Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves

145: Gavin Freeman: How Elite Athletes (and You) Can Master Decision-Making and Career Transition

• Ryan Gonsalves • Episode 145

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In today's episode, we dive deep into the real psychology behind career transitions, decision-making, and finding your true path after sport — and why it’s way less logical and way more emotional than you think.

We are joined by Gavin Freeman, a sports psychologist, MBA lecturer, and corporate strategist who shares fascinating stories from working with elite athletes, Olympic teams, and CEOs leading thousands. Together, we uncover why so many people struggle with change — and the surprising skills you already have to make smoother, smarter career moves.

Inside this conversation:

- Why it's not just what you’re good at — it's how it makes you feel that matters

- How to recognize when a chapter is closing (even if your emotions resist it)

- The "Superstar CV" exercise that helps you rebuild confidence and clarity after leaving sport or any major career

- Why hindsight makes everything look seamless (and why you shouldn't trust it too soon)

- What business leaders, athletes, and everyday professionals really have in common

- How to reframe failure, motivation, and risk so you thrive in your next career move

- A sneak peek into the next episode: Making life-changing decisions under pressure, with no time and incomplete information


Loved the episode? Drop us a review & share your biggest takeaway!


Ready to explore your own second act after sport? Connect with Ryan Gonsalves and the 2NDWind Academy to discover how your athletic experience can become your professional advantage here: www.2ndwind.io 


Some more about Gavin

He is a fully registered psychologist with experience in the sporting and corporate worlds. 

He has held a directorship within a large consulting company and was the head of HR internally. His  20 years of experience in human capital consulting have been with blue-chip Australian and International organisations across numerous industries, including banking, construction, mining, telecommunication and government.  

Gavin consults across Australia and Asia to CEO, Executives, Managers and  Elite Coaches  delivering a variety of experiential Crisis Management Workshops, Change Leadership Consulting, Strategic workshop facilitation,  Executive Coaching, and Team Building experiences. As a psychologist his insights bring an understanding of human behaviour, and how to best create a high performing culture.

His first book, “The Business Olympian” released in June 2008 captures the mental toughness lessons learned from elite athletes and how these skills can be easily transferred into the corporate world.

His second book, released in 2016 “Just stop Motivating Me” explores the complexity of motivation and examines how a motivational continuum explains not just our motivations but the behaviours associated with them. His third and possibly final book “Don’t let me die in economy class: how the ordinary become extraordinary” was released in Feb 2025, explores how ordinary people went onto to do extraordinary things. 

He  can usually be heard on one of the business radio  and TV shows across Australia.

Gavin was the team psychologist for the Winter Olympic team in Turin 2006 and the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games. He was also the Team Psychologist for the Olympic Archery Team in Sydney 2000. At the professional level, he has worked with various athletes from the best sporting leagues around the world, including the NBA, WNBA, and PGA. Additionally, he was the Psychologist for a Team at the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

Website www.gavinfreeman.com.au

Amazon books - 

Speaker 1:

looking for, remove the task as the focal point for what you're looking at in some respects, continuing, but focusing on that feeling, focusing on the emotions that you get and you know how that makes you feel with a view that what you're then looking for in terms of that future task or future activities and well, how would I feel when I am doing that?

Speaker 2:

you can get that feeling state from other activities right? You don't. And this is often the disconnect that athletes don't realize and in fact corporates don't realize. They think that when they move from something to the next thing, they have to let go of everything in the past, and they don't. The bigger challenge becomes when they do have to let go of some things, for example, that classic difference between the individual athlete versus the team athlete. The individual athlete has only ever done anything on their own, doesn't trust anybody, works on their own right. Now they're going to go and work in a team in a corporate instance, so they're moving from sport to corporate right. One of the challenges you're sitting with them is talking about saying how do you let go of maybe?

Speaker 1:

not trusting other people or thinking you have to do everything yourself. 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:

I suppose I'm looking forward to just having a conversation with you, because this show is really all about helping individuals find that career clarity, and finding that career clarity after sport, I think, is vital, and from there there are so many lessons that everyday men and women can actually learn from, and one of the key parts of that, I feel, is decision making. One of the key parts of that, I feel, is that is decision making, and this is really all about the decisions that individuals or athletes take in order to set themselves up or deal with that life after sport, and so I guess delving into those topics with you today are in and around that I'm super excited about.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me from my perspective. I always love talking about these things because I think we I, we learn through the conversation and we learn through sharing. But I think it's often the area that's missed. We look at some of the practicalities of what we're going to do you know what university I'm going to apply for but the whole idea around how I make decisions and kind of the psychology of it, how it impacts me, how I feel you know that wonderful word how do you feel about something? We don't really know how to define it because it's so individualized and so therefore the experiences are so broad. So the more perspectives you get, the better insight you often can build up and then ultimately make the best decision at the end of the day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let's talk actually a bit about you. So give us that infomercial on sort of who you are. Go on, I'll sit back. It's 2am. I should have gone to bed, but I'm watching this infomercial. Tell me about yourself, gavin.

Speaker 2:

I'm this weird person who kind of didn't know what they wanted to do. Went to university, wanted to be a lawyer, to be perfect. I never got the grades to make it into law school, so I became a psychologist, but I didn't really understand what that meant.

Speaker 2:

I was always fascinated and interested in around why people do what they do. There was always this burning desire for me to try to understand the why. I'd look at something and go I can understand what you've just done, I can even see how you did it, but I really want to know why you've done it. And so I sort of ended up doing this psychology degree and at the time I was a sort of a budding elite athlete. I wanted to make it as an athlete, but unfortunately I'm only six foot two but my skills as a power forward were very lacking because I needed to be 6'9" and so I was never a point guard. So I was kind of in that really I had the right skills for the wrong body type.

Speaker 2:

But I was loving sport and I was thinking well, where does this line? And this was very much in the early stages, early 90s. There wasn't really this thing called sports psychology, but there were these people who worked with athletes and so I went to speak to the human movement department and they said yeah, why don't you do the double degree? So I ended up doing a double degree in psychology and science and exercise physiology, went on and did my master's in sports psychology at the time they were coming into play and spent the first part of my career as a working sports psychologist with the Australian Institute of Sport. For many years I worked with a number of professional teams through that space and I'm sure we'll get into some of those and obviously for privacy reasons I won't give names of people, but I'm happy to talk about the teams that I worked with.

