Freedom in Coaching: 3 Shifts Daniel Persson Uses in Individual Design
Most coaches say they want freedom. Not just more money, but the kind that lets you coach the people you actually care about, coach in a way that feels right, and build a life that doesn’t slowly squeeze the joy out of training.
OPEX coaches Daniel Persson and Brandon Gallagher talked through what that looks like in real life, including Daniel’s recent talk at Coaches Congress in Sweden and the three shifts that changed how he coaches, designs programs, and builds a career.
Coaches Congress, and why “go all in” matters
Daniel opened with a simple recommendation for any coach who takes the craft seriously: go to Coaches Congress if you can. It’s a weekend built around coaches learning from coaches, sharing ideas, and getting better at the work. The event is hosted by Henrik (another OPEX coach) and draws coaches from all over the world.
But the bigger theme Daniel brought to the weekend was personal: what freedom means to him, and how he moved toward individual design.
For him, freedom isn’t something you stumble into. Freedom isn’t found, it’s built. That framing matters because it shifts your focus away from hoping the “right situation” appears, and toward making decisions that create room to coach the way you want.
Brandon added an important point early on: coaching freedom isn’t always about money. It’s also about:
Who you coach
When you coach
Why you coach
What your days look like
If your calendar feels like a trap, it doesn’t matter what your revenue is.
The moment that forced clarity: “If you’re going to do it, go all in”
Daniel shared a story that will feel familiar to anyone who has one foot in coaching and one foot in a safer job.
He was “halfway in, halfway out,” trying to keep options open. His wife told him something that forced a decision: if you’re going to do this fitness coaching thing, go all in. She didn’t tell him to hustle harder or work more hours. She asked him to stop living split in two, sitting in a finance department feeling bitter and thinking “what if.”
That’s when Daniel had to face a hard question: what does “all in” actually mean?
Because coaching careers aren’t always laid out like other jobs. There’s no clean ladder, no clear sequence of steps. That lack of structure is one reason coaches hesitate. You can’t always “see” the path.
So going all in starts with defining direction. Not a vague dream, but an honest look at what kind of coach you want to be, what kind of clients you want, and what kind of day you want to wake up to.
The core framework: who we coach, how we coach, what we design
Daniel framed individual design with an order that sounds simple, but fixes a lot of common mistakes:
Who we coach
How we coach
What we design
He said he had this order wrong earlier in his career. Like a lot of coaches, he got stuck chasing the perfect program. He’s a self-described programming nerd and felt insecure about whether his programs were “good enough,” so he kept chasing more education and more knowledge.
Education matters, but that mindset can quietly turn into a trap. The program becomes the star, the person becomes secondary, and when friction shows up, the only tool left is “try harder.”
The rest of the conversation breaks down three shifts that map to that framework.
Shift 1: Stop coaching programs, start coaching people
“Coach people, not programs” was Daniel’s first big shift, and it starts with a hard truth: a great program that doesn’t fit someone’s life becomes a guilt machine.
Daniel’s solution begins with priorities.
Priorities are not the same as values
Daniel explained priorities in a practical way: priorities are what makes it into the calendar, in that order. Values can be what you care about, but priorities show up in how you spend time.
He gave an example from his own life:
He values his wife more than anything.
But he can still prioritize work time over time with her, as long as it works for their life.
That distinction keeps the conversation real. People don’t need a motivational speech. They need a plan that matches their actual schedule and energy.
How he uses priorities with clients
When Daniel starts with a client, he has them list their top five priorities. Then they look at what that means for training time and scheduling.
He also returns to that conversation any time compliance drops.
That’s a big change from how many coaches respond to low compliance. The default response is often more pressure: more motivation, more discipline, more reminders.
Daniel’s approach is to ask, “Did something change in your life?”
A real example: strength training to mountain biking, and back again
Daniel shared a client story that makes this clear.
