Latest / Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves / 152: Tom Morton: A Tweet That Ended It All, Redefining Success After Pro Rugby

Transcript

152: Tom Morton: A Tweet That Ended It All, Redefining Success After Pro Rugby · Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Like you said, that kicked in after school.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: You've got the schoolboys For you.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Where did education, or at least school, work?
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: How did that rank in your priorities?
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Do you know what?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: It was probably quite high.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I probably go back to growing up in what I'd describe as a fairly normal household it was, I guess, to put it bluntly, it's not like you see football academies these days the priority is your football academy and they kind of facilitate school on the side.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I think, still, with rugby, you go to school as you do your GCSEs, a levels, all that good stuff, and you you go to visit your club in evenings and weekends.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: So look, I think in rugby it's still very much go through school properly and we'll pick you up on the side.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: So I enjoyed it.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I had a great group of friends.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I did pretty well in school.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It was always very much a no, still no idea what I wanted to do at school, to be honest, but picked up, pick all my GCSEs, all my A-levels, and came out with some some pretty good results, to be fair yeah, 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.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Elite athletes are still people after all.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Let's be inspired by the stories of others.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Career Clarity Podcast with me, ryan Gonsalves.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it should be good fun.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it will be as long as we enjoy it.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: You can say anything on here, can't you?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's it.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So we'll have a good laugh, but certainly, as always, you know, I always look forward to these conversations and for me on a Friday evening, it's a really good way for me to sort of wrap up the week and have a good chat with someone like yourself, learn your story a little bit and talk about all that is finding a bit of clarity after sport.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're, uh we're polar opposite ends of the scale.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: It's uh, it's friday morning.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: We're just in for a nice long, hopefully sunny bank holiday weekend.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a good start to it, right, good?
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: start.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very nice, good man.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Uh well, listen, tom, let's get us started and just let us know what is it that you are up to nowadays?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm sure we'll get into it.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: But I, post-sport and post-rugby, found myself in the world of finance, the world of business.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: So I kind of initially actually qualified as a chartered accountant that was with KPMG back in the day when I when I qualified.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So I'm now working for a, working for a firm called interpath advisory and more recently trying to spend most of my time, uh, working advising, kind of consulting type work in the sports industry which, look, is really interesting.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Having having come from sport, having played, to be able to, I guess, go, go back to your roots, go back to what you enjoy, is, yeah, it's good and it's enjoyable.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Some of the work I'm involved in at the minute.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's good.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, interestingly, for you to go into business and sounds into a finance world.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: What made you pick that as a path?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: You know it's one I get asked a lot and my straight answer is I kind of didn't.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Really, it was very much one at the time where, when I moved away, it was I need a job here, I need something for the CV, I need something.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You know, looking at buying a house and things like that, it was very much right, what can I do and what can I get involved with?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And it was actually through a rugby contact at the time and you know, we'll obviously go into to networks and and things like that.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: But it was very much uh, look, there's an opportunity here.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: It's, you know, it's an industry that that you can go.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: You, you know, you've not been to uni, you've not not done anything like that, so you can go, you can box off some qualifications and then look what, what you do after.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It's fine, but but at least you've got something to stand on.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So that was the crux of it.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Was it something that I ever envisaged going?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: You know I always want to do my accountancy qualifications.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Honest answer is absolutely.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Not Very few people do.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, absolutely.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: But you know, you look back and at the point when I made the decision it was you know I need to go and do something here and look, it's a great base for me to now go and do whatever I want to do really.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is, and I think one of the great things about accounting is well, if you believe in the world, then money will.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Accounting is always going to be there.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Someone's always going to have to split finances and pay tax and do that kind of stuff.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So I remember, even during COVID, and you sort of get to these points on well, will business continue?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I was listening to another show about airline and travel and you just think, you know, if you believe in humanity and mankind, you've got to believe we're always going to want to, we'll always have to keep paying tax.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Once the world comes back, we're going to travel, you kind of just got to jump into some of these things.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, and it's, you know, it's such a big, it's such a big industry, right it's?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Um, I think people think accounting and and stuff like that and you think tax returns and all that good stuff and look, that's my worst nightmare.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: If I was being honest, I couldn't think of anything worse than doing that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: But it's, you know, you go into that type of industry and the crux of it is you have to go and get your accountancy qualifications.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: That's kind of your base.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Like all your top performing S&C coaches, they will have had a base level that they've had to go and do.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So if someone asked me to come and help them out on the finances, would I be able to help?
