From Elite Sport to Business Performance with Grant Doorey

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, Pedro sits down with Grant Doorey, founder of Moby Coach Australia, to explore what practical high performance really looks like in coaching and business.

Grant shares his journey from elite professional rugby to corporate leadership coaching, unpacking how principles from high-pressure sports environments translate into sustainable performance, resilient teams, and real business outcomes. They dive into continuous improvement, tightening your product line to two or three clear programs, pricing through value (not hours), and why customer-centric partnerships drive long-term success.

This episode is a must-listen for coaches and consultants who want to scale without burning out, stay aligned with their values, and deliver measurable, lasting behavior change.



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-doorey-3b3a33320/

Transcript

Grant Doorey 0:00

Well, I'm always looking for opportunities to improve. Uh I'm deeply committed to and believing the concept of continuous improvement. There are always things that are that are front of mind in terms of opportunities for me to get better to get better at certain things. The first thing that I'm trying to tighten up is to make sure that I've got a really very clear and tight product line. And what I mean by a very tight product line is I've I've got to be able to have key conversations with potential clients about the two or three programs. And they can they can be bespokely shaped after the initial interactions. But what are the two or three unique programs that are gonna be the best debut drivers?

Davis Nguyen 0:46

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro 1:17

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro and today's guest is Grant Dury, founder of Moby Coach Australia. Grant helps leaders and teams in business and elite sport lift performance through practical, people-first leadership and culture transformation. With 25 years in high performance professional sport and over five years translating those principles into business, he supports organizations to build resilient teams, reduce burnout, and deliver measurable, sustained results across sectors, including professional services, resources, finance, sales, and education. Welcome to the show, Grant. Good morning, Pedro. Good morning from uh Queensland, Australia. Yeah, good morning to you as well, sir. Well, I'm in Brazil, a little bit different. It's 4 p.m. here. So we got that. We definitely got that going on. But Grant, it's great to have you. And I'd love to know about the origin story, you know, rewind a bit. Because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now. Right. So when was that for you, Grant?

Grant Doorey 2:31

Yeah, I mean, it takes me back a long time, Pedro, when I think about my coaching origin story. I actually uh started coaching as a as a very young man. I was 17, 17 years old. I was in my first first year of teachers college in in Sydney, Australia. My background's in education, and there's always been an incredible link between education and coaching. Uh so I started coaching young sports people in Australia. I was deeply passionate about helping people get better, and I immediately I immediately was attract was attracted to the connection side of coaching, where you created you know long-term relationships, you build trust, uh, and you're enabled to unlock the potential in uh young people that brought you know joy, connectedness, and saw young people succeeding and feeling great and feeling great about themselves. So that was my uh that were my original experiences with coaching.

Pedro 3:30

Nice, nice, that's interesting. Starting at such a such a young age, right? And helping people through um considering that uh the the sports as a theme and uh on the background, right? So yeah, very interesting. And and when did it shift, right, from I'm helping people to I'm building a real business around this?

Grant Doorey 3:49

Well my transit my transition uh from that young coach to the coach I am now was uh anchored in my love of sport. So I actually um was exposed to elite sport both as a uh professional player myself. I played professional rugby, so I was exposed to high performance environments as a player, and then that transition to becoming a high performance coach. So I was very fortunate enough to coach elite professional rugby at uh at the top of at the top of the game and you know, coached four rugby world cups, the coached elite programs in Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Italy. So I was exposed to the top end of the game. So I was then deeply immersed in high performance environments. And when I stopped coaching professional sport in 2021, I transitioned from 2000, I was doing some part-time coaching. So I transitioned and thought, okay, well, what can I do with this passion for coaching? And there was a a genuine appetite in the corporate world at that time to explore what practical high performance could look like in corporate teams. So I I transferred that passion for for growth, development, and high performance in sport and and transitioned it across to the corporate world through multiple programs in the professional services sector, uh starting in the starting in the world.