Speaker 2:

Subsequent to that, I went back to uni and did an MBA because I wanted to look at how some of these skills I was sort of, as I was transitioning myself through from sport and into the corporate world, went back to an MBA to give me that some, you know, give me the grounding to be able to have the conversation with companies. And I've spent now the last 20 years, second half of my career, working with corporates in high-performing teams, strategic decision-making, innovation and the like. So I sort of sit on the side of both worlds. I work as a sports psychologist and a corporate organizational psychologist. I lecture into an MBA program here in Melbourne at one of the universities and, for my sins, on the weekends during winter I'm a ski instructor, which is kind of my claim to fame.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, that last bit caught me out. That that's not. Yeah, it always does. Although it is often a tangent talk to me about where's the skiing instructor piece come from.

Speaker 2:

It was my sabbatical. I love skiing. I spent nearly 10 years with the Australian Winter Olympic team. A tangent talked about where's the skiing structure piece come from. It was my sabbatical. I um tried. I love skiing. I spent um nearly 10 years with the australian winter olympic team and so I learned how to ski. But turns out, I learned how to ski quite poorly, and if he's listening to this I do apologize, but I was taught how to ski by an olympic gold medal coach. The problem was he never taught me the fundamentals, so I learned the top end.

Speaker 2:

I never learned the basics basics and for many, many years. My daughter finished school. She took a gap year and said hey, why don't I become a ski instructor? And I went, why don't I go with you? And it was really just an interesting time for her and I to bond. And she's now gone off to uni and I loved it. So I go up to the mountains every winter and I spend my weekends helping other people particularly. And I spend my weekends helping other people, particularly adults. But I also enjoy working with an organisation called DWA, which is Disabled Winter Sports Australia. We work with individuals who have got a variety of both cognitive and physical challenges in their lives and try and find ways of getting them on to know and working with them. So it's working with young kids who have got motor disabilities through to cognitive disabilities and adults as well. So I use my psychology skills in that space as well. Fantastic.

Speaker 1:

That's another show. We'll come on to that one. That's another show. Interesting, interesting. I love that. I love the way sport continues to weave through your life, through your career as well. So you know, you spoke of wanting to be elite. Interesting, right skills, wrong body, it does go to that nature nurture. Are you born with these skills? And then, certainly in a sport like basketball, there is well. Are you six foot nine or not?

Speaker 2:

so it's interesting because we often talk about, you know, in the corporate world it's almost. It's this open opportunity we want to, and it's not about whether we talk about diversity or metocracy. It's this open opportunity we want to, and it's not about whether we're talking about diversity or metocracy. It's about, you know, the opportunity to put yourself in a position. Unfortunately for sport, uh, it's a dna, there's a dna component which you just can't get around. At the end of the day, you can want to be six foot nine, but if you're not, you're just never going to be able to play in that sport. And so often athletes, it's all about what they have and how they can best utilize that.

Speaker 1:

And in that mindset, you know you do want to use that mindset as you transition out but it's being successful, knowing what your skill sets are.

Speaker 2:

You know understanding. You know the role, clarity, understanding what is required of you and what you're able to do. He loves me talking about. I have a son who didn't get my DNA. I'm six foot two. He's only five foot 10, but he's got a 50 inch vertical leap. So for those of you in centimeters, it's a lot right. He can dunk a basketball.

Speaker 2:

He plays ruck in the AFL. He's the shortest ruck in the under 19s. It's the most bizarre thing you've ever seen. He goes up against his six foot four kids and he out jumps them. But the reality is he doesn't have the body size. He'll never go further with that. He can't do the side in rucks because he's not big enough. He's not strong enough to kind of muscle his way in, but he can out jump anybody. So now it's about him trying to find what he can do with the skills that he has, not what he necessarily wants to do, because he wants to be a ruck. He desperately, but he's just not six foot seven. So his rucking career is coming to an end very, very quickly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I guess. So I love the way you said only five foot ten, and I'm thinking I'm five ten Actually, that's okay, but I'm with you, I'm with you.

Speaker 2:

But you know what, ryan, at five ten you'll make a fantastic, you know, center half forward, yes.

Speaker 1:

See, can I still do that now.

Speaker 2:

Fort still do that. Now 47, I can. So I'm 52 and I went back to playing basketball with my son just on the over and the body and the mind is a massive disconnect. It doesn't work.

Speaker 1:

So sorry, I don't see a football career for you just now, but fantasy football maybe yeah, honestly, I think fantasy football would be harder, because figuring out understanding and that's probably many listening thinking when we're saying football here, which football are we talking about?

Speaker 2:

oh sorry, hang on. So there's the soccer, there's the footy. Yeah, I know you're in.

Speaker 1:

Melbourne we're talking AFL and, uh, I think getting an understanding of 18 blokes on a field and believing that there are tactics at play, that's probably one of the hardest things since coming to Australia, one of the hardest things that I've had to try and get my head around. So the fantasy football side even harder.

Speaker 2:

Never trust a sport where the ball isn't circular Like those oblong balls. They just don't bounce. So when you talk about decision-making, you can't predict where that ball's going to bounce. It just can go any way at once.

Speaker 1:

That is very true, and I suppose, look, that's an interesting segue into this whole thing about decision making. And for you I'm interested in the sense you had to make decisions along your way, and one of the key bits there with what you mentioned is you take what you've got, you make the best of what you've got in sport and that helps sort of move you forward. For you, as you were coming through, recognizing OK, what you have isn't perhaps going to get you to where you want to be, how did you start to make a decision then in what you would study and how to pursue that?

Speaker 2:

So I'll take it back a little bit, because you know it's easy for me to sit here with you and join the dots going backwards. So hindsight is a wonderful thing where we're able to use our logical, cognitive brain and go, oh yeah, I did this and I did this, so I can explain it to you as if I was making conscious decisions at the time. Because, yeah, now I have the luxury of history and the luxury of being able to connect all of those dots. And this is often the challenge when you go and speak to a mentor or somebody a little bit older, maybe a bit wiser, is that they have that luxury and you're talking to somebody in the moment. So, if I think back in the moment, I didn't know where I wanted to go In my mind. I was still going to be an elite athlete, I was still pushing it. I had somebody who had enough insight and I had enough, I guess, respect for and confidence in.

Speaker 2:

Sit me down one day and say what do you want to do with your life? Where do you want to go? At the time I was doing my master's degree and this person you know, we went out for a coffee. We went out to a place that was non-confrontational. It wasn't in their office, they were, you know, they were part of the university. It wasn't in an office, it wasn't on the sporting field, it was sort of in this sort of area. That was just a coffee shop.

