2ndwind Academy Podcast
2ndwind Academy Podcast
124: Andrew Mewing - From Elite Swimmer to Thriving Construction Law Entrepreneur
Imagine balancing rigorous training with law school, missing out on the Olympics by just one spot, and still building a legal career that has taken Australia by storm. Today, Ryan is joined by Andrew Mewing, a former Australian swimmer turned co-founder and partner of a leading law firm Batch Mewing Lawyers specializing in construction and employment law, who shares a riveting tale of reinvention.
Andrew takes us back to his early athletic days, starting as a promising rugby player in Southeast Queensland. An unexpected detour due to injuries led him to uncover his hidden swimming talents, eventually bringing him to the brink of Olympic qualification. Balancing the demands of a dual degree in commerce and law with a burgeoning swimming career, Andrew's tale is a testament to the importance of systems over goals and the support network that fueled his dual pursuits. Discover how Andrew's academic dedication and competitive spirit shaped his ambitions, providing a foundation for his future success.
Tune in to learn more about:
- How Andrew balanced sports and academics while swimming for Australia and studying law at the University of Queensland.
- The inspiration behind Batch Mewing Lawyers and its growth from a two-person startup to a 30-person team across Australia.
- A sneak peek into Relative Age Effect, how it impacted Andrew’s early athletic career and how he overcame it.
- The surprising parallels between swimming laps and legal strategy
- The Importance of leaning on your Support Network and how Andrew's family and friends played a vital role in his journey from sport to law.
…and so much more!
Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out www.2ndwind.io
Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmewinglaw
Website: https://www.batchmewing.com.au
As you look back, what changed around you? You spoke of, the course, not locking up, but picking law as one to come through, but what else changed for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's one of those things of does drive follow the success or does the success follow the drive, and it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing In my case. I was enjoying my swimming. I was in a good squad of people that I enjoyed their company. We all worked really hard. Sometimes we maybe played a little bit too hard too, but it kept us turning up. At the 2002 Commonwealth Games trials in Brisbane that were the trials for the Manchester Games I made the final of the 50 freestyle after having trained for I don't know nine months or something like that, and that was probably the start of it for me in terms of wow, imagine what I can do if I keep this up for a little while.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalves and welcome to a Second Wind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. 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. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:It's great to have you here today. Thanks, ryan, it's great to be here. Excellent, it's really fascinating speaking to yourself, because it's always interesting to see those who move from what I'd say you know an athletic career, which is all consuming, to what at least seems like then a professional or corporate career that is just as consuming and the type of thing everyone thinks you can't flip between the two. But so it's good to, yes, today get a bit of your experience on. You know perhaps how you've managed to to go through that. So that'll be, that'll be wonderful. Yeah, thanks. Well, look, andrew, just to get us started, and so everyone listening can get a sort of flavor of you. Can you let us know who you are and really sort of what you're up to today, sure.
Speaker 2:Thanks, ryan. So, in terms of what I'm up to today, I'm a proud husband and father of four children, ages between 13 and 7. So we're right in the thick of busy lives on the home front. In my professional life, I'm the co-founder and one of the partners of Batch Mewing Lawyers. We're a construction specialist and employment specialist law firm. We're headquartered in Brisbane but we operate across every state and territory in Australia and we started Michael Batch, my co-founder, and I started that firm eight years ago now, which has sort of gone in an instant, and we started it was just the two of us and now we have approximately 30 people and and going from strength to strength in that space. So, as you alluded to earlier, being um, being a professional, particularly in the legal sector, is quite a quite a demanding thing, but you know, keen to talk more about that over the next little while with you.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating, great that you sort of set up and start in your own business or co-founding that business. I just think that usually when I speak to people and they've just started a business, it's a fintech or it's something that is completely this extreme growth. You haven't done that, you've started a law firm. That's quite different.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny, I would say starting a fintech is different. Maybe it's just the way I'm wired. Law is a profession that I guess in some respects I fell into originally, and partly that was because of the swimming career that I had and we'll talk about, but it's what I do now. It's what I'm best at, and it's been a long time now. I've been practicing law in one shape or form, since I finished high school, really, in terms of studying and then working, starting as quite a junior lawyer and sort of working my way up the rungs, and in terms of starting our own practice. It is perhaps a bit unusual and at the time it was a bit of a risk, but it's certainly paid off for us and it's also something we're very proud of.
Speaker 1:And so you've started a law firm with a specialism in construction Construction initially, yeah, yeah. And what was the driving force behind that specialism?
Speaker 2:Well before Michael and I started Batch Mewing Lawyers the firm, I guess that was the area of law that both of us had developed a specialty in. It is something that when you first some of your listeners or supporters that are interested in career transition a lot of the time it's not something that you start with some really, really specific goal of what type of lawyer you become. You start out, you dabble in a few different things and then you tend to gravitate towards the type of law that attracts your interest and the people you like hanging with. So in my case, my family are full of either school teachers, engineers or builders and I'm overgeneralizing there but in terms of the sort of people that I like hanging with and I like working for and having a bit of rapport with, I think it's more about the people. The work itself is also very challenging. In a way that gives me, I guess, fulfillment out of doing fairly difficult work from time to time and helping our clients get through the challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like what you said there. Around the people you hang around with and you're speaking there about those who you grew up with, those around you in your family, that gives you this, I guess, sense of familiarity. But what you've done is get a specialism. You've brought a different perspective into that group of individuals. There's been law, and so that's helped you to really find out well, hey, this is kind of where I belong, but actually I'm really good at this legal thing, so why don't I do that with these folks? How intentional was that, as you were stepping into law and then realizing this was a practice that you enjoyed?