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Probably not, but it's there and it's done its job.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Put it that way yes, I'm, um, you've intentionally locked it away in the back of your mind.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I don't want to, I don't want to go find that again.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, sure, sure, I'm interested there and perhaps we'll come back to it.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: But you know we talk about, you know your role in that sports industry and I'm sure there's gonna be many people thinking well, what you know, what does that mean?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So, just in a way, now what is, I guess, what is your role in that?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Working as you are now, what does that look like on a day-to-day basis?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It's a great question.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I think that the easiest way to probably put it is you think you're imagine your classic kind of strategic advice, consulting type work that you see in every other area of business and industry.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Sport now is becoming a lot more business minded and business focused, especially with the money that's involved.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: You know football is probably a big one where you know you see the regulations surrounding it, you see the money that's coming in, you see the investment through private equity, private ownership, things like that.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: So there's a huge space now for performers, the business-minded individuals and the strategic advice that go around the seams with it.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Really, so look, it's nice and it's positive for me because I understand the sport and the performance side of sporting organizations, but then I've also had the training and the experience with with big blue chip companies in other industries and other spaces.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: So but they're a different beast.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: You know football clubs to be, to name one, but other big industries where you've almost got two businesses inside one.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: You've got sport and performance and then commercial marketing all that good stuff that feed into one company at the end of the day do you think you're better off having been a pro athlete to work in that space rather than coming into it without it?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: absolutely there's.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: You probably see in every, every walk of life really there's.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: You know you, you understand the lingo, you understand the terminology, you understand, okay, this, this decision, how is it going to affect performance?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: How is it going to affect my players?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: And if you come solely from a business point of view, you don't possibly appreciate the kind of on the ground impacts that it has on sport.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Having come through high performance systems, high performance environments and knowing what business decisions, kind of the impact that they have on you as a player, it's easier to understand it when you're on the other side of the fence.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: You know an example I'd give is a player, a performance director might say, oh, we can't do this because it's you know it'd have a minimal.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: There might be an impact to on-pitch performance, something performance, something like that.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Now, if you've not been in that environment yourself, you'd go.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: You know the way you travel or the type of pitch you train on that's that can't have any difference to what you do, but you know full well it does.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: You know you walk out onto the training pitch.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: You like everything.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Where it is you it's.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: It's those one percenters, isn't it, that make a huge difference yeah, it is.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: You understand that, like you say, that, the nuance, that just those slight differences, and indeed where, perhaps, where value can be created or at least appreciated by a club as well, it's like, oh, they're doing that bit really well, that's going to help them go far, versus that other one that's making pure commercial decisions about yeah, and look it's, you know, sports, I guess in a really really interesting space at the minute.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: It's sports, I guess in a really really interesting space at the minute it's huge, huge growth in the women's side of things, which I think is incredibly interesting to be involved in.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It's something that historically has not had enough investment, enough people watching, so to almost.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: For clubs, for organisations, to be able to dictate the way they take the women's game.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: With such resources at their hands, it's a huge opportunity.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: You know, if you had to do it 20 years ago, it would be like grassroots sport everywhere.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: But you know clubs that are bolting on a women's team now they can take them anywhere they want.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, that's right.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Like you say, it's an exciting and fascinating space.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm really just in the.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I'm really fascinated in the way it will.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Women's sport will evolve in the sense that it doesn't need to replicate and I was saying it the other day, but it doesn't need to replicate the way men's sport have grown, because the platforms are different, the industries are different yeah, the audiences are different.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: The people watching it's.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, we've seen it over here in the UK with Ilona Mayer coming into the rugby space and the growth that's seen just around Bristol and the hype on social media, the amount of people that are going to games that would never have stepped foot in that stadium because of a woman who's got a huge influence online.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Listen, it is fascinating, I suppose.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Listen, bring us back in talk a little bit about you and your journey yeah sorry, sorry off, please.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: It's good because it's interesting right it is interesting and so listen what we were chatting about then.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, you've got some of this, uh, this grounding from an accounting of that, that business perspective, but of course, one of the key things you have is is sport.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So take me back.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I suppose I want to get a bit of an understanding of how, of how did sport influence you, where were you growing up and how, how was sport an influence to you in that?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: yeah, no, absolutely, and probably nothing special.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: To be honest, you know, growing up as a kid I had an older brother, older sister, grew up in what you'd describe as a kind of pretty normal, pretty normal family.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Mum was a teacher, my dad worked in kind of project management side of things, but we all loved and enjoyed sport.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: It was what we did at the weekends, it was what we liked to go and do on a road, road outside the house.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: If there was a ball involved, we'd go and have a kick around, type thing.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: But I guess for me that was always probably quite good because I was, you know, chasing the older brother that was five years older type thing.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: So you're, you know, you're probably always competing, unknowingly and unwantingly from from an early age.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: But so that was kind of kind of how we we grew up.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: I'd probably say my dad was more on the football side of things but picked up a rugby ball when, you know, early teens, early teens, and just enjoyed it, just liked playing, took us down to the local rugby club it was a small club called Stockport at the time, which is still fairly local and, yeah, just, you know, got a bit of a love for the game really my brother played there.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: My dad used to coach one of the or my team at the time, so did all the junior age group stuff there and then, to be honest, it was only probably when I went to high school that I started almost not taking it seriously but going I'm doing all right here, I just used to play for the fun.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: The way it works obviously with Rugby Union over here is from I think it's from under 15s.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: You start to get pulled into the county teams so you pressure Lancashire, things like that and was that sort of the path that that came to you at around that age 15, 16, yeah, yeah, so and you know what.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I'd be lying if I could remember how it worked.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: But I think the system was you played for your club, someone had kind of you know, have a watch at some of the larger competitions and they'd cherry pick a few players out.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So because of that, getting involved with the county stuff, I then got looped into the kind of Sail Sharks Junior Academy system.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Well, look again a few years back, that would have just been an evening a week type thing, just to stay in the system.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: That was great.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: You go from playing as a kid and just having a kick around to suddenly you're in a kind of bit of a professional setup.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: It was a good setup.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you see, in the first team, walk around as a 15-year-old kid.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: It's cool, right.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: That was that I was.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Then, you know, I finished, got up to sixth form.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: So I got up to kind of the college years, did the county stuff again and got picked ultimately for one of the England under-17 teams.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: So again, that was through the county system.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So they have a county comp and then they have a kind of you know, north England versus South England, et cetera, you know it all funnels into one.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So you know managed.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Go on, ryan, I'm interested then.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So at that time, 17, 17, getting selected into that england, young england system, right, that young england pathway?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: What did you start to envision as your future?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Where did you start to let yourself dream?
