86: Dylan Gray - From Rugby Fields to Tech Entrepreneurship and the Birth of Neo eX

Have you ever witnessed the raw determination of an athlete as they pivot from fierce competition on the field to the cutthroat arena of business? That's the gripping tale Dylan, our fearless guest, unfolds. His journey from a tenacious rugby player to an innovative entrepreneur at the helm of Neo eX is nothing short of inspiring. As he recounts the meticulous discipline he carried from the rugby pitch to the tech world, you can't help but be drawn into the parallels between scoring tries and navigating the startup ecosystem. Dylan's narrative is more than just a story of career transition; it's a playbook on harnessing the grit of sports for business success.

Through the lens of Dylan's multifaceted life, we peel back the layers of what it means to balance diverse passions - rugby, acting, and academics - and still find your footing. The conversation takes us on an exciting sprint through his early days of juggling multiple roles, the serendipitous scholarship that led him to the professional rugby fields of Europe, and the mentors who steered his course. His tale is a testament to the idea that the path less traveled, while fraught with hard choices and sacrifices, can lead to enriching life experiences that shape us beyond our expectations.

But what comes after the final whistle blows on a sports career? For Dylan, it was a period of introspection and a quest for meaningful engagement, culminating in the creation of Neo eX. Wearing the dual hats of founder and CEO, he tackles the challenges of chronic pain and identity loss with the same vigor once reserved for opponents on the rugby field. His story isn't just about personal reinvention; it's a masterclass in setting micro-goals and fostering community through technology. So, lace up your boots, and prepare to be moved by a saga of resilience and rebirth in the tech arena.

Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out https://www.2ndwind.io/

Connect with Dylan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylgray/
Website: https://www.neoex.io/

Transcript

Dylan Gray: 0:00

Rugby was a challenge. Yes, I found success early on with it, but on a broader scale, I was playing rugby union in a minnow state, a state where rugby was not important. It was easy art to succeed because the playing pool was less than other places. And after going to nationals at under 16s, I got a real lens on the level of talent and development that was happening in the other states that we just didn't have. I didn't have a gym program in Victoria and got to nationals and saw these guys that look like men and I still felt like a boy. So I think that was the level of okay, well, this is a big challenge. Acting never felt like a challenge to me. It was something that I was natural to and didn't feel like I had to work very hard for it. So when I really looked back at it, I think it was just the fact that one was a bigger challenge and I decided to pursue the one that felt not as easy.

Ryan Gonsalves: 0:53

Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalves and welcome to a 2ndwind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story. Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations. Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty. Elite athletes are still people after all. Let's be inspired by the stories of others. Dylan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I am looking forward to our conversation, if anything because your rugby career, how that formed, but certainly where you've got yourself today, the space that you're in and, from what I gather, the way you're going about it. I think it's really interesting and probably a lot of lessons for people listening to be able to take away. I'm excited to share Brilliant. So just for everyone who, whatever reason, don't know who you are, just tell us what are you up to today?

Dylan Gray: 1:56

So I'm currently the founder and CEO of a company called NeoX, so we're basically an authority in wearables. So what is wearables? It's your Apple Watch, fitbit, garmin, polar any smart device essentially falls under that wearables category. And so what we're really doing, what does it mean to be authority in wearables? In a practical sense? We've created an opportunity so that if you have a Fitbit and I have a Garmin, that we can have a shared experience. So at its sort of base, core level, that's really what we're doing. It's a noisy market.

Dylan Gray: 2:28

Wearables, for the last three years running, has been the number one fitness trend globally. So it's a rapid growth, hyper scaling industry in itself. And yeah, I guess my vision for NeoX was to kind of cut through that noise and create meaningful engagements by connecting the data across those devices and then providing that business to business. So, yeah, we're kind of, I guess, working across a few different verticals and the sort of the pain point there was the connection of that data. That's really the problem that we're solving.

Dylan Gray: 2:58

The businesses that we're working with across health, fitness, wellness and the sporting landscapes all were facing the same problem. There was this incredible market of data that was becoming available as wearables were becoming more popular, but they didn't have the expertise or capacity to start capturing that data and, in particular, capturing it in a meaningful way. So we sort of set about solving that problem and created a platform that connects all of the wearable devices into a single source of data without getting too technical, then using that data to create meaningful engagement, and so it's sort of in our industry, become a bit of a dirty word. But gamification taking the data and gamifying that experience, your Strava-esque type experiences, and really just giving businesses the capacity to drive engagement through data.

Ryan Gonsalves: 3:49

Yeah, that sounds really fascinating. Myself a bit of a I'll say a bit of a data geek or an experienced geek. In that it sounds absolutely brilliant.

Dylan Gray: 3:59

Really does.

Ryan Gonsalves: 4:00

What's your role in that today?