Speaker 2:It was not especially intentional at the start, but then as time went by it became a lot clearer to me that this is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, very, very lucky I should say that working in the construction sector in Australia, where there's always something going on, definitely assisted with, you know, the fostering of that growth along the way.
Speaker 2:And then, I guess, when we pivoted into starting our own firm, where we had, being realistic, we didn't have the world's loftiest goals about that, we just wanted to sort of give it a go and see how it would go and focusing more on the day-to-day service that we were providing, as opposed to having some sort of crazy big goal around how big we might be or what sort of clients we would hang with.
Speaker 2:We again got very lucky in the sense that a lot of the clients that we hang with now really liked the fact that we had the courage to sort of have a dig, you know, have a crack at starting our own firm, because a lot of builders and developers and the like that we were very loyal to and they're loyal clients of ours they like that about us because that's how they'd started their businesses, perhaps a decade or two or three before that. So there's some. Although the type of work you do can often be quite different, I guess the values and the experiences that you bring to the table can be more similar than you think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very true. And again, that dabbling, that moving around and trying different things, as you say, helps you to recognize well where can you fit and where can you actually well specialize in Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think that's a key thing for you again. But listen, listen, before we sort of come into that, because it's it's then going to be interesting to see how you found those different areas and what decisions you made to get to where you are today. I'm curious, then, going back to what sport was like for you when you were growing up. How you know so they get, swimming became where you ended up in terms of that excellence. But where did it begin? In the womb, I suppose swimming from.
Speaker 2:Definitely, I came from a. You know I'm very fortunate and that I come from a family of a bit of sporting stock, you know, without playing it up too much, but my both my parents were good swimmers growing up. I was put into a swimming program very young with an with an excellent learn to swim teacher. But it was certainly not the case that my parents were sort of crazy pushy parents or anything like that. In fact, growing up I did all sorts of different sports, in particular rugby during winter and swimming and surf, life-saving and all that sort of thing during summer. So I can honestly tell you that there was not a point in my childhood anyway that I ever thought I would swim for Australia. If anything, what I would go to bed at night wanting to perhaps do one day and even knowing that it was a fairly crazy goal was to maybe play for the Wallabies or something like that, because that's what being a private school boy in the 90s in Australia was the goal, and that didn't even come close to materializing.
Speaker 2:But back to the dabbling piece. I tried a bit of everything. My parents were very, very supportive about me trying everything. In fact, my swimming coach as a teenager, his name is Rick Van Der Zandt he was excellent at that too. In terms of the idea of as long as you're enjoying your swimming, do different things, focus on your studies, I guess quite a forward thinking mindset of I don't need to burn them out right now, I just need to keep them in the sport. Because then, if you keep them in the sport long enough, they might, you know, have a growth spurt or they might have a second win no pun intended in your sporting career. And in my case that is what happened with my swimming, where it really didn't take off until I was into my university studies.
Speaker 1:Wow, so listen, it was a question I was going to ask around. When did you really start to realize I'm good at this, there is a competitive future for me.
Speaker 2:Really late relative to almost anyone I ever have spoken to about it. For swimming, as I mentioned earlier, I was quite fixated on rugby and I was also quite academic as a student at school, so I was very focused on my academics. Both my parents were school teachers. I'd already started studying commerce and law at the University of Queensland. I was playing Colts rugby and I kept getting injured. I kept dislocating my shoulders and I'm sitting down now. But if you, if you saw me standing up, you'd wonder why I ever thought I could be a rugby player.
Speaker 2:I'm'm sort of lanky, fairly uncoordinated on land, and my dad, who was, I mentioned he was a swimmer. He's also a very good rugby league player and played first grade rugby league in the old Brisbane rugby league comp and his career finished early through injury. And he used to say to me you're absolutely mad, rugby is not for you. You should give swimming a go.
Speaker 2:There were people around me who saw the talent in me in swimming that I didn't see, and it was because I grew up in a very, very competitive age group and swimming in Southeast Queensland is always very, very strong at any time. But in my particular age group I was flat out making a final in my age group. You know 100 meter freestyle every year growing up. But it turns out I was actually a pretty good swimmer. I just didn't know it, and so it was through the soft nudging of, I guess, my parents and my coach Rick, who encouraged me to give swimming a bit more of a go when I was back at university in my sec, third year of university, second year of university and it really went quickly after that.
Speaker 1:So what was special about your age group? Why was that so intense?
Speaker 2:That's a hard one to answer. I think part of it was just, you know, flukes. Every now and again there are certain age groups that are just particularly competitive. One of the other things I should have mentioned but I didn't mention, is that I'm a, I was born in December, so I'm a December baby, and when you racing, at least at school level, it's based on what calendar year you're born.
Speaker 2:There's this thing called the relative age effect, which my wife can talk about. She has a PhD in sports science. She's a sports scientist, my wife Megan. When you're a kid, you you don't realize it, but the difference of someone being 10, 11 months older than you when you're 12 is massive. It obviously doesn't mean that much when you're when you're older, but there was a little bit of that where I suppose I was young for my age and also and the other thing I that that's relevant also is that I was not a full-time swimmer either. So I would swim during summer, do pretty well, and then I would disappear and play rugby, and then I'd come back in September every year and my coach would be like mate, what are you doing? Like you need to be training all year round and I'll be like, but it's too cold.