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: yeah, and do you know we'll probably come on to it but at that time of my rugby career that that was a really, really enjoyable time of playing.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I loved my rugby.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Then it was, you know, I was fit, I was healthy, I was playing week in, week out.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: It was great, loved it.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: And then you overlay onto that that you're going into an England camp at 17s.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: I think at the time you know, we were sharing kind of training camps with the under 20s and you've got people like Maru Itoji, who was in that few years older 20s set up, and people like him and Nick Tompkins and those boys who, as a 17 year old, you're going these boys are good, they've just signed Saracen's contracts, things like that but such good fun at the same time we took it seriously.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: We took it really seriously, you know, as would any kind of international junior camp.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: But we had and whether you know the individuals or not we had a guy called John Fletcher leading it at the time.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: He was an unbelievable coach.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: The way you kind of opened your eyes to the game, to expressing yourself, things like that as a junior age grade coach he was.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: He was unbelievable, made those years really fun and, look, it was off the back of that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I guess that then, once I, once I finished my time at school, I was offered ultimately offered a contract to go and, uh, enjoy the sale.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: So that was how that that came into life, right and so you know, like you said, that kicked in after school, you've got the school For you.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Where did education, or at least school, work?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: How did that rank in your priorities?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: fairly normal normal household it was.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I guess, to put it bluntly, it's not like you see, football academies these days, the priority is your football academy and they kind of facilitate school on the side.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I think still with rugby, you go to school as you do your gcse's, a levels, all that good stuff, and you you go to visit your club in evenings and weekends.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So look, I think in rugby it's still very much uh, go through school properly and we'll pick you up on the side.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: So you know I enjoyed it.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I had a great group of friends I I did pretty well in school.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: It was always very much uh.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: No, still no idea what I wanted to do school, to be honest.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: But pick my all my gcses, all my a levels and came out with some, some pretty good results, to be fair yeah and then.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: but then you got this opportunity to go on a contract.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Well, basically, get a contract and play yeah, yeah.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: And look it was probably a no-brainer for me at the time, it was having grown up playing as a kid.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Someone says, look, there's an opportunity to come play full-time, why would you say no?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And I had a really supportive family of it at the time.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: They said look, it's an opportunity, what's the worst that could happen type thing.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: You go and do it for a year.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: If it doesn't work out, then you're in the same boat.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: How did it feel?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I suppose what I want to say is where did it take you?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: You were enjoying it, you were full-time.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Well, in fact, it's quite an important athletic transition going from school part-time to going into that full-time environment.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: What was that initial shift for you like and how did you sort of find the balance?
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: yeah, so I guess I guess it went very much from so the junior stuff you're playing all the time, you're doing the England stuff, you go into a completely different world where you're quickly at the bottom of at the bottom of the tree.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: We used to make a bit of a joke about it, but it was always the standard things that you know.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: There's the lads that have come through the academy they're the youngest, you know some joke and the back holder type things of trees, yeah yeah, I've cleaned many a pair of football boots.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: You go from kind of I don't like using the term big dog, but you go from you were picked every week to suddenly you were absolute bottom of the pile, which was there's a period where, because it's so new, you still get the excitement.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So it was kind of like you know, you knew it was coming, you knew, you knew that was what to expect type thing.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: But when it was still so fresh to you and you're surrounded by, you know household names, you know you walk and've got Danny Cipriani was starting at the time.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: You've got some of the All Blacks like Sam Tuatupo, dan Braid, people like that, who you're looking up and going.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I'm actually kind of training with these guys and I'm in the mix for selection on the same plate as some of these guys.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So very daunting at the time but incredibly exciting at the same time.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I'd say Getting that balance, then coming through sale, making debuts and sort of pushing on.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: What did you dream of?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Where did you think you were going?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I never I guess I probably never thought that far ahead, but I always loved, you know I was loving being involved in the international set-up at that time and you know I guess the goal for me was very next-step approach.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: It was, look, how do I then embed myself and get into that sale team and I guess to fast forward.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So I did my probably had my first year there, which was classic, probably more of an experience year than a playing year itself, and then, you know, started to kick on a bit few chances.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: You know you're playing all the reserves game, you're getting involved on the bench, things like that, so you're starting to.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: You know that's the time you're starting to go right.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: How can I kick on here?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: And then got selected for the England 20s, which at that stage is probably it goes a step up again because you start to have junior Six Nations, junior World Cup, things like that.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: But it was actually at that point where I picked up a quad injury on.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Our first game in Six Nations was against Italy and I was a fly half, so quad and kicking was probably a pretty big piece of the game.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: But I picked up a half, so quad and kicking was probably a pretty big, big piece of your game.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: But I picked up a quad injury and then that was probably a pretty big turning point, I would say, for me in my overall career.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: When I look back, yeah, tell us about that, because you know obviously yeah, no, so you know, I guess you're so used to.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: You're so used to playing week in, week out and maybe had not experienced a big injury like that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: So that was I remember playing down at we based down in exeter.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: We had a game at italy at plymouth.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I remember I flew back home the next day with the england doctor and you know, luckily there was a there's a consultancy place in wilmslow up near where I live and went straight from a scan as you do.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: You know your best treatment when you're when you're in those type of places.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, and it was, um, yeah, I think you said it's a grade, grade three quarter.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: There's a bit of scar tissue around.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: So we don't want to operate, we we'd prefer to rehab, which was fine.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: But you know you're talking for what is a muscle tear, you're talking kind of six months type thing for a which was tough.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And I think the worst thing about that was I came back and probably two, three games did a similar thing, not as bad, but you know it knocked back again.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: So I guess to fast forward, I very quickly went from a stage where I was going now I can kick on to suddenly I'd had kind of 18 months of training as such A lot of time when you're in the gym watching.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: You know I probably had 18 months with two games under my belt, you know, considering how you'd been shaped as, like you said, top dog coming in, then working your way back up England 20-7, which is obviously awesome and then getting these setbacks and trying to go through that period.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: What was the hardest part during that time for you?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: think the tough thing with injuries is almost the danger of the time to think you're not swept up in a lot of stuff in sport, especially when you're training, it's, you're so full-on, it's so fast speed.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of alone time sat on the gym floor doing your rehab when you sat there going.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Everyone else is out training here and they've got a game at the weekend and I'm and I'm doing some pretty basic movements here yes, yeah, how did you fill your time then during that those rehab, that 18 months or so?