Dylan Gray: 4:02

So I really sort of at this point in the business we've got sort of eight FTE full-time equivalent staff and then another four that are sort of more project based and we're still very much an early stage business at sort of that three and a half year mark. So I really sort of touch every part of the business. There's sort of in the last six to 12 months I'd say I've gotten to a point where I'm a little bit handoff or trying to be hands off in some areas of the business, particularly around product development, got a really strong technical team I've been blessed with that since day one and a great head of product. So I guess the founder journey is learning when to let go of certain bits and pieces. But yeah, look, I'm ultimately the face of the business. I'm the one that's heading to industry events and generating the majority of the leads and the opportunities for partnership. And then overall strategy and vision of the business is where my strength lies. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm still pretty much doing everything.

Ryan Gonsalves: 4:55

So trying to learn to let go, and well, it sounds like there's a team that's formed you know, full time, project based, and recognizing where you're the specialist and where they're actually able to bring more value to the table.

Dylan Gray: 5:09

Definitely, and I think that that is a skill within itself that you, I think from an athlete mentality is. We're always taught to sort of look to our strengths but then develop our weaknesses, and I think in business I've definitely learned that focusing on your strengths gets you the quick results. But if you can develop your weaknesses, particularly as a senior executive or as a founder, then that really helps you. I think being a jack of all trades to an extent is something that's really helpful when you, when you're looking to succeed and perform. But definitely letting go and trusting people with responsibility and a sense of autonomy is something that over the again more so the last six to 12 months that I've seen some real results in that concept of letting go that I think is pretty relevant in multiple aspects in life is something that.

Ryan Gonsalves: 5:56

I'm seeing results from yeah, that's interesting, I think you know. For me to understand that I was saying that a slightly different way. It's jack of all trades but it's more being aware of what's taking place across the business. And there's a phrase from I think it was must be CSI Miami or something like that trust but verify. So it's build this a culture of trust, recognizing where you need other people to come in and do the work, but know just enough so that you can verify that it's that right standard and the you know the right things are taking place.

Dylan Gray: 6:27

No enough to be dangerous. Yes, I like that.

Ryan Gonsalves: 6:31

So taking that you mentioned that athletic mindset. So, let's just go back a bit towards you, then, in terms of sport and that athleticism. What was that for you? Maybe going through school? Where did you start to recognize? Actually, I like sport, things might take off.

Dylan Gray: 6:46

I think it goes back quite young. For me, an identical twin and in a family of two sets of twins and for the majority of people out there, when you're not a twin it's pretty special and the odds of just having a twin are quite small, and then having two sets of twins even smaller. So mum was a superhero and always says that if she had IVF she would have had a football team. So that experience I think is really relevant to me around that athlete mindset, because I grew up in a competitive household. Having someone by your side 24 seven naturally leans you towards being competitive and that's if you're reaching for the extra bread roll or racing to get first in the shower. So as far as I can remember, is probably where that athlete mindset kind of started to develop. But the actual connection to sport for me was probably that first time that I felt like I'd achieved something and had success in it.

Dylan Gray: 7:39

I think that I loved being out in the backyard with my brother and running into each other and throwing the ball around and getting dirty all the kind of things that you do as a young kid. But I think the first time my dad was doing some work in New Zealand, grew up around loving AFL and fell in love with rugby union through the time that he was spending in New Zealand and he came back to Australia after a trip one time and a guy that he'd been working with was the president of the juniors at a local rugby club and suggested that we come down, because his son was the same age and it kind of just flowed from there and my brother and I played three games of rugby and then had an opportunity to go down to the state trials and managed to get into the team. That, for me, was the turning point. It was like here's something that I'm good at and here's a challenge.

Ryan Gonsalves: 8:24

So I guess that's the probably the long answer to where I found my attachment to sport, yeah, and you've spoke about it there, that Finding something you're good at and starting to get this sense of achievement that sounds like we're still doing that with your brother as well, yeah, definitely, yeah, and there's still a very competitive environment.

Dylan Gray: 8:43

I think it's probably in a more mature way, I hope at this age, but yeah, it's definitely. Maybe it probably at the moment we could find ourselves just going down to a Local basketball court and the competitive nature can still pop out there or have the gym or anything like that. Even at the pool, we swim a lot together, so that still brings the best out of us. We've also one of the twin sisters is an elite endurance athlete, and so between the three of us there's still a lot of, let's just say, household competitiveness.

Ryan Gonsalves: 9:11

Yes, yeah, I like that. So when you kicked into rugby, your dad comes home, gives you the ball. You go to the state trials and suddenly it's like, oh wow, we're good at this. Yeah what sort of aspirations formed in terms of where rugby might take you.

