. Deciding is not. You don’t hustle randomly; you train like an Olympian. You don’t chase confidence, you earn it through obsession-level consistency.

No Zero Per Cent Days: Where Mindset Meets Movement

There’s a specific place Jake feels most at home. A minimalist space, marker in hand, silence thick with anticipation. This is where things get taken apart. This is where businesses are rebuilt. This is where identities are reprogrammed.

In his coaching work, Jake helps clients change not only what they do, but the standards, beliefs and behaviours shaping who they become.

His clients often describe the feeling as “a clarity I haven’t had in years.” They come in foggy, full of options, excuses, noise. They leave with a single decision and the inner certainty on it. These moments aren’t accidental. They’re designed. Jake has built his coaching room like an operating theatre for decisions: clean, focused, precise. He often says, “When you get the plan right, motivation becomes irrelevant.”

Jake’s philosophy boils down to six words: “Success loves speed. Clarity creates speed.”

That’s why even in his most difficult moments, like being told by a doctor that he might only have months to live, Jake never accepted outside definitions of his limit. “I’ll decide when I die,” he told the doctor. And he walked out.

Jake hit his physical limit. Years of pressure and performance obsession broke his body. A doctor gave him a brutal prognosis. He rejected it and made a new decision: move every day. Discipline became medicine.

Since then, he hasn’t missed a day of movement. 5 AM gym. Long walks in the rain. No excuses. Not for his clients. Not for himself.

As he says: “You don’t rise to your motivation. You fall to your minimum standard.”

This standards-based discipline also informs his approach to time management and prioritisation.

In How to Prioritise Workload, he breaks down prioritisation as a leadership skill, not a to-do list tactic.

Integrity Over Hype

But it’s not just the discipline of the body that sets Jake apart. It’s a discipline of the mind. Over the years, he’s coached celebrities, athletes, CEOs, actors, and even billionaires. And yet, no one knows who. Not because of contracts. But because of the code.

Jake’s mind operates with disciplined precision, guarded, principled, and unshakeable. Fame doesn’t impress him. Money doesn’t buy access. Every session, every story, every emotion stays locked behind layers of cognitive walls.

He often says: “Some people build firewalls. I built a fortress.”

As a coach, he has non-negotiables. He’ll never lie to a client. He’ll never sell false hope. He’ll never violate trust, no matter the status, story, or situation. And if a client lies to themselves? He’ll tell them. Even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.

He still draws inspiration from Warren Buffett’s most prized certificate, his diploma from a Dale Carnegie course on communication. Buffett has publicly said that his Carnegie diploma had more impact than any of his academic degrees. For Jake, that diploma lives in every whiteboard session, every breakthrough, every client message that begins with “I’ve never told anyone this, but…”

Clients trust him because his coaching room is a vault.

And it’s inside those sessions, surrounded by clarity, on whiteboards, in focused silence, that Jake feels most at home. Whether it’s breaking down business models, redefining self-worth, or crafting an exit plan from a toxic job or relationship, Jake lives for those moments when a client’s eyes light up, and they finally say, “I know what I need to do.”

He is known for saying what others may avoid, particularly when the stakes are high.

Because clarity, to him, is the first form of love.

Jake Smolarek – Quotes That Clients Remember:

·         “Success loves speed. Clarity creates speed.”

·         “You don’t rise to your motivation. You fall to your minimum standard.”

·         “Clarity is kindness. Confusion is cruelty.”

·         “No zero per cent days. Not today. Move.”

·         “Don’t build yourself a job. Build a system.”

·         “You can always improve. Always. There’s always another level.”

·         “Don’t be fucking average. Let others be average. You? You build.”

Start Here – Explore Jake’s Signature Work

For readers, journalists and podcast hosts looking to explore Jake’s work, the following resources provide a direct introduction to his frameworks, interviews and published commentary.

·         Best Podcast Appearances: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | iHeart

→ Deep-dive episodes on frameworks, discipline, legacy, and resilience.

·         Jake’s Coaching Frameworks include: Learn → Practice → Master → Become a Fucking Legend | 10–80–10 Rule | No 0% Days | Vision GPS | 3 Steps to Gold Medal | The Human Pattern Matrix | Binary Decomposition

→ Core models used by founders, athletes, and leaders worldwide.

·         Press Coverage: The Times | Yahoo Finance | ABC Money | Gentleman’s Journal | The London Economic | Barchart