Pedro 5:14

That's very interesting. So you're coming from a sports background coach, and then you transition to like leaders and I wouldn't call business coach, but to moving to a corporate world, right? So after you got rolling, who are the people that kept showing up, you know, after that transition? The ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe. This is my people.

Grant Doorey 5:34

It's interesting, it's interesting you say that who's my tribe, because I'm what I'm not what I'm noticing is that my tribe is is continuing to grow, but it it has a very distinct profile. So the pro the profile that my tribe has is that there's a genuine curiosity about what all things performance can look like for them. And they they're they're deeply committed to and curious to understand about what practical high performance can look like for them, for their teams, and you know what are the outcomes that curiosity and commitment to exploring high performance habits can lead to in terms of elevated outcomes and bottom bottom line tangible deliverables in terms of how we can help organizations reduce burnout, save money, elevate elevate trust, build connected teams, build robust leadership, build sustainable leadership, succession plans, and help unlock potential of their leaders, the teams, ultimately helping them achieve their key objectives and strategic initiatives. Yeah, good question. I mean, I I've been very fortunate um since starting in 2016, full-time on this coaching journey, that pretty much everyone I work with um has come back for more. The repeat business is is key to um you know, is is key to success. Retaining good clients is key to success. But ultimately you've got to find those key clients or find those initial opportunities. So the the initial opportunities that I found came through a connected network that I already had. So that was either through the rugby community that I was deeply connected to, or it was through the professional environment that I managed to build through my direct and intentional ability to build trust and connection with people through different professional networks. Uh LinkedIn is a is a good is a good example. The key message is well, what does it look like to open the door and then have the capability to keep your foot in the door long enough to create an opportunity and some curiosity and an appetite to go on a journey and explore high performance together? So that really was the the start of it. And then I go through classic channels like like most people do. I've got to spend probably 20 or 30% of my time uh connecting and engaging uh with my with my network.

Pedro 8:07

And that's how you that's how you build trust and connection. Second. So Grant, people find you through LinkedIn, through your network that you've built years to come and still building, and they resonate with your work, right? And eventually they want to know what working with you actually looks like. So everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently. So when someone actually becomes a client, Grant, what does that experience look like right now?

Grant Doorey 8:31

What they can bring to the coaching journey. Um so I I was really committed early on to absolutely commit to taking people on a high performance journey. So everything from their the initial introduction to the initial discovery calls, it's all anchored in concepts that are deeply that are deeply rooted in high performance. So there's lots of language around accountability, lots of uh uh language around actions focused coaching, lots of language around trust, around connection, around alignment, around engagement. So I I'm really authentic in terms of the way that I connect and engage with my potential clients. So there's no surprises after when we're when we're starting to work together in terms of what a uh highly accountable, connected, and engaged coaching relationship looks like. So I really set that up for success and I bring a high challenge, high support approach to my coaching style. And that's not for everyone, but what I am learning is that most people who really want to go on a high performance journey, they expect and have a mandate that potentially they need to change and create some new habits. So we help them with that and we help them embed those habits, sustain those habits over time. And what they find is they achieve, start to achieve some genuinely sensational results and sensational outcomes and do some of their best work and become highly successful. And they want more of that. But they become deeply convinced they become deeply self-awareness driven work that that's gonna drive those tangible outcomes for them.

Pedro 10:22

Your work seems pretty hands-on. Seems like I would say even a customized experience. So how do you think about capacity? So you don't stretch yourself too thin, right? We all we all have 24 hours in a day.

Grant Doorey 10:34

Sure. And that and that, I mean, the people who are who are deeply connected to their clients, you know, might feel like the biggest hand weight to scaling their business is their is the way they influence in the one-on-one coaching environment. So one of the key things that I've I've uh committed to over the last couple of years is how do we create one too many coaching opportunities? How do we how do we create coaching communities where we're where we're coaching more than one person at a time? Um, but at the same time, we're not we're not losing the integrity of the individual bespoke coaching experience that that person needs to have. Because every every single person's coaching journey is very uniquely different. Okay, and that that's one of that's one of the challenges I have with many people's coaching approach, is that it is cookie cutter, it is one size fits all. I I deeply believe in an authentic coaching experience that takes Pedro on a unique individual journey is much more about Pedro. It's much more about his unique skills, it's about his unique strengths, it's about unlocking those unique strengths through a journey of self-awareness and uh and also deeply connected to the work and the deep work that we do together that helps you create simple, repeatable consistencies of behavior that drive your performance outcomes. And they're related to your values, your skill sets, your motivations, your aspirations. So, how do we not lose that individual flavor, but we can create some scale through projects that give us that one-to-many opportunity?