Speaker 1:So I mean that relative age effect I'm a December baby as well and it is definitely true it has an impact and you know, the challenging thing really is the impact on the athletes or the individual, but then also the you see that impact on professional sports or rosters and podiums and you see that shift towards that front end of of the year because they get picked in the development squads and they get more training.
Speaker 2:They get picked in the a's, not the b's, and it's a real thing. And unfortunately it almost gets gamed a bit now where people never want to be the youngest person in their cohort. And there's also the late maturity sometimes as well. And I guess back to my. In my case again, I really didn't fill out and get strong for my size until I was a 18, 19, 20 year old I mean, there's a thing we talk about that relative effect, relative age effect, certainly on athleticism.
Speaker 1:So, academically, what were you like? Academically, you know, coming through high school university. How important was that for you?
Speaker 2:Well, my dad will hate me saying this. He was a pretty firm parent. He was a teacher at the school I went to and he was very encouraging of me to study a lot, which I did, although absolutely thank him for it. Now it's got me to where I am and I am very interested in reading, learning, all those sorts of things that some people don't gravitate towards.
Speaker 2:That's just my personality, and so for me I was just a studious person. I suppose I was also a competitive person, and you can channel that competitiveness in all sorts of different ways. So I had a good group of mates through high school and I guess we were just we were nerds that were somewhat capable of sport at the same time and we were motivated to do well at school, and that was not for everybody. Some people come to that a bit later. For me it was just sort of the way I was wired and although, if I go back to much, much earlier on, yes, I was young for my year, I was actually still 16 when I graduated from high school, which is pretty unheard of now, but it was. You know, I didn't turn 16 until a few weeks after I graduated, but was, yeah, I was very fixated on how I went at school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that, because, so this is the thing. So academically it was still really important, the relative age, that physical maturity, mentally it was still really important for you to hit those top grades. And you were speaking then you know, obviously, that athletic transition shifted at university. I'm curious then, if I asked you, okay, aside from the Wallabies, if you were asked at 16, from, I guess, a professional career, where did you want to go? What did you see as your opportunities there being realistic at the time.
Speaker 2:My sporting goal was probably to play a high level of club rugby in the local competition and potentially leverage something like that into a scholarship, maybe in the UK at one of the universities. I do remember in my first year of university I was in discussions with a chap who used to teach at the school I was at. Bernard Parrish was his name and he was trying to introduce me to the coaches over at Oxford about the potential to go and play over there. That was sort of. The idea was maybe to introduce me to the coaches over at Oxford about the potential to go and play over there. That was sort of. The idea was maybe to try and follow that kind of almost sporting scholar route as opposed to pure sport was not something where I didn't wasn't even on my radar that I might realistically represent my country in sport. So you know I kind of pinched myself now yeah, I mean, I mean, that is great.
Speaker 1:So then, when you went to university, yeah, there was this potential side opportunity for a sports scholarship if you were lucky enough. But so then on the other side there's well, I'm picking this course and I'm going to go down this course route. What were the influences to you picking your degree and what did you want to get out of university?
Speaker 2:Well, initially I think I mentioned earlier that I kind of fell into law in some ways. What happened was I was very strong at mathematics at high school and that sort of gravitated me towards commerce and sort of the economics type subjects. So I studied commerce, majoring in accounting to begin with, and it was my career counselor really, that said hey, you're what's known as an OP score. Your OP score is going to be far higher than what you need just to get into accounting. You should bolt on another degree to that, and law is considered a good complement to that. And so law was just like piggybacking along for the ride. At the time, I think I had in my mind I would become either an accountant or maybe if I'm lucky enough, you know go work for the big fancy investment banks or something like that. Not that I knew much about them, but what ended up happening was my swimming career took off sort of out of nowhere in the course of a year or two really, and we can talk more about that shortly.
Speaker 2:But what that led to was, funnily enough, law is a degree where you have very few contact hours, which is to say you don't have that many classes where you're required to be there. You don't have that many tutorials, and so when it got to the point where I was actually making teams as in Australian teams to travel the world and compete, law was the perfect degree for that, because as long as you had the self-discipline to do the readings yourself and study yourself, I could get away with a lot. And it would get to the point. I did not attend a single class for the last three years of my degrees and I used to get to exams and some of my friends would say I didn't even know you did this subject and I'd say, well, I didn't know either until a couple of weeks ago. So I just had that ability to sort of compartmentalize my life where I was a professional athlete, but then every quarter or every semester I'd go oh gee, I really better knuckle down here and try and pass these subjects that I've enrolled in.
Speaker 1:I love the way that law was your. Oh, I'll just pick anything and just get through it. Subject yeah, that's great. It totally was pick anything and just get through it. Subject that's yeah, that's great, yeah. So looking at then this, this athletic transition that took place for you from um, swimming is either probably a summer sport or is something, as I'm injured from rugby that talk to me about the pace of that athletic transition and and how that took shape, zooming out out.