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: So look, it was still.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: You know you still kind of fitted into the schedule as you would normally.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: So look, I'd come in.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: We try and get in the gym at the same time as as everyone else.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: So you know, try and stay involved, do your gym sessions with everyone else, then your on-field sessions probably split it between a bit of treatment and then going out and watching, and then other time, like that was then.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: How can you just fit in some extra rehab and stuff on the side around, your classic, your team meetings, your analysis.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: But that's probably one of the more challenging things, when you were looking at, okay, what's the game this week?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Who are we playing?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Are we influencing what we're doing on the pitch, and you kind of sat there going I've got another three months until I can run again, guys.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a tough period when you're in there, like you're saying, during the day you could, that you can kind of hit that schedule, but then you've got your evenings or the afternoons after training.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, I'm not knackered because I haven't played, I haven't, I haven't done anything, I feel great.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and you know that was, that was a challenging period.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: But again, maybe because you're still fairly new to it, you do just kind of get swept up.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: But that kind of evolved really because you know I got back, I started playing again and you know things were I think I'd maybe just signed an additional kind of signed, an extra two years or something on my contract a year before.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: So you know I knew I had a bit of a bit bit of time to okay, let's rehab, let's get back to playing all that good stuff.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: So got myself back fit, got got the body feeling good again, and then it was at the end of end of one of the seasons, I think I sat down and spoke to a guy called Dan Braid, who I mentioned before.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: So he was a lot of people say he would have, he would have had the the all-black seven shirt if it wasn't for Richie McCaw type thing.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: He was an unbelievable player and he just mentioned out of nowhere.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: He said look, if you want to go and play out in New Zealand, let me know, we've got loads of contacts.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: So I at the time, frustrated, not playing much, bit his hand off and said look, I'd love to let me go and speak to management and stuff, see if we can make it happen.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: So I basically ended up getting kind of a loan contract moving out to Auckland playing there.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: And you know obviously you'll know, being over in Oz that the culture for rugby is just so different.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: You know, you walk down the streets and kids are kicking rugby balls around, as opposed to football, there's touch rugby going on everywhere and you know the rugby out there was unbelievable.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I loved it.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: So I spent, you know, just about six months there playing, played a full season, and it was actually so my contract was, I guess, to step back.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: My contract with Sale at that point was coming up to its end and it was very much.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: You know I'd spoken to them okay, we're sorting whatever out, you know, final agreements et cetera, et cetera, all that good stuff.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: So you know, but you're on the other side of the world so you're quite separated from it.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: So I was there, I was playing, probably only had a month or so left to go on the the kind of the the new zealand side of things, and you know it's something around that probably not a lot of people know about in terms of how it came about, how it happened.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: But I I woke up one morning from a text from from my missus and said, have you seen it?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Or I kind of three missed calls or something.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: So what's going?
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: What the hell's going on here?
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Basically, there was a tweet that had gone out.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Every year they do it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Thanks to X, y and Z for your time at the club.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: My name was on it and I was kind of like what's going on here?
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Missed call from my agent at the time, voicemail, all that, good stuff.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I guess, long story short it was they've decided not to renew your contract.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Good stuff, I guess, long story short it was they've decided not to renew your contract.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Had anyone had a conversation with me?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: No, and you know, I tried to win the director of rugby at the time.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Nothing, absolutely nothing.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Managed to get hold of one of the coaches who, look was, he was great, I had a good chat with him and he was, you know, he was, I guess, very sympathetic of the situation, kind of out of his control at the end of the day.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: And look I, I absolutely get that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that was, that was a tough a tough time that's a terrible way to find out.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, you know it's it's something that it's something that you probably don't speak about and it's something that probably at that time was because it was tough.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: It was tough to manage.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: It's probably not something that you know you widely share as such and it was always.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I look back on it now and probably one of the driving I guess driving factors is you sit on it and you go.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: You know everything that you know you do on a day-to-day basis.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: You're like I would never want to treat someone like that or manage someone in that way.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: You know you look at work on your, what you're doing at work whether it's same industry, different industry and you go.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: God, you just wouldn't do that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: What is it about sport that I don't know.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I want to say enables that to happen.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look and maybe I was too accepting of it at the time because of that reason, because sport does have a brutal nature, absolutely, and you know, I always, I always understood that, going in, always understood it.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: It was more the I appreciate, that's kind of what happens and that's the fact.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: But there is also a genuine management issue, a kind of man-to-man management kind of thing that a phone call would have been nice.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: You know some.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: So, look, sport is like that and I don't do.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I think it's right.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: No, do I think it's probably a bit of a nature of the beast, yes, and you know, especially with some of the money flying around, but there's obviously ways of going about things, isn't there?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so you're on the other side of the world.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: You get a call, a tweet, a text.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, we're done with you.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what happened next?
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: What was going through your mind?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: It's a great question I think that to be honest, the couple of days after that were very much a blur and, if I'm being honest, excluding maybe being away from family, I was possibly in a pretty good kind of environment for that to happen.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Because of the way they live their life, the way they have an attitude to things, it was you know rugby to them is just a bit of a crack on the side, and if they do well, they do well, right, that's how they live their life.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: So, maybe I was in a pretty good spot for it and the fact I was playing week in, week out was, you know, it was when I had something to take my mind off.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: But it probably also comes back to kind of how I grew up and it was such a normal upbringing as well, like a family would have supported me for everything.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: But you know, I still remember, when we joke about it, my old man, I think, rang me at the time.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: He was like, first of all, like, are you all right?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, I'm fine.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: He was like of all, like, are you all right?
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, I'm fine.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: He was like we obviously spoke through with other options and there were opportunities to go and play for champ clubs and things like that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: And then I think he sat there and he went that's all right, she can go and get a normal job now and that's uh, we joke about it, but but that's, you know, that's just kind of the way we grew up, that's the way we lived, and you know he'd travel anywhere to go and watch me play and he'd support me with any decision.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But we were always quite grounded, is what I'd say.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So at that point, coming to the end of the season, did you think, well, that's it, full-time rugby's done for me.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Not immediately.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I would say it took a couple of months.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I think there was.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: We obviously spoke with my agent at the time, spoke to a few contacts and there were a few opportunities to to do different things, to to play elsewhere.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: A couple of opportunities overseas obviously there's the championship, but I guess it was very much a case of come move down to London for a full-time role there's 25 grand a year or come and move to opportunity in Italy 30 grand a year, type thing, same same thing and do I look back and say, do I wish I'd taken them?
