23-05-2025
Meet the former EFL star who now charges £15,000 as a keynote speaker: Paul McVeigh opens up on 'second life' and reveals how teams can cope with the pressure of a play-off final
Paul McVeigh looked around the Tottenham dressing room for the first time.
The Northern Irishman, then 17, saw Sol Campbell, Jurgen Klinsmann and Teddy Sheringham among others.
'I didn't realise I had an inferiority complex,' McVeigh, who moved to England in his teens after growing up in Belfast, tells Mail Sport. 'All these top players, they're all lovely off the pitch so that wasn't the intimidating part.
'It was more the fact that I'd come from Belfast and I was one of only a few in our youth team who wasn't an English lad and assured in their own ability.
'Being around some of the best players in the world was really challenging for me.'
A friend then urged McVeigh - who went on to have a hugely impressive career for the likes of Spurs, Luton and Norwich - to read a book on performance psychology and mindset.
Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins, a renowned self-help guru, author and motivational speaker, was the recommendation.
That 'opened the floodgates' as McVeigh admits, and led him on a journey of discovery.
'Maybe my friend saw something I was lacking,' adds McVeigh, who is intriguing company. 'I then had this real fascination of what is it that people are doing? Why are some people successful and other people aren't? Why isn't talent enough?
'It made me realise we're (footballers) all technically and physically at a level. From my perspective, I was always the smallest player in the team at five foot six, so what could I do to try and get an advantage over these other players?'
That journey took McVeigh through a career that saw him represent Northern Ireland 20 times, play in the Premier League and win two titles with Norwich, where he holds legendary status.
He retired in 2010 at the age of 32 after Norwich won League One in an attempt to finish on a high and also start his 'second life'.
McVeigh, who is the first Premier League footballer to secure a Masters degree in psychology, is now one of the most respected keynote speakers and performance psychologists around.
Such has his success been that the 47-year-old charges £15,000 per speech and possesses blue-chip clients including PWC, Microsoft, Investec and KPMG.
'It really does come down to the limits we place on ourselves,' adds McVeigh, who also works with one Championship club. 'That's one of the things that I talk about with my corporate clients.
'In that world, like the football world, there's a huge emphasis on technical quality to do the role. If you ask any player or coach, what do they spend 95 per cent of their time on? It's training and reinforcing technical and physical aspects, but the psychological aspect, how much time are players working on that?
'In my experience of having been in this world for 30 years, very little, if not nothing at all and it's the single greatest area of improvement and it's also the greatest point of differentiation.
'The same thing applies in the corporate world. If you have a brilliant accountant who's physically capable of doing the job, what's the difference? Why is one firm better than the other?
'And again it comes back to psychology. And all of these things are so far down the pecking order in an organisation and I'm constantly trying to bump it up and get it to the top.'
The £15,000 McVeigh, who is also an author, is able to charge is an eye-watering figure, but again it has all developed as a result of his mindset.
'When I stopped playing I went on a course in America and I was learning how to deliver a keynote speech from a guy who was at the time charging $10,000 an hour,' he explains.
'I'd never been paid one pound to speak in public, and I was learning from a guy who charged them $10,000 an hour! So you can see how my belief would be like, how is that possible? $10,000 an hour? That is something I'd love to do one day.'
McVeigh's first booking raked in £3,000 after he was initially unsure on what to charge.
'After that, I was like 'now I'm a three grand an hour speaker'. That was my figure through that first year and suddenly I became quite confident.
'I felt like my beliefs were growing, I liked what I was doing. And of course, I'm trying to put up my fee, and it goes up to £3,500.
'Then I got my Masters in psychology so I thought maybe I should put my fee up again. And then again, it keeps going up based on my self-belief and the companies I work for. So I'm constantly challenging my limited beliefs and what I think I'm worth.'
McVeigh, who also has a degree in sports science, readily admits psychology and mindset was never a priority for clubs during his playing days and he went above and beyond to focus on his own headspace.
The psychology departments clubs now possess are significantly larger than ever before, and McVeigh is full of belief that the footballing world has so much to share with the business world.
They are likely to be hard at work ahead of a bumper Bank Holiday weekend of EFL play-off finals, matches that have so much riding on them.
McVeigh was on the losing side in 2002 when Norwich lost the Division One final to Birmingham on penalties, although he quips it was probably his best ever game for the Canaries.
So, what advice would he have for the six teams stepping out at Wembley over the next few days?
'The problem when it comes to this is players end up playing the occasion and not going out to do what they know they're capable of,' he explains.
McVeigh urged those in play-off finals to focus on playing the game rather than the occasion
'That's generally why players get caught up in this situation of either feeling nervous or anxious and it's nothing to do with the game.
'It's more to do with the meaning the player has given to what's happening on the pitch because ultimately, the game is always the same, whether you're in training or in a match.
'Yes there's more riding on it, but I suppose the skillset of a professional is realising they can go in and play games.
'And no matter if it is the biggest moment of their career or a training game, they need to still go and perform at that level.'
