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138: Andrew Farley - How Chance Conversations Lead To Great Things: From Rugby to Corporate · Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalves and welcome to a Second Wind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Elite athletes are still people after all.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Let's be inspired by the stories of others.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Andrew, thanks for joining me today.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Welcome onto the podcast Career Clarity with Athletes, and I'm really good that you're taking the time out to share a bit of your journey.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: It's a pleasure to be here, great, great.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you have.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: You know well, certainly for me, many people have interesting stories.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: You're certainly in that camp and I'm looking forward to just picking a little bit of that as we go through and try and understand how you came to make some of the decisions, but also how you sort of got to where you are now.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: So thanks again for for being open and been up for a chat no problem at all.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: yeah, my story's, uh, a little bit different but very similar to a lot of people you have here on the podcast with me.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: With you, I um started my sporting career at school at marist brothers ashgrove here in brisbane in queensland, and I started off as swimming, where I learned a lot of my basic training and around, obviously, commitment, working, working hard and being rigorous in what we're doing.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: But I eventually settled on playing rugby.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Morris College was very much a rugby school back then and I enjoyed my time there playing in the first 15 until I was luckily selected to play for the Australian Schoolboys and that was sort of my first step into sort of representative rugby.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: To make a long story very short, I was fortunate then to be contracted to play with the Queensland Reds at a very young age, obviously went through the academy system there at the Queensland Reds, which was a very good education rugby education.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I got through one professional year there and at the time there was only four teams in Australia At the time.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: There was Queensland, new South Wales, act.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: There was only actually three teams at the time then in Australia, so I had some very good players still playing in Queensland at the time that were very well positioned within the national team.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: So I actually got an opportunity to travel over to Wales where an old coach, john Connolly, had coached me in Queensland before I was coaching there and it was meant to be just one year's secondment sort of over to Swansea to play in the Celtic League and Europe over there.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Then I ended up signing a contract over in Ireland for a few years.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: After that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Six years I played at Connacht Rugby very enjoyable.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Then I finished my career in France where I played with Grenoble.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Over in France I played for five seasons with them and ended up staying at the club for a couple of years after that as operations manager in the club.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Listen, I think already it's absolutely fantastic.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: We haven't even got to where you are today, but just that journey.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: To me, what is interesting is that move overseas and for someone in, well, I'm just going to say for those overseas who don't know, but I'm going to say a hot climate shifting over to wales must have been quite a culture and temperature shock oh, yeah, definitely.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I forgot to mention that I actually had a little stint in italy for a little while too, when I was in the underage groups for australia.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I spent some time in laquilla.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Um mike brewer, next to all black, was coaching there and um he needed uh for for injury purposes needed a person in my position over there, and I had a fellow colleague playing there who suggested that I come over for a bit of experience and I ended up playing there for three months.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: So that was my sort of first experience with the cold European weather in Italy, so I had a little taste of it before I came.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: But yeah, definitely, growing up in Queensland, sunny Queensland, where we don't really have we have two seasons, which is a very warm winter and then a very boiling, hot summer.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: So going to Wales and obviously living there and playing rugby in winter, travelling to the valleys and obviously travelling over to Ireland and Scotland and so forth, it was definitely a shock to the system.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can well imagine so, to sort of piece together that journey, you know, just to give myself and I suppose, everyone else that little bit of context when you were growing up.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: So we just go back to some of those thoughts.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And you know, you talk about being a swimmer and that was sort of one of the first sports for you.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Really, it's interesting then, what made you, or what started to happen for you, to then move from swimming and starting to choose rugby as your principal or primary sport.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Well, nothing against swimming because I did love it at the time, but following that black line up and down the pool for nine or ten sessions a week and then obviously the pinnacle then is obviously less than a 30-second sprint or less than a minute for a 100-metre race wasn't as enjoyable as, obviously, playing in front of a couple of thousand people in a school rugby match.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: So it was definitely not easy at training.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: But I always say and I have a good friend who's a swimming coach as well if you're a swimmer at a very young age, it's almost being in professional sport before being a professional, because of the amount of training you have to do as a swimmer to be at elite level, especially here in Australia.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Everyone knows about the swimming culture here in Australia and how proud we are of our swimmers and the swimming culture we have here, and you can see that obviously by the success we have at most Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: It truly is and that's why I mentioned it earlier.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: It really set a foundation and a grounding for me in where you had to be training-wise if you wanted to be successful in a sport, because there's not many other sports I can think of gymnastics maybe at a young age, where training can be so rigorous.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: To summarize what you're saying you found rugby easier than swimming.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: I did find rugby easier than swimming?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, and a little bit more enjoyable, but obviously you have the collisions in rugby which you don't have in swimming.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: But I seem to enjoy that too.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: So I don't know.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Maybe you shouldn't judge me on that one.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: No, no, very true, but I guess it is interesting.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: What you already described as that pull, that pull to rugby was as much that that crowd, that sort of different atmosphere, and it is something as I chat with again those different athletes who go in different sports.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: There's always something that sort of at least initially, pulls them towards something.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: And for you, you know, I'm guessing, then it's that that crowd and perhaps that team, you know activity that goes with it yeah, I was thinking that too.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, team sports an individual event.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, you do have relays, but there's sort of a second sport after you, sort of a second event after your initial individual events, where obviously rugby and and the beauty of rugby and I'm a very good advocate is for it is, you know, it's for everyone.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: You know you can have a small little scrum half.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: You can have a tall, skinny second row like myself.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: You can have a larger, built and solid front rower, um, or you can have a center that's middle-sized and and thin, or or a fullback or a jon Lomu on the wing.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: There is really it's one of the only sports that's kept its diversity in size of people and types of people that play the game, where, if you see rugby league these days or other sports, everyone's sort of mutating to be into the same sort of size of person.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: But in rugby there's sort of a place for everyone, which I, I really, really love yeah, me too.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Um, I do.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It's one of the things that is most enjoyable about the sport and with me as having you know my boys going through that sport that all, all three of them are different shapes, different build, but there's a, there's a place for them all within that squad, and it actually for me.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Interestingly, it gives a broader diversity of friends as well because of that size and that makeup.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: So they all act or operate slightly differently.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: So, again, just one of those side things, but I do quite like that about the sport too.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and before we get into it and I know we will get into it you know around what I'm currently doing now and obviously you've done in the past.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: It's sort of how teams work in business too not in size and shape, physical, but around different personality types, different skill sets.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: The team is made up of all different people and they've got those different skill sets and you need every single one of them to be successful.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: So you couldn't fill a team in business with all the same people or you wouldn't have any success through, you know, marketing or or logistics or support or whatever.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: You need those different personalities and types, and that's that's one thing in rugby that you learn very, very quickly is that you need those different types of people to be able to be successful.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: At what point did you start to realize you were good at rugby and there might be some sort of career path for you there?