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: The nice thing is probably not, because I went through a period of considering a lot of different things, a lot of different options, and the fear in my head at the time was was very much.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: I think I was what, 24 at the time.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: The fear in my head was I go and take a three-year contract and in 20 grand a year I get to 27, 28.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: That contract finishes and then I go, what on earth do I do now?
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And and look that it probably helped that I'd had a decent period of time being injured, because you start to then mentally think about you know, buying a house, doing other things, what's going to happen.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: After rugby you start to kind of mentally take things over in your head.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: So I mean it's good because, like you said, that injury time, that mode of injury, got you being able to think a little bit about well, yeah, I'll come back.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And then what?
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And actually it's all right doing this sometimes, I'm not playing, I'll have an extra drink, it's okay, I'll get away with it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: What were you fearful of?
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: What was the fear?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Because getting to 27 and not having a career, what are the repercussions of that, of being 27 without that experience?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: That 20 grand a year?
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and do you know what?
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: It's an absolutely fair point and it's something that you'd maybe view it from another side.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: There's absolutely nothing wrong with starting again at 27.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: It's a different way you'd view it.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I probably, you know, like I said, looking at buying a house, always minded on you know how do I set myself up for my career in the future.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: You know your family, your friends just making sure you're stable in all aspects of life.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: That was probably my fear, right, and I, you know, having not gone to uni as well, I thought, god, I can't be 27 and then go.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have to go and go back to uni now and do this.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Whether you know, whether that's right or not, I don't know, but it didn't feel like it.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: That felt like one of the worst options for me at the time.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: How did you make your decision then?
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I think, look it was.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: It was probably probably speaking to different people.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: It was, you know, just getting different people's views on things and probably that just kind of mentally come into terms with it.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Maybe the and look, it's something I look back on.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: The kind of the term acceptance comes into it probably quite a bit, but that's maybe longer term of trying to get comfortable with the fact that, well, that's been great for years.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: That's been a really enjoyable five years.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Let's go and focus on something else.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: So what did you do next then?
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: How did you figure out?
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Right, this is the focus, Would you figure?
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: out right.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: This is the focus.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: So, look, and I guess one of the benefits of sport is networks and the people you meet.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: And I always talk when I talk to people now in the game and stuff, I say, look, that is prime time to go and meet people because, quite frankly, and whether it's again, whether it's right or wrong, people care about you and pay attention of you.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: When you're in sport and you've got a club attached to you, they want to chat to you.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: So go and build your network.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: So I ended up speaking to a couple of people and, look, I was lucky at the time that there was a club near me called Macclesfield who were in the third tier of rugby at the time, so they were in national one, which I could go and start a career and still play some rugby on the side and have a bit of pocket money coming in as a stabiliser.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: So that for me, look, I was lucky with that because it was location, it was close, it was great.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: But in terms of I guess your question about what next, that all came from a conversation with someone through rugby and they went you know I've got a contact who does XYZ in the big four.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Go meet him for a coffee, see what they've got, and I think I've probably spent a month or two just drinking coffee with different people.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Put it that way yeah, yeah, I mean, I get it, but it is.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: That sounds weird, doesn't it?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Perhaps, for many listening, I know they'll be thinking well, you're not doing anything when you're just going and having coffee with people.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: It's like you wake up, you have a coffee, you have a drink, and then you come home again.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: What have you actually?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: What have you achieved?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So, as you were going through that, did you feel this is great, this, except for the caffeine hit?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: been hit.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: This you know this is especially and you don't, because it's not, I think, with the, the whole building your network, making relationships, and it's really challenging that time to see the benefit when you're in it yourself.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: It's only when you look back that don't get wrong.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: You meet some fantastic people and you you make some great friends, but a lot of that side of networking is almost playing the long game.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: You know it's okay, that's great, but that's actually only probably going to benefit me in two years time when I come back across them at x event and I know who they are and we, we get chatting again.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: So I think at the time it was, I was probably quite, I guess, focused on you know, finding out about how do I get into a role and how do I you know what opportunities are there for me to start a career and things like that.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: So it was probably quite laser focused on that, I would say.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: But certainly when you look back you think of OK, that you know what you're doing there is great in terms of network building, yeah and um.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: So then for you, through that networking period which is great, and it sounds like you pretty much just followed your nose you had one that led to another one as people directed you.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: You, that concrete step, what did you end up doing?
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Because you didn't have uni, you had limited work experience.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: What did you decide to?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: To jump?
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: So it was I kind of.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I think I ended up just kind of plotting out all my here's, all my options basically.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And you know, once we walk into a job on day one and you earn this amount, but what are your kind of, your opportunities long-term, you know, is it going to you're quite boxed in or can you go elsewhere?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: So the decision I took actually was okay.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: There's a few different roles here that were.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: They're actually almost apprenticeship type programs within the finance world, but very much uh, you do a few years of of working but getting your qualifications on the side.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: And then you know, once you qualify, there's your qualification stay with us or or away you go.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: And the way I saw that was more of do I know?
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: that's what I want to do now.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: No, but if I look kind of 10 years ahead, does it give me a base that I can either use to carry on with it or use to tick off and go and do something else basically?
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: So that was the way I kind of viewed those options.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I would say it's a very level-headed thought, a very logical thought process.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah and again look.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: A very logical thought process.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah and again look.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: You probably thank your upbringing.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: You thank the kind of groundedness approach, but more just having your family around you as well to bounce ideas off, to question.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I would not have liked to have been in that situation if I was on my own.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Put it that way yeah.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I think that would be tough.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I think that would be tough.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be tough.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it would be tough by yourself.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Your family was your network, so I probably missed a question there.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: But so did you move back home?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, move back home.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, move back home actually.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: So I ended up moving back in with my parents, kind of stabilising time and then was looking for a house with with my girlfriend at the time.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: So I guess look for many, especially being around other side of the world.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Coming back, many would see that may have felt that was a step backwards and being too eager to to get out of that environment yeah, I and I wouldn't disagree.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I think it was.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: It was tough from a maybe how is this viewed?
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Type thing.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: If that's the point, but then you know it's, it's okay.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: What would?
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: What else would I be doing?
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Would I be in london?