Speaker 2:

And and he said to me you know, what do you want to do with your life? Where do you want to go? And I and I sat there. What are you talking about? He said, well, you've got these two competing demands. You're trying to play sport, you're also studying at the same time. You clearly you know what. Let's walk this through.

Speaker 2:

And I was trying to hedge my bets both ways. He actually said to me, because you do realize you're too short to play. And I went, yes, but so I threw in that kind of justification it's the yes but argument and he went yeah, I hear you, but let's look at the evidence, let's look at this. And and then he was very kind enough to point out to me that I was doing particularly well in my studies at the time. And he said you're doing really well here and you've got this opportunity. And look, let's see what this looks like as opposed to where. Where could you go with sports? And and look to his credit he then. He then went and spoke to my coach, who he knew because I was playing you know, it's quite a senior team and both of them had words with me and suggested that maybe I was going to be better off as a psychologist than as an athlete. And I'll be honest, I didn't like either of them at the time so many athletes who come on here have that type of moment.

Speaker 1:

So many have been told you're not gonna, you can't do this, you won't do this, you're not good enough, and and that, I guess, energizes them to go further, to push harder but in my case they were right.

Speaker 2:

I was never going to make it as an athlete. But they saw something in me in another area. And look, I've had these conversations with athletes myself as a psychologist, where I sit down and I say let's kind of, let's road map out where you're going, because I would never say to somebody you're not going to make it, that's not my decision. My job is to sit there and help them see everything. Because I think what happens sometimes is we get the blinkers on and the blinkers come on for a couple of really interesting reasons.

Speaker 2:

They can come on from a sense of honor, they come on from a sense of duty. They can come on a sense of honour. They can come on from a sense of duty. They can come on a sense of my parents have piled all this money into me. I need to kind of do this. My coach has put so you do get that side.

Speaker 2:

You get the side of the athlete who says no, no, no, I'm doing this from hell or high water and I don't care what anybody tells me, and that's great, there's nothing wrong with that. But my job there is to say well, let's look at everything, let's look at what is plan B. Let's look at what is plan C, let's look at all of your options so that they're there for you to make the most effective decision when the evidence starts to present itself Because I know the evidence will present itself at some point in time. But you need to be armed with the decision-making ability at that point because if you don't, you end up making a poor decision that you then tend to regret later on.

Speaker 1:

And so for you, at your position, you were able to look then at the evidence. They gave you evidence. You're really good at this study stuff. You can talk it through. I suppose it sounds like you fought a little bit, but you did think well, actually I can excel in this piece.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and look later on, through my studies, I've kind of worked out and understood why this happens. Why do we have this kind of internal challenge that presents itself? And there's some really interesting reasons behind it and I won't go into too much. You know brain mumbo jumbo, but in essence we have a massive disconnect between our feeling brain, so the limbic system, the part of the brain that deals with emotions, and our cognitive brain, the logical, rational reasoning, which is often we feel it, you feel it, your friends would feel it. It's the disconnect between I know I should do something, but it just feels good, I think I'm going to do something else. It's the gut feel. Where does that come from? And so we know that there's these two types.

Speaker 2:

The problem we face with the emotional brain, amongst a whole bunch of other stuff, but just I'm simplifying this as best as I can is the emotional brain has no propensity for language, so it can't speak right. So when I say to you, ryan, how do you feel today? What you're doing is your feeling brain is going well, I have a feeling right, and then the logical part of your brain is going to go oh, I know words that he wants and it implements work. I'll give you a really good example. Right, I'm is going to go oh, I know words that he wants and it implements work. I'll give you a really good example. Right, I'm not going to put you on the spot yet, but do you?

Speaker 1:

have a loved one, somebody that you love A partner a child. I have my wife, I have my three boys. Okay, do I have to pick one?

Speaker 2:

Okay, Okay, cool, right, okay, okay. So quick question right Do you love your partner? Yeah, cool, easy answer. Quick question, right do you love your partner.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, cool, easy answer, right, logical answer ready. Next question why? I'll say the way she makes me feel pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, you see the challenge you're facing. Now the first question really easy. You just were like yeah, of course I do, that's you know. You asked me the question when I said why and I want you to kind of go that level, several levels below, unfortunately the emotional part of your brain was going, it was firing and it was just going. Hang on, I've got words for this, I'll get there.

Speaker 1:

And of course, when she looks back at it, she's going to be like why did you pause? No, no, no, I wasn't pausing because I didn't know. I was pausing to find the right word.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, yeah. And what happens is, because we don't know how to explain a feeling, we sort of jump into the descriptions. So I often joke and call that the features and benefits list. It's like it's because they do this, they do this and you give us a list when in fact, the real reason is just because, right, you just do and you can't really explain it and it's why Hallmark does so well or the card companies do so well, is they find the right words and we read it and we go oh, yeah, yeah, that's the one and we pick it up, right. So the same thing comes into play with athletes. When you're asking them, you know, why are they doing what they're doing? Where do they want to go? And you go, well, why do you want to do that? And they get caught in that same space, right? And we're having this ongoing challenge between trying to understand and interpret our emotional feelings, our emotional reactions, and then pairing that up with the cognitive data. That's there, right, and it's hard.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it is hard. In fact, I was writing just this weekend. I was speaking with an athlete before and it was about this feeling that they had that they weren't in love with the game anymore. They were playing and they had this sense. They had that they weren't in love with the game anymore. They were playing and they had this sense and they were finding it difficult to explain what it was, but it was starting to signal to them okay, well, I think my time, I think I'm finished, I think I'm ready for another challenge and me, as a coach, I'm trying to help them to understand. So well, what is it about this that's telling you now's the right time, it's not next year, it's not another cycle. I guess that was quite challenging and what I'm hearing from you is it's because there's this sense, this feeling that you know she's not putting into words, that she's just like. I think it's there and it's struggling now to put. I want to help her see logic, I want to help her to think. So she's making this sort of rational decision.

Speaker 2:

What you're saying is that's hard, it's, and you're always going to start. Where you'll see the success is a year after the decision has been made right. So you'll sit down a year later and then hindsight is not emotional anymore, hindsight's logical. So I can talk you through my history and I can go yep, I finished my sporting career at this stage and then I went to do my this degree and then I got a job here and then I made this decision and I can kind of I can hop you through all those points and you're going to go oh wow, you had it all like I want to be able to be as clear as you are, and then I sit back and I go yeah, but if you spoke to me at the time, I was full of emotions going. I don't want, want this. I don't understand it.