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was definitely.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Once I got selected for the Australian Schoolboys.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: We actually played that year it was back in 1997 and England actually came out to tour and that was a very good English team as well, with the likes of Johnny Wilkinson that everyone would sort of know, even no matter what sport you're in.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: So it was a very good era in that England time as well and the hype that came with that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: And then you push through.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Then you used to have Australian under-19s and Australian under-21s and I was very fortunate to stay injury-free during that time and play through those different grades before obviously being accepted into the Queensland Academy it was called the Reds Rugby College at the time and then got my first lucky enough to get my first professional contract off at 22 years old, so just after I played Australian 21s or 21 years old.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: So that sort of just kept rolling on.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: And that's when I thought, hey, you know, there's a very good chance for me to make a career out of this.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: And it sort of started from that Australian school boys tour that England had down here and during that time going through school boys, going through those ranks as a player, what role did your academic focus have?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: You know, how strongly did you spend time looking at the books and and think, okay, this is something that I needed to do yeah, I will admit I could have had a lot more focus then.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Remember, rugby went professional in 1995.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I finished school in 1997, so it was very much in the infancy of where it was trying to um, you know, mix that world of education and and sport at the same time Within rugby.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Other sports have been professional for a while and there was support systems around at that time but they're definitely not as strong as they were now.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And obviously all rugby coaches wanted you to be the best at rugby possible.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: There was career guidance and so forth and part of my contract with the Reds College that you had to be enrolled in a course.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: And yes, I did do a diploma of sports and leisure management when I was there, because I'm not sure how it works in other sports, but if you weren't in education then you weren't able to execute your academy contract as well.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: So for those years I was there, I did that during that time, but obviously I was hugely focused on coming successful.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I'd drunk all the Kool-Aid, as they say, and I was and I was focused very heavily on that.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: I did have a lot of.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I was always curious, always interested.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: I worked during that time doing different jobs when I was a young professional at that time.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I just managed to obviously pass that diploma and then I got my first professional contract at 21.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Contract at 21 yeah, great.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And you spoke about supplying in for queensland reds super competitive period in australia, especially given the number of, or you know, the lack of teams in many respects.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I suppose what I'm trying to get to is that decision point, which is okay how much, how successful can I be in australia versus therefore stepping out of the game completely or moving overseas?
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: What was going on for you at that?
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: yeah, very, very good question.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Um, obviously, with only three teams in australia at the time, um, there was a lineup of talent behind every position.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Uh, obviously there was some lineup of talent behind every position.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Obviously, there were some older players there that I looked up to.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: They'd spoken about their time.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I actually had very supporting parents as well.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I have an English father and a New Zealand mother, so they'd traveled when they were young as well and I was fortunate enough to have their support all the time to take opportunities when they can, and they always encourage me to take opportunities, which is very, very important.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Obviously, they're your first and last role models in between.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Everyone else is your parents.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, the opportunity arose, obviously, as I mentioned before, when John Connolly was at Swansea and, yes, there was a backlog of players in Queensland and the likes of John Eales and some very established players that were going to be around for quite a while, and some of the senior players had spoken to me and talked to me about possible opportunities of going overseas, where they hadn't had an opportunity to do that, and spent a lot of time in and out of the team not achieving what they wanted to achieve.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: So I was fortunate enough to have people that encouraged me to do that.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: At that stage, and when I only played twice for the Reds in my first year, that opportunity rose and at the start it was around okay, go away for a year, experience what it's like in European rugby and then come back.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: And then, obviously, I had a meeting at the end of that first season back with the Queensland Reds and nothing had changed.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: The situation was still the same.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: A lot of my friends in my own age hadn't played as much rugby as I'd been able to play in Europe, so the decision was sort of supported by older players that I had, plus my parents that encouraged me to travel.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Right, okay, so there was a lot of support for you to take that challenge and go overseas.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: I suppose at the start it was softened with give it a year and see how that plays out.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: To what extent did you contemplate oh sod it, I'll leave the game.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: No, it's not for me.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: It was very difficult for me at the start.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Obviously you want to play in your hometown.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Every professional wants to play in their hometown for their home team and there's only a few fortunate players.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: You have a football or soccer background.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: You know there's only a few Ryan Giggs' around that you know played at their own club for the whole time, their whole career, and made a success of it and was in a successful team.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: So I think, with that professionalism that I talked about, it was very early days in rugby and you know no-transcript bit envious that I was getting to play 80 minutes or 70 minutes and I was starting and I was playing in Scotland and I was playing in Ireland and so forth and they were playing here.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: So at the time you're young and you don't really understand, but when you reflect and look back like, um, it was probably the best move in in my career.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: So yeah, well, that brave step, it it kept you playing and, like you said when, yeah, as a player, we we just want to play.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Actually, um, you know, and in that you know difficult thing, would you rather be on the bench to you know, into one team or would you rather just be playing every week and you know, typically, like I kind of just want to play, that's what I enjoy doing you know exactly.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I've never met anyone in my 15 years of professional sport that says I love training, I don't like playing like I've never heard that ever.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: You know everyone's there to play.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: You know and and time on the pitch and and I definitely became a better player for it as well.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: You know that time.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: You know it's like driving your car you don't really learn until you're behind the wheel.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: You know so.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Um, yeah, it was very fortunate to get that rugby under my belt really early.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Um, when maybe some people didn't have the same opportunity yeah, yeah, and, and look, and it sounds like you kept going.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: You know from Ireland or you stayed in Europe.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, thoroughly embraced it.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: What was that experience like for you?
