Fourteen concussions in three years. A career medically retired before it ever really got going. And on the other side of it, a coach who'll tell you the most important thing he does has nothing to do with cricket.

Trent Keep has coached at almost every level the game has — community, pathway, remote and Indigenous communities, the Australian blind cricket team — and now sits inside a professional setup at Somerset in the UK. But the thread running through all of it is the same: get to know the person before you ever coach the player.

In this conversation Tim and Mario sit down with Trent to pull apart what happens when sport is taken from you, why your weekends and your identity quietly disappear with it, and why he refuses to tell anyone their career is over without first knowing their story. He drops a paradox that should sit heavy with every parent: we're asking eight-year-olds to play like professionals, and professionals to play like eight-year-olds.

It's honest, funny, occasionally dark, and full of the kind of one percenters you can actually use — whether you coach a team, run a business, or raise a kid.

Key themes

• Why "I am a cricketer" is a dangerous sentence — and what to say instead

• The quiet grief of losing the game: identity, mates, and what to do on a Tuesday night

• Person-first coaching, and the Outlook reminder that changed a player's whole view of him

• Coaching the Australian blind team — when you can't just show someone, you have to be heard

• Communication vs comprehension: they heard something completely different to what you said

• The grassroots-elite paradox: we've got the whole thing backwards

• Environment first — if someone "doesn't fit," look at what you built before you blame them

• Three good things a night, embracing the stuff-ups, and not taking yourself too seriously

Standout quote

"We're asking these guys at the top end to play more like eight-year-olds, and eight-year-olds to play more like top-end cricketers. If there's any parents listening, that should probably sit pretty heavy with you." — Trent Keep