Dylan Gray: 9:25

I don't do things in halves. I never have, and I'm definitely someone who becomes pretty obsessive with things, as does my identical twin, and so that character trait pretty much meant from. I remember getting the letter of acceptance into the state team, and it was from that day that I was. There, was the green and Gold. There was nothing less that I wanted to do, and from that moment I would take any opportunity I could to Make life about rugby and that would be sleeping with a footy to getting an English essay and finding a way to write about rugby, literally any opportunity to talk about it. Live, breathe it was rugby.

Ryan Gonsalves: 9:59

What did that mean? So academically, so as a team coming through school? How did you find the balance?

Dylan Gray: 10:07

Yeah, it was a challenge. I, if I look at the first, my brother and I had a bit of an interesting path through school because when we were 15, sort of, I guess the family history is that my, my mother and father were both Actors and so the arts was a really strong part of our family life and my brother and I went to an Event that was a. It was a showcase. I think I was a cabaret that my sister was in and her agent was there and met us and sort of said all Twins are sort of rare and if you guys think you can act, I'd love to send you a couple of auditions. And so she sent us to an audition and the first audition we went to we got and we actually left school in Year 9 and went and filmed the television series for Disney Channel 7, and Until then I was borderline excelling, I would say.

Dylan Gray: 10:54

I was always kind of an a or there about student and that kind of shifted for me. Once I was sort of Balancing rugby, acting and what was a full-time job and then studying remote. So we had an educator that was on set and there was nine of us main characters, and all of them, apart from one Were of school age. That, for me, was probably where my academic career started to head a little bit in the other direction and I found from that moment and maybe some of that was also just through a sense of maturity and also the way I look at it now anyway, and I'm sure my teachers will say different but if I liked the subject from there on in, I did well, if I didn't, I didn't. And that was the result of my, my VCE, my end of school Results were very much and my English was strong. My maths was not so much my I can't remember what the exact name of the class was, but the equivalent of phys ed was excellent.

Dylan Gray: 11:44

My drama was excellent but overall I definitely saw an academic decline once I had that much distraction.

Ryan Gonsalves: 11:50

Well, that's a lot of things to do, yeah, and I think many young athletes Often excel in different areas you know, what you've just described is well, there's an, there's an intelligence, but there's also this ability for drama that comes through and, of course, sports.

Dylan Gray: 12:04

Yeah.

Ryan Gonsalves: 12:05

Did you think you'd be able to take all three or maybe the acting and the sport to that next level?

Dylan Gray: 12:12

Yeah, I think that, and Probably a bit of an attitude that I got from both of my parents, was sort of dream, big and just belief, and so at that point Definitely thought that I could take both of them as careers. And it was probably I think it was, year 11 that my brother and I then got an opportunity in another program that went on to be very successful, called weird science with Disney, and we had to turn that one down because they wouldn't let us write rugby into our contract, and so that was kind of the crossroads for me in particular. My brother still did a couple of other sort of guess roll stuff, blue healers and other bits and pieces. I sort of that was the first point of you can't actually do everything, you're gonna have to pick something here and really commit and sort of double down, and and that's what I did and I focused on rugby from there.

Ryan Gonsalves: 12:54

How did you make that?

Dylan Gray: 12:55

decision. I think for me, rugby was a challenge. Yes, I found success early on with it, but on a broader scale, I was playing rugby union in a minnow state, a state where rugby was not important. It was easy art to succeed because the playing pool was less than other places. And After going to nationals at under 16s, I got a real lens on the level of talent and development that was happening in the other states that we just didn't have. I didn't have a gym program in Victoria and got to nationals and saw these guys that look like men and I still felt like a boy. So I think that was the level of okay. Well, this is a big challenge. Acting never felt like a challenge to me. It was something that I was Natural to and didn't feel like I had to work very hard for it. So when I really look back at it, I think it was just the fact that one was a bigger challenge and I decided to pursue the one. That felt not as easy.

Ryan Gonsalves: 13:48

It's interesting that that challenge that just kicks in, yeah, and that competitive edge that you talk about, means, actually, I want something that's going to push me. So where did it push you? To what I mean? What happened next?

Dylan Gray: 14:00

so I was in my final year of schooling at school in Melbourne and I, my brother and I, were playing first 15 and we had a wallaby that had recently retired through quite a significant injury it's his neck and he was, I guess, still under contract and doing some different bits and pieces traveling around and he came down to a game. Did we get speaker for us at a Jersey presentation for us and I guess just saw something in my brother and I and cut a long story short is someone that I consider now a big brother To this day and someone has been a special mentor in my life and he created an opportunity for us to go on scholarship and move up to Queensland and that was very much the goal of ours. So it just fit. Our goal was to put ourselves in the bigger pool and see if we could swim, and so we sort of took that scholarship opportunity and went up and did a 13th year out of school in Brisbane and that was kind of the beginning of, I guess, really seeing if we had the capacity to achieve what we wanted to achieve.

