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

166: Theo Brown - From Footballer to 10 Jobs in 5 Years

• Ryan Gonsalves

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Theo Brown opens up about the messy, uncertain path from elite academy footballer to non-league player, to juggling ten different jobs in five years, before finally stepping into his purpose as a social entrepreneur.

He was once chasing football dreams at Leicester City. But after injury setbacks and getting released, life after sport hit hard. No plan. No clear identity. Just odd jobs, quiet doubts, and the feeling that everyone else had it figured out.

But somewhere in the chaos, something powerful emerged.

Theo found purpose not in a straight path, but in the stumble. In mentoring young athletes. In community work. In learning how to turn pain into purpose and experience into impact.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re late to your own life, like you’re playing catch-up while everyone else is sprinting ahead, this conversation will hit home.


What You’ll Hear in This Episode

  • Theo’s early dreams of becoming a professional footballer and the shock of being released
  • How he navigated uncertainty, working ten different jobs while figuring out who he was outside of sport
  • The mindset shift that helped him stop comparing his journey to others
  • How a moment of rock bottom led to a turning point in how he viewed his identity and purpose
  • His path to becoming a mentor and launching a social enterprise focused on youth
  • Why taking action before having full clarity is sometimes the only way forward
  • The importance of vulnerability, community, and redefining what success looks like
  • Lessons on self-worth, delayed timelines, and why there’s no such thing as “too late”

💎 GOLDEN NUGGET:

“You don’t have to have it all figured out before you start. The clarity comes in the doing. Just move.”


This raw and honest conversation with Theo is not just about athletes — it’s about anyone who's ever questioned their direction, battled with identity, or felt like they missed their moment.

Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step? For more information or to book a consultancy, visit www.2ndwind.io

Speaker 1:

You're coming out, you're now starting to play non-league. How are you living? What's changed for you, then? Because you're no longer in that shared house, you're no longer getting paid just to play football. What's going on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I'm getting paid a little bit and at this point I'm still living with my mum, so I don't necessarily need a lot to live on. I need to pay my phone bill on my travel sort of thing and enough money to go out on a Saturday night. Do you know what I mean? Life, once upon a time, life was good man. No bills, that's it.

Speaker 3:

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.

Speaker 1:

Let's be inspired by the stories of others. Theo, welcome to the Career Clarity Podcast. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

Hey, Ryan, thanks for having me on. I'm really good, really excited to have a good conversation about a lot of the different things that we're doing. Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, I'm just thinking. Actually last time we did catch up.

Speaker 1:

You were walking the dog, weren't you? Yeah, I thought for the recording I'll come inside. I'm a bit more of a calm environment. Yeah, I thought we were going to do it like out on location with all the scenery and everything behind you?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I thought about it.

Speaker 1:

My dog's a little bit crazy would have been fun next time when we do, maybe next time. Well, like we were saying, I'm glad you are excited to to be on the show, because those watching and listening really want to probably understand your perspective on all. That is really that career transition, that move to, I'll say, life after, but we, you know, we continue to keep fit but that life after sport and continue to keep moving. So look, theo, just you know, let's kick off. Let's, I suppose, just give me a quick intro and that background about who you are and what you're up to nowadays.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so my name is Theo Brown, I'm based in Nottingham, uk, and I come from a background of playing elite sports, so I played for Leicester City through the youth team up to 18. Didn't get my first pro contract contract, went into non-league football, got the dreaded knee injury that we all know someone who's had the knee injury and now you know me I'm that guy. But yeah, I went off and was in a bit of a state where I didn't know what to do. I spent about five years I think I count I had over 10 jobs in five years just trying to figure stuff out alongside doing a degree, before eventually settling on starting my own company, which is Renee House Community Interest Company. We are a social housing provider. I started that with my partner, tiffany, tiffany, and we provide housing and support for people who are homeless, vulnerable single adults and families across Nottingham in order to give them a stepping stone to move on to more secure housing. So, in a nutshell, that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1:

But what? What an interesting nutshell, as you describe it. Sport to all those jobs. Definitely want to pick into a little bit of that. But resting just on what you're doing now, that's quite a sort of community focused cause. Was it something that had been in you all the time you know? As a youth you kind of had this sort of passion to operate in that space.

Speaker 2:

I don't think it was immediately obvious to me, but when I look back my dad is a very community focused person and although I didn't grow up with my dad in the household because my parents split up when I was quite young, but I always had a relationship with him and I was always very aware of his impact in the local community. So he's a very creative guy, he's an author, he's a poet guy, he's an author, he's a poet, he's a speaker, he's a pianist, so he's a performer and he's used all of his talents for searching into black history and community and he's part of the Windrush generation.

