Latest / Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub / Ambition, Dreams and Getting Back Up: Neil Taylor on What It Really Takes

Transcript

Ambition, Dreams and Getting Back Up: Neil Taylor on What It Really Takes · Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Let Them Fly with me, Heather Harris.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you've ever wondered whether your channel is on the right path, this podcast is for you.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Each week we meet people whose journeys prove that success really follows a straight line.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And today I'm joined by former Premier League footballer and Wales International Neil Taylor.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: From early setbacks to playing on football's largest stages, Neil knows a thing or two about resilience.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about confidence, rejection, and the lessons sport can teach every child, whether they play football or not.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Neil, welcome to let them fly.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure to have you here and fellow countrymen.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, anyone from Wales is more than welcome.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Not that other people aren't, of course, but you know.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: We do stick together, don't we?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: We definitely do stick together.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me a little bit about you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Who are you?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, tell tell me a little bit about.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, I grew up in in North Wales in a little small village, uh Riffin, or a towel, shall we call it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and basically I went to school there.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up there my whole life.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I started playing football for Manchester City when I was seven years old.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to make that long trip, the big commitment for my parents to take me three times a week from about an hour and a half away from my house.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that commitment started in sport really, really young.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I almost went to a Welsh-speaking school.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: My parents wanted me to, but couldn't get me in.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I ended up going to a bilingual school in the end.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So picked up bits of Welsh along the way as well.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then basically, yeah, I was at Man City all the way up to the age of 15.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Then I got released and let go.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I guess we can talk about that a little bit in terms of rejection and what that's like socially as a 15-year-old within a school setting as well.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, finished school at 16, did the GCSEs, um, turned professional at Wrexham at 17 years of age.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone knows Wrexham now.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, before if I'd have said that eight years ago, people are like, who, where?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: But now they've they put them on the global stage, thankfully.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I was at Wrexham, moved to Swansea at 21 years of age, played in the Premier League for about nine years uh with Swansea and Aston Villa.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Couple of promotions along the way, played for my country uh at Euro 2016, got as far as the semi-finals, which is a great summer that everybody remembers if you're uh if you're Welsh.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um all night football.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: All night football, I suppose, yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then yeah, my career ended and it brought me out here um with the kids.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we came out.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I visited 14 schools.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know we're on the theme of that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: 14 schools.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Me and my wife trolled around in the July, July heat, trying to find the right one.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I began my coaching journey out here.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was coaching back with the Welsh national team and then got a job out here with a team in in Abu Dhabi.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's my yeah, that's my journey in a short anyway.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's very that was a real potted journey.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's an amazing journey.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think when did you know that football was something you were going to really sort of hyper focus on?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you don't you don't really know.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think when you get start getting picked at seven, eight years of age, you've got an awareness that maybe I am better than other people at this, but you don't really have an awareness that this is going to be my career.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think whenever people speak about like they have a dream of playing in the Premier League, I didn't have that.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know there was never a belief within me that like I want to be a Premier League footballer and I want to play for Wales and this, that, and the other.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was genuinely just like, I want to play well on Saturday.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was always that type of mindset, I think.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as I've gone through your career and as you get older, you realize sometimes people look for the mindset of being confident and be confident in what you do and be yourself and this, that, and the other.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I never was.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was always like, if a coach asks me to do something, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do what's best for the team.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make my mum and dad proud, and I don't want to let anybody down.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's not always the the right mindset to be thinking in for high performance, what people would tell you.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I really enjoyed being that person and it kept me going.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I think I realized around 12, 13 years of age that okay, I'm at Man City, this is that this is a big thing.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think when you're a bit younger, that's a little bit different.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then I got released at 15 and had to take huge rejection, a little bit of hatred for the gabe, really tough in a school setting because anybody that excels at something in a school setting, everybody in the school is aware of it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: The teachers will often go, how's football going?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they'll be football fans themselves.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And as a young person, that's tough to deal with.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: All the other kids know you as the footballer in the school, or he's gonna be a footballer when he's older.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that that period was really difficult for me.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I it's something I talk about a lot when I visit schools as well, that that period of life is so tough for young human beings.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: GCSEs, sometimes then you get to the stage at 17 and when you can drive, you start exploring your life and the world and everything.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: It all seems to come at one stage, especially, especially if you're um in sports as well.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: It all comes at that stage.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna make it or are you not gonna make it?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna get offered a scholarship?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna get offered a professional contract?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're in swimming, gymnastics, football, rugby, cricket, that tends to be that period of life all around GCSEs and A levels as well.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it comes at a really, really tough time.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I I loved football.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was close with cricket as well.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not great weather for cricket in Wales, actually, a lot of called off games.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but no, I loved I loved sports.