Dylan Gray: 14:56

And so that relationship was connected with University of Queensland as well at the Red Heavies, which is still, if I get asked what my rugby club is, I've played for six different clubs but that's the kind of one that you're aware, with, I guess, a bit of love and affection, and the one that feels more connected to.

Dylan Gray: 15:10

I'll always be proud that I was a heavy. It's a great rugby club and great community and I've got a lot of lifelong friends out of that club and so it was lucky enough to debut when I was 19 for Prem's there and then got an opportunity to go overseas through a guy called John Connolly who was well of his coach at the time and he essentially caught up for coffee with him one day and he was able to facilitate me getting an agent and kind of had that probably harsh reality at that point where if I was going overseas I was potentially walking away from the dream of the Green and Gold here and I think that I probably for the first time then looked at that balance of this is going to be an incredible life experience. It's still going to be a huge challenge. Ended up taking that opportunity and moving over to Europe to, I guess, begin what was my professional sporting career.

Ryan Gonsalves: 15:56

So there was a recognition there on that level of talent that you had compared to the bigger pool. So it sounds like you saw moving overseas as a way to continue to live a dream on being a professional rugby player. Yeah, unsure as to whether or not that would mean a full cap and going the full way.

Dylan Gray: 16:15

Totally, I think, unsure of whether I was good enough, and I think the self belief was definitely there, but there was just the nature of am I physically able to compete at the top level with the gifts that I've been given, beyond skill set? And I think for me that was a chance that well, if I go overseas, I'm going to have a full time focus on this. If I stay in Australia, I'm not currently on a full time contract. I'm going to have to fight for that, and what I really needed, having grown up in a minnow state, was to be developed. I needed time in the gym. I needed that physical support. That was the difference between me and the people that were around me that were getting selected on contracts.

Ryan Gonsalves: 16:54

It's interesting. I'm just listening to you there and you know a lot of this is about dreams and it's about the goals that we set ourselves and in some respects, there were two that you spoke of there, one playing for the country and two being a professional rugby player and perhaps when we're younger, they're all together and it's the one, it's the one thing, yeah, Whereas it comes to a point where actually it separates. What was the hardest thing for you when making that decision.

Dylan Gray: 17:22

I think that what I realized around that time was that I wanted to do what I loved, full time, and I wanted to see how far I could push myself, and I think that's what really helped me make a decision. That did, to an extent, feel like I was giving up on part of a dream, and you're right, because all of that feels like one at the time. But I think I had some foresight even then around the fact of my dream is to just be a full time professional rugby player and wanting to achieve that, and I remember that feeling when you're filling out the exit card, customs and being able to write that as my job, your occupation, professional athlete is. It's a special thing and at any level it's not a lot of people achieve that, and so that for me was probably what was the deciding factor Sitting back and saying, hey, you're not giving up on a dream because that can still happen.

Dylan Gray: 18:15

Plenty of people go overseas and come back and they find their growth and achieve overseas and then come back to Australia and might get their first super rugby cap when they're in their mid 20s, or plenty of different stories, plenty of different paths that you can walk. So I definitely told myself that, but really just committed to the fact that I wanted to experience life as a professional athlete.

Ryan Gonsalves: 18:32

So you went overseas, a bit like from Victoria to Queensland, and you got to see the sort of the bigger picture. And here going from Australia, then going over to Europe. How did that change your perspective on what you wanted to be and where you wanted to go?

Dylan Gray: 18:46

I mean. I think it changes your perspective on everything. I think travel is just the greatest gift and still something that I love doing and something that anyone that I meet that hasn't done of any age, that I'm always pushing people to experience. And so I mean I got over. My first contract was in the Spanish Premier League, which wasn't the highest standard of rugby, but had some great players floating around and some X internationals and so you had sort of some high standard games and then you had some games that were probably the equivalent of a reserve grade in Queensland, all within the same league.

Dylan Gray: 19:16

It was a developing country and still is a developing country for rugby union. But the experience of landing in a country where you don't speak the language at all and getting dropped off at the hotel that I was to live in and have sort of four hours before I needed to be at the club for presses and get kitted out and all that kind of stuff and sort of just told we're heading to town, get your groceries buses here.

Dylan Gray: 19:40

I learnt more about myself in that first month than I had in probably six years prior straight out of my comfort zone and also just from a, I guess, a learning perspective, was the experience of being in another culture but then being pushed to at least become conversation in another language was was just so eye opening and for me there was so much gratitude around the risk that I'd taken because I was just having this incredible life experience.