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so obviously, as I mentioned, we had that meeting with the Reds and there wasn't an opportunity.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: But it was a pretty turmoil time in Welsh rugby at the time.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: It was when they went from clubs, so I played for the Swansea Whites and they transformed themselves into the provinces.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: That year I was there.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: I did have a contract offer there for another year, but it was a very turbulent time and a couple of friends and the agent I had at the time were speaking with Connacht over in Ireland and they had offered a two-year deal.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I'd played against them while I was playing for Swansea and they were rebuilding there and they've created a great province there now and are extremely successful over there at Connacht.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: And I was fortunate enough and after speaking with my parents and obviously chatting with the Queensland Reds here, I decided to move over to Ireland where there was definitely a playing opportunity for me there in Ireland while Connacht rebuilt to what they are today.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: So that decision wasn't easy again and I remember making it while I was home on a break between that time and I came over and, yeah, I ended up playing for Connick.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: So that was my first sort of move in Europe, over to Connick and where I spent six years, actually six great years over in Connick, where I was lucky enough to captain the side for a few years while I was there as well, and over in the in connect, where I was lucky enough to captain the side for a few years while I was there as well, and over in the western islands, a very proud part of ireland as well and and, as I said, I played a very, very small part in the rebuilding of connect to where they are now, which is a very successful european team yeah, and hats off to you as well for, you know, taking that challenge, but then as a, you know as a, as a way of looking back at that or recognizing the impact you had, like you say, captaining the side as well and leading them forward.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: When you look back at that period, I'm interested in your sort of mindset at that time around is is this where I'm supposed to be?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: When you were there, did you have these designs still of nah, there's more, or there's something else that's going to happen?
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: That's another good question.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: So there was a period there.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Obviously I signed for two years.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: I think it was in the second year I became captain and I think it was in my third or fourth year.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: It was definitely probably my fourth year because after three years you can qualify and play for your country of residence where you're playing at the moment.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: So it was an option for me, obviously, to play with the Irish set-up and I came at a very, very difficult crossroads because I'd actually been contacted as well from the Warratahs back here in Australia and they were looking for a second rower at the time, a person of similar description to me, a line out forward and and it was a really, really good opportunity for me at the time possibly to come back on a two-year deer to the Waratahs down Sydney and play super rugby.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: But at the same time I was at a crossroads where I was talking with Eddie O'Sullivan, who was the Irish coach.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: At the same time, I was at a crossroads where I was talking with Eddie O'Sullivan, who was the Irish coach at the time, about possibly coming into the wider squad there because I'd had some success in Ireland.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: So it was a very tough time for me and I was halfway through a two-year contract where I was captain of a club too.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: So you know, one of my values obviously is loyalty as well.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: But a long story short, I actually turned down to come home at that time and stay in Ireland, obviously on my contract with Connacht, and I did join the Irish squad.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Then I didn't get a full cap for Ireland.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: I got several Ireland A caps where he played against the US, the English Saxons, a couple of times.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: So that was a very key decision for me in my career and, as I mentioned before, a good question from you, because I had to decide whether I wanted to go home again when I was more mature, a better player, and maybe have a chance of then trying to play for the Wallabies, which you dreamt of as a kid, or stay on your contract where you're captain of a team and have an opportunity to play for another country, which was, yeah, obviously a very, very tough decision and one that wasn't very easy to make at all.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: But obviously I made that decision and stayed in Ireland.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: As I mentioned, I didn't play for the first team, but I played for Ireland A several times, so that was good and spent a couple more years in Ireland before I moved to France.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And as you look back at that decision point, how do you think you got to make that decision, which certainly seems like the right one?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: But do you remember what was weighing on your mind or who did you turn to to try and make that call?
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Obviously, family is important.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I spoke to some of the senior players that I knew as well.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Obviously there was quite a bit of pressure from the club as well.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Where I was, where I was captain.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Definitely, as I mentioned before, one of my definite traits is loyalty.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to abandon the team.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: We were building something there, we'd had some success, so that was good as well.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: So it would have been a big move back to Australia and a little bit more of a risk where I'd build momentum over in Europe and obviously made a very good name for myself there.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: In those situations I had a telephone conversation with Eddie O'Sullivan as well and he pointed out a little bit of a roadmap for myself.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Even though there was very good players in the Irish set-up at the time, like Dona Cro Callaghan, paul O'Connell, there was a lot of very good players in my position as well.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: So obviously I weighed up the pros and cons and and I ended up staying in ireland oh, it's just one of those things.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: It's always hard, those offers, and you know you mentioned their momentum and I think in in sport it's a bit like form but it's it keeps you moving and, um, well, actually, in terms of the gameplay itself, rugby momentum is really important, you know, as you're sort of making those drives up the field, and you know I'm sure it's something we'll come back to later in this conversation, but it it does seem like it's a bit of a theme for you as you go and you you build that momentum and you go from strengths to strength yeah, yeah, definitely, and I was one of those players that always thought, if I wasn't playing, someone else would take my position.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: You know, and I built a you know the bottom team on a Tuesday night, or we were playing the top team on a Saturday night.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: You knew exactly what you'd get from me during the week and on the weekend as well.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting the way you say that and you mentioned it really early on about you remained injury free, which supported you moving up through the age groups.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: And there are many players who have had on this on the show who have spoken about.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I was just there and I was probably number three, but then number one got injured and then I was on the bench and then number two got injured during the game.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: So then I came on and next thing they know, you know we're having a chat about a long career and how they transitioned out of it and you're playing that other piece, which is you remained injury free, but there's that consistency and that ability to keep showing up and, as you're saying, I think, taking the French, it's that um certainty and surety in in how you're going to perform.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Well, people could depend on you yeah, I, I definitely wasn't totally injury free.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Um, you know you couldn't go through a career of 15 years in the professional game without having injuries.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I had.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I was very fortunate not to have any lower limb really operations ankle or knee they're the big ones in sport.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I had a shoulder reconstruction, I had a sportsmentonia fix.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I've had broken fingers and so forth.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I've had a lot of injuries but you know, I was always determined, very determined, to come back.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: I was never happy on the sideline, I was never happy being a reserve, I was never happy being injured.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: You know there's a lot of examples in sport and you would have seen it yourself exactly the same injury A player comes back after four months and then there's a player that comes back after eight months.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying they defeated science, but there's a lot of mentality in that and obviously there's the process around recovery and doing what you need to do to get back.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: But obviously there's the process around, um, you know, recovery and doing what you need to do to get back.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: But then there's that last 20, which is that mental coming back from an injury and just obviously telling yourself you're okay and telling yourself that you'll get through it and telling yourself you'll be back on the field as soon as possible so I'm interested in your next geographical shift and some of the, I guess, the driving forces behind that.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I would ask at this point though during your time in Ireland, to what extent did it come across you that, hey, this is a career that could end and that next injury might be more severe?