Speaker 1:

And so for me, one of the bits that becomes important. I look at that and I call it this red thread. As you look back, you can find I always say don't worry, when people are out of work. I work with some executives out of work. I think I don't want to be out of the market for too long, I don't want to be doing this. I say, don't worry about that, we'll make a story in six months. As you're getting a job, your resume will look great. That career, it will look as seamless and well planned. Now it's interesting then for you to say yes, as you look back and there's that logic that comes through. But here we've got people at that point looking to make a decision about okay, well, my career, this career, this job, it's time to leave, it's time to move on. Given great, in a year's time you can look back and you'll make sense of it. How do you make sense of it in the moment?

Speaker 2:

So there's a few things that I like to use that I find helpful. One of the things is really taking almost like a bit of a skills audit what is it that you have? So I call it the superstar CV. It's the CV you would never send to anybody else, because they would look at it and go we're going to have a problem with this person, hallucinate. Yes, so it's exactly right. I get them to sort of write out their superstar CV. It's the one that, basically, is the biggest pat on the back you could ever give yourself, because we know and look, there is some cultural differences, but we know that people are fantastic at beating themselves up. They're not very good at giving themselves credit, so they'll dismiss credit to oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. That's kind of expected, but geez, I was terrible at this thing.

Speaker 2:

So the superstar CV is the starting point for me to say to them let's really explore all of the things you think you're really good at and let's really, like, double down on them. Use bigger emotive language, use descriptors no one's ever going to see it other than you and I, but let's start there From that. What I would then often do is literally draw up a square and say, okay, let's put into this square the ones that you think are the most important, like, let's really partition out which one of the ones you have, just because maybe it's dna. You're six foot nine, but okay, that doesn't mean much, right, let's put the squares on the stuff that you think is really important. From that, what I then try to elicit and this is probably the, this is the hardest bit is how do those things make them feel? What are the? What's the psychological connection between that? So they might say I'm very good at assist and getting my teams involved and I'd go. Okay, that's great, that's a skill. What does that mean to you? And so you play this game of. If I took it away, what would that mean to you? Or if you weren't good at that anymore, what would that mean to you?

Speaker 2:

So, trying to get them to understand what's the emotional connection or the psychological connection to the skills, because the minute they stop sport, what's going to happen is that that task or that skill goes away. What they're not going to grieve is the loss of the skill. What they're going to grieve is the loss of the emotional connection to the skill, right? So, yes, they'll go. I can't dunk the ball anymore. That's unfortunately. I got the puppy getting upset. I can't dunk the ball anymore. What does that mean? Well, it means like I don't feel like I'm a good athlete. I don't feel like I'm a good athlete, I don't feel something right.

Speaker 2:

So what we're trying to do is get the connection to the feeling state, because the goal then is, when they look at their next career, is we want them to find something that's going to reconnect back to those same feelings, because then they're going to feel engaged. So I'll give you a good example. I worked with an athlete many years ago who was a highly competitive rower, unbelievably competitive, incredibly successful athlete, and was struggling to. You know, was getting all the sense and body was breaking down, injuries were kicking in, times were dropping off. So there was all this cognitive evidence that they weren't going to be successful moving forward. But they couldn't let go right and what it came down to was they just loved the competition. They just loved competing. Guess what type of job they're doing now.

Speaker 1:

Well, I have to say competing something in sales or something like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. So when we looked through all of it, they ended up going into real estate, but they looked at car you know. They explored being, you know, working at a car yard for a period of time and so what we identified really quickly was that actually, it was the competitive nature that they were really needing, and so it was that that then drove their decision, and so now they are an incredibly successful car salesperson.

Speaker 1:

You know there you've touched on this piece around that feeling and looking for, you know, remove the task as the focal point for what you're looking at in some respects continuing, but focusing on that feeling, focusing on the emotions that you get and you know how that makes you feel with a view that what you're then looking for in terms of that future task or future activities and well, how would I feel when I am doing that?

Speaker 2:

Because you can get that feeling state from other activities right. You don't. And this is often the disconnect that athletes don't realize and in fact, corporates don't realize. They think that when they move from something to the next thing, they have to let go of everything in the past. And and they don't. The bigger challenge is when and I use that word let go quite deliberately the bigger challenge becomes when they do have to let go of some things, so they have to be. You know, for example, that classic difference between the individual athlete versus the team athlete. Right, the individual athlete's only ever done anything on their own, doesn't trust anybody, works on their own. Right now they're going to go and work in a team, in a corporate instance, so they're moving from sport to corporate right. One of the challenges you're sitting with them is talking about saying how do you let go of maybe not trusting other people or thinking you have to do everything yourself? So there is a component that says you don't have to hold everything. You do realize.

Speaker 2:

I heard, I saw somebody give a talk once and this person's become a friend of mine over the years and he said something that was very profound and I don't know where he got it from. But I love the saying. It's something that goes along the lines of what made you successful today may not be the things that make you successful into the future, and so it's also that recognition of what do I need to let go of, what do I need to say, okay, this has got me to this point, but what's going to get me to the next kind of challenge? So there's a couple of factors there. So you're not saying to the athlete look, everything you've done today is going to make you successful into the future. You're going to have to rethink some things. Let's explore what they are and that's it.

Speaker 1:

It's a question I often ask on this show. I ask them two sides. It's very easy so what? What will you do? What, as an athlete, has helped you be successful in your career afterwards? You know, ongoing determination, focus, resilience, all of these things come out and then it's good then to flip it and say, well, what have you had to let go, what did you have to change in order for you to be able to move forward? And it's always, it's frequently a difficult thing to respond to, even in hindsight, or looking well, what have I had to stop doing for them to be able to recognize? You know, like you say, the trust factors, the competition factors, the everyone on the same page. Do you find again in the moment that people struggle to realize, well, I have to stop doing this now in order to be successful. And how hard is that?

Speaker 2:

and that's where people, where people you know it sounds like it's the type of work you do as well, but that's where it's helpful to have somebody else help you through these processes, because if you just were left to your own devices, it's really difficult for you to sometimes get that self-reflection, that insight. And so, with somebody else who can come along and you know, as I often say to people that I work with, you know, I'm not emotionally invested in you. Yes, I'm a dispassionate, I call it, I'm a dispassionate investor, right, so I'm invested in you, but I have no emotional investment in you. You know, your partner, your parents, your coach, they're all going to have emotional connections to you, and so sometimes I have to work with the coaches and the partners and the parents to go.