Pedro 12:22

Create that ripple effect. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, and one thing every coach wrestles with at some point is pricing, right? And how to package their work. And I'm not talking about hard numbers, but I want to tap into your experience here because you came from a completely different background, right? You're coming from professional rugby and coaching in the sports way, in the sports industry, and now you're transitioning, and you have been transitioning for a while now, right? To more for like a business corporate world. So, how do you think about it today? And were there any lessons along the way that shaped how you landed where you are right now? I mean, regarding pricing and how you see your self-worth or how you see, am I charging enough? Am I am I not charging enough? You know, that type of mentality and and challenges usually coaches go through.

Grant Doorey 13:11

Yeah, the the the pricing challenge is real. And I and I think that we potentially as coaches, we at any particular time on our coaching journey, we may have felt like we were undervalued or we undervalued our work through incorrect pricing. Right. We've all had that, we've all had that uh that moment in time. And I was very fortunate early on. I did extensive amounts of work. I I did programs across Australia and New Zealand, Ghana, I did programs for for Ernst and Young in the in the first year of my coaching journey, and I was and I was working with hundreds of their leaders at a time. Okay, so it became quite easy for me to create that opportunity to position myself uh at the right place in the market because I was always my language was all about an elite experience. It was always it was always about high performance. So my pricing was obviously directly reflected that. So I I felt like I positioned myself in the right way initially so that I wouldn't compromise on the value. So then you've got to be good at articulating and communicating and proving where your direct value at is. So people come to you and they see the return on investment, and they don't they don't see see you as a cost, they see you as an integrated part of their people development model and people development ecosystem where your value is much higher than your than your hourly rate. So that's so that's how I position it. Um and I and I don't compromise on my language. I I'm really deliberate and intentional about keeping my language elite, performance focused, and that's the expectation. Ultimately, what happens over time, Pedron, is that is that you shift you shift to rates where you're where you're very comfortable, where you feel like you're doing your highest value work, and what you find is you end up with high value clients. And that's that's that's what I found the the direct correlation uh has worked really well for me.

Pedro 15:15

That's an interesting uh way you picked up on value first, right? And later on, from value, you understand your pricing. Yeah, that makes perfect sense instead of the other way around. Because sometimes we see people that they first think about pricing and they don't tie an outcome to it or the positioning itself. Okay, that's a solid look. I really like that. Now I'm curious, Grant, about where you're taking all this, right? Looking ahead, where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Grant Doorey 15:46

Yeah, the the next step I'm excited about is that my I'm deeply committed to partnership and I I I want to develop partnerships. I don't I don't actually want clients, I want partners. So I've I've just signed a partnership here at Australia. I've been working very closely with a with an organization over the last uh four to five years. We've done lots of very good work together. We really enjoy each other's style and approach. We're aligned on methodology, we're uh we're aligned on impact, we're aligned on the on the profile of clients that we that we hunt together, or we or we seek to serve together. Um so I've just signed an an associate agreement with them that'll allow me to do a up to a hundred days of work with them this year. So that that gives me a really great foundation to work on the other parts of my coaching business that's gonna allow me to develop my next partner. So I'm trying to I'm trying to create this less is this less more concept where I work with two or three partners, but we do multiple projects together because there's a high level of trust and and a high level of alignment to the to the coaching journey that we're gonna we're gonna take our partners on. I said less is more and uh deeply, you know, deeply connected partnerships anchoring trust and alignment is where I'm trying to take it.