Speaker 1:

So I think only when I look back I realised that that was actually quite a big part of me, but it's only on reflection yeah, interesting, yeah, and on reflection we sort of see these patterns but as we go through it it's not always evident sort of pops up. What is it like running a business with your partner?

Speaker 2:

yeah, interesting, it's really interesting. I think that other people who are in a similar situation running business with their partners will know that it's very difficult to put down work and pick up relationship and put down relationship and pick up work. I think that's probably the most difficult thing. But I think we've got a lot going for us. We, we were together since 16. We're now both 31, so we were together and we had a lot of ups and downs. We grew a lot together, especially growing from teenagers through early adulthood and then getting to that point of starting a business. So I think the thing that we both always say is it was a no brainer, because there's nobody in this world that I trust more than my partner and business. If you're going into business with someone, you need to as a baseline, you need to be able to trust them.

Speaker 1:

I think that trust is vital and I'll put a loose link towards a team, finding a team, cohesion and that sort of chemistry. And you'd like to think certainly there's a trust, chemistry with your partner, perhaps not always in that working together, but there's a lot of athletes or senior execs that I work with and when they get that sort of entrepreneurial bug, often it's their partner husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it might be who they see coming with them and they try and work through this dynamic almost naturally, especially, I think, for athletes, when they might have a partner who's at home. Do you have, like, set roles as in a company perspective, and was that something that was intentional or just sort of morphed?

Speaker 2:

So I think you'll find throughout a lot of my answers, things were very much figure it out as we go along. There was no master plan in any of this. Whether it's my football journey, the middle bit or growing the business, it was just put one foot in front of the other. So, again, on reflection, it's really obvious now what our roles are. So I do a lot of the back office stuff, the stuff that you don't see.

Speaker 2:

I'm very much a generalist, so I have, I'm interested in a wide range of topics and obviously I have a couple topics where I go deep into and I am the specialist in that. But generally I am the person who I can have a knowledgeable conversation about any area of the business, whereas Tiffany, her experience was a lot more straightforward than mine. Her whole work experience experiences in health and social care. So when it comes to managing staff, she was running a team of about 30 40 people at age 22 in a care business. So when it comes to managing staff, I don't get anywhere near that. When it comes to managing the support and and the help that we provide to the vulnerable adults and families that we house, that's, that's all her part. But yeah, when it comes to finance back office legal, anything that you would do in any across any business marketing like that I get involved in, so really involved in the fundamental part of running and growing a business and she has that well visionary sort of approach.

Speaker 1:

You can see where things are going as well and had that hands-on experience of team leadership in the right environment. Now, interesting, and we'll probably come back into that as we step through your world. But let's start from the beginning. Take us, I suppose, back a bit, and you know, I know you speak there of the way the family separated as you grew up, but when you were younger, younger, how important was sport and where did football sort of start to come in?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So again I was. I didn't realize it at the start, but actually my mum did really well to get me into a lot of different sport. I remember her. I think the earliest memory I have is her making us go to swimming really young because she was like that's a skill and obviously there's this trope about black people can't swim and I just find it quite funny because that was one of the first things my mum taught me to do. So, yeah, that's then. And I remember going to like different martial arts before football just came for me quite late. I always say that I started football quite late in terms of someone trying to make it through to the professional levels. So I started at around eight or nine years old. So we would play, we'd play just kicking about in the back garden with all the kids around my area, but then in terms of joining a team and actually realising like a structured football match, yeah, I didn't start till, yeah, like eight or nine.

Speaker 1:

Do you know? It always surprises me how that's considered late.

Speaker 2:

It's mad, isn't it? Yeah?

Speaker 1:

It really is. For certain sports where skill acquisition is so high, then yeah, we do tend to start really young, I mean. But for me, look at it as, yeah, you get into it at that age. Yet there's probably still other sports that sort of continue around that. But for you thinking then you're getting into football at that time at what point did you start to realize I'm good at this, there might be a future?

Speaker 2:

so I was picked up quite quickly. So I think I maybe played six months or a year before I got my first trial. That was at nottingham forest. Obviously, being from nottingham, I was playing for a local nottingham team. I went in to the trial and I I remember even a kid, maybe nine years old thinking wow, these guys are sick and I'm out of my depth here. So, yeah, then got picked up about a couple months later by Knox County, the other team in Nottingham, and I went there, got signed, but then I went to the end of that season and their academy folded. So again I was back into park football, back with my mates playing again, and then again, it was probably only early on In a couple of seasons more. I think I was 12 when I got scouted by Leicester and then, yeah, I fortunately was able to stay there, like I said, until 18. So my thing was that I was just really quick. I was just a quick kid, so I immediately stood out. But the problem was that, yeah, I wasn't the most technical.