Speaker 2:

It's time for this person to move on. Let's work through what this looks like, because they're still going, yes, but I just want to do it. And look, sometimes parents are the hardest, particularly when it's younger kids that are. You know they get to that. There's a couple of awkward ages for young kids. It's different in different sports, but you know, there's the point where they got to go look, you know, yes, I was good as a young kid, 12 to 16.

Speaker 2:

But once you get above 16 and all of a sudden, then the funnel starts to narrow and you think you were good in your club and then you started to go to the broader club and you actually realized.

Speaker 1:

Yeah not as good as I thought I was, so parents are yeah do you know there's so much about that realization that one chapter is closing. And the beauty of sport, other beauty it's a beauty and brutality of sport is you are not necessarily told. Very few people are lucky enough that they can retire on their terms from sport. It is usually somebody coming in faster, stronger, better at doing whatever it is. That's that's required and coming to terms with that is one of those challenging points. And you know you've spoken already about that the feeling or the emotional side versus the logical and thinking through that superstar CV sort of mentality which I think most athletes should be good at, that ego. But you know, bloke your ego.

Speaker 2:

It's writing it down that they find a little bit challenging. They'll tell it to you, but when you write it down they do find that sometimes a little harder.

Speaker 1:

Do you know? You just made me think I should give that to a friend of a friend and just say do you know what? Actually write it down rather than just say it all the time, or what. Do you know what they'll do? They'll record themselves on video, transcribe it and then give it. So I said that's going to work. Actually you should do that. You just made me think of a crazy idea.

Speaker 1:

But a good use of AI, I think Marnie would be, she'd be happy with me. But so when you think then of this, you know, this is all about decision making, and I suppose we've touched on that decision now, and you know one of the bits that we you know that we were chatting earlier. The chat was about making decisions about your future career and that sort of looking forward, which I think it's hard in the, you know, in the, in the general sense of you know, really thinking ahead. I suppose I'm interested in your take then on on how that might work about people looking ahead and thinking. You know, perhaps in some of the clubs as well that you've worked with, how you tackle that, that future orientation there's no one way to do this.

Speaker 2:

And this is the problem, right, because we're all so different. We all have different desires, we all have different things that we enjoy. For those of you who are out there listening to this, you may have young kids going through year 12 and you say to them what do you want to do? Like it's a classic question what do you want to do? And every year 12 student particularly looks at you and looks there's the one or two that says I want to be an astronaut or I'm going to be a this. Right, there's always that kid. 90% of the rest of the kids just look at you and they go I don't know, right. And so university is partly about a little bit of an exploration and it's a bit of a journey, right, I've watched my kids are going through that journey now and I'm seeing that process happen. Some of them start doing a course and they finish doing that course. Some of them start somewhere and then they pivot and move all over the place. So it's it's. I think it's about the starting that journey. It's not necessarily saying I've got to come up with an end point now, because I think that that finalization of the fixation, of saying I'm going to to be an ex. Now, don't get me wrong. There are people who will go I want to be an orthopedic surgeon, boom. Okay, follow pathway, understand what you need to do.

Speaker 2:

I had a conversation just the other night with a fascinating senior executive, ceo of an organization late 50s, you know, almost about to turn 60. And the conversation we had was they're wanting to now retrain to become an organizational psychologist. And I'm going okay, you've got like six years, that's if you do everything right. You know, it's a four-year undergrad, like two-year master's degree, before you can even do anything. And this person was going yeah, that's great, cool, I love studying. You know, I want to go on that journey and I want to do this pathway. And I was thinking there's no way I would do that at the. You know, at 52 I'm not going to retrain. Can you imagine me turning around and saying to my wife I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon, so I'm going to go do four years of um, of undergrad, and then I'm going to do another 10 years of a postgrad?

Speaker 1:

and she'd just look at me and go you're mad, I have to say what freedom that person you spoke to must have. Hopefully it's real and they're not going crazy, but what freedom they must have to be able to enjoy that love of learning as they're hitting 60 and sort of going forward. I think what you were getting to, though, is there's as much a sort of time continuum that one sort of might think of, and you have to assess is it? Do I want to go down this route?

Speaker 2:

but I shared that example because people might go well, hang on, that sounds like you would go. Oh no, no, don't do that. But I know this person's going to do it. There's no way they're not going to do it. So for me it's about taking it's. It's that first hurdle. The first decision is I need make a decision. I know that sounds a little bit on the nose, right, but it's actually. I've got to make a decision here. I'm going to be doing something different.

Speaker 2:

And then it's understanding the mechanics behind it, understanding what's required of you, and then starting but not necessarily starting with an absolute goal at the end. And I often find with athletes, they're so goal-orientated, they want to know exactly what they're going to do. Now, the corporate world and the sporting world differ in a few areas, but they differ significantly in this area. Right, athletes need to be very goal-orientated, they need to have this. We are like it's almost down to a singular fixation of a point. And Olympic athletes are very different to the regular weekly athletes because they do. You know, they train week by week.

Speaker 2:

But when you do move into the corporate world, you move into another area. You don't have to be as fixated because you might start off and go. I want to go into business, so I go. What type of business? Or I don't know. Well, let's just start and again I'm still qualifying by saying, look, there are people who want to be, you know, a microbiologist, and that's fine. But even then it's about saying let's start that journey, let's get you in and explore what that world is now going to look like, to make sure that you do want to go down that pathway and then the other thing I'll often say to athletes is what's plan b?

Speaker 1:

before going to that bit, I think what's interesting and you may have seen my brain whirring as you were talking to me is but it was, it was as much the that there's that goal orientation that I know as an athlete.

Speaker 1:

It is to win a specific thing and, as you said, an Olympic athlete, to run 9.7 seconds and win that gold medal on that date and you can not only can you, you have a date of when the Olympic final is going to be and it's like that's when I need to peak, you can push for that, whereas sort of the bit that got me going was here we're talking about. You've got to make a decision and, as blunt as you say that is, it is coming down and saying a decision is going to be made. What's the question? What? What's the question? What is the decision? So it's more the question that's important when we're looking at career and perhaps in business and more typical work life, rather than the pure outcome on win a gold medal on the 5th of July and blah, blah, blah it's that question, setting that problem, that problem of creation in some respects.

Speaker 2:

And I think once you start that journey and you're open to you know that way of thinking and part of it comes down to you. Know there are people who are very deductive in their thinking. It's like deduced down to a point. Right. My theory has always been we want to get people to explore and be inductive, kind of go the other way around and say what's the art of the impossible? I know that's not my phrasing, but what's out there. So you might say that's impossible, you go well, that's fine, but there's an art to getting at an impossible thing. I had and I say this with a big smile on my face but I didn't have the most amazing grades, Like I did really well in my undergrad, but my grades weren't incredible. But I knew I wanted to do this master's degree in sports psychology and there were only a few spots available and I was living in Perth, western Australia, at the time and the course I wanted to do was in Toowoomba, queensland.