Dylan Gray: 20:06

And that was probably the point for me where I started to look at rugby as an opportunity that was far greater than just the game. It was an opportunity to gain life experience and do something that not a lot of people my age were doing. The majority of my mates were back at university, at least half of them studying something they didn't really want to be studying because the school systems had pushed them to all go to university straight away. And that's just what you do building HexDat and again probably half at least dropping out year two or year three or at least changing to another degree. And I had the opportunity to get to know myself whilst doing some part time study through that period and I honestly couldn't recommend that more highly to anyone that's not completely sure on, I'm going to say, the first career, not the career that they're heading for because let's be honest, we're all going to have multiple careers in this day and age.

Dylan Gray: 20:56

Some of those will overlap, some of them parallel, but gone are the days of just one career, that's very true.

Ryan Gonsalves: 21:03

Yeah, there's a lot of change in it. You know, you get in yourself into the positions, or put yourself in a position where you had to learn. You know, and you took a big challenge, a big opportunity by moving overseas, and it sounds like that was when we actually went by yourself. So it's your first time playing experience in life then, without your twin, without your brother right, that was huge. Yeah, that was huge.

Dylan Gray: 21:23

Yeah, I mean, we got chronic fatigue when we're about 18 and we spent three months apart then. Before that, we hadn't spent more than seven days apart our entire life. So that was also a big growth period of just experiencing life on my own, which sounds a bit funny to the average person, but it's just. That was my experience. My experience was that there was always someone else there.

Ryan Gonsalves: 21:44

What do you think you picked up during that time, overseas that is?

Dylan Gray: 21:49

helping you. Today. There's definitely an element of resilience needed when not only just being a professional athlete, whether you're overseas or you're in your backyard, but there's almost an innate sense of I found of loneliness that comes with that challenge and maybe again that's accelerated because of the fact that I'm going to nickel, twin and hyper aware of of loneliness, but you are, it's a big challenge that you're facing and you're doing it all on your own. Really, when it comes down to even team environment, the community is what drives you. But when you're someone that's, in my experience, was jumping around from different clubs and not getting a lot of consistency through injury and gets pretty tough and I think that that really was a positive experience for me.

Dylan Gray: 22:36

I think we grow the most in the pain and those times of feeling frustrated with injury. And I had sort of nearly half a season when I was playing in the UK where the weather was the worst in a hundred years, the worst winter in a hundred years. I remember seeing on the front page of the paper and we had pitches frozen over. My contract was very much focused around that was a semi-professional contract, so my contract was very much focused around match pay and we went playing and so, and then coming back and getting injured and it's really an experience of resilience and pushing through. That, I think, has given me a lot of a can-do attitude and an attitude of just never giving up.

Ryan Gonsalves: 23:14

When you think back to those moments, you know you talk about loneliness. Loneliness I hear it a lot through the athletes that I speak with, especially when you move away and you're not able to do what you love. So often it's around injury, off season perhaps, certainly after losses. As you reflect back, do you remember what did you do during those periods?

Dylan Gray: 23:34

I think for me I've always been someone who's addicted to movement and which is pretty tough when you're injured. But if we take that element out of it, I remember, particularly in England in that period which was probably the toughest of my actual playing career in regards to the loneliness element that we're talking about, and I remember just moving my body was my medicine, and so I remember hours of just walking around the suburbs of where I was living in Hertfordshire and that was my medicine. And so when I felt like I was missing home or frustrated with not being on the park, for me it was that element of getting into nature and just moving my body that would ground me and re-sensor me and allow me to look at things differently.

Dylan Gray: 24:15

And again that's definitely something that I've taken into my commercial life, when you sort of at your toughest, that sort of adage of clearing your mind, clearing your head is something that's clarity For me. It's never as bad as it seems. This two-shell pass is something that I'm often finding myself, I guess, revisiting, because yeah when you do that, I think that clarity just hits, and so for me, in those toughest moments, movement.

Ryan Gonsalves: 24:39

Wow, I like that. It's getting to know yourself, getting to know what helps, I guess, reawaken you and helps you to take that step back and think well, what are my options, where can I go? And, like you say, finding that clarity Definitely so during that period, or I'm not sure if it was during that period. But when did you then start to realise, okay, this, I might have to get off this full-time, this rugby thing, and do something else. When did you realise?

Dylan Gray: 25:07

that Not until the moment that I literally walked away from rugby within sort of 24 hours. It was a realisation for me. That was almost instant. I had given absolutely everything in my life up until my mid-20s to rugby union and I hadn't at any real point looked at what does Dylan want outside of this? And I dislocated my shoulder in the second-last game of the season and then had sort of review meeting and chats about next season a couple of days later and I remember walking out of the coach's office and just having this moment of I don't think I want to play next season. I think I want to start exploring life and figuring out what happens next. I don't think before that I'd ever even had that thought. I think in the back of my head I'd been studying business and.