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to be honest, I tried not to think about injuries.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I tried more to think positively about, you know, keeping yourself fit, recovering well, you know, looking after yourself diet-wise.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I was extremely disciplined.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that at the time, but now, obviously, with reflection, I look back and everyone says, you know, you're extremely disciplined as a player, not only around sport but around life as well, and I still find myself like that as well.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: I find it very hard to relax.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: I'm that sort of person.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: But while I was in Ireland no, but definitely as I got to the age of like 29, that's when I left Ireland.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I knew at the time England and Ireland.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: When you get to around 30, you sort of times up a little bit.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Where I played in European Challenge Cup a few times I'd played out in France, I had friends that had moved to France and there was a lot more acceptance, which is in the modern game now around.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Age doesn't really matter.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: But back then I did feel conscious that I was coming towards that age group of 30 and there was a lot of younger players coming through and obviously wanted to experience more and I'd liked playing over in France and I was a little bit sick of the rain and the cold in the UK.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, I'd been speaking with some friends and one of them was at Grenoble and in France and it was an uncanny connection as well that the coach who tried to sign me at the Waratahs was coaching up in Stade Francais and he was coaching with a coach who then moved to Grenoble and he'd asked him if there was a player of this type, did you know that he could sign?
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: And it ended up.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: You know that's how it came about, that I that I moved to Grenoble through um, you know, just having a solid reputation and obviously being renowned for for being able to to get through seasons and work hard well, what's interesting there is you turned down the coach at Waratahs and I'm curious how you did that in a way where he was still comfortable to recommend you.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Why didn't he hate your guts?
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's probably a good question.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Ewan McKenzie was the coach at the time.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: He had a lot of success.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: After that he had some success with the Reds.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: They won the super title.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: So you know yourself when you work with some coaches.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: We sat down, we spoke on the phone, I explained why I was staying.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: You know I was middle of a contract.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I'd have to break a contract and I think you know, if you're honest and upfront about why you made the decision and explained the decision, there's no real way that he could feel remorse against why I wasn't coming.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I'm sure in professional sport you know there's a line of people behind you as well.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: So that's what I've learned.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Obviously, in the real world, in certain positions you know there's not a line up behind.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: But you know in professional sport, in any professional sport, there's always someone willing to take your position.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: You know in professional sport, in any professional sport, there's always someone willing to take your position.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: So obviously the way I conducted myself during that whole period of talking to the Waratahs and talking to Ewan at the time put me in good stead that he'd recommend me in the future to play in France when he was coaching in France at the time.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you, effectively, you know you were saying no, but you weren't burning bridges, you were maintaining a relationship and, kind of, to your point, sticking true to some of those traits of that dedication and honesty as you went through those steps.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely Like.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: I think obviously being honest with anything is super, super important.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: As long as you're reasonable and and you know you explain things, I think people can be.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: People are a lot more accepting.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: You know, if you show a bit of vulnerability and show why you're doing it, then then it's fine.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: And and I take that into business these days and I learned a very good lesson from a coach I had when I was young as well about around selection.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: You know he always said you pick yourself.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: And I never, ever forgot that.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: You know, like you're going to have a chat about not being picked and they were saying well, this is the reason you haven't been picked, you haven't done this, you haven't done this, you haven't done this.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: And then you're like, okay, well, who's that on to do that?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: And it's on you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: So you do really pick yourself.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: And in that conversation he says that I'll always rather be totally honest and upfront with a player, even if they don't like it or not and they might dislike you for a week or two weeks for that harsh feedback they've given.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: But in six months time and with hindsight at least, least you'd say that coach was honest with me, he didn't lie to me.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: He didn't tell me anything.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: That wasn't true.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: But if you look back on a coach that's told you lies and hasn't told you the truth at the time, then you're not going to trust.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Obviously you've broken that trust.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: So I've always taken that, even into business.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: Now, when I have business, hard business conversations, I'd rather just say the truth.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: The person's not always going to like it, but definitely I.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Always, from my experience, after a certain amount of time and and that emotion settled down, they're going to respect you for more, for telling you the honesty of how you feel.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: It might not be the way they are, but they're going to respect that more than you telling them lies and then realizing, you know, in a year's time or whatever, well, he actually wasn't even telling me the truth at the time.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm fully with you.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Fully with you on that as well.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: That honesty, directness, learning how to tell it is certainly a skill, but it is something you know.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: In sport we hear it frequently or we go through it frequently.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: When tactics change, you dropped for a game or something happens and you know as, as you say, bringing that into the business life, uh, is is actually a skill in itself, but you know people respect you for that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Um, so, when you moved into grenoble, did you start with the end in mind?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I know, as you stayed on after your playing career, as you arrived in Grenoble, to what extent were you thinking okay, there might be something else here.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Um, another good question.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was definitely thinking of the end.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I was thinking of the end in actually wanted to what I wanted to do.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I did think I wanted to be a coach, obviously being a captain and being a leader as well.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: I had very good relationships with the coaches I had as well, and as the game became more professional, captains and vice captains and leadership teams became very much part of an extended arm of the coaching staff as well.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: So you sort of got a little bit of insights and after you've been playing for the game a long time, you've sat through a million video analysis sessions, you know you've done feedback sessions, you've done team building.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: You sort of feel that you know you can be successful in that coaching.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I'd done a little bit of coaching in Ireland with the underage groups so I thought maybe there's an opportunity for me after rugby to coach.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: But when I first went to France, it was a very aggressive project with Grenoble.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: They were in the second division, the Prod'huteur at the time.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: But I met with the president and the coach, fabrice Landreau and Marc Chirac, who was the president at the time, and Mark Turek, who was the president at the time, and they'd put out a very aggressive plan for us to, you know, move up to the top 14 after the first year and then stabilise ourselves in the top 14.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: They actually sold a very good project.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: We're only one year late on that project.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: We lost the first year, unfortunately to Bordeaux in a semi-final, but the following year we went up and then we won the title of protege and then I ended up staying.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I think it was the top 14 for for three seasons after that, before retiring there are too many stories of bankruptcies, mental health issues and, unfortunately, suicide, and so I think it's time to act.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Every year, we see thousands of athletes that reach a point where they need to consider their life after they leave sport.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: This might be at retirement, injury or they need to juggle dual careers between sport and a job.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: As a former English professional footballer, I have somehow managed to transition from sport into banking strategy, innovation and now life coach, career practitioner and founder of the Second Wind Academy.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: So I want to help those around me find their career.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Second wind.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Find me on Insta or through my new Facebook group, second Wind Academy, where I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: And so talk to me then, about that retirement phase.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: At what point in the season or during that time did you realize this is going to be it?