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Would it be in london taking 25 grand a year and living in a in a box?
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, and and, and you know what, with with things like that, probably having to then get some extra work on the side, things like that, yeah, and you know, I guess people always say what made you decide to do that?
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: And I'd be lying if I if I told you it.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Just it seemed right at the time, I think, having hardly played for a couple of years because of injury and then it all coming to an end, it just felt like maybe it's possibly right for me to go and do something else.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And so, look, that's something else, that feeling, the feeling.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Down that path there is so many individuals who have come on here and spoken about as athletes.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: You have this intuition, this feeling, this sense of what feels good on the field.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: what feels good off the field sort been in tune with with that sense, and so you entered into this sort of, I'll say, quasi apprenticeship of you know so, learning on the job, building up those skills to study, and everything at that time.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a shift from, yeah, massive X months earlier been playing out in Auckland to an office up north.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, huge, absolutely huge, and I think that was one of the biggest challenges I had was more just kind of the environment you're in, you're used to the high pace, high performance.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Something needs to do and we're doing it right now.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: We're off, like this is you know're off and you know.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Look, maybe I found other things alongside that.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I was lucky because I was still playing a bit on the side with Mac at the time.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: You know, you start training a bit more for yourself, things like that.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Look, you know, years on, you sat there now and I still have in my head I need to train before work or I'm just going to be, I'm just going to need, I need to feel like I've done something today before for work.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: But yeah, what it was ultimately, I guess, like you say, it was on a, it was on a feeling and so going through that you know you talk about that environment shift sounds like you know.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: You managed to get your fix.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: You were able to play.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: You had a local club that still gave you, uh, that competitive edge.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: When you look at your first you know years or sort of time in in the office.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Can you think of any examples where it was like you felt like a fish out of water?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: And I think the biggest thing was look, you're, you're going back into a kind of educational setting or work educational setting.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I was going on 25 at the time and the biggest thing for me was I was in a room in my studies with 18-year-olds just coming out of college and you sat there and, oh, we need to get this assignment done.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: And you start going well, you just do it, don't you?
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: We just get this assignment done.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: And he's like we just do it, don't you?
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Like that's what, we just get on with it.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: It's like that was an experience, put it that way.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: And look, I think it's like you said, it's just polar, absolute polar opposites.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: And you know, maybe there is something that's ingrained in you from time and years in sport that is very much a just kind of get on with it attitude at the time it.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: But that is very much a just just kind of get on with it attitude at the time it was.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I probably went into survival is probably an extreme word, but you probably go into a kind of I need to just get my head down for for a couple of years here.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Just it was a get your head down and sort yourself out for a couple years and then and then it'll start to turn was the kind of view I took to what extent did you have to redefine yourself?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: you know through this period and that's something that that I find a really interesting concept actually at the minute, and it's it's nice doing a little bit of mentoring with some athletes as well at the time, because there is always this question of what are your values, what are you like as a person, how do you kind of define yourself?
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: And I've always been very much of the mind that just because you're moving away from sport doesn't mean you should change who you are and how you behave and what you want to do.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: You know, I always make a bit of a joke with with colleagues and some friends that will never come across as being a typical accountant Never.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: That's just you know.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: And some great individuals out there, right.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: But why would you change your kind of strengths, your attributes, just because you've walked into a room that has a kind of different industry tag on it?
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: You know, some of the things you learn in sport all come from those personalities, so why would you change?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and so, without so thinking, all right, cool the bits that you didn't want to change.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Do you think, or what do you think, you've had to switch?
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: off.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and look, that's probably the perfect way of putting it.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: There's your values, how you define yourself, but do you need to rein certain areas in?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Because you're now sat in a business setting and that can be from anything to some of the language you potentially use in a meeting, or you know rugby, sport feedback is on a minute-by-minute basis all the time.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: You look at a game, for example, it's feedback on the pitch.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: You come in at half-time and if you're doing something wrong, you get told what it is.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Bluntly, I think business and work can improve on how they feedback 100%, to be more like sport.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: If I'm being honest, yeah, but I think as well it goes the polar opposite.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: You have an annual, you have a biannual review and you've forgotten what you've done, type thing.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: But I I think there's some massive learnings there.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: I think there really is.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Obviously you have to tone down how it's done and how it's delivered, absolutely, but um, but yeah yeah, the value of feedback is something I I certainly go on about and I know anyone who has worked actually I was going to say worked for me, I think just around me.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like I'll get feedback to anyone and it's like, yeah, I didn't like that, we need to do it this way.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Instead, it's like, well, hold on, it was successful, yeah, but it could be better.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: It's like you know, you get this, you know design so well.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: We can keep getting better.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Just because you won at the weekend, it doesn't mean we should, we don't improve right, you know I get you.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: You say it's something that's interesting for at the moment.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I find it obviously deeply fascinating as well and, you know, I wonder, is a thing that makes us an athlete or successful in sport.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Does that mean we are honed for that feedback?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: We can take it so mentally, you know we have this aptitude to take it, whereas a general population, just like I, can't take that feedback yeah, I think it's probably two-pronged, isn't it?
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: it's it's being able to have that, that mental clarity that that feedback isn't isn't someone having a personal attack at you, that it's for a reason, it's because they're trying to make you better for one or in sport that's how I'd kind of see it and two, I guess then, from the other side, it's having the confidence to to pull people up and not not in a bad way, to say you know, look, ryan, like we need to stop doing this because it's not working, let's go and do something else.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Now you flip that, I guess, on its head.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: And in day-to-day world, or or in business and and work, it's maybe more geared towards people don't like giving that direct feedback, because there may be maybe they're worried about consequences, maybe they're worried about what might come of it, and and also that that ability of you know, if someone gives you direct feedback, do you, do you take it more of a what's kind of a bit of a personal attack on me?