Speaker 1:

Wow, okay, didn't expect you to say that, but okay yeah.

Speaker 2:

I was maybe 20, somewhere around there and I knew my grades weren't going to get me in absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I was going to be in the mix, but I wasn't necessarily going to be the absolute. And so my way of dealing with that and I still look back and I think I don't know how I came up with this was I bought myself a flight. I flew from Perth to Queensland, I got on a bus two hours up the hill to Toowoomba, which is a small little regional town, and I literally walked into the head of department's office and I just said I'm here to do your course and I think I cheekily said I'm not leaving until you let me in. And we sat chatting for like four hours and he wanted to know why I wanted to do the course and what was interesting me and blah, blah, blah blah. And then, about four or so hours later, the head of department walked in and he looked up and he said you know, jerry, this is Gavin Gavin's, one of our students next year. And I went cool and then I got the acceptance a couple of weeks later. But it was a journey.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is, and you only do that when you're young. I just think you only do that when you're young Almost, when we have no idea of what no could be or the implications of it. We're just like, yeah well, I'll go, I'll just do that.

Speaker 2:

But in saying that, though, I'll often encourage people to push beyond their current remit. So you know, people out there are looking for jobs, right? So what they'll do is they'll look for the job that they think that they are eligible for. You know they have the criteria. My approach has always been no, look for the job you want to get into. Go further, apply for those jobs. The chances of getting an interview are pretty much zero, right?

Speaker 2:

So what if you actually got an interview? Look for the level above, see what's required to get you to that level, because often that's a bit of a disconnect. People go I'm not sure where to start, so I go well, let's go. Let's maybe look at one or two or three layers up. If you want to be the chief operating officer, okay, let's look at that person and see what did they do to get them to that point, what was their journey? To give them a bit of a guidance around what the journey might look like, I wrote a book a little while ago where I was lucky enough to interview a whole bunch of CEOs and senior execs, and you'd think, when you talk to them about their history, that they all would have followed similar pathways, and the reality is not. One of them got to that point using the same traditional pathway.

Speaker 1:

Literally not one. Talk to me a bit about that book and about, I guess, the pathways that that you uncovered so there's a.

Speaker 2:

There was a couple of books in there. I just merged them all in together. So the first one that I looked at was I called it the business olympian. It was. I was looking at elite skills that athletes had and how they could transfer into the corporate world. So my way of doing it was I interviewed a whole bunch of elite corporate people and said now let me retrospectively look at the skills you have and are they similar to what elite athletes have? And lo and behold, shock, horror, guess what? They use visualisation, they use competitive routines, they use all these things and it was fascinating. I remember talking to at the time the then CEO of McDonald's, and his pathway was fascinating because he had come through and was the CEO of McDonald's but he was a marketing manager.

Speaker 2:

So he hadn't come through the traditional CFO or COO role which they often do. He came out of marketing and into that role and he reflected and I remember this conversation with him. He was reflecting all the way through the book around how teamwork in marketing is essential and how the aspects of being able to visualize and see where you want things to go being successful and that's the type of CEO he was. He was that type of CEO Whereas I've spoken to the CFO, to CEO individuals, and they're more the numbers people and they follow the I need to get the PE ratio to match the IRR ratio, and then there's every other acronym you could think of, and so there's different pathways that people will follow, and so what I found through that book was it came down to them understanding their skills, what skills that they could bring and how they could best utilize those skills to achieve the vision and the goal of what it is they want.

Speaker 1:

So that was kind of that, that first one that loops us all the way back, into back to where we started, which is, irrespective of the path that they came, what they all recognized was what they were good at, what their skills were, what their attributes were. They're six, nine. They're six, two great. Let's play with that and let's make it happen.

Speaker 2:

Let's play with that. Yeah, what I found in my second book, which was called Just Stop Motivating Me, was I started to. I wanted to go a little bit deeper. So the first book was all about skill-based stuff.

Speaker 1:

And then the second one I just want to say when I was looking at your books, I really liked that one.

Speaker 2:

It was like I have to learn about this one. And so, with that, what I started to look at and understand was actually the only person who can motivate you is you, right, everybody out there who thinks you know. I can't motivate you to do anything right Now. What I can do is I can threaten you, I can bribe you, I can use fear, I can use a bunch of variables to get you to do a task. That's not motivation, right? That's just some sort of inducement to act, because the minute I remove that inducement, you're not going to continue that behavior.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so motivation is, by my definition, it's, an innate skill. So what I was interested in with the second book was how do CEOs motivate 50,000 people, right? So how does the CEO of Bunnings, who has over 50,000 staff, like he, can't motivate any of them? And in fact it's a really interesting conversation to go. How do you drive, how do you build a culture and an environment that will enable those people to motivate themselves? So it was all this idea of, and so I went to speak to CEOs who all had very big businesses. I didn't go, because the CEO who runs 100 people can actually control that group quite more tangibly than the CEO of West Farmers or the CEO of Colts.

Speaker 1:

It was a bit that I'm interested in because the many athletes who transition, they move through, they find themselves in corporate roles but then suddenly they start working with teams and I'm going to say, as soon as a team is above 30, 40, it's beyond what most athletes have ever had to manage. So actually, afl great example If you're the club or team captain of that squad, there's 40 people in that full-time squad who you're going to be training with right Before jumping to scale. So I'm interested in that point around motivating, I'll say, medium-sized numbers, the 100 numbers, versus motivating the 50,000, 100,000 employees. How did you chart that difference or describe that difference?

Speaker 2:

It's a really good question. I didn't do it that way. What I tried to do was to understand what are the drivers of motivation at the individual level and then sort of if you then circumnavigate your decision making around it, well then, how do CEOs impact on that? So I'll give you a really quick descriptor. What I looked at was what I call the motivational continuum. So I truly believe everyone is motivated. I don't believe there are no unmotivated people. I know you might say they are, but then I don't believe they are. I believe we're motivated to continue. So on one side of the continuum is what I call motivated to avoid failure. This is not fear of failure that is a factor but this is the actual motivation to avoid the negative evaluation of myself by myself or others. Right? So if I become motivated to avoid failure, I will actively do things that will stop me from being evaluated.