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: around your hips where it's just from constantly going, for 14 years I expect.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: So that really held me back.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: It's not like a broken arm where you know, you x-ray it, you put a cast on it.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: In about six to eight weeks' time you're good to play again.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Where it's really one of those injuries where you've just got to manage it, it's like a chronic fatigue sort of injury, with the stabilization of your hips and the ligaments within your hips.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: So that's when I really started to think oh, you know, you've had a very good run.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: You've had you know it's been 14 years or so as a professional rugby player minor injuries along the way but, you know, managed to make a very good career out of it.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: And that's when I I started coaching a little bit more with the Espoirs, which is the junior squad, um, but still playing, and I actually had a year to run on my contract, a plus one on my contract to go.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Uh, after that I came back from the osteitis pubis and played a season top 14, the osteitis pubis and played a season top 14.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: But then obviously I was captain in Grenoble as well.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: But then I sort of sat down and I'd had those injuries and the younger players were definitely coming through.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Then I just couldn't hold them off anymore.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: You know, like I used to joke with my wife, she used to just wheel me out, wheel me into the changing room, wheel me out onto the field.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: But no, I managed to get through that season.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: But about halfway through it I sort of sat down and said, listen, I'm going to retire now and this season.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: And I sat down and the club and the coach were very good, especially Fabrice Landreau, and we'd had discussions and he said I'd like you to stay on in some capacity anyway at the club.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: So that made my decision a lot easier.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Um, but this one it comes a little bit interesting and will lead into where I am now is, um, the president of the club at that time when I went to retire was a guy named eric pillou and he was president, president of an international or a global engineering company, and he lived in California.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: He was a French guy from Grenoble, a lovely man, and he'd obviously heard through the general manager of the club that I'd decided to retire.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: And he gave me a call and said I heard you're going to retire and he said oh, and I've heard Fabrice, who's a coach, has offered you a role to stay in as team manager around the group and so forth, until you figure out what you want to do.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: And he said, oh, I'd like to offer you a job too.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, okay, that's fantastic, but Eric, I don't know what I'm going to do for you.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: You know, you own a global engineering company.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: He goes, oh, don't worry, I'll sort that out.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: So he said I'm going to be home at Christmas and we'll sit down and have a coffee.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: And I said, oh, that's fantastic.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I sat down with him around Christmas time and he said listen, I'm acquiring a lot of businesses at the moment.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: They're all under different entities.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: You know, I want you to work with our hr department and do you know some presentations around differentiation in in management and enabling teams and creating empowered environments, all these things?
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: And I was like whoa, whoa, I don't know anything about any of this stuff, you know, I you know the imposter syndrome just came straight over me straight away and then so I sort of said, oh, let me think about it.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: And he said don't worry, I've got really good people that will mentor you and look after you, and and of course, that I felt very vulnerable in the safe place was to be in the team, with the team and so forth.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: And I actually then went back, spoke to my wife and everyone and I I came back with a proposal of doing both.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: So I thought, well, if I've got the opportunity, I'd love to stay on with this group of players and be team manager and work, work with, with fabrice, but also it'd be a fantastic opportunity for me to to um move into the corporate world as well.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, and actually a very good story about that, because I said to Eric when we were having that cup of coffee.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I said, oh, why, why are you offering me this job?
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Because obviously I was curious about it.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: And he said, oh, you remember that time about a year ago you came and spoke to my executive committee and I was like, oh, yeah, I think so, I remember that.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: And he goes, no, you executive committee.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, yeah, I think so, I remember that.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: And he goes, no, you remember.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, was that the one in Grenoble?
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, yeah, I go, I remember that day, I didn't want to come at all.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: And he goes yeah, I heard that story because Toma Bianchi and the media guy came into the changing room after training and it was one of those cold, wet days and we'd been belting lumps out of each other on the field and I was 34 years old and he came into the changing room and he said listen, I need someone to go upstairs and speak to Eric's executive committee.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: They just want to talk to one of the players.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: And, looking around the players and you know, all the players just wanted to get out and get home and I was like, right, I'll do it, I'll do it.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Everyone else go, I'll go and do it.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: So, anyway, I had my shower, dragged my sore legs up those stairs and I went and sat down and ended up spending like an hour and a half just talking.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: They were just asking me questions and I was just talking to them about sports and life and why teams.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: I thought teams were successful.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: And he said to me during that coffee he goes.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: That day you walked out.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: I said as soon as you retire.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: I thought teams were successful and he said to me during that coffee he goes.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: That day you walked out.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I said as soon as you retire, I'm going to offer him a job.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: So it just taught me a lesson, like obviously, in my life I didn't say no to any real opportunities, starting from when I traveled overseas and stuff, and I still do that right now and whenever there's an opportunity, I feel a bit vulnerable.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: I always say yes and just try and obviously do my best or or take the opportunity.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: That's a wonderful story and I think even just the way you tell it, it just encapsulates so much about well, certainly you, but also those traits, the, the fact that you as an athlete can go up, sit down, uncomfortable as you were, but just talk, I guess in a safe way, about what you do and how you pick teams and how leaders work in teams and that kind of thing and everything.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Hit the notes that that we need in the corporate world and that's what pretty much my role was for the next two years.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Obviously, I was very close to the team for two years and every time I sort of had a break or there was time where I could get away.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: I'd work with a fantastic lady called Frederique who was in Valence, which wasn't far from Grenoble, where one of their companies was Cruze, which wasn't far from grenoble, where one of their companies was cruze, and she was head of uh, she was uh, emea, um, head of hr, director of hr, and um.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: She really enabled me.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: She was fantastic.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: We'd take lunches together and we'd talk about things and she'd say, you know, she'd give me the right vocabulary.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: She'd say, yes, that's um, you know that's, you know that's.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: You know enabling, that's an enabling environment, like we just used that example before.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: That's empowering someone.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's, you know, that's a core value, that's an attitude, you know.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's a behavior, you know, and all these things that you do in sport, but you don't have the vocabulary for it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: You know, and like even things you realize, oh, you were extremely determined to do that, weren't you?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh well, I just did it because I wanted to do it.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: You know, like, oh yeah, but you would have had so much commitment.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: And then all these words and stuff where I don't think sport does a really good job of it.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: You know well now more and more, but in my time it wasn't.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: There was a a lot more around.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: You know, criticising performance was the way to obviously get better out of people where you know you can't definitely tarnish a brush on everything, and I learnt that as a captain too.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Like there was very moments where I knew there was players in my team that I'd just tell them you know you are embarrassing yourself in front of the crowd, you're embarrassing your family.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: You know you are embarrassing yourself in front of the crowd, you're embarrassing your family.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: You know you're having a terrible game and they'd play, they'd just go all right, boom, and they'd have an excellent game.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: But I knew someone else in my team that if I did that, oh my God, you may as well sub them off, but they're the ones you need to give a little cuddle to and tell them you know, oh, you're doing great and keep going well, you're playing well, don't worry about it, and then they'll start playing better.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: But if I told them they were embarrassing themselves in front of their family, oh, there would have been tears.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: You just get them off the field.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: So I learned very quickly that you know managing teams and different cultures and different countries and stuff like that.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: That you know and you know yourself.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Ryan, like in business it's exactly the same thing.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: Now you know you can't be so harsh about it.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: You can't tell people they're embarrassing their families.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: But you know you can.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: You never treat anyone the same way.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: You know you can definitely be a little bit more harsh with some people and be honest and frank where others, where you have to sort of soften the truth and sort of cushion them or sort of push them in the right direction.