Speaker 2:It's like 20 years on now and more than 20 years on. It's crazy to me how quickly it happened and yet at the time it didn't feel that quick because I was training so hard. But just to put it into context, in the year 2000, I was not swimming at all, I was playing Colts rugby at South Rugby Club in Brisbane. In 2001, I tried to play rugby at the start of the season, got injured, dropped out and started doing some swimming for rehabilitation really. So I was very much a soft start swimmer. I was not trying to be professional by 2004,. I missed the Olympic Games by one spot, which was only my third national championships.
Speaker 2:So it really went quick, although at the time, like I said, it didn't feel quick because once I'd sort of zoomed into wow, I might be onto something here I was really all in. And once I saw that the goal was somewhat achievable even though it was fairly crazy to even think about, you know, a year earlier, it was something that I really really locked in on and I did improve, you know, out of sight, and I'm very lucky that I had, I guess. I guess I had the talent for that. You know I have and I can't deny that my I have friends and family. Like my brothers, they were very strong swimmers too, and they didn't reach the same level that I did, but they trained just as hard as I did, and so I looked around and I see a lot of people who have got that background and can use it.
Speaker 1:So what was? What's the difference then? What do you mean by when you locked into it? How was that different for you compared to others?
Speaker 2:such a great question. You'd almost have to ask other people, but I suppose in my case I think it's I've always been a very determined person. You know that's that's materialized in in some. You know success in other fields as well. I was very good at the turning up every day and doing a job. So, and even even today I have a bit of a thing about systems being more important than the goal is actually just turning up, locking in, focusing on getting the best out of yourself that you can on the day.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, I just had an amazing support network. Maybe in other environments they would have thought it was crazy for someone to come out of nowhere and, 20 years of age, all of a sudden decide to want to be a swimmer in the in what was arguably the most competitive era that I was in, you know, just off the back of the Sydney Olympics, with very, very strong depth in the events that I entered into. And yet I don't think I ever got the impression from anyone who was in my support network that it was silly for me to be doing it. Everyone was supporting me of the. We only get one opportunity to be a young athlete. You might as well.
Speaker 1:Have a crack at it while you can so, around you, what changed as you locked in on this is me, now you know be it olympic cycle, making world championships, comp games, as you started focusing on that. As you look back, what changed around you? You spoke of, the course, not locking up, but picking laws as one to come through, but what else changed for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's one of those things of does drive follow the success or does the success follow the drive? And it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing In my case. I was enjoying my swimming. I was in a good squad of people that I enjoyed their company. We all worked really hard. Sometimes we maybe played a little bit too hard too, but it kept us turning up.
Speaker 2:At the 2002 Commonwealth Games trials in Brisbane that were the trials for the Manchester games I made the final of the 50 freestyle after having trained for I don't know nine months or something like that, and that was probably the start of it for me in terms of wow, imagine what I can do if I keep this up for a little while. And by having that result, I started getting picked on a couple of development teams. I didn't even have a passport until the end of 2002. And before I knew it I was over in Peding in Rio de Janeiro, then New York at like World Cup events. These are just development teams, but nevertheless, for me, I'm wearing the Australian track suit and doing all that sort of thing and it really just sort of feeds the beast. I suppose you really, all of a sudden you're going wow, this isn't just some obscure goal.
Speaker 1:This is within reach and it sort of feeds on itself and you put in even more and you become a lot more professional in your mindset and how you approach things on a day-to-day basis I think I like the quote or the thought process that you had around you know that success and drive and which comes first, and it is a piece where one of the things with sport is almost that immediate return, that immediate, that immediate feedback from training and competition, and you speak about that as perhaps being something that helped to fuel you move forward.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and in my case, if you can imagine that I was quite a novice really in terms of my history, I love swimming, training to this day, like I really enjoy training. I enjoy being relatively fit for my age and as a swimmer I really enjoyed training, and you know that's part of the every day. You're measuring yourself, you're trying to improve what you did in a particular set compared to how that similar set looked a fortnight ago or a week ago or a month ago or even a year ago, and so you're very much paying attention and locked into that continuous improvement and that also is that sort of positive reward that I guess you do get that from. You know, you get that from sport generally, that the highs and the lows, so that you know it goes in both directions in a way. That is probably an amplification of how it is in other contexts you know?
Speaker 1:I just I mean for you, do you think you were that sort of feeling? Is is consistent. You see that ongoing training your life meaning. You know you mentioned system get the systems right, the success will follow.
Speaker 2:Love in training, love in process you kind of love the, the dirty work, you just love getting that, those bits done for For my sins yeah, when I first started my professional career kicked off in sorry, not in sport, but as a lawyer Initially I thought the whole sport business analogy was a bit cliche and a bit overdone In some contexts it might be, but I really think about it more today than I ever thought I would, and it's very much in that zone of the day-to-day drive systems being more important than goals, even the benefits of you know seeing what really good coaches manage to do in the sporting context and how that can be translated into, I guess, a corporate leadership context or even just how you deal with people on a day-to-day basis and help them get the best out of themselves. I'm always thinking about that sort of stuff. I find it really very interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, thinking about that and getting the best out of yourself during this athletic transition, so you becoming much more focused. Was this, then, a? Well, it sounds like it was part uni, part full-time. What was that period like for you? Were you working full-time studying swimming? What was that era like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, initially I was studying close to full-time and then I slowly dialed that back and was more like three-quarter time and there were a few occasions where it was like part time. What ended up happening was I missed the 2004 Olympics selection in those games very narrowly, and at that point in time I had not made a senior Australian team and it was still a very strong team. So there was the possibility that well, I've had my shot. Good on you, but I'm also almost finished my law degree and life goes on. What ended up happening was I could have gone one or two ways there.