A woman came to him with headaches and other health issues. They started with two sessions per week, then three. She fell in love with strength training, health markers improved, and her headaches went away.
Then late spring hit, and compliance started dropping.
Old Daniel would’ve tried to motivate her back into the gym by pointing to the benefits and pushing discipline. Maybe it would’ve worked for a week or two.
Instead, he revisited priorities. She said she wanted to be outside, which makes sense in Sweden when sunlight finally shows up. Daniel asked what kind of movement she enjoyed outside.
Her answer: mountain biking.
So they rebuilt the design around mountain biking. She still wanted structure and progressions, the same thing she loved about the gym. Daniel also wanted to protect a principle he believes in, resistance work. He asked her for one simple bodyweight exercise before or after biking, something she could do on her porch.
The result was immediate: 100 percent compliance. Later, when the weather turned cold and rainy, she came back to the gym.
The point wasn’t that mountain biking is magic. It’s that design follows priorities, and priorities change.
How to handle misaligned priorities (and the “people-pleasing” answer)
Brandon raised something most coaches see constantly: clients often say what they think they’re “supposed” to say. Their listed priorities can be misaligned with their daily behavior.
Daniel agreed, and shared a simple tool that works in real conversations: keep asking why, without judging.
If someone says their priority is health, ask why it matters. Then ask why again. The goal is not to corner them, it’s to help the real priority show up.
He also mentioned a pattern he sees often: someone lists priorities like “be a great mom” and “be good at work,” but they don’t include themselves anywhere on the list. That opens a powerful discussion.
Shift 2: Build trust with clarity, and connection with presence
The second shift focused on how you coach, especially when systems and tech are involved.
Daniel’s lens is simple:
Clarity builds trust
Presence builds connection
You need both
And he added a key rule: any system you use should improve clarity or presence (ideally both), but it can’t take away from the other.
The “good job” example that shows the difference
Daniel used session feedback as an example.
If you write, “Good job,” you’re showing presence. The client feels seen.
But if you write, “Good job, your hip extension on that power snatch looked great,” you add clarity. The client learns what they did well, and why it mattered.
That small difference changes how trust builds over time.
Where AI fits, and where it doesn’t
Both coaches were careful here. Tools can help, but the goal isn’t to replace coaching. The goal is to protect the human parts of coaching, while letting tools handle busywork.
Brandon pointed out the risk: you might be able to “coach” 20 more people with AI doing responses, but will you remember their name, their context, and what matters in their life? Will they feel known?
That’s the heart of remote coaching. Without trust and connection, you’re just sending workouts.
Why the platform matters (OPEX and CoachRx)
Daniel called out something he likes about OPEX and CoachRx as a pairing: principles plus a place to apply them.
A platform can have a lot of features, but without coaching principles, it’s just buttons. On the other side, education without a place to deliver it can leave a coach stuck trying to hold everything together manually.
He and Brandon also contrasted systems built for “scale” versus systems built for actual coaching. The difference shows up in what the tools encourage you to do.
If you want to explore the tools and mentorship mentioned in the session, here are the resources shared:
Shift 3: Choose precision over complexity in program design
The third shift is about what you design.
Daniel’s definition of precision is worth repeating because it’s practical:
Precision is choosing the one intervention that matters most, having the courage to keep things simple, and being willing to be wrong.
Precision starts with better decisions, not more exercises
The first part is choosing the one intervention that matters most. Daniel framed it as questions a coach should ask:
What do I need to learn? What data do I need to make the most precise decision I can?
He also mentioned opportunity cost. If you can get the same result with less, but you choose more anyway, you might be wasting the client’s time.
Complexity can feel like value, but it isn’t always value
Daniel said something that hits a nerve for a lot of coaches:
Complexity feels like value. Precision creates value.
It’s easy to hide behind busy programming, constant variation, and fancy combinations. It can look like you’re working hard. It can even feel impressive to the client at first.
But if you want clients for 5 to 10-plus years, the long game is clarity, trust, and results that don’t require chaos.