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right, and one of the key things you say there is we don't describe it in that way in sport.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: So in sport, you, you just do it.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: It's man management.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: It is true, it's creating a high performing team, but you do it because it seems like the right thing to do at the time.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: So much of it is that instinct and you know that's what helps a lot of players play games, especially when it relies on that instinct.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: But what you had there was, through those lunches and through those conversations, is someone who did that translation for you.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: So they gave you, like you say, that vocabulary to describe what you thought was normal as oh, that's a determined behavior, or that's how you coach or counsel, and the fact that now you have those leadership styles.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: It was well, no, I just had to do that because that's how we're going to win.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I need to speak to them differently.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was very fortunate.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: He was a very smart guy.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: He put me through MBTI, which is like DISC or any of those other character profiling, and I learned a lot doing that course as well about different personalities and it gave me a label and a framework in which all those things you're doing before you know extrovert, introvert, you know all that sort of stuff you could actually put it into some sort of structure where I wouldn't say it came naturally, but like if you wanted to win, you had to sort of learn how to win together.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: So that's where I was very fortunate to be able to do that job.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, I went on to travel around, very fortunate to travel, obviously to America, to Mexico, north Africa, where obviously all their manufacturing facilities were for their engineering products, and I got to meet with their senior management and do some courses and different presentations to all of them.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: And I talk about it now.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: But obviously the vulnerability at the time and I spoke a little bit about it before is, yeah, you do think you're a fraud, you don't.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: And after the first one I couldn't believe there was sales people and executives of you know 20 years in industry.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: They wanted to.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: They just want to hear about sport and how you achieved and and and how you know high performance and and that's one thing when I came into the, the corporate world is, you know, sports brutal.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: You know like feedback.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: You, you know like feedback.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: You know you've only got the weekend to fix it.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: You know you fix it the next day.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: You know where in business it's sort of how do I best describe it you have to be a little softer and you can't be as brutal and it's not as dynamic.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: So I remember some of the first managers I had was oh, you just got to soften, that you have to be a little bit more patient.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Where, when you come from professional sport, there's no patience, there's no suffering.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: You go, you've got.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: If you plan a Saturday, you recover Sunday, you've got maybe three training sessions to get it right, and then you're back on telly again and you've got to get it right and you've got to win.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: And you know it's not just a group of five people in your office watching you, there's 20,000 in the stand and there's I don't know how many on telly.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: And then if you play bad again, it's not like you can get in your car and drive home you get a microphone stuck in your face and then they remind you 20 times how bad you were two weeks ago and how worse you were that week.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: And then what were you going to do to fix it?
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: You know, and have you, have you done anything?
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: And you're like, well, I've been scrambling and we've been scrambling all week to try and fix it.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: It just we hadn't been three sessions, we couldn't fix the problem, you know so yeah, I like.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: So I like the way you've described that interview um of.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys are in the bad spell.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Yep, I know you were bad two weeks ago.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Yep, now you're even worse.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, have you been trying to fix it?
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: We have.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Well, that's failed.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: So now what it's like?
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: yeah, thanks very much sometimes, when that mic's in front of you, you always think, oh no, no, no, we plan to be really bad today.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: Listen we, we honestly, we thought training stuff, we don't want to do it, we didn't want to win tonight.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: We we may as well have just, you know, flipped the coin.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: If they won on heads, we'll just give you the victory, you know.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: So, no, there's obviously there's times where you want to say things, but obviously you don't.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: I do have to ask a question.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: What job did you have with him at the start?
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Honestly, he gave me the title of hr project manager and I just did specific projects for him around.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: You know, he'd acquire a business and then I'd go in and go, okay, so now you've been acquired, obviously you've been a company for a certain amount of years and then I'd talk to him about okay, now you've been acquired by cst sensors and technology became intervista sensors.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: These are the values.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: This is what the values mean.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: These areVista sensors.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: These are the values.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: This is what the values mean.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: These are the attitudes we expect.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: These are the behaviors.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: You know, I understand this is what you guys are being doing.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: This is how it aligns with what we're doing.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: You know, and it wasn't about the business.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Obviously, the acquisition happened because they had similar businesses.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: It was about aligning.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: You know what happens with them and the major company that had just acquired them, how they could align themselves to work together.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: You know, and it probably brings you to that.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: You know you love that statement when everyone just puts values on the wall.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: You know you walk into a place and there's like integrity, and there's, you know, but what does that mean?
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: You know, integrity and that was a big part of my role integrity to you, ryan is means something, and it means to me something totally different.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: You know, or you know, whatever determination to you may look a lot harder than it looks to someone else.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: So my role was obviously to go in there and and just sort of talk to them about.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: You know, this is the company that's acquired you.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: We understand your company and what you do.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: These are the core values, behaviours and this we're going to create an environment for you guys to exceed more.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: But we went through and did exercises around.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, this is what we think.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: You know, we use the word integrity, this is what we think integrity is and these are the attitudes and behaviours that are linked with that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: So then we got that alignment straight away with that.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: That new company that had been acquired by by quite a larger company.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: The role in as I hear that the role was was was very open, it was like, but it was, it was.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: It was about the people.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: It was about getting you in front of groups of people and pulling them together as a team, which is what you've been doing for your whole career.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: You didn't know the products and all of those things, but you knew people and teams yeah, yeah, definitely, and obviously I didn't realize that at the time and, once again, you know, eric was the one that recognized that in myself and obviously with the guidance of Frederic, who helped me out a lot at the time was, you know, and the way they helped me out at the start and we set up the presentations and you know these were long whole day sessions and stuff I do with them around different things and whether it was differentiation and management, you know, creating those environments needed.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: You know all that sort of stuff we've already discussed but it was at the very start.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: They helped me formulate it in a way that we used a lot of their examples and all the exercises was around, you know.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, tell me what integrity means to you.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Give, give me an example of that.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: And I felt in the first year I was doing it, I've learned so much more than they learned from me.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I'm telling you like I learned so much about all those different things in business while I was mediating the session.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: So I think it was very helpful in that sense in which they showed me, you know, ways in which you know I wasn't there just dictating to them about what I'd done and I tried not to talk too much about sports, but they all just asked questions about sport.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: They just wanted to know about sport, high-performing environments, like the majority of them.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: So it sort of had to loop it back to them and you tell me an example of this.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: You tell me an example, and they get in small groups and they'd come back and they'd give an example of something that happened.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: You know, like honesty, tell us something about that.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: So I learned a huge amount in in that time so great again putting yourself in an environment to learn.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: You know so many different things that I, I hear, and I'm sure those listening it's just you know, as you reflect, you can see how it supports you.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Um, but look, I'm so, I'm conscious of where we are and I'm thinking so how, from you know, those experiences, does that sort of get you to well, quite simply, where you are today?