Speaker 2:In hindsight it's hard to tell what I should have done, but I regret absolutely nothing. I think what I did was the right thing, but some people would just go all in, forget the university, forget the work, just be a full-time swimmer. In my case, just because of the way I am, I suppose I don't think that would have worked for me anyway. And so I was very, very lucky that Grant Hackett, who you might know of he's a good friend of mine he assisted me through his manager, chris White, to get a part-time job at a law firm, and so throughout 2005 through to 2007, I was starting to make senior Australian swimming teams. But I was also working part-time at a law firm and finishing my law degree, which I look back at it now and it's like once upon a time it's like a different person. But I think people do say to me why didn't you just sort of dial that down a little bit? Just sort of dial that down a little bit? And I think for most people that would have been the right call For me.
Speaker 1:It just worked for me because I was driven about my career as well.
Speaker 2:So driven about the legal career I was driven by the need to not be left hanging after my swimming career finished. If that makes sense, what?
Speaker 1:was it that made you feel that you'd be left hanging after your swimming career finished, if that makes sense. What was it that made you feel that you'd be left hanging after your swimming career?
Speaker 2:I think it's probably something you've talked about with other people in your program, ryan You're so dedicated to one thing that it does end, and when it ends there can be that sense of well, what do I do now?
Speaker 2:And I guess I was just really lucky that, because I came to it so late, it was not all that I did anyway and it was not all that I defined myself by, and so I guess in a lot of senses the transition was just a lot easier for me. But I was very alive to the fact that because I'm so competitive or so driven generally, is that all of my mates from university, just to give you an example, by the time my swimming career ended they'd already been working a couple of years and I just didn't want to leave that too long. And I guess if someone came to me now and asked me you know what should they do, I would say it's totally a horses for courses thing. I'm not saying that what I did was the right thing for everybody, or even anyone but me, but it was the right thing for me.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's right. And, as you say, the path that we take, especially as athletes, to support ourselves in that life after the game or life after sport, it does depend on the individual, depends on the circumstances, and not everyone is able to juggle both, either physically or mentally. What did you find the hardest part of that period?
Speaker 2:I think it actually helped my swimming that I did the study and the work. In a lot of ways, the best help it gave me was just the distraction or just having something else to think about. As I mentioned earlier, I'm a geek, so I like reading, I like learning. It's just sort of like what I do. So if I had to find some other pastime to amuse myself when I wasn't training, I probably would have been reading something anyway, so I might as well have been studying towards an end type of thing. However, there were certainly aspects of it where I, if I were to compare myself to my competitors, I wasn't getting the same level of recovery and rest and sorts of things that you know. I think, if I'm being totally honest, it may have cost me a little bit, but that's just how, at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. I'm definitely glad that I did it now because of where I'm at, but in terms of, did it cost me at times in my swimming career, I think it might have.
Speaker 1:Well, and I guess, with that thought, how does that make you feel I'm fine with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm fine with it. And again, horses for courses. I'm very lucky that through a series of sort of where luck meets opportunity type thing type situations where even getting a job in law at a part-time, on a part-time basis, is almost unheard of. So when that came I was like, well, I'm mad not to take that well thinking even at that time.
Speaker 1:So you say it came through a conversation or connection with Grant Hackett and was again was that an intentional network thing? Were you comrades in arms or was it? You know how did that come about?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, it was not a deliberate strategy for me to try and get a job via Grant, but Grant for those who listening and you sort of remember him or he's got a profile now that 20 years ago he was massive, he was like world swimmer of the year at one point, multiple world record holder, one of Australia's greatest ever distance swimmers. He and I were friends and I trained with him on camps and whatnot and he was. He was keen to get me to move to the Gold Coast to train with him in his program and I was already halfway through my law degree at that point and I said, oh, oh, look, I'm really, really, it sounds cool, I'm interested to do that, but I can't justify that because of where I'm at in my career. And he said, well, what might change your mind? And I said, well, almost fancifully, if I can find a part-time law job down there, I'd be interested.
Speaker 2:And through his own network, yes, and Chris White of International Quarterback, the sports manager who I ended up working with for a couple of years, as it happens, they managed to arrange that with a firm called McInnes Wilson that I worked with a bit later on. So I guess the key message there in terms of your question, ryan, is one of the key things I would be suggesting to anyone who's in sport whether it's early career, mid-career or late career is just be open-minded about the sort of conversations that you can have and how fortunate you are that people generally do want to sort of help you on your journey and the transition and all that sort of thing. So you don't necessarily have to go in there with any sort of preconceived ideas of I must turn this conversation into a what's in it for me type thing, because that's absolutely not what it was. Conversation into a what's in it for me type thing, because that's absolutely not what it was. It was just one of those happy accidents where, in my case, it was absolutely priceless for the.
Speaker 1:You know where it ended up getting me in my career, because it sort of just got me started on a path towards where I am now one of the concepts that I talk a lot about in in one's career is the balance or the shift that happens through our life, through our lifetime, and there's this shift between, say in this instance, work, sport or athletic endeavours, family and learning. And you know, as we've gone through your career, we've seen the heights of learning through school, through education, and that comes down. We've seen your professionalism from a legal perspective start to increase. At what point do you feel that your sporting or swimming career and that legal studies started to come or started to conflict?