Dylan Gray: 25:55

I love technology and movement and kind of thought that those things could come together from here at one point.

Dylan Gray: 26:01

but there's no conscious connection to how that would look and I think that I was so obsessive with my training and I guess the dedication element that I'd never, given myself that chance to consider what was next and I just I remember it clearly lying in bed that night and I just felt like I hadn't had enough fun and the amount of things you miss growing up when you're playing rep footy, whether it's your school dance or social events or whatever it may be. You don't get those moments back and I wouldn't trade them. But I felt like I was entering a phase where I wasn't earning the big six figures that you could potentially get with footy and I had a decision to make. Did I want to spend some time having some fun and sort of building a career now, or did I want to do that in my mid 30s, after being a journeyman, with additional injuries, further body aches and I guess the opportunity cost of that started creeping in my mind all within that 24 hours. It was a big day. It was a big day, I tell you.

Ryan Gonsalves: 27:03

What did that day look like then? So, were you by yourself? Were you moving? Did you have people around you? How did that realisation sort of cement.

Dylan Gray: 27:12

I remember going for a walk when I got home that evening, which again had become kind of my habit and my clarity space, and then the decision was made completely on my own. I didn't actually take a moment to speak to any of the people that were mentors in my life, to call my dad or speak to my brother or anything like that. It was probably one of the second or third times in my life that I sort of just surrendered to what felt right for me and sort of trusted in that. And I had an opportunity. Literally the next day I had a friend that was working with Kintiki Travel that called me up and sort of just we were just catching up and then sort of said mate, if you want, there's a job opportunity for you and you could literally move to Europe next week. And sure enough.

Dylan Gray: 27:51

Four days later I moved to Italy, so I called the coach that afternoon and then sort of started a life, the next stage of my life, which was focused around just having fun. And so that was, I guess, yeah, that first moment for me where there was a bit of conscious connection to fun and not just performance.

Ryan Gonsalves: 28:08

Yeah, I mean, what did that look like then? Because? That's a big shift right From this somewhat regimented approach of balancing study and training and job and training and things like that, to then moving towards this. Well, let's go and have fun. And you're someone who has this need for movement and activity. So what was that new life for you, like you know, within that first month, that first six weeks, yeah, it was.

Dylan Gray: 28:34

It was interesting because I got the opportunity Remember sitting in this office a Kintiki head office in London and met the GM. And he sort of said, look, we don't need to go through the normal interview process. I'd gone and visited my mate who was working in Austria at the time, in Lodderbrunnen, and went and visited him, and so they'd got to know me. I helped out on the site for about six days when we had an off week and so sort of said, look, we'll skip the interview process. And he pushed three envelopes in front of me and one of them had sorry, Hofgarten was where he was.

Dylan Gray: 29:02

One of the envelopes that he pushed over to me was Lodderbrunnen in Switzerland. And then he had Venice and Rome. And he literally just said where do you want to live? And so I sort of said, well, tell me about the people that are living in each of these places. And the middle one, Rome, had an identical twin living there and he was a Kiwi boy. And for me that was the decision, because I was like I'm going to have someone that I know is going to be active and I'm also going to have someone who's used to twin life.

Dylan Gray: 29:27

So made that decision, and that first couple of months was great because he was addicted to exercise as much as I was, and so we balanced fun, I guess, responsibility of the job, which was based around, obviously, tourism activities, and then also training, and so we trained every day and I think it was a really nice transition for me, because I am Romain and have always been quite OCD with my training, and so I got to have the fun but I also got to scratch that itch of. I still love moving my body and that's what makes me happy.

Ryan Gonsalves: 29:57

So what's interesting is, for many of the people that I meet and I work with, when there's an obsessive nature that leads them towards certainly can lead them towards athletic prowess, because you're focused on that routine but what worked, what didn't work, and been able to go through and analyze that. Where I also see that same type of trait is in entrepreneurial individuals, those who are like well, I can do this, I'm going to do it myself, but I'll obsess about it and really look to solve that problem. So here you are now, this obsessive individual. Yeah, definitely passionate about sport, clearly intrigued or interested in movement and that sort of variation in movement and what improves things. You know, where did that lead you?

Dylan Gray: 30:41

next, yeah. So after about eight months of that experience I was very hungry to move into my next challenge and career, genuine career. I felt like that was a break. It didn't feel like a career to me, and so I came back to Australia and got an opportunity quite quickly with a startup in the technology space.

Dylan Gray: 31:00

That was a white label loyalty solution for the hospitality and retail sectors, and I'd always been passionate about technology, and it was around this time that I was starting to get my first real experience with chronic pain as well, and so I was diving pretty deep into sort of everything I could do around sort of biohacking and just understanding my body better, and through that it's sort of almost paralleled the journey and I've sunk my teeth in. It was a BDM role, so it was essentially just a salesperson within that business, and within the first sort of two months I just thrived. I was essentially the KPIs that was set for me. I was achieving the equivalent sales of sort of three other, which one of them is one of the directors and founders of the business and.