Pedro 17:11

Interesting. Yeah, I was thinking when you you said partnerships, I was the key word whenever I think about partnerships is like alignment. And I'm and you just dropped alignment, and I love that because it's like, hey, um, sometimes you're looking for X, Y, and Z uh service, right? Oh, we need a marketing team, we need X, Y, and Z. You need to hire someone. And if someone knows you and is aligned with the way you do things, and you kind of know how they roll and they know how you roll, it makes the transition or the referral so much easier, right? Because they've been through uh the the trial that you know, everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes we take we take some time to find that right person or right a business to refer to someone. So yeah, that that makes perfect sense. And of course, whenever we're aiming toward the next chapter, right, there's always something we're refining in the present. So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business?

Grant Doorey 18:08

Well, I'm always looking for opportunities to improve, but I'm deeply committed to and believing the concept of continuous improvement. Um there are always things that are that are front of mind in terms of opportunities for me to get better to get better at certain things. The first the first thing that I'm trying to tighten up is to make sure that I've got a really um very clear and tight product line. And what I mean by a very tight product line is I've I've got to be able to have key conversations with potential clients about the two or three programs, and they can they can be bespokely shaped after the initial interactions. But what are the two or three unique programs that are gonna be the best value drivers for those organizations? And focus on those two or three programs, and then if bespoke work comes in, great, I'll I'll explore that bespoke work at the same time. But how do I create a narrow focus for my business? So I'm not trying to do trying to do or be everything to everyone, but I've got a really refined approach to the way that I bring the highest value work to my cli to my to my partners. And I'm sort of finding that at the moment in a number of areas, but I'm still trying to refine that. You know, there's lots of appetite out in the corporate world right now, particularly in in Australia and and New Zealand and Southeast Asia, about well, what does practical high performance teaming look like? You know, people are really curious about how do you help our senior sales team, who is the elite team in our organization, how do you help them be 10% more high performant? You know, so we build programs that is directly targeted at elevating the performance of already pretty elite teams. And most and and most of that work is you know around consistency of habits and behavior and making making sure that there's an individual side to that to that coaching approach. But I yeah, so ultimately the the key message is I'm trying to refine it so I have a cool product line that is really simple to articulate and the value is is easy for partners to understand and see. They want to see value, not just hear about value. So it often comes to behavior change and sustained performance uh outcome drivers.

Pedro 20:43

Interesting. You know, Grant, I want to tap into your experience for a second because people listening can really benefit from this, you know. You've been in a game long enough to hear all kinds of business advice, and some that sticks and some that really doesn't. And to highlight your background in sports, it's so easy to lose a game and just throw the plan out there, right? And say this is not working, we need a new plan, and then lose the next, throw it back again, this is not working. And you're always trying to, you know, reinvent the wheel and now want to tap into the accident, that experience specifically. So, what's one piece of a business advice you hear all the time that you think is overrated or misunderstood?

Grant Doorey 21:24

I think, yeah, I mean, the the the one piece of business advice I get consistently that I like to push back on is it's really based around, you know, finding your unique value proposition and positioning a unique value proposition. So the the danger in the method that I just spoke about is that it becomes too you centric and it becomes too much about your product, your services. Okay, so I actually believe that one of my superpowers is my ability to connect in. Engage and understand a partner. So if people are telling me to bring my unique value proposition to the table, I challenge them and said, No, my um key responsibility is to unlock the key value proposition and the key journey that the partner is trying to go on. So how am I making everything that I do customer centric? How am I making it about the outcome or the aspirations or the or the key objectives and strategic initiatives that the partner is trying to achieve? How is that front and center in all of my thinking? So that that is true customer centricity. So yes, there's an element of me trying to refine my uh product suite, but it's got to be aligned to customer centricity and drive customer outcomes. Because ultimately if not, otherwise we're just delivering another coaching program that is potentially it might make our people feel good momentarily, but it won't create you know behavior change and performance shifts. And I'm and I'm trying to create programs that have a deep value and sustain performance impact.