Speaker 2:Probably only at that point where I was getting a little bit older. Swimming is a young sport, or at least it was when I was doing it. It was very commonplace for for swimmers to retire in their sort of mid-20s and not go beyond that. I've missed the 2008 Olympics and I was one of the. I was.
Speaker 2:It's almost a bit of a bit of sweet thing and is that I was lucky enough to represent Australia on every single Australian senior team there was to make apart from the Olympics, I think towards the end of my career, when you're just getting that little bit older, a little bit more injury prone, and just the importance of recovery and nutrition and just resting and sort of almost getting out of your own way and not trying to force everything.
Speaker 2:I think, looking back at it, that is where they did conflict a little bit and it's just because I'm a hardworking person and so it was probably not necessary for me even though I was very lucky to have all those you know the jobs that I had along the way it was probably not necessary for me to work as hard or put in the hours that I was putting in at that very time and if there was, you know someone in in a similar situation today. I would probably say it's okay to dial it back for six months, 12 months. It's no big deal, you know, and I that's not just, it's just not the way I did things. So that's probably where they collided a little bit.
Speaker 1:So, if I understand, whilst that conflict came, as you look back, it could have been well, hold on, maybe from. I could have just stepped back, taken a break, had a rest, recovered somewhat mentally, physically, yeah, and then seeing, boom, can I again step back in and achieve the highs again. I think that's right. Yeah, so when you recognize this conflict or I shouldn't say conflict, but when you started to recognize then this swimming, all right, maybe it's time to change that or to dial that back. What did you do?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't dial it back and I suppose that's the takeaway that I could share. I didn't see it myself and you've got to remember in my case, just who I, who I am. So I wouldn't have made my way into swimming in the first place and been lucky enough to have the experience that I, that I've had, if it wasn't for the fact that I had that environment and this sort of support of doing everything, keeping an eye on the next chapter at all times. It's just with the pure, you know, perfect. 20 years on, 2020, hindsight, and since you asked that, I can say yeah, look, in reality, there was probably a six to 12 month window there where I could have just gone. Okay, I've set myself up pretty well here professionally. Why don't I just cool it for 12 months and not work at all? But that's easy to say and hindsight's a perfect thing, and at the time, it's not that I disliked my job. I quite enjoyed my job. So it's just one of those things.
Speaker 1:So what was the impact then? What manifested from you saying, right, boom, I'm just going to keep going full throttle here?
Speaker 2:I think it's probably just those one percenters here and there and in swimming percent's everything. So in my case it wasn't that I was still a very strong swimmer at that point I was. I was improving a lot, I was doing personal best times. I had a bit of injury in 2007 where I had a bulging disc in my back and that was impacting my training and you know, perhaps if I wasn't trying to juggle all the things, I might have been able to get on top of that a bit more quickly.
Speaker 2:I think in sport we can also be too hard on ourselves and it's easy for me to say, oh, maybe if I'd rested a little bit more I would have swum faster. But you can only do what you can do, and I got beaten fairly and squarely by my mates and my competitors that year, and I think it was just the case that you know, across the Olympic cycle you're either the hunter or the hunted. And in 2004, I was the hunter and just missed out. And then in 2008, I was you know, I'd been one of the older guys and I just missed out again. And I think I definitely think in sport we can be way too hard on ourselves when things don't go our way and I even see that with you know, with my kids and young sports people out there and it's got to try and take the good with the bad sometimes.
Speaker 1:No, that's very insightful. Thanks for sharing even just that moment. So now so at what point did you see what you were doing on land more important than when you were in the pool or as you were swimming, and what was that change like for you?
Speaker 2:For me, it was really after I failed to make the 2008 Olympics.
Speaker 2:At that point I was 26, turning 27.
Speaker 2:I'd been an admitted solicitor for two years already and I'd really sort of been fumbling my way through that on a part-time basis and I was very disappointed to have missed the Olympics.
Speaker 2:But I was trying to be a good sport about it and all that sort of thing, and I guess what I really did was I thought my best way of moving on from that is to throw myself headfirst into my legal career, which I did, and so, although I never officially retired, I continued to swim, focusing more on, in particular on surf life-saving, which is something I did for a few years after I retired from the well, not retired after I finished from the pool. I was very much about getting my career going and I was in my mid to late 20s. So you know it's time to get on with life as well, and I was very blessed to have and have a loving partner who was on the journey with me, and it wasn't very long before we were married and had our first of now four children. So you know, life comes at you pretty fast and we haven't looked back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's interesting. You know actually the fact that even then you corrected yourself about retiring from swimming. It does sound like LA 28 is still. Is it somewhere in the back? Ah?
Speaker 2:Oh mate, I'm so much slower than I used to be.
Speaker 1:I just, I just swim because I, I just swim, because I enjoy the feeling of swimming yeah mental health benefits it gives me what is interesting there is that shift from the pool to the outdoors, to surf, life saving and having that sort of focus, and it's always interesting to see how, as we transition from that athletic, that elite or, well, world-class level athleticism that you went from there is, how do we then manage this other athletic shift to one that is perhaps as enjoyable but different and it gives that different challenge?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, that's. That's a really great point. I have heard people talk about almost detraining and like what people used to do. I don't know anything about horse racing right, so I'm going to get this wrong, but the detraining of racehorses and all this sort of thing In swimming, at least when I was doing it, there was this sort of almost bad tendency of like I'm not a swimmer anymore, you're not going to see me at a pool.