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was always representing the school in athletics, everything, and it it was who I want.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Within my household, sport was always on the TV.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Extenders Coronation Street sport.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Were your parents sporty?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my dad liked cricket, my mum was like uh a runner and liked cricket and football.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if any anything was on, if Wimbledon's on, it's on the TV.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: If the test cricket's on, it's on the TV.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: If there's League Two football, Premier League football, it's on the TV.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I just remember sport being on the TV.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when we were young, everyone can remember that FA Cups being the big, the big thing.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's on every day for sport, isn't it?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can't get rid of it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: But uh back then it was always on our TV at least, yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And were your parents your great were they the people who influenced you into sport or where did where did the football come from?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had an older brother who liked football as well, and an older sister who played cricket and netball and football herself.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we're a really sporty family, and I was obviously the youngest of that, so I'm always competing with my older siblings.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what's your brother go and do?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Did he go?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, so my my brother was was good at football and didn't didn't quite make it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up going on to LSE in London and did really well in economics and now works in Toronto and a great family and a great life, really bright, and he's education-wise, he was probably the brightest out of the three of us as well in the family.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, really influenced probably by just the house being sports, really.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then what did training look like?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously, you don't just become good at football, you obviously have to train quite hard for it.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, so we it was three times a week training and then a game on a weekend.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So essentially, what I talk about like sacrifice for kids and what you give up, whilst it's great because it keeps you on the straight and narrow as a kid, you have something to aim for and it's something every week you're going for.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: I sacrifice, I missed all my friends' birthday parties, um, sleepovers that kids tend to have at each other's houses.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't do any of it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was always because I had a game coming, I had training coming, homework was done in the car, dinner was eaten in the car.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a huge commitment for my parents, but also from for myself.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what football did for me, it was great.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a school the other day, and and a little girl, so brave, she put her hand up and she said, Um, she said, Did you feel like you had to fit in when you were young and doing sports?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, she's asking that question because she's going through that right now.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: She was really young.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to her, Do you know what?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: When I first went to Manchester City at seven, eight years of age, it was the first time I seen inner city kids.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was the first time I met people that speak differently.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them had earrings in, playing, and they had stud earrings and they had gold boots and that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is this is completely different to anything I've seen in a small town in North Wales.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um it opened my eyes.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sport opened my eyes to just the world, really.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I did say to her, I talk a lot about uh in sport, how you have to be a you have to become somebody else when you play sport.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people say, be yourself, just be yourself, enjoy it.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to do that when you're in sports.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're not really enjoying it that much because you're nervous about how you're gonna perform.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I always felt I had to become somebody else when I played sport.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you knew me off the pitch to on the pitch, it's two completely different people.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think your personality has to come out, and that's what I trade tried to relay to her because I think she was asking the same thing around, you know, and I was the same.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I turned up in black boots and I was like, I don't fit in here.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I I can remember the same feeling she was having.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a great question.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, it it really helped me broaden my horizons playing sport.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It really did, it was so important to me.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: How do you handle it?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because obviously you became very well known for football.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: How do you handle your love as football, but all the sort of media coverage and social media and everything else that goes alongside it, how do you handle that?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, tough, really difficult, really difficult.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it got more and more difficult as social media grew during that period and mobile phones came about and stuff before that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: At the very beginning of my career, it was okay.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what happens then is is is it doesn't just become your community's opinion or the estate you live on that knows you, it becomes a world opinion of you.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: People that obviously don't know you, don't know your family, nothing like that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to learn to deal with that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's where the resilience comes in.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you and and you go through all these periods and then you you it does hurt you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I can remember when you were young, you sort of read like fans' forums and what are people's opinions of you.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was young, the newspaper used to rate you out a 10 every weekend.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh so obviously every Sunday you're picking up a newspaper and you're going, What have I got?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got a good idea when you've played well, so you go, Oh, they were a bit harsh, they only give me eight.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was a nine or a ten.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know when a four or five's come in and you're like, so it's it's not easy.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you become that that person, you are the guy that's the footballer in the area, you are the one that everyone thinks is going to become famous, this, that, and the other.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So dealing with it's difficult, but you you build that resilience up just through the experiences.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that must be particularly hard coming from a smaller town in Wales where everybody knows everybody.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that must be really tough because even now I suspect you go back and you're still the footballer.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it can be, yeah, it can be like that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think as I've got older and I have kids and that, people appreciate that I am just a normal human being.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think when you are playing Premier League, it's a little bit different.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the the good thing for me is coming from a small town, or the hard thing, should I say, is I had to leave a lot of friends behind when I turned professional because what a professional athlete does at 16 to 21 years of age to somebody that's finishing school and going to university, I took two completely different lifestyles.