Business Origin Stories for Entrepreneurs, Coaches, and Leaders
Business Origin Stories is the podcast for leadership, life, and business. This show features coaching calls and heart-to-heart conversations with successful entrepreneurs, leaders, authors, and experts.
Join your host, Amy Schutte, a business coach and brand strategist, as she dives into ways to create stand-out brands and aligned businesses through storytelling and proven business frameworks.
At its core, Business Origin Stories is a recognition that the stories we tell are our greatest currency.
Business Origin Stories for Entrepreneurs, Coaches, and Leaders
108: From CEO to Zen Coach: Peter Corbett on Identity, Exit, and Sustainable Well-Being
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Many founders imagine that selling their company will be the finish line. But for many leaders, the exit is actually the beginning of a new identity crisis.
In this episode of Business Origin Stories, Amy Schutte sits down with Peter Corbett, former agency founder turned executive coach, to explore what happens after entrepreneurial success.
Peter built a digital agency that grew to roughly 100 full-time employees and another 150 contractors in a given year before selling the company to a public organization at age 36. Like many founders, his life had been completely centered on the business. When the sale closed, the sudden absence of that role created what he describes as a form of ego death.
The phone stopped ringing. The conferences stopped. The context that had defined his identity disappeared.
Instead of immediately launching another venture, Peter took a very different path. He trained in a Zen hospice program in New York and spent nine months working with sick and dying patients in a hospital. That experience reshaped how he thinks about leadership, value, and the human side of success.
Today, Peter works as an executive coach primarily with founders and CEOs. His coaching practice blends business strategy with personal development, relationships, spiritual inquiry, and even biological health metrics. He believes many high achievers reach a point where the traditional markers of success no longer provide meaning.
In this conversation, Peter shares how that shift happens and what leaders can do about it.
Inside this episode, you’ll hear:
- What it actually feels like after selling a company
- Why many founders struggle with identity after an exit
- How Peter’s hospice training changed how he views leadership and value
- The role presence and self-awareness play in sustainable leadership
- Why burnout and awe cannot coexist in the nervous system
- How Peter now works with founders through coaching, retreats, and immersive experiences
Peter also shares the story behind his unusual workspace inside the historic Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, where he hosts conversations and tea ceremonies inside a lotus bell tent designed to encourage deeper dialogue.
For leaders navigating transition, burnout, or the next chapter after success, this conversation offers a thoughtful perspective on what sustainable well-being can actually look like.
Connect with Peter:
Website: https://stillrush.co
Instagram / LinkedIn: Corbett3000
Instagram:
@amyschutte_
Work with us: www.hudsonandco.co