Growing up in Germany as a Persian child who looked, sounded, and felt different, Dr. Freddy Behin, founder of Gymnastics World, surgeon, software developer, author, and keynote speaker, learnt early what it meant to stand on the outside of a culture. But more importantly, he learnt how to conquer it.
He remembers being set back a year in school because he didn't speak the language well enough. "I felt like I didn't belong there, which was different from the environment I was raised in," he recalls. "So in my head, I had to make a decision: How do I prove to them I'm worthy of being here?" That survival mechanism quickly evolved into a lifelong pursuit of mastery, learning languages, absorbing cultures at a granular level, and choosing excellence in every direction he moved. "It wasn't a talent-based situation; it was a desire and dedication, because to me, when you choose not to be mediocre, you don't fail," he adds.
As he continued to forge his identity in Germany, Dr. Behin came across gymnastics in 1983, which guided every following chapter of his life. After failing to pull himself up on the parallel bars, as a young boy, he became determined to change that. "I didn't want to give them another reason why I wasn't good enough, and I couldn't accept that."
The decision was immediate. He signed up, committed himself fully, and within a year was referred to Hamburg's artistic gymnastics performance center. His ascent through discipline, rather than innate talent, became a defining pattern. "I didn't treat the sport as a fun activity," he notes. "I worked hard to become what I wanted to become. I made a choice that I'm not going to fail at this, and that's the choice I make every day."
That pursuit eventually carried him to the United States on a gymnastics scholarship, where he became a starter for UCLA, one of the top athletics programs in the US. He qualified for world championships, trained extensively, and debuted a new gymnastic skill on rings, an extreme one-arm element, an achievement he believes put his mark on the sport.
By 1996, the same year he introduced a move, he launched Gymnastics World, a youth sport center, as a passion project. He introduced it as a response to a need in the sports world, which grew into a facility that developed national competitors and college athletes.
To ensure the gym could thrive while he pursued other paths, he built systems that allowed it to run without him, an early signal of the entrepreneur and operator he would become. Parallel to running the gym, his academic path shifted from software development to cardiac physiology research at UCLA. There, he emphasizes, he worked on an artificial intelligence pacemaker project to prevent arrhythmias and fibrillation. That experience drew him into medicine, and he went on to complete his medical degree in 2003, graduating as a doctor.
His career in medicine wasn't limited to operating rooms and hospital wards. Driven by altruism, Dr. Behin undertook several medical trips to third-world countries with the aim of helping underprivileged people and families.
Even as the gym expanded, Dr. Behin felt a pull toward understanding business at scale. His search for education led him to personal development organizations, such as Tony Robbins, first as a student, then as a fully immersed participant, and eventually as part of its coaching staff. According to Dr. Behin, that experience allowed him to discover how to merge his lived experiences with structured frameworks in psychology and NLP.
This insight, he states, opened doors. As he started coaching high-net-worth CEOs, he was uncovering the deeper motivations that drive people's behavior and outcomes. He published a book, "Living Impossible Dreams," on the achievement process and how to be your best when it matters, which ultimately led him to the stage. His first speaking gig, he notes, was accidental. "I wrote the materials, set the price, walked on stage, and surprised even myself with the confidence that showed through," he says, highlighting how that serendipitous moment unveiled his new role as a keynote speaker. "It kept building because I didn't say no," he says.
Through every chapter, athlete, founder, physician, coach, author, speaker, the thread for Dr. Freddy Behin remains the same: a formula for personal mastery rooted in deliberate action, resilience, and the refusal to retreat from challenge and being mediocre. "Anyone can be a champion if they're willing to do what a champion does," he says. A lesson born on the parallel bars of a German gymnasium, now shared on global stages.