Dylan Gray: 31:41

I was just excelling and felt really good and sort of thought I found something else, I'm good here and had that moment.

Dylan Gray: 31:47

And so when on that journey, is that startup sort of got some significant funding and scaled and learned a lot and then transitioned out of that over the next few years to an experience in private equity and learn a lot about sort of being on the other side of corporate and then went into consulting across sports landscape and that, for me, was where the vision for Neo started to shape. I'd always had a passion for community. If I look back at my life, the consistent theme for me when anything great has happened, whenever I've achieved anything significant in my life, it's been backed by community, it's been driven by community. And thanks to rugby and thanks to being an athlete, I think I was quite lucky that in my mid to late 20s I was probably more introspective than the average person and so I was kind of looking at what is my impact, what is something that I can do that creates impact, and I probably went through three or four different business ideas before I landed on the Neo one and classic.

Dylan Gray: 32:42

Yeah, the entrepreneurial kind of founder spirit was there, but first couple didn't stick and then wearables were really starting to get relevant and it was just a consulting client that came along with a pretty broad brief and they were a large scale facility management company so they were under their remit was the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere big box health, fitness and wellness center Million unique visitors a year, over 12 and a half thousand permanent members just a beast of a location.

Dylan Gray: 33:11

And they were looking at their utilization and they essentially were sitting about 65% utilization and they really wanted to uplift that because they are a government owned facility and there was an opportunity to service more of the community. They had great cash flow, cash in the bank, but they needed more. Private enterprise will probably just be happy and sit on that and see the cash rolling in, but they had that government enforced remit to continue to serve a greater part of the community. And that was for me, when everything just came together around creating the business that I'm now lucky enough to have, I saw the answer to that question being well beyond doing demographics and opportunity because of location and sort of your traditional consulting analysis. What I saw was an opportunity to solve that problem through technology. I saw an opportunity to drive community through data, and that data ultimately came down to wearables.

Ryan Gonsalves: 34:00

You know, listening to that story, a few pivot moments for me there. One is that very first job, given the three envelopes out of Pete's probably was ever was closest to the beach.

Dylan Gray: 34:10

The one that was most exciting.

Ryan Gonsalves: 34:12

Interestingly, you went and found the people that were there and that was your natural thing, the community environment that you're going to be able to live with, and we talk a lot about focusing on the environment, especially when you're leaving sport or doing something new. What's the environment? How are you going to learn? And not only did you land with someone else who was active, but there was obsessively active as you were in moving down that path, which I then think is fascinating and that was a great way for that break. And then, as you sort of moved through those other roles, you were finding yourself more and more in community, more and more around a problem solving type roles, even as you go into consultancy. And that seems to have really led, without intention, but led to OK, well, this is how NeoX and this is how you're going to make that impact in the world. And it's really good how doing that without intention moves you to the right spot for what you love finding the right people around you, that sense of community.

Dylan Gray: 35:06

Yeah, and I think that again, probably more retrospectively, I think there was probably some intention but not attachment to the outcome and I think that Sort of micro goals has always been a big thing for me. I think macro goals I struggle a little bit with things when people sort of look at their three and five years and I think it's always good to have a North star, but personally I've always found that sort of two, three months, sort of end of the current year in. They're the things that I've always found very achievable and I've just always focused on that. And so you're right, there wasn't a very defined, intense and Having had a number of friends and Still some now that are just retiring, having retired at a fairly young age, I've been able to see that process of that athlete mentality.

Dylan Gray: 35:54

As soon as you transition out, you want to succeed in your next career immediately, immediately and no matter what even the people who transition very smoothly because they do find something they love quite quickly there's a Grieving process. You are losing your identity and you are bringing an opportunity to create a new one, but you don't at least I didn't Realize that in the first instance as much as I did find a fairly smooth transition into something else yeah, there was a lot of pain points to go through first, and that is it's the dark night of the soul, like it's you.

Dylan Gray: 36:28

You're at the Colfax and you have to. For the first time in your life. Everyone's not telling you you're amazing. Um, everyone's not telling you you're great. From the external environment, I think. Being an athlete, you get told the opposite a lot internally, yes, coaching performance wise, but the people who are Not in your, the people that are in your inner circle, that aren't your, your athletic environment essentially are looking at you with a lot of envy and Aspirationally, a sort of I wish I could do that. And then, all of a sudden, you're, you starting again. So for me, that element of having not a very fixed outcome or sense of attachment in regards to what I wanted to become, but just knowing I wanted to find something I enjoyed again, I think allowed me to keep persisting.