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: It's just viewed very differently, would be my, my opinion of it yeah, I think.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you, I agree with you.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: In fact, there's a book I'm trying to remember it, I finished it a couple of months ago, but it it was called something like the Courage to be Disliked, and it is.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: It's like a series of stories, actually series of stories about you know how to get the courage to be disliked to get the courage to be disliked, and a lot of it is around feedback and interpersonal relationships, and it really rests on the view that actually all, most people want to be liked, and so, you know, you talk about the consequence of giving feedback.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like oh well, maybe they won't like it, okay, I'll tone it down and stuff, whereas it seems to be, or perhaps in the throes of a sport, a game, a team game or whatever it is.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: It's like we're playing together.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I don't care if you don't like me, just do it right and and we will win as a team.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: It's about the greats are good, not about you doing something wrong.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: It's we're in this together yeah, and you, and maybe I've always viewed it as well.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: People talk about the kind of superficial white line, don't they?
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: But you walk onto the pitch and you could have an informal way of saying a scrap with your own teammates and you're fighting your X, y, z, but you come off and you can still be best mates.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: You can.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: That's just the way it works, whereas away from sport it's uh, we've had an argument, so we're probably not going to now get on for the next six months that's right.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: I just told you what I thought.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know I didn't like it.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Get over it.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: We've done that, let's move on.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: So I think, look, maybe we need to draw a proverbial white line around kind of meeting rooms and things like that and use it like that, should Second Wind become to the extent where I've got offices and lots of employees and things like that, maybe in the meeting rooms I'll actually have like a pitch marking and it's like, right, when we cross this, it's all good, let's just go for it.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: No one can take offense within this, this space yeah, I like that, I like, I like that idea.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Um, well, I mean, look, so you know talking about then this, you know giving feedback and I suppose, what you have to leave behind when you think about where you are um today and the progressions that you've made in in your career, how do you think, how do you?
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: What have you brought with you?
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: What stuck with you, what are those attributes you think, as a player, that have continued to um, continue to help you progress um in a corporate?
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: yeah, and I think it's probably look you, you get the those kind of core skills that come with every sport and they, like you, know the interpersonal skills, the ability to take on feedback, like we've just discussed, that.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: You know the general attributes of of what is it like to get your head down and work hard and to know what you know how to to go through some kind of pain and and and hard periods.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Um, so those, just having those, are a massive benefit, I would say, and they help you out on a day-to-day basis all the time.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: More specifically, I'm not sure you know, ryan and it's hard because I think you'll see it obviously yourself with all the people you have have on here there are so many different skills that people have strengths, weaknesses, all that, all that good stuff, um, but it's how to just, I guess, lean more on some of these strengths and know how to manage those weaknesses and it's not shying away from them, I guess it's.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I've, you know, got some attributes I've learned in sport how do I really chuck them in the mix but also know areas I'm weak and not be afraid to admit it.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I mean, I really like that and it's funny as you're talking about it, and, as always, I relate this into sport.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I think of us as athletes and as players.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: And, yeah, I relate this into into sport, I think of us as as as athletes and as players.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't know what you were like as a you know playing, if you ever went as a front row, but you probably didn't.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: And so when we talk about but you wouldn't see, you suspect you wouldn't have seen your, your relative lack of height and size, as a weakness.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: It was well, I'm yeah, there's others who can do that, but you're not then going to focus on trying to build your strength to that of a prop.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: You're like, no, no, I can, I can support, I can, I'll build up my strength, but if I ever find myself first man in a ruck or whatever, I'm not quite going to go in the same way as a prop, would I'd you'd think of how you can?
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not a weakness, it's you'd think differently to get around that situation?
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: There's a different, there's almost a different purpose for you isn't there.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: It's, um, and you know people always joke about, don't they, rugby as a as a whole being a game for, for you know the all shapes and sizes type thing, and look, I absolutely agree.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: But I think that's in every sport.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: I think you know, unless you are a 100-metre sprinter, who you know your one goal is to run as fast as you can and that's what it's on right, everywhere, especially the team sports.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: You know there is so many.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: You talk about different individual attributes, but then it's.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: You know how's, how's the way the team playing, shaping around that and what's the strategy of the team?
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: it's yes, I mean, but what I would, what I would say is, when you talk about the 100 meters, I'd say that's in the sport of track and field yes, and so you know you, you'd better go and do something else, but I think that the the point where we're probably both looking for how to articulate it, but it is.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: It's about as athletes.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: It's playing to your strengths and and actually that same thing, and your weaknesses don't stop you achieving right.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: It's that focus on your strengths.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: And so when we move into that corporate world, it is well, focus on your strengths and let the strengths be the reason why you succeed, and it's not your weaknesses.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Now they'll probably come up with you right, yes, yeah.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Right, and it's more, perhaps more along that angle, where it's like, yeah, know what you're good at.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I guess we spoke before about that kind of defining yourself and don't let your environment dictate who you want to be, and it's very much aligned to that, I would say.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Especially, you spoke about people who say my example, going to the corporate world, it's not fixed walls, you don't have to because you walk in this building.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: You don't have to only behave like that and move away from your strengths because you, you only can do these three things.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: There is always an opportunity to bring your strengths to to the table, in whatever environment you're in.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Obviously, yeah, that's right.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: So what inspired you to get into mentoring and switch to play?
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: What was the inspiration behind that for you?
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: So it was very much a.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: So it came with Rob Young, who I know you said you've had some involvement with on this podcast before.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: So I think I just got chatting to Rob around, you know we probably had a very, very similar but short conversation, like we have, and he just got asking you know, what was it like when you moved away?
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: I said, you know, look, the RPA, the Rugby Players Association, which are doing a great job.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: Now back when I moved, they weren't what they are now, to put it bluntly, um, and especially if you're not a well-known household name player, um, so I just said, look at, you know, it was tough.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: It was tough when I moved.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: It was, it was challenging.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: And we got chat and he said, look, I'm, I'm running a program at the minute where it's aimed at athletes, individuals moving away from sport, and he mentioned a mentoring program and you know it just developed from that really, and look, those guys do some outstanding work with the cool thing about what they do is it's any sport?
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: It's anyone from any sport any background about what they do?
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: Is it's it's any sport, is anyone from any sport any background?