Speaker 2:

Now that might mean be lazy, because if I'm lazy, I'm not being evaluated right On the other side of the continuum is what we call motivated to succeed, and that's where people see failure as simply a step in the direction of future success. Now, the challenge with this continuum is that it's impacted on by context. So I might say to you do you like public speaking? And you might say, yes, I do. Okay, you love it. And I'll say, well, great, ryan, I can put you in front of a group and say to you on notice, talk about X. And you go. Well, I don't know anything about the topic, but sure I'll have a crack right. Okay, fair call.

Speaker 2:

Now there are people who are listening to this who would literally curl up into the fetal position and say there is no way I'm doing that. So, however, if I said to you right now, ryan, I'm going to take you over, and I'll just use a current example I'm going to take you over to the US and you're going to give a speech to Congress and, off the back of your speech, all world war, all the current wars, are going to either expand into world war three or completely go away. The world economy will, everybody will be friends. Now, if you stuff it up, we're going into global recession and the world will blame you. If you get it right, the world will succeed. How are you feeling now about your public speaking?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a bit more pressure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, you might have moved a little bit down that continuum to being I better not stuff this one up, so understanding that. So then it becomes down to cultures that CEOs can impact on. So the CEO who's able to say to create an environment that says you better not screw up, right? So if you've created a culture that says you better not screw up and you come in as an athlete who goes, no, no, I learned through failure and I try stuff. And if I don't succeed, well, I keep trying. And you get hit with a culture that says do not stuff up A lot of these risk-averse organisations.

Speaker 2:

That athlete's going to really struggle to work in that environment, right? So that culture is going to prevent them from being motivated and they will ultimately either become motivated to avoid failure so they would develop characteristics that are drafted that way or they'll leave. Same thing happens the other way around, right? If you're a very risk-averse person and you're going into an organization that says right, we want you to put your hand up and try and be innovative and creative, and you're going oh, I'm this person, I don't put my hand up, you're not going to enjoy that. So CEOs need to recognize that you've got people on both sides of these motivational continuums, and so they need to decide the type of culture that they want to try to create. What's the type of environment?

Speaker 2:

And where it becomes a little bit trickier is when we've got companies that are regulated through industry bodies right, so a good example is like the banking industry and we've seen it now playing out in Australia right so, highly regulated, highly risk averse through APRA and various other regulators, the proposed, the opposition, is coming in and saying we want to reduce some of the fears to let young people buy new houses, right, so what they want to do is they want to reduce some of the risks that banks have to apply. So it's going to be really interesting to see if that were to happen. Right? Do the CEOs of those banks then go okay, we can now reduce the criteria by which you can get a loan that enhances our risk of that loan defaulting. Like there's all these variables right, that's absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 1:

What are they going to do? Well, as someone who went from football, been a footballer directly into banking and has spent 20 odd years in there, it is absolutely fascinating to hear you describe it in that way, because you're talking through so many things I went through, which is why is all this red tape? Why is all this regulation? Surely we want to be pushing forward, turns out. Probably I'm a defensive player, so I was probably still, quite naturally, as innovative and strategic I may well have been.

Speaker 2:

Now hang on. When you say football, what football are you talking about?

Speaker 1:

Anything with a round ball and feet only.

Speaker 2:

Right, you mean the real football. Yeah, not the strange stuff we do here.

Speaker 1:

Not that version here. Again, 18 people, 13, 15. Just have 11,. Make it a round ball and we're good, that's it. So I'll say association football.

Speaker 1:

But going from there into that banking that heavily risked that regulated environment.

Speaker 1:

I think you're quite right in terms of.

Speaker 1:

I can hear it, I can visualize it as you're talking through it, the way motivation, even the group CEO, of what 230, 230 000 people and probably shrinking but 230 000 people was all had to be all about regulation, had to be about compliance, had to be about well, as much as you want to go and speak to this customer, make sure you give them these 15 pieces of paper that they have to initial and sign, all over the place. And I think all those people around the world thinking they're talking about Australian politics. But I actually think changing that you know I put 200,000 people in one organisation, shifting that culture overnight is well, that leads into the art of the impossible. That leads into that thing of how are you going to suddenly turn around and say actually reduce it, don't double the interest rates so that we know they can really afford it if all things go? No, just add a little bit and they'll be fine. I just to me, that type of shift is almost impossible to make, certainly within a short time scale.

Speaker 2:

So it's really hard when you're talking about that, but you're spot on right. But CEOs need to recognize the tension that's happening within their businesses to be able to play to both right. So if you want to have an innovative culture within a risk environment, that's fine. Just recognize the boundaries and the ring fences you need to put behind that and I've seen it work. It doesn't work well in highly regulated industries because they always end up causing problems. But you can really kind of do that and I think for athletes it's the same thing Understand their motivational drivers, right.

Speaker 2:

So if they're an individual who is a highly risk-averse person, you'll tell by the sport that they play. You can almost predict it right. The sports that are unpredictable don't tend to have risk-averse people playing it. The sports that are predictable, where they can control the variables and they can do that, they sort of allure certain type of athletes, but the ones that are the risk-averse ones. So a risk-averse athlete going into banking kind of makes sense, right. The two are going to kind of work really nicely together. They're not going to go start up a think tank and go into innovation, they're just going to struggle. Their mindset's not going to enable them to kind of make that connection. Now it's not to say that they can't do it, it's to say let's work with your skills. It's kind of almost certainly where we started right. Go back to not just your skill set, but also now go back to understanding your motivational drivers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know, I think what's fascinating there is as we speak with and work with those and I'm bringing it to athletes five year, ten years, but it's probably anyone who's stepping through the managerial ranks. You know. What you're describing here is think about how you motivate individuals at scale. So a bit like public speaking, you're not speaking to everyone, just imagine you're speaking to one person and here it's about motivating an organization at scale is finding or has been aware of the individual motivators along that continuum.

Speaker 2:

And be happy to accept. You're going to have people at the extremes, right. You're going to have people who will operate at those extremes and you need to allow for that and you need to recognise that. But also it then comes down to and we're probably going into a whole other area now it comes down to the recruiting processes of those businesses. Don't recruit highly risk-averse people if you want to drive a risk-seeking type behaviour, right. So you look at the big tech companies there's certain roles they don't want. They would want risk-averse people in there's other roles they don't want. They will want risk averse people in there's other roles where they go no, no, no, no. We want that, you know. Go for it and so you can have both operating at the same time. Recognize the. The biggest thing and it's probably a good point to recognize as well those two. Continues I talked about before the motivation to avoid failure, the motivation to succeed. The biggest challenge is to recognize what happens when failure is present to both of those groups. So that's where you start to see a real, significant difference. So when people are motivated to succeed and they see failure, they just simply go. Your beauty.