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: So I was in France for nine years, so played for five and then after two years of doing both roles, obviously I was extremely busy, had a young family.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: The club actually dropped back to second division so I actually came back into a full-time role, back into the club to be closer to home.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: I had three young children in a foreign country obviously too, so my wife's an absolute angel, so I will put that out there right now on the podcast.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: But I came back to be closer to home.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: There's still a lot of travel with professional sport.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: I became general manager of rugby operations there and I was very fortunate and with my personality and loyalty I was very committed to the club for another two years and we actually got back up in that second year, back up to top 14 when I was in that management position along with the coaching staff.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: I definitely didn't have the whole to do with it, but obviously I had a close relationship with Eric from working with him and the team managed to get back up.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: But it did take a lot of strain on family life.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: People don't realise that.
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: It does look very glamorous.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: You've been involved in sport but you're away every second weekend travelling.
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: It's not like when you're a player and you get to go home at 3 o'clock.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: You know you're around organising pre-season.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: You know something's happening when you're in those operations role all the time and with the young kids.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: You know something's happening when you're in those operations role all the time and with the young kids.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: And you know there was a bit of reality there where all the videos I sort of had on my phone and my kids talking to me on FaceTime or saying good morning and stuff like that, and I decided and you know my wife was an absolute stalwart at home looking after the family and stuff but it was time for me to become less selfish.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: It had always been about my career.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: My wife was a professional as well.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: She was a radiographer for years, she did the treatment of cancer and she sort of gave that up when we had kids.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: So then I remember coming home one January.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: It was cold and we were in France and we had the young kids and one had been sick and hospitalized and we just decided that it's probably time right now that we all spend some more time together.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: And how do we best do that?
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: And we were having that very successful season and whether we went up or not in that final season, I would have still left the club anyway.
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: But I was very fortunate enough to have that they-lived-happily lived happily ever after, sort of ending, where, you know they went up to top 14 and then I was able to leave too.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: But it was really about not being selfish anymore and I didn't see it as being selfish, but it was pretty selfish that you know, my wife stopped the career, looked after all the kids and all that sort of stuff.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: So we sat down and we planned it all out and we said, well, what's the best move?
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: And we thought, well, this experience, let's move back to Australia.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: My wife didn't want to move back to the UK.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: She'd been back several times with me to Australia.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: She'd really enjoyed it, obviously the lifestyle there that I'd spoken about with the young kids and so forth.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: So we made the tough decision and I told the club you know, obviously family reasons and they were very supportive of that and the commitment I had given to the club over the years as well, and they were hugely supportive.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, we decided to move home with no jobs or nothing.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: At the end of that season I actually luckily got into a job straight away with a company called Stella.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: They did recruitment and HR stuff in Australia through my rugby connections and and my wife came back to Australia with their kids.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: I was in recruitment for a short time before I ended up where I am now at Building Point Australia.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: So now I'm the general manager of sales and marketing at Building Point Australia.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: We do construction technology.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: We're a provider of construction technology to the construction industry, the architectural engineering, construction industry.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: So through my experience with Eric and working in a global engineering company and getting to know obviously about the lay of the land with engineering and construction and so forth, I was enabled and capable of this role.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: And when I met with Adam, adam Bright, who's the owner of this company, sat down with me and obviously Building Point was one of the businesses within his umbrella of businesses and it was more around sitting down with him and once again, you know it had been successful to a certain extent.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: But he just felt if I could come in, obviously work on business development as well as like working on the team, getting them all obviously rowing in the same direction, making them all accountable, creating an environment there that could be successful, then it would work and fortunately, for the last four years it's been great.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: It's been really, really successful there and I really enjoy it.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: Being part of a larger group of companies is great as well, because obviously you can lean on the other parts of the the larger company and what do you think you know in in your current role?
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: what do you think I suppose I'm flip it either way what do you think you had to let go of?
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: You know from an from you as a professional athlete?
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: What do you think you had to let go of?
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: You know from an from you as a professional athlete?
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: What do you think you had to let go of to be successful in your current role?