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: Um, and they've built a program that you know.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: They look at values, how you're managing your financial health, mental health, um, looking ahead at career planning, things like that, you know, or some really really kind of tangible, useful stuff, um, and they've built a program around those things to help athletes and and it it's all free.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Like these, these guys are getting some seriously good stuff all for free.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Um, and and rob said look, you know, would you be happy to to mentor on it?
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: You know you have a couple of mentees, a couple of people in the program and and you're checking in, you're helping them kind of go through these workshops and you know, can you help out on any of the challenges?
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I will, absolutely.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of where that came from, just a chat with Rob, really.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Which is great, and I guess Rob's a very persuasive chap, but well, yeah, I mean mean he comes across really well in that he.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: I guess what he he heard very quickly in you is perhaps a desire to be able to, you know, help others not to go through that same situation as you did and make a difference and and look, I think the thing that meant I didn't hesitate was I.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: I completely understand that it's not um, it's not a massive amount of time from my end, it's not a.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: It's not a large commitment at all.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: I was, I was very lucky when I moved, that you know, like we've spoken about my kind of support network my, my family, my friends, you know things like that but sometimes it can be as useful as having someone who's properly neutral, who you can just say what, what do you think of this?
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Just give me, give, give me your honest feedback of this.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's a good decision?
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's not?
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: And that that is sometimes what's the most useful thing in my eyes.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: So look, if if I can have someone that that reaches out with a text and and say look, I'm struggling with this.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: And my two-line response or my, my five minutes on the phone helps them out in some respects, then yeah, of course it will yeah, that is, that's great.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And well, when you think then, when you've got these young men and women in that career transition, just you know what sort of guidance, what sort of advice do you think they or what sort of advice do you give to them really?
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a fine line, isn't there, between kind of letting them lead the way.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: That's the big thing.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: They need to lead the way, it's their own path.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by that?
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Letting them lead the way, that's the big thing.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: They need to lead the way, it's their own path.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Letting them lead the way?
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: So, look, I don't think it's right for me or other mentors to say I think you should do this.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: You know that's something we've discussed as a group.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I've had my own experiences.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: I've had my way of building a career and things like that.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Theirs will be completely different and it's more of a.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: You know how do you ask the right questions, how do you get them to think about different things, to get them to challenge themselves such that you know they can become comfortable with what they're doing in themselves?
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: And again, coming back to that, you know, just playing that kind of non-biased, neutral party who, if you ask me a question, I'm happy to help.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting, though I think it's really interesting.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: You talk there about the role you know.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I ask what advice you give and you know what you're really saying is helping them to forge their own path yeah, yeah, and look it's.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: You know it's been a, it's been an experience for me, having not done much of mentoring myself in the past, and you know there's a couple of guys guys who switched to play at the minute, adam daniel um, fascinating guy in terms of his ability to mentor and coach, and you know working with him just around, how do you ask the right questions?
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: What do you do?
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: And you know he's led loads of that and you know it highlights some of the.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Was I maybe too influential in a response I gave there, or should I have been more?
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: You know, if this was me, I would have done that, but let's think about how it suits to your life, right?
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: now, which in itself is probably a good framing for those who because you've got those who listen to this show, who watch this show and they're doing it because they've got friends going through it and they're trying to figure it out and the whole reason I started this show was because athletes as athletes, we don't talk to one another enough about this.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: When we're going through it and when it happens to us, we literally often literally feel that I'm the first person this has ever happened to like this.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: No one else understands me, so what's the point in telling anybody else?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: But it's something that and it's kind of occurring to me now really, but one of the things that probably is going to be useful is helping athletes who are in it know how to support one another and ask one another their questions as well.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and look if you can build a kind of community off this that are happy to ask questions, to reach out to each other.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: You're 90% of the way there, aren't you?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: It's knowing you've got someone on the other end of the phone, if, if you need to.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: Right and that and when.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: And.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: I guess, when people say a sentence like that, they all, they automatically think of worst case scenario.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: You know, mental health struggling and things.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely not the case.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: It could be.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: It could be the case of you know, I've something's happened to me at work today.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: I'm a bit pissed off about it.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Like it's not a big thing.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: But if you're on your own and you don't sense check that with someone, you can mentally make it a big thing.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's right.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you today, how do you sort of regulate, how do you maintain sort of your wellbeing?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a purpose.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Having things on the side is important, things away from your day-to-day job is important.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: So look again, I'm dead lucky still with the family network.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: You can come home and vent to your missus and things like that and have you complaining, have you things like that?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: But I'm lucky.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: I still do my coaching, I still get to go down to the rugby club and you've got that classic camaraderie of 40 lads just getting together and joking around for an hour.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: So that's huge and you know it's something that you can have a really stressful day at work and you just make training at one minute to seven and you kind of you get to halfway and it's like your bad day never happened.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, you're just floating.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: By the end of it it's like, yeah, gosh, love this and I mean it's great.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: You know, there, it's that connection, it's that connection to the sport.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's one of the things, one of the an earlier guest mentioned, gavin.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: He spoke about that connection to the emotion and it's a feeling that we look for.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: You know, we got it with the field, we got it with 40 other lads, you know training, playing and it's looking for that emotion again and you know, getting that peace.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: It probably doesn't even have to be your sport.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: Like you know, people find it in going to the gym, people find it in going and doing their group classes and doing things like that.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Like it's probably that it's more that community element, isn't it?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: And it's like you said, with this podcast and the group that are on it, if there's a community of all like-minded individuals, like you know, there's a bit of power in it, isn't there?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Well, look, Tom, I've got to say thanks very much for joining me, sharing, sharing your story.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I found it really interesting just hearing your past, but some of your thoughts and you know and how you're operating today, it's been, it's been absolutely fantastic.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you, yeah, no, thank you for having me on it.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, it's been great to to chat through both from my end, um, and I think some of the work you're you're doing in this space is is outstanding.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: Great, tom, thanks very much.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the second win podcast.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out secondwindio for more information or to book a consultation with me.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Brook Design, nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions and Cerise from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: That's all from me.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Take it easy Until next time.