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it ended up just not, it ended up not marrying up with the people who I've been friends with for 10 years.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that's another one of those sacrifices that I had to make, unfortunately, was to leave some people behind, which I think is normal for everybody in life sometimes.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I had to make that that transition, which is tough.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Still my friends, but we can't do the same things anymore.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't carry up.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and and very careful, I guess, about what you do do as well.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all the things that they go out and do and explore the world and have fun at that age, which probably kids are supposed to.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people talk about athletes sort of having a robbed childhood, you know, because we maybe haven't experienced all the things that kids, like I said, there about sleepovers and parties and going out to play with my friends after school and stuff like that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was all very much geared towards my football.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you just have to make major sacrifices, which is it's which is a family thing, by the way.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: The parents as well have to make the sacrifice and it does become it does consume your whole family.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and I'm sure for your parents that shows real dedication for them to drive you three times a week.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's a lot.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do it without them, yeah.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And do your children play football?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my my kids, my my daughter's a horse rider um out here.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: One of my other lads is big on paddle, actually.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So me and him play paddle quite a lot and football.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my other daughter's a gymnast.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so she does acro and dancing and stuff like that.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So a whole range of stuff.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just try and be the same as as my parents were, which is supportive.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was no there's no long conversations in the car on the way home after a game about how I played or what I thought, no judgment.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: They always said good luck, and then on the way home, no conversation around the game.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still a young child, and I think that helped me.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Not all kids get that support from the parents, they get judgment and they get an opinion.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, sometimes from parents, you haven't done it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't have the right to judge your own kids.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're just coming at it from an angle of a fan.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the that's the thing parents have got to be really, really care cautious of is B, you need to be that secure ness for your kid.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: They need to be able to confide in you, tell you everything, lean on you.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Really, really important.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Don't become like everybody else as a parent and judge your child.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really interesting piece of advice.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when you play paddle with your son, are you very competitive?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we are very competitive.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I always am.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of can't leave that behind.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um, I spoke to my paddle coach about this actually again, because I when I play sports, you have to become somebody else.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, you lose five, 10% of your ability to give what the best of you is.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I try and play casually and have fun.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, very difficult, but I think that them years of competing, I'm sort of slowing down and coming away from it a little bit, trying to enjoy it a bit more.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is he better than you?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think he will be, yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because he started at an earlier age.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I only discovered paddles since moving it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: But um, no, and I love it.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it should become part of the curriculum, and schools should put them in and get kids to do it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's great.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you mentioned earlier on about rejection from Manchester City.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: What did that rejection do to you?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Really difficult.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had a really tough summer.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember just sort of going, I've had enough of this.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like to have to have been at this club for eight years and then just be seen as disposable and just left behind was.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Did you see that coming?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: You do see it coming.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we even now, because now I'm a head coach, I have to do it myself now.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I have to let people go.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've I let players go this summer at been at been at the club for 14 years.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's been part of their life.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's really difficult, but we always say no surprises.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't want them to come to the end of that year.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess it's the same as schools.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to be having a conversation with a parent, a kid at the end of the year, and it comes as a complete surprise to them.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: That means you haven't done your job and let them know in January, at the beginning of the season, that it's gonna be difficult, it's gonna be tough, they need to get better at this and that.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so um that was done.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you do have an idea, but still, as a 40-50 year old, you're not you've got no real awareness, you just think it's gonna be okay.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've always been here, so I'm always gonna be here.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that did come as a real shock.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: That summer was a real big resilience for me to try and it's a real turning point, and many, many footballers don't don't make that adjustment, they don't come through it, and that's why they they don't make it, unfortunately.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you when you finished um with with Manchester City, obviously you you mentioned that you got it was quite a knock to your love of football.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: What kept you going?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: What made you come back to the game?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think you just have to go through that.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the process of grieving, isn't it?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have to go through that process of first being angry, um, then you come around to it a little bit and feel sorry for yourself, and then you just start playing again.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just start playing again.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I went back, I was playing with the school, I started playing locally.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I said I don't want to travel anymore.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: What's the dearest club?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was Wrexham to me.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I went there and played.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just being accepted, I think.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when I went there on trial, and after a week they go, Oh, we want you.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's that feeling of I'm back a little bit, you know, like somebody wants me again because the end of the beginning of that summer before was the rejection.