Ryan Gonsalves: 37:09

Yeah, it's very true that loss of identity, chiseling away of the ego but an athlete definitely always seems to come very a difficult thing for us to get over, yeah, and to manage that. And you spoke there of that sense of grieving. I think, like me, you actually found that grieving Overseas. Yeah, and that shift in environment, I don't know, it's distracting. You do things that you wouldn't do at home just because we're in this new place. Yeah, you know grieving takes time and and it certainly helps, but finding this next thing that you are good at has taken you time and you know, now you're in a place as the founder, the CEO at Neo X, are you having the type of impact that you want to have?

Dylan Gray: 37:50

I don't know that I'd ever be able to say yes to that question, because I think the athlete mentality again, and maybe just human nature, is that you always want more. I can see the path to that, but, as we are currently still an early stage business, I think the answer would be no. I think the impact that I want to create is to hit the masses, the millions, and we're a company that's just getting a product in market, and so I can see the path, but right now, yeah, I think we're just at the beginning.

Ryan Gonsalves: 38:15

So look, when you think about where you are right now, if you could keep where you are today the same, what's the one thing? Or what one thing would you change in your past?

Dylan Gray: 38:25

I don't think I'd change any of the experiences. I'm really grateful for the good, the bad, the ugly, everything that I've been through. I would definitely change the mindset. I would be far kinder to myself, would be the number one and then the number two. I would have a lot more patience.

Dylan Gray: 38:39

I think that, almost to the extent of it being detrimental wanting things in the same day, the same week, the same month, as soon as you decide you want something, I just don't think it's a healthy outlook. I think that there's just a much greater awareness around, sort of Acceptance of where you are and where you would like to go goes a long way to a happier person. And so I think that that transition out of professional athlete to Business person was one where I put far too much pressure on myself and Probably cost myself a lot of fun and happiness. I was fortunate that from my personal life and family and friends and that I still had a great deal of happiness, but I was gonna change something. I definitely. From a professional perspective, I would have been far less judgmental and a lot kinder to myself right, interesting kindness, yeah, a virtue we often forget absolutely certainly to ourself.

Ryan Gonsalves: 39:30

I always say if we, if we printed out the, you know, the words are the language that we say to ourselves in our head we probably hate that person.

Dylan Gray: 39:39

Yes, Totally. You say that that's brutal.

Ryan Gonsalves: 39:43

Just wouldn't, you wouldn't want to do that, no. So let's think about you know. So last couple of questions here, thinking about your friends who are retired, who are coming out of the game. If they're coming to you and they're saying I finished yesterday, walked out the changing me yesterday, I'm done.

Dylan Gray: 39:57

Mm-hmm.

Ryan Gonsalves: 39:58

What types of things would you say to them to help them be kinder and be more patient?

Dylan Gray: 40:02

Yeah, I mean, I've got a practical example. I've got one of my best mates who's like a brother is has only retired in the last couple of years and I felt really Fortunate to be able to sort of, I guess, play a bit of a mentor role to him, and for me the main messaging has been around patients. I think he's taken a great approach because he's thrown himself into about four different careers already and he's really trying different things and allowing himself to find that joy, find that thing that drives him, find that thing that excites him. And so I guess, as a general comment, I would say that being patient is far more important than you'll ever realize. It doesn't mean that you don't have the drive, it doesn't mean that you don't strive to achieve tomorrow, but yeah, I think, just ultimately, having patients, being kind to yourself, to be really touched on I'll revisit that and say that kindness to Self, as you're going through an identity crisis you are, it's a fact, it doesn't matter how well you transition out.

Dylan Gray: 40:56

You are having a complete change in identity and then I think, ultimately it is just about the acceptance of change. I think that from your juniors up until retirement if you retire at the age of 35, it's 25 years on average that you've been Completely fixated on one particular part of your life, and so the other thing I would say is just presence, just conscious presence and awareness of the opportunity you now have to put more energy into life, more energy into family, into Friendships, into relationships. Being a professional athlete requires a strong amount of selfishness it does to perform, and so I've really found that you can find so much joy through that transition, when you're in that dark period of finding yourself in connection, in human connection, and you've suddenly got that capacity in a way you haven't before. So, yeah, I think human connection and allowing yourself awareness is probably one of the key points, dylan.

Ryan Gonsalves: 41:53

Thank you for coming in and sharing your story and perspective with me today. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks, man Really appreciate that.

Dylan Gray: 42:02

Thank you.

Ryan Gonsalves: 42:04

Thank you for listening to the second wind podcast. We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers. If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out second windio For more information or to book a consultation with me. I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Brooke design, nancy from Savvy podcast solutions and Saris from copying content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together. That's all from me. Take it easy until next time.