Speaker 1:

You forgot the technical part. Don't forget the ball. This is the thing. But as a kid, when you're rapid part.

Speaker 2:

Don't forget the ball. This is the thing. But as a kid, when you're rapid, you don't need the ball as long as you can kick it in the goal, that's it.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. All you want to do is score. Look, I have to say, my probably youngest son is of that sort of ilk. He's just fast. Well, I say he's fast. It's like don't get to practice your skills, what for?

Speaker 2:

what for? I don't, I don't need that.

Speaker 1:

I'll just kick it past him and run. So as you were back, as you were sprinting through your sort of early football career and starting to dream, did you dream of being a pro footballer?

Speaker 2:

I. For me it was all fun and games up until about. So for the first couple of years of being at Leicester it was just fun and games. Like going to, I had no, I didn't even know about, uh, going to get scouted and becoming a footballer, like that wasn't even in my, my periphery, like when I was getting involved in Forest and County. It was just, oh, it's just the next level and this is just a new team to play with. Like it honestly didn't mean that much to me until I really got embedded in Leicester and I started to see the older lads and started to see people moving on.

Speaker 2:

And you'd start to because we went to the Leicester games and used to be a ball boy and you'd be going in like the back entrance and you'd be getting different treatment and it was like, oh, I'm starting to understand this is quite a big thing in it.

Speaker 2:

So it was only when I always refer back to a one-to-one meeting that I had with my coaches at about 14 years old, when they start talking about obviously, in a couple years you're going to be going for your scholarship, you want to get into the youth team, so you are obviously very quick and it's really effective. But by the time you get to that age, your speed is not going to be enough and you're going to need technique. So that was when I realised I had that decision and I remember that meeting clear as day, coming out of it thinking you know what? I've got a real opportunity here. I really want to do this. So, yeah, I spent the next couple of years grafting and I actually did get really good on my technique. But I think, yeah, that was how it went, but I think ultimately it was quite difficult.

Speaker 1:

So that was a shift for you, a shift in focus. To an extent it dialed up this. To become pro, to get scholarships, to get that contract, I'm going to have to put in some extra effort academically. Where did that sit for you?

Speaker 2:

I always say I'm a middle kid, so I wasn't one of them spelling Fudge with my GCSE results. But I also wasn't getting straight A stars. I got mostly Bs and Cs and actually I got one D, which was in sport. When we were in. When I was in year 11, we had one day full in at Leicester and that was the day that I used to do my theory PE. So that clearly had an impact on me. Yeah, doing doing worse on that.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, academically I'm kind of middle of the road yeah, you left school at 16, and so academically, but to me that's, you know, you were still working, you were still doing the work. I guess there's perhaps an intellect, but there was something, that there's some sort of balance that that stuck with you as you went then, as you well, in fact, what was it like for you then to be offered the sort of scholarship contract?

Speaker 2:

it was really good because I think it was the first time or one of the biggest early memories I have of committing myself to something, working really, really hard for something and getting my just rewards. So I think I always say, okay, I didn't make it as a footballer, but what Leicester gave me in those six years being in that environment, that high performance, high expectations, high pressure environment, it gave me so much more yeah, I'll argue, I'll say you made it as a footballer.

Speaker 1:

You signed you. You've been doing that for your life. That was your career. Yeah, I've got, and you know, and then, but it's a, it's a funny statement. I know it's a bit of a throwaway comment and we see, we you know me as well I got those from my age group who went on to play 300 professional games and represent the country and do things like that. Absolutely fine, but it's still at that elite level. So we're all getting into that.

Speaker 1:

When it's that full time, certainly from a football perspective it's there. And we see it amongst those who do Olympic Commonwealth type sports, where well, it's as full time, see it amongst those who do olympic commonwealth type sports, where well, it's as full-time as it can be. It's just that it's not professional. But you know you're putting the effort in. But what you did say was really interesting as well, around what it taught you, that, that period, that ability to do that day in, day out. How do you, you know, what do you think those key strengths are, or key, I don't know values are that you learned from being a footballer through those years?

Speaker 2:

the biggest one that always comes to mind is resilience. So you play for the the thing about football and you mentioned like athletes. So for a lot of athletes they maybe have that they work on that olympic cycle where you're gearing up to every four years. This is your big moment, whereas with football your cycle is so quick. Every single saturday, and sometimes saturday, tuesday, saturday, tuesday, like when, when you're getting into the, into that part of the season, like your cons, your emotions are constantly, and I use this example all the time. You can score a last minute winner on the saturday and on tuesday you score an own goal and it's like this, managing your emotions, of this constant extreme, you just there's not many, there's not very many experiences that you can replicate that as a young teenager growing up through life, and obviously these are years that formulate who you become as an adult and so that's very much that pressure cooker type environment where, like you say, every couple of days, every few days, you're feeling that and when.