Brandon backed this up with a quote he likes from Conor McGregor: “Precision beats power and timing beats speed.” The idea is the same in design. Know what matters, hit it at the right time, and don’t get distracted by noise.
“Willing to be wrong” is a coaching skill
Daniel told a story from earlier in his career, when he became CEO of a fitness company at 29. His mentor told him something that gave him confidence:
You’ll make more bad decisions than good ones. Know your numbers, be transparent about decisions, and own mistakes. If you do that, you’ll have support.
Daniel tries to coach the same way. Precision doesn’t mean you’re always right. It means you make the best call you can, you pay attention to feedback, and you adjust when reality tells you you’re off.
A simple filter for every training piece: intention, progression, evaluation
Daniel shared a tool he uses in design: intention, progression, evaluation.
Intention: What’s the intended stimulus, and can the client actually express it?
Progression: How does it fit the bigger picture over weeks and months?
Evaluation: How will we know it’s working?
He uses it for each piece of a program, even though it sounds simple. When you actually run that filter across a full week, weak spots show up fast.
He also made a point that coaches often forget: intention doesn’t have to be a number.
The intent might be that your client is having a rough day. The “progression” might be that they feel less rough by the end of the session. The evaluation might be as simple as asking, “Do you feel better?”
That’s still design. That’s still coaching.
Pricing, marketing, and finding the people who want to find you
During Q&A at Coaches Congress, Daniel said pricing came up.
His take was blunt: pricing gets easier when you’re proud of your value creation. If you feel unsure about what you’re delivering, pricing will feel shaky too.
He connected that back to marketing. One of his best marketing tips is simple:
Coach people you care about, and coach in the way you believe in.
When you do that, it shows. There’s less friction in talking about what you do because you’re not pretending.
He also shared a line he heard at the event that stuck with him: find the people that want to find you. You don’t need every client. You need the right clients, the ones who connect with what you do.
How Daniel transitioned from running a gym to full remote coaching
Near the end, Candace asked Daniel about the move from managing a gym to going full remote. Daniel said it was about a six-month transition.
When he sold his part of the gym, he still rented his office space there. He stayed connected to the community, and his client base was roughly half local, half remote.
His advice for coaches who want to go remote is not to start by trying to coach the whole world. Start with a community. Start with people close to you.
Even if you coach your neighbor remotely, it gives you momentum, reps, and real feedback. From there, you can expand as you learn who you work best with and what kind of coaching you want to deliver.
Building local presence (and why it still matters if you coach online)
Brandon added a real-world look at how local presence can turn into remote opportunity.
He talked about something simple: being known at your gym. Talking to people. Showing up at the same time. Training hard. Being consistent. He described walking into the gym at 7:30 a.m. and having eight fist bumps waiting for him. That moment mattered because it showed he’d built something real in that space.
He also shared that he’s been putting out content for years, and he’s only recently feeling the payoff. People have started reaching out to compliment the podcast, mention they listen, or ask about working together.
Candace added why that works: when you meet someone in real life, they often look you up online later. They binge content, get a feel for how you think, and “pre-decide” whether you’re the right coach.
That’s not a trick. It’s how people build trust now.
If you want to connect with the coaches from this session, here are the social links shared:
Conclusion: build freedom by coaching people, not just workouts
Freedom in coaching doesn’t show up because you got lucky. It gets built through choices that stack over time: coaching people instead of protecting a program, using systems to create clarity and presence, and choosing precision over complexity.
The last line of the session landed because it was simple, and it matched everything they talked about. Daniel repeated the advice his wife gave him, and it applies to any coach trying to do this for real.
Go all in.
Connect with the coaches
Brandon Gallagher: Brandon’s Instagram (@bgperform_)
Daniel Persson: Daniel’s Instagram (@danielcapersson)
Join us live on Tuesdays mornings 10:30am EST on the OPEX YouTube Channel
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