Speaker 2:The idea of ever swimming is just, you know, disgusting to me because I've been doing it forever and ever and ever. I was very lucky to have well, for starters I'd never been so institutionalized in that world that it was all I knew. But also I did very much get a bit of a soft landing in that I joined the Karawa surf club. I'd done a bit of nippers when I was younger. I thoroughly enjoyed almost piggybacking off the fitness that I had from my years of swimming in the pool and just having a go at surf. Don't get me wrong, surf life-saving is a very, very serious sport. But for me I wasn't taking it that seriously. I was just turning up giving it a go off the back of a few sessions a week of training, nothing like the 10 sessions a week that I'd been doing for the previous sort of five years or six years.
Speaker 1:So, in addition to that athletic shift, then you've got that professional. Okay, this is it. I'm now going into law, committing yourself to that full time. Let's say, what did you find hard about that shift?
Speaker 2:Sorry for the pause. I'm trying to think of a good answer for you. I think moving from sport to not sport is just an amplified version of any transition anyone ever has in their lives. And I think and sure it is a thing. But if I were to say, what did I actually really miss? It was probably just being you're so fit and when you're training all the time you're getting endorphin highs from doing that. There's all that sort of dopamine hits that you're getting To then sit at a desk for hours and hours and hours churning out legal work has its own rewards, but it's its own type of grind.
Speaker 2:Being a swimmer, strangely enough, prepares you pretty well for that, because being a swimmer, you're spending hours and hours and hours staring at a black line In law. I'm spending hours and hours and hours staring at a black line In law. I'm spending hours and hours and hours staring at black lines of a different sort. So the transition itself I don't think I can recall a point of going, wow, I'm not, this is so different, I can't do this.
Speaker 2:But I do think in terms of I've reflected quite a lot on challenges other people have had in their transitions and I think one of the things about sport that is quite unique is you have to be very selfish to succeed. I think most people would say that, and even though there's great teamwork aspects of it, and even in an individual sport like swimming, you've really got this almost single-minded focus on the mission, which is to win or to do a personal best time or whatever. You then zoom out of that into the real world and, although you want to be very, very successful and you want to do well and you've got to be determined and all that sort of thing, it's not about you as much and that's just an adjustment that people have to make and it's an adjustment that I felt like I made relatively well, yeah, yeah and so what do you think helped you to make it so well?
Speaker 2:definitely my support network. You know, like I mentioned, my, my wife Megan, who's been married 14 years now, my parents, my friends, all that sort of thing. I can't underplay that enough, I'm sorry. I can't underplay that enough, that's. They've just been been terrific and I guess it's sort of back to the fact that I knew it was not going to last forever anyway, and I think that's something that I was very lucky to have that mindset from day one.
Speaker 1:That's right, I think it is. You know everything you've described, even going through, even hitting world championships, representing your country and traveling around the world, you maintained a focus on developing that career for after swimming, and you know, it sounds like there was, I'll say, a feeling, and I don't know if the feeling was fear or something else, but you, you had this view that it will end and when it ends I don't be left behind totally bingo. Yeah, that's it. One of the bits I'm curious. It's interesting to hear, then, is the support network that you had. That support network is all external. What support did you get from swimming? You know the association, swimming associations or committees, what, what sort of support were they able to provide for you at that time?
Speaker 2:well, that's a great question, because even after I finished swimming, I was actually myself on the committee of the Australian Swimmers Association, which is the supporting body for Australian swimmers, and I became president of that body for a couple of years after my retirement. I think it's fair to say and I think Swimming Australia would say this is that they're so much better now than they were 20 years ago at that. It's no longer the case that once you're retired, see you later, good luck, goodbye and good luck. Even this year at the Olympic trials, the alumni from Brisbane because the trials were in Brisbane got invited to a couple of events, including participating in a relay, and that's just a small example among all the many efforts that they're making now to sort of make you feel like you know, you've had a pretty unique experience being a elite swimmer, and I don't think it's just those who are lucky enough to have represented Australia Like for every person who's lucky to have, you know, been an Olympian or to have represented Australia, whatever there's just hundreds and thousands of people who have been very dedicated to their sport but haven't quite cracked through that level.
Speaker 2:You're a really tight knit community, or you should be a really tight knit community, because you've been through an unusual journey and I suppose that's very much. That's not just swimming, that's all elite sport and I think it's part of you know the great work you're doing, ryan, with your community of transitioning athletes, because there are some, you know, the media likes referring to, really likes the, I guess, the clickbait of stories of people who haven't transitioned. Well, but for every person like that there are just so many people, whether swimming or the sport or whatever, it's just been an excellent springboard for them in terms of the life lessons that you take out of it into your day-to-day life.