Speaker 2:

Let me learn in a nutshell. It's not as clear cut as that, but it's. Effectively. I can learn through this process. So they'll often take ownership over their error. They'll say, yes, I made a mistake, I'll learn from that. They'll do that.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, people who are motivated to avoid failure. When they get presented with failure, they do demonstrate some really unfortunately maladaptive type behavior. So they'll do things like blame, justify, defend and deny. It wasn't me, it was Ryan, he made me do it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Go and look through the Royal Commission and you'll see a lot of really interesting excuses as to why certain bankers behaved in certain ways right. What they'll also do is they'll cheat and they'll steal. So they'll take other people's ideas and they'll do that, which is unfortunate.

Speaker 2:

And then the final one, which I always find the one that people get a chuckle out of, and you may remember this back in your school days or postgraduate university. Do you remember walking into the exam and your friend said to you I haven't studied for this one. And then later on, when they failed, what did they say? But I told you I haven't studied, you can't evaluate me negatively, right? So it's the predictive of failure.

Speaker 2:

So the people who say, oh, I'm not sure if this is the best report. I don't know if this is what you really wanted. I'm sure as to, because they're trying to protect themselves later on as opposed to saying can you just give me some feedback on this? Here's my report, tell me what you think right. So you see people who will start to demonstrate that oh look, I'm not sure if. And then they protected themselves from the failure. So it's recognizing that as a leader, you're going to see both of those sides and you're going to have to work within that to build a successful organization. And some can do it and just some fail miserably. I see some leaders who just can't manage those broad ranges of emotional and motivational drivers and ultimately the businesses won't succeed that's it, it's so true.

Speaker 1:

And, and look, I I would say what I do find is a lot of athletes who have led teams the captain, the team captain, club captain what they can recognize. And it's often a joke that I play and chat to them and say, well, describe the most creative player in your team. In football it'd be a winger. Or rugby it's a winger, it's someone like that, or it's a 5'8 and it's someone who's in there. And then you'd say, like, what are they like off the field? And then, all right, describe your defensive players. What are they like off the field? Describe your midfielders and what they.

Speaker 1:

What you're able to do is almost stereotype those types of personalities, those, and then and then go into how were they motivated? Did you put your arm around them or were you in their face to get them to react? And when you're privileged or lucky enough to have been in that team environment, when often you look back, you can see, actually I knew how to man-manage. You were in a position to be able to coach and lead or guide individuals based on their personality type. You might not have known it was a motivational continuum, but you knew how to get the best out of an individual because of that team environment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and being able to then harness that and say you can use that same skill set. Now it may not be as overt. You may have to temper some of your language and your approach of doing things, because you know what the sporting field and also we actually encourage that, so you know if you're, what position did you play when you played football?

Speaker 1:

the real football so you would.

Speaker 2:

You would have been given a lot of information from your goal. The goalkeeper, absolutely yeah and right yeah now, I don't know about your goalkeeper, but was yours the type that said now, ryan, please, next time the person comes down, if you wouldn't mind, just ever so gently just moving a little bit to the right? That's probably not how he spoke. No, it wasn't. It probably was like get over there, right, and you interpret that as he's kindly informing me that that's where I should be, and I'm going to trust him and go there.

Speaker 1:

I appreciated his instruction. It made me feel warm and fuzzy. Yeah, he was great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. But the minute you walked off the field he had his arm around you and he was like great game. And if it wasn't, it was hey, we're going to do this better next time. That's right, absolutely right, yeah, yeah. So there's no that in the corporate world, it's just we're changing the nuance of language, of tone of pitch, of inflection, all those things, because we know the way we communicate is so vital. So the skills that we bring to communication, that elite athletes learn, some of them have to unlearn some of those. They have to take the same intent but unlearn the mechanisms by which they communicate, and I often find that they struggle a little bit with that. So they do get a little fiery at times or they use shortened descriptions, which is often like in sport you've only got a second or so to get across information.

Speaker 1:

If you're in the MCG, you've got 80,000 screaming people around you, exactly. You don't have time for long, well-structured sentences. It has to be direct to the point.

Speaker 2:

Performance reviews done on the field are different to conversations off the field, so sometimes it's about just recognizing the time and the place. So all these skills are still there. It's just, then, about saying how do I hone a new set of skills, so a current behavior or current insight, with maybe a new set of skills that I can develop to enable me to be successful?

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. Look, gavin. I've really enjoyed this chat. We really could keep going and we could talk about this forever. Yeah, I know I think. Well, listen, what I'm going to do is I'm going to just cheekily ask you now, let's have another show in a few months or something like that, and we'll pick a slightly different topic and just keep going. This is, again, really fascinating for me. As you've probably noticed on my face, I'm learning as we're going through this, and yet there are questions about the clubs, the teams and things, the sporting environments that you've been in and the business environments where your consultancy practice takes you as well, that I would love to perhaps delve into a little bit more next time.

Speaker 2:

So I'll give you a teaser for next time. I spent the last 10 years building up a strategic training business, but we had a really interesting spin to our business. We had a focus on crisis management so helping organizations respond in a crisis and what's unique and exciting about that from my lens is that that's not your day-to-day business. That's when COVID hits or you have a major disruption in your business, or a Royal Commission comes in. How do leaders respond when you take two things away from them Knowledge and time, and that, to me, is so.

Speaker 2:

You don't have all the information and you don't have enough time Now make a decision. That's very different from Ryan. Here's all the data, mate. I've done all my research for you, boss. I'm giving it to you. We've got two weeks to decide which way we're going to go. That's very different from me walking in and going. Ryan, the proverbials just hit the fan, mate. We need to decide do we shut down that business or not? Go quick and you're going. That's good. So I spent a lot of time in that space, which is a really interesting decision. It's a whole different kettle of decision there we go.

Speaker 1:

we're going to come back. We're going to talk about how you make decisions when, when both knowledge and time have been removed, which I think, again, is a great topic for most of those listening now, where they probably find themselves in a similar situation. So, look, gavin, I want to say thanks for sharing your time. We've had just over an hour chatting this morning and, look, we'll drop a lot of links in the show notes about your business, about some of the books that you've written as well, so we'll certainly make those available and, with the teaser you've given, I certainly look forward to chatting again soon. Thanks a lot, gavin.

Speaker 2:

Well, thanks, ryan, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 1:

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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Ryan Gonsalves

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