Pedro 23:10

Yeah, it's all about the root causes, right? And sometimes I see people being challenged in the coaching space, like, oh, give me the answer, when actually it's all about the journey, understanding uh the customer journey, like you said, and find the answers together, right? It's not just about giving you a a recipe or something like that. So yeah, that makes perfect sense. And on the other side, Grant, what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously?

Grant Doorey 23:37

I mean, the the key piece of advice, the key piece of advice I'd like people to take more seriously is what is what does this look like for you in your environment? So I think we explore, we often explore concepts or or models or we challenge challenge people around specific behavior changes, but they don't they don't get the opportunity to explore the practical integration into their work environment. So how do we take the the the concepts and principles of high performance and then really work on the integrated practical behavior changes that are gonna drive those uh frontline leadership behaviors that have the most impact on their teams? So it's much, much more about integration than just about an awareness of, and I I'll simplify it as I use this concept of the philosopher versus the tradesperson, right? So we have lots of people who really want to be philosophers, so they're just trying to build knowledge, have greater ideas, and to be on a soapbox and be able to tell a story. Well, we need, yes, we do need philosophers, right? But ultimately what the world needs right now is they need tradespeople. They need people that can take those skills, that can practically integrate those skills into an environment with an understanding of both the mechanics and the dynamics of the environment. And the mechanics, I mean the people, the processes and the systems, the dynamics, I mean the people, the culture, and the environment, and how we blend those two together to bring tangible practical habits that are gonna shift the behaviors in that environment. So, how we get a how are we making it integrated? That's the key challenge. So taking it from the idea, the ideation to the practical integration of skills, habits, and behaviors that are shifting our outcomes.

Pedro 25:40

Interesting. I love that. Grant, and if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you?

Grant Doorey 25:49

Yeah, ultimately, I I I love, I'm open to connection on LinkedIn all the time. So search search up Grant Deerie or maybe Coach Australia on LinkedIn, connect, start a start a conversation, share, share something with me about your unique coaching journey. I I I've got a standard LinkedIn message I send to people when they first reach out to me. Let me know how I can help you succeed. And if there's anything that I can do to help people succeed, try to find I try to find the way. And if I can't f help them succeed, I try to connect them with somebody who might be able to. So I'm I deeply believe in the value of connection. I deeply believe in that we do things bet better in a community. So let's build coaching communities that where people can share, ideate, and and grow together. I think that's a it's a great part of it's a great part of the coaching uh industry that I've found is that people are genuinely interested to connect, engage, and learn from each other. So let's keep let's keep that through going.

Pedro 26:46

That's awesome. You know, there were a few things you share today that that really stuck with me. I would say first is that early background, right? Um in sports. And at such a young age, you started noticing the coaching in you, right? And how that developed into such a natural and organic way. So I think that's really interesting. Also, I would emphasize the professional rugby background, right? And how many years you spent on that high pressure environment. And I think that resonates with a lot of people. As much as like me, I don't know exactly how that works. I know how hard it must be, right? We have that idea of it's every day a new challenge, and it's so much pressure in the sports environment. So, yeah, that definitely resonates, I think, with a lot of people. And last but not least, the positioning, how you position value first and how you did that in an order that most people don't do. It's like, hey, I'm positioning myself as an elite, you know, service, and I need to take a look at first how am I positioning value, and then we're gonna look at price, right? Because that's the only way that really makes sense is how you tying outcome to the price, right? And not just a clock or something like that. It it really is about the outcome. And the last thing is like uh the customer-centric experience, right? How you do that and how you you put them first and and in order to give deliver the best of your abilities, right? So, Grant, I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you on.

Grant Doorey 28:28

Cool, please. Yeah, and and I mean my last message to everyone who's who's out there on their own coaching journey is is it's about people. Yeah, coaching is a is a people-centric industry. So every time we're in front of somebody, we've got an opportunity to enhance their their day, to elect to elevate their day. And I think that's one of the great joys of coaching. So let's not let's not forget that you know, that people side of coaching, that care, compassion, and empathy that everyone needs to grow and be the best version of themselves. So let's fit let's be that one person they can go to.

Davis Nguyen 29:02

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.