Speaker 1:Well said I think there are and you know, like you say, that's one of the reasons why what we're having, this conversation, is as challenging as the transition can be. At certain points, it's good to hear stories about, well, simply, where people are and today and how what strategies people like yourself were able to employ to get through the challenging situation, to set yourself up for where you are now and, as you say, treat it much more as a springboard and the better we get as, yes, associations, but also society. You mentioned, you know, clickbait and news, but to support people coming into that, to keep them with the eyes wide open, keep people grounded, I think the better it is for athletes and probably the more committed they can become, knowing that they're going to have the right support to come through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely so for you. Then you transitioned the sporting piece although you didn't say it out loud had retired. So you know everyone's yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did retire, I just never, you never officially.
Speaker 1:I know I think the clickbait. You're not waiting on my paperwork or anything like that, don't worry about it. I was going to say I said, well, the file is still open. No, no, that's the clickbait that comes out Mew makes return for no, yeah, yeah, yeah, put it on the front page. So for you, as you then started to move into this life, after sport and the professional career started to to rise up, what sort of aspirations did you have for where that would take you?
Speaker 2:that's a really good question because it's some people can be really.
Speaker 2:You know they talk about the big, hairy, audacious goal you know that people talk about and some people are really like that and other people are a bit more in the day-to-day.
Speaker 2:And you know, I probably have to give a lot of credit to my business partner, michael Batch, for you know he's the big blue sky BHAG guy and I'm a little bit more like, hang on, let's calm it down a little bit there, big fella. I must say that when we started the business it never entered my mind that we would end up to be, as I guess, established as we are now, touch wood in terms of not just the size of the firm but the value that we provide to our clients, the quality of the work that we do, the culture that we have, the people that we have. Just all that sort of stuff is really, really cool. And I think it's a good mix of in the team. You need different personalities and you need a little bit of yin and yang, which is something that Michael and I brought initially and then supplemented by some just tremendous people that have worked with us for a long time. So me personally I am definitely more of a systems are more important than goals, type of dude. But that works for me.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, I you know, I really want to say thank you for sharing your journey and sort of perspective to where you are today. Just a couple more questions, really. You know we've we've touched on it as we've gone through the conversation, which is great. So there's, you know, dollops of value as people listen to this and watch this conversation. I'm curious, though, as someone comes up to you, if someone entering to swimming comes into the sport now, and if they were to ask you the question about, well, what's a great way for me to go through this sport but set myself up for what might happen next, based on your experience, what guidance would you give them?
Speaker 2:The first thing I'd want to do is actually just sit down with that person and get to know them a little bit Because, as we discussed earlier, ryan, like everyone's different and some people, if the person was a lot like me, I would suggest a journey similar to the one I had, which was keep the balls in the air, do a few different things.
Speaker 2:Some might say that's going to impact your swimming, but who knows, it might have in fact been the best thing for your swimming, because you weren't thinking about swimming all the time and you weren't overanalyzing it, whereas for other people that were, if it was a bit of a challenge, I guess the message I would give that person is it might feel like a long time, but your career is so short. Just embrace it, try to enjoy it, and it's one of the things that a lot of sports people don't do. They're so fixated on excellence that they never just stop and smell the roses. So I would say try your best to enjoy it, get the most out of it that you can, and if you end up a year or two behind, doesn't matter. The very attributes that got you to where you are will cause you to catch up very very quickly with the right attitude.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant. That's really good. I like that Again. No one's path is the same, but thinking about the brevity, with your eyes wide open, of what this sporting opportunity can bring is quite important. Like you say, sometimes distraction can be a good thing. It's just the right amount, just the right dose of it. That's wonderful. A random question, then, because you spoke about the yin and yang of you and your business partner, and I know, as I speak with many athletes, they're like, yeah, one day I'd love to run a business and do things like that. How did you meet that? How did you meet your co-founder Right?
Speaker 2:Well, I've known Michael since I was a kid. His little brother and I were best mates, going through school together, so I've known Michael for almost as long as I can remember, but in terms of crossing paths professionally, funny enough, he recruited me to a firm I ended up at back in 2009, 2010, a firm called Holding Redlich. I then managed to return the favor a few years later in getting him in to work with me at a firm called McInnes Wilson Lawyers in Brisbane. We both had our own journeys of working as in-house lawyers at construction companies some fairly prominent construction companies in Australia and we know each other well enough to trust each other deeply, even though we're quite different people. And we know each other well enough to trust each other deeply even though we're quite different people. And that was, you know, provided the right ingredients for what we've managed to accomplish with the firm as it stands today Wonderful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was one not necessarily looking, but it just sort of happened Again looking back and that relationship and trust was formed. Totally. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm becoming more and more curious the more athletes I meet and, as they become entrepreneurs, establish these businesses. I'm just trying to try and figure out how the co-founder and that bond was made. So thanks for sharing that little bit Random as it may seem, my pleasure.
Speaker 2:No, all good.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, andrew, you again for for sharing with us today sort of your journey and bringing your perspective. There are going to be people who are listening, going to want to perhaps follow your story. Get in touch. What's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2:probably the best way is just my, my linkedin. I suppose that you know I do check that more regularly than I do other social media. So just yeah, andrew mewing, also my business page, which is batch mewing lawyers there's, you can see, find out a bit more about me on that page as well. So probably just the linkedin and the uh for me and my business is the best way, and you, you know, anyone who wants to chat further about some of the things I've talked about are welcome to send me a private message on, on linkedin andrew.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much for sharing your story today. It's been brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thanks, ryan thanks for having me thank you for listening to the second win 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 secondwinio for more information or to book a consultation with me. 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. That's all from me. Take it easy until next time.
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