The Stresses of Entrepreneurship and Online Coaching - Petey Performance Podcast #137
The Athlete's AdvantageShow Notes
This week I speak on a couple of topics that I and others have probably been reluctant to speak about in the past.
However, authenticity is really important to me and I’ve made a conscious decision to be open and honest on this podcast about the wins that I have, as well as the struggles that I’ve been dealing with.
Some of these struggles will be familiar to fellow coaches, podcasters & business owners, and maybe even those not in this space as well.
I speak about the struggles of booking guests and how I frame this barrier in my mind.
I touch on the resistance faced on a daily basis by content creators, the dedication it takes to polish interviewing skills and the self-criticism and commitment that sometimes is necessary to be a standout in your own field.
This episode peels away the glamour to expose the persistence and personal growth required to steer the ship of self-employment. Join me as I reflect on the lessons learned from both the triumphs and the setbacks, and how leading a team adds weight to every decision I make.
Online coaching is often thought about as an incredibly lucrative career path and even though it comes with its perks, there are many unspoken problems that coaches face when moving into the online space. I make an attempt to touch on a couple of them today.
Speaking on the self-criticism and doubt that comes with clients departing and the therapeutic challenge of knowing you're enough, I do my best to be as candid as possible with the hope that it will help someone else in a similar position.
And as well as that, I speak about the balancing act of fostering deep connections and managing social anxiety while holding space for others.
Life as an entrepreneur is a journey of continuous learning, and I speak again about the importance of self-improvement in accelerating your career development and practice.
I finally touch on my attempt to add value to the industry in laying out the blueprint of my online mentorship program, designed to guide others in mastering their craft, be it speed development or effective team communication.
If I can help a few people that were in the position I was in a few years ago, then it’ll be more than worthwhile to choose optimism, creation and putting my process out into the world, rather than choosing to stay pessimistic, cynical and closed-off.
Drop me a message with the word “Mentorship” if you’re interested in hearing more about what I’ve put together!
Time-Stamps
0:00 - Struggles of Being an Entrepreneur
13:02 - Navigating Personal Growth and Social Anxiety
26:13 - Importance of Learning and Personal Development
32:51 - Optimism in Creating Mentorship Programs
39:11 - Performance Mentoring and Rehab Opportunities
More from The Athlete's Advantage
How do you take an athlete from the first days of rehab to match play without skipping steps?
Why a coach has to respect an athlete's right to make a call they disagree with, even when every instinct says otherwise. Peter opens with a business update: a record September, new team members, and why September through November are consistently the busiest months for new enquiries. He also talks through sitting out a club rugby game early in his own return. Not because anyone told him to, but because he hadn't built up enough training exposure yet. From there, three listener questions, all circling the same theme: trust, risk, and who actually gets to make the call. On trust between practitioner and client: Particularly when a client pushes back or gets anxious about a decision. Peter breaks down task conflict vs. personal conflict, why understanding has to come before trust, and how asking "why" can surface information that changes the whole picture. He walks through a worked example of how a risk-percentage conversation can turn an opinion-based disagreement into an objective one. Then he gets personal: breaking his hand two weeks before a university tournament, refusing the cast, and playing anyway. "It's my body, my choice" and why, as a coach, you have to be able to hold that line even when you disagree. On whether return-to-play protocols are actually being used at a high level: Peter pushes back on the idea that elite programmes skip this work. The real gap, he argues, is at club level, where there's often no dedicated practitioner with the time to deliver it. He also responds (with some fire) to two claims he'd seen online: that return-to-play running is a waste of time, and that load management is a "cop out" in rehab. On what a return-to-play progression actually looks like: From return-to-jumping through to return-to-running, and why a hamstring injury and a calf injury should be built back up differently, right down to the volume and velocity of dribble conditioning used for each.
Antrim captain Eoghan McCabe on the Tailteann Cup exit he still hasn’t processed, and we go through the return-to-play checklist that ends the guessing on osteitis pubis and groin pain. Eoghan is honest that he hasn’t got his head around the loss yet, and just as honest that no single moment caused it. We get into leadership when you are not the loudest voice, why any more than three focus points is too many, and why punishment as exercise teaches athletes the wrong thing. Then the part I get asked about most. When can I return to play? There is no set date you can go back on I’m afraid. But there are metrics you have to hit.
At 31 I ran a speed experiment on myself. Here is what got me to 8.63 m/s, plus your injury questions answered.
One rule of communication that reveals what athletes actually mean, plus the framework I use to quantify injury risk on every decision on whether an athlete is ready to return.