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: um, I suppose it's like um, you have to let go of the dream.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: You know, when, when you're a kid, you, you dream about being a professional sportsman.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: You know, and, and when you play it for so long, sometimes you take it for granted too.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: But when you have conversations outside of rugby and I was very fortunate to play as long as I did and and I was able to come to peace with sport, because you know, as you mentioned earlier in this podcast, like people get injured, you know the professional playing careers between three and five years.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: I had 15 years, so I had some really good people around me that you know said, you know, you know, and I agreed I'd had enough time in the game.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: You know I was able to turn the page and say, hey, I was extremely fortunate to have that time.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: But still, it's always hard letting go of of that dream, letting go of the changing room.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: I know a lot of people talk about that.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: That's a really great place to be.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: You know, in that, in that changing room, in that environment, especially if you're succeeding together, um, it's very, very hard.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: It's very, very and sports people talk about all the time it's very, very hard to find that again, you know that collaboration, that camaraderie that you know to to win successfully together.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: Not only you know that collaboration, that camaraderie that you know to win successfully together, not only you know through physical effort, but also, obviously, coordination and collaboration and all that sort of stuff as well.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: It's very hard.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: So I think you know letting go of the dream like I dreamt about being a professional player and now you know like you know, like I love my role now and it's fantastic.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: But I I didn't dream about being a general manager.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: I dreamt about scoring tries.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: Or I dreamt about being part of a winning team and holding up a trophy.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: And there's definitely people that dream about you know their roles.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: They're in now or whatever, if they're a dentist or a doctor, but my dream was to be a professional sportsman and I was just happy to to do that.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, it's true it is an interesting thing you're probably one of the first ones to describe it in that way but it is about that letting go of of the dream and and perhaps it's not something you feel you were born to do, that you're going to do now, you know sort of putting it in that type of context.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny, sometimes I don't feel like I was born to play.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know like I did like rugby and obviously I had some success in it and stuff.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: But I don't miss playing now, and maybe it was because of the length of my career and stuff like that.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: But I've always been really curious.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: So I think I did it for a long enough time and I think in sport it always has to come to an end.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: It's never going to go forever.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: No one can play forever, you know.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: But it sort of forces you then to change direction and through my curiosity obviously I've ended up where I am now.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: When you think about athletes or players who are coming up the ranks now and thinking about that career, you know it comes into their mind hold on, I'm going to have to do something else after this.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: What kind of guidance or advice do you give them?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, and I've had the chance of sitting down with quite a few too.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: But one thing I do say to a lot of them there's a couple of things actually like there's a lot more support around the game now and I'm not making that as an excuse but obviously the sporting grants as associations that were in the infancy when I started, where you know they support you to study and there's encouragement and there's career peoples and there's a real big focus around that side of the business.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: There's placements I know final contracts now and I was fortunate the way mine rolled out but there's some now we're like okay, well, you'll have two years as a player and then we've got this sponsor and then you can go and work for them straight away after we've agreed that.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: You know they've had an interview and stuff and you can start working through them and it's really set up for them to succeed.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: It's really in their hands for them to do it.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: And I explain that it's it's really much in your hands.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: You've got all that support now.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: We didn't have that support before.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: You've really got to take advantage of that and it's only you that can do it.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: You know it's around that selection piece.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: You select yourself, you know.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: So you have to put yourself out there, you have to be vulnerable, you have to be the guy that after training doesn't go home play xbox or, you know, go go to the pool or whatever.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: Whatever it is, you have to be the guy goes.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, I'm going to get have a shower, get changed, and I'm going to go and work now from 3 till 7 pm tonight at the business that I'm at, because that's how I'm going to achieve after sport.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: But the second thing, and a really good thing I learned from one of the psychologists I know is sports psychologists around is attaching your personal goals.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: You know, and people talk about goals all the time, but the brilliant analogy and I don't know if you've heard it before, but if any sort of coach or manager says to you, you know, go and run across that broken glass for me, you know, I want you to run across it.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: You're going to go.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: No, I'm not going to run across it.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: He goes, oh, we might win the game.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: You know you're thinking, no, I'm not really going to run across that broken glass, you know.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: But then you said, hey, hold on a minute.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: What are your personal goals?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Oh well, I want to finish my career.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I want to buy another house, I want to get married and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, if I tell you to run across this glass right now and all four of those things are going to happen, would you do it?
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: Of course I'd do it, okay, well, they're your personal goals, so get them aligned.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: People talked about goals for me in my whole career, but I didn't have a good analogy or I didn't know how to connect with them.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: So through that analogy, I always try and teach them get those goals aligned, align them to what you want to do.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: And when you go to interviews, you tell them this is what I want to do.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: I can do this because it's an interview not only for them, but you're interviewing them as well.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: You and them, they're interviewing each other, so you should go to them.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: Listen, this is what I want to do over the next year, and I see your business as a vehicle for me to achieve this as well.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: You know, and it doesn't have to be a house and a car and tangible things.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: It can be things like I want to have a year of work, work done in in this industry, you know, and and how can we do that together?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: And by achieving that together, then you're going to be able to, you know, buy that house or put that deposit down.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: Or you know, buy that ring to get engaged.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: But you need to attach them because, like in sport, you have those ups and downs all the time.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: You know, and always tell them that when you're having those bad times and you know you've finished rugby and you're hating it and stuff like that look at those goals and understand why you're doing them for yourself, because you're not going to do it for your manager.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: You know you're not going to do it for their goals on the wall.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: You've got to connect those goals to it as well, so that you're going right.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, it's a bad day, but I know why I'm doing this.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: You know I'm doing this for abc and that's what gets you through it, and I still try and do that to this day.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: It's every time I achieve a goal, set another goal, and I ask my teams to do that too, and I'm honest with them.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: I say to my sales guys listen, you're not going to walk across that glass for me.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: I want to know what you want to do to walk across that glass.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: I'll help you get there, but you need to have something tangible attached to it as well I love it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: Andrew, I you're absolutely right.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: It is so much of so much of what you've said is it's true.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: The bit I really take away is taking the time, one to get the support there's lots of support around you and look into it and follow that through.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: And then, secondly, is make sure you have your personal values, that personal vision.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: What I say is you values that personal vision.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: What I say is you've got that personal dream and then you look at well, what vehicle can you use to help that dream come true?
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: And so I like the way you put those into the two points, because that really resonates with me.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Thanks for sharing it, yeah no worries.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: One other thing they always ask is oh, should I get a mentor?
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: And I and I'm like, yeah, well, if I'm happy to be a mentor, I'm happy to you know, if there's someone else I can sort you out.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: But I always learned, and I was very fortunate that there was someone in my early career that told me everyone you meet is a mentor, everyone, everyone from you know the groundsman that that does the lawn to you know the high rolling CEO who's probably the major shareholder in the club.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: There's a whole diversity of mentors and like, listen, you're not going to take a bit, you know, you're going to take a little bit from everything, but always be curious and open enough to learn something from that person you know and like people then go oh, I just need one mentor.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: where I always found that, as long as I was, vulnerable and open and asked questions and curious that I was able to learn something from everyone.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Well, do you know what it is to your point there?
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: I look back at you at the end of the game, being the one who put your hand up to say I'll go up and have that conversation with the executives ended up spending an hour there.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: There's something about and there is a quote out there around you are your interactions, or you are everyone who you have met or interacted with at some point, and I guess what you're talking about there is, each interaction with someone is a learning moment and if you remain open or vulnerable and curious, then you can really take something from those conversations and and that can help guide you on your path as well.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure, yeah.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: So look, andrew, I've got to say thanks so much for taking the time out tonight to share your journey and, you know, bring a bit of your perspective into this.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: You know, athlete career transition, um, which certainly I know resonates for many, and some of the stories you've provided, um, I'm going to probably retell, I promise to quote you, but uh, I just want to say thanks for sharing your journey tonight.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: No, problem.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: it's been very enjoyable.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: I could talk for another half an hour.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: It's one of my problems, but you know I'm slowly learning.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: The art of silence is another technique that is really great in business as well, and yeah, I've really enjoyed the chat and thanks again for having me on.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: Awesome, andrew.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks very much.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Second Win podcast.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for, career clarity for your next step.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Make sure you check out secondwinio for more information or to book a consultation with me.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Book Design, Nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions and Cerise from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: That's all from me.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Take it easy Until next time.