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody then again wanting me, yeah, sort of brought that love back a little bit.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then you just go through that process.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: We all go through it, don't we?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: The knockbacks and I call it fall forwards, don't get knocked down, just fall forwards.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that was a big thing for me.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I learned and it and it followed me throughout my career.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: I get injured, I get left out of the team by managers, I get clubs wanting to sell me.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um that that happened for the next 17 years of my career, but I was luckily I built up that resilience from a young age, yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm obviously I don't follow football, okay?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: So just to put it out there, just in case when a club's going to sell you, how does that, what does that mean for you as a person?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, same thing.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they're going, well, we're we're gonna let you go, or we're thinking about selling you because clubs approached.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, luckily I was only at three clubs for 15 years, so what I did well at the places I was at.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you go, Well, I've got kids in school here, I've got a house, I've got, you've got to deal with it, you've got to pick up, you've got to move.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: You literally have to move your family then.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you can move yourself and bring your family later, obviously.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can do that, but then that means being apart from your family.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Dad's just left the house suddenly and gone in the space of a day.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: It can happen sometimes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's the world of football.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just is, it's the way it is.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Some people moved a lot more often than me, but again, it's that feeling of rejection from one, but then being wanted from another.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you sort of have to go through that phase again um of going through that process.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and and you move on, you've got to move on quickly, like I said, fall forward, that's it.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you came out here, what what attracted you to come out to Jabai?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so even when I was a player, I actually always wanted to play abroad.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my family were open to playing and living abroad, actually.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then COVID happened, so I couldn't.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: The latter years of my career where I wanted to play abroad was during COVID.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone was in bubbles and nobody was going anywhere.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I couldn't do it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when I finished my career, I said, let's do it.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go and live abroad.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to buy tick boxes in terms of uh the curriculum for the kids, uh, everybody's English speaking, good healthcare.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So many things tick the boxes, and we decided to to give it a go.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's been four four years, yeah.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And what what's the future plan looking like?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: The future plan for me is just you know, I really enjoy um, I I go around doing various talks about and they're quite they're quite contradiction, contradictory, actually, because I I do talks about being part of the 1%.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get to being part of the 1% and high level?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: What's required to do it?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I do talks about sleep.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sleep is a big thing I study during my my pro license and how it affects all of us in the workplace.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then also about um how your performance isn't you.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So how you perform, if you're a teacher in the school, how you perform to the kids and deliver that class doesn't necessarily mean it's who you are outside of work.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Detaching yourself from your performance.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: If I've had a bad game on a Saturday, it can't be who I am through to the next Friday because I'll end up bringing it home.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: It will affect house life.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you are not your performance is a big thing for me in terms of um helping people to understand that it's okay to be someone different at work and different at home.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have to produce something else to perform in life and two different things.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: How did you learn this mindset?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm quite fortunate throughout my career to obviously work with psychologists at work at football clubs, and then something you go through through yourself in terms of you realize once I have kids, my performance on a Saturday, Saturday's a big day for me, every Saturday.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some people's jobs will get judged quarterly, yearly, at the end of the contracts.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I get judged every single weekend.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I have to be able to deal with it.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: If I've had a bad game, there's gonna be a big come down from it, you know, and there's pressure on me.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: But then Sunday morning I've got to be dad again, I've got to be somebody else for my kids, somebody else for my wife.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I had to learn to be two different people.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the way I behave at work and demand from people and push is not how I'm gonna be over my kids' shoulders doing their homework.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it doesn't work in in two different environments.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm quite big on doing that and helping people.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think anxiety is quite a big thing in kids.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's been a boom in it.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in in I don't like using the word depression too much, but I think anxiety and finding things difficult and the online battle they have to have, disconnecting yourself from who you are in the real world to what social media wants you to be.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's two different things.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: They have to be able to understand.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of kids now are creating content, which is great, it's fine.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: But that you on that content is you've got to disconnect it from who you need to be in real life.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to find that clear, clear definition of the differences.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um, especially when you're working in in high performance, you have to be able to switch on, switch off like that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and live every moment, you know.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: I talk to, I can remember as a little kid, coaches would always say, make sure your first pass is good, make sure you win your first tackle, make sure you win your first header, you know?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and then as you do that, you realize all you've done is created an anxiety around that.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it I I think it relates a lot to exams and stuff for that, you know, the terminology you use is so important.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't win my first tackle, does that mean I'm not gonna win my next one?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is that gonna determine my whole thing?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: That trajectory then, yeah.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've set myself a precedent and and it I've set myself up to fail essentially by saying that because I might lose my first editing.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: My first pass might go off the pitch.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: 30,000 are gonna boo me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have to move on quickly.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's it's really important for kids to learn them skills as well in terms of how to move on from things, good and bad.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Even if your first pass is really good, yeah, the next one might not be.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be able to make that process and go through it and move on and move on and move on quickly.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: It always fascinates me in sport in that you know you start off as this sort of very eager child on a muddy football field or rugby field, playing with two or three people watching, and to what you've just said, crowds of 30,000.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's quite daunting, really.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but nothing changes because you I can still remember as a as a young kid, there's still the parents shouting, even if there's 10 of them.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's still one parent shouting, you still get the coaches aside to commentate through the game, talk you through the whole thing and talk and talk and shout and shout and do close your mind the negative things.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you close your mind to the size of the crowd?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, you can't you can't close your mind to it.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is this is quite essential in in mentality as well.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: People just say things that afterwards, oh, forget about it if you had a bad game.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, just forget about it.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can't forget about it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, that in fact the opposite happens.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have this um, we do this this practice sometimes uh with the kids, and I say, you know, I'll talk about the elephant and the elephant and the elephant, and I'll say, Don't think about the elephant.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what's everybody thinking about it?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's a big it's a big thing in terms of learning and people have to learn to accept these things.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't forget about it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can't you have to accept that you've had a bad performance, but it's not who you are.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Last week I played well.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Friday I trained really, really well.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And next week is still gonna be we don't know.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's just about helping people go through them processes.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: I really love.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Doing it.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I love seeing people have that eureka moment and they understand themselves better.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I enjoy doing that.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy doing the talks, and they're two separate ends of the spectrum.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think what I came to for the 1% and how to get to be in the best is a certain behaviour, but also being able to detach that from who you are as a person is is almost opposite end stuff.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's working with people to help them through that.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I really enjoy.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And what would you say to obviously lots and lots of boys want to be professional footballers, I mean boys and girls these days.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say to them now?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sacrifice.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: You have to make sacrifices.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: The choices, the choices that you make will determine it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it has to be a love.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be a love.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember always having a football at my feet.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and this is why I say to parents as well, don't push the children if you don't think they've got a deep love for it.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: My love was there and it was influenced by nobody.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody made me play football.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: My parents always said, if I ever said the words, I don't want to go trading today, they wouldn't have taken me.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the words never came out of my mouth, you know.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's the key for me.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was a deep love.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I enjoyed competing.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: That was a big thing.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Some kids are really good at something when it comes to match day and competing, it they they go into their shell a little bit.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it's for the little kid out there, the first thing is when you're young is enjoy it and master the skills, master the master the foundations of what you're gonna need in the future.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the the main thing is to to try and enjoy it and play with your smile on your face and accept the bad and the good that comes.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, I'm saying enjoy it and play with a smile on your face.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: When you miss an open goal, there is you don't turn around with the thing.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no enjoyment then though.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: But just absorb all of that, all of them feelings that come with sport.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what you get, what you learn from sport is the most important thing to be able to work as teammates, to deal with different types of coaches.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: You have to listen to um everything you get from sport is gonna it fully rounds your childhood alongside education.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's the main thing is learn the foundations and be prepared to sacrifice if you're serious about it.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we could sit and talk all day, not just because you're Welsh, but because I'm just loving the conversation that we're having.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I have one final question, and unfortunately we've run out of time, but one final question.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Knowing everything you know today, if you could give your seven-year-old self one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would just be uh to it would be to have more confidence.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think it sounds silly for somebody who was chosen by a club to play and part of the 1% of people in the world that ended up playing football.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd like to have had more arrogance in my game in terms of I am a good player.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to go out with that sort of feeling all the time.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I often thought throughout my career that like the fear of failure drove me to have the career I did because I never wanted to lose it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I never wanted the club to sell me.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want my family to have to move house and that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I was always driven by that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to be the other way around.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to be full of confidence all the time and be driven by that and have some confidence in, yeah, you've been picked from as a city.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Show it, play use that confidence.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the main thing for me would be is um bring other people on the journey with you.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you when you become um that individual that excels at something, you can sometimes go a little bit introverted.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think bring people on the journey with you.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Get everybody to enjoy it with you, with your parents, remind them how thankful you are of of what of what they did for you, etc.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't change anything because it it shaped everything.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I would just like I'd like that young lad to have more confidence.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Go for it, go for it.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, lovely.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for amazing conversation, Neil.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, hopefully we will do this again in the future.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: And in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us on live.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me on.