Speaker 1:

So when you talk about resilience in this example, break down for me what you mean by that word resilience.

Speaker 2:

So to me it means it's that thing of winning graciously but being also a good loser as well. So, and applying that to life, because no matter how good you are at anything, you are also going to lose and stuff is also not going to go your way. And it's managing your own emotions and also managing other people's emotions, because just because you react in a textbook way, it doesn't mean you have no control over how other people react about, about situations. So I think that definitely helps me.

Speaker 1:

I feel that I find that that, along with a couple other experiences in my life, make me a quite a balanced person yeah, that balance it, and almost there's a humility that has to come with it because, like you say, you're winning on Saturday, you're losing on Tuesday and even, to an extent, if you're winning and you're on this running winning streak, there's always this, but it's going to end, because no one wins everything, all their games in this sport. So you do have to stay grounded. When, listen, you got into the scholarship, it was a great moment for you and it was. You know it was going. Was there a point where you started to feel that this might not continue and you might not be offered another contract and you'd have to do something else? Did that cross your mind at any point?

Speaker 2:

yeah, definitely. So. I'm always very open and honest about the fact that my first year scholarship was an absolute car crash. It was terrible. So I started one game against the bottom of the league and I played 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes every game. I was massively out of my depth and I struggled off the pitch. I struggled socially, like integrating with the lads, because I'm not a typical footballer type. I'm not a jack the lad, I'm not allowed, I'm not outgoing, I'm not a big personality in the dressing room. I'm very naturally very introverted. If I ain't got nothing to say, I ain't gonna speak, sort of thing. And it's not. It's not because I'm moody or whatever, it's just I yeah, and then. So I just find it very difficult when being a young, a young lad, though.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just a lot of things when just didn't go very well, so at that point it was quite difficult and well on this, I always, you know, chat a lot about those transitions and yeah, the transition we talk about typically is that one for life after sport. But always intrigues me about the transitions we make within the sport and how we deal with that. And you know, you've just mentioned there this going from school boy to a full-time professional, in a full-time, you know, in a scholarship environment there you had challenges on the field. You know, in a scholarship environment, there you had challenges on the field. You know, socially struggling as well. How did you well, did you cope with it? You've come through it. But how do you reckon you got through that period then, if it was a car crash, as you say?

Speaker 2:

one thing my mom always drove into me and this is also where the resilience comes from is that you start things and you finish them. I signed a two-year contract for this scholarship, so, as difficult as it is, I never really um. I definitely woke up some mornings like I don't want to go in today because I know it's just about to be a horrible day, but I never really had the thought of wanting to leave or move or quit. It was just so.

Speaker 2:

My response was I was the first one in and the last one out, and again it came back to this thing of I was playing catch up, because I was now at a stage where my speed wasn't enough and I was technically behind everyone else and therefore my confidence was massively hit, because obviously you get a lot of your social power within the dynamic of the group from your footballing ability, and I knew that I was behind. So the only thing that I had control of was what I did with my time, and so, like I said, I was first on in, last on out, in the gym and on the training ground just practising whatever I could, whether it was my touch, shooting, passing, whatever and yeah, I did improve massively because I was on it day in, day out and that came through in the second year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that work ethic I guess had to do it. What I do like about what you've said there is in terms of that transition. You basically looked at your circle of influence, looked at what can you control compared to what can't you control. Like you say, you were able to manage your time and when things were difficult, what you were able to do is say, well, I'll put the work in, I'll get in, and in some respects it means that no one's then got an excuse to say you're not at the standard you need to be, but you're not putting in the work, like you were putting in the effort to get back up there. And you say it turned around a little bit, or turned around to an extent in the yeah, so it's really funny because it was chalk and cheese.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of change both on pitch and off the pitch. So my first year, like I said, was a car crash. My second year was probably the year of football that I enjoyed most, even after going on and playing sort of adult football, sort of adult football. It was a year where all the work that I'd done, even though I wasn't playing games in the first year, all that practice and experience and coming through the other side, meant I was performing really well in my second year and I also refer back to the social side and off the pitch, which I struggled with a lot. But two lads that I knew from Nottingham were in the year below me and they moved up into the team. So we, because we all lived in a massive house all together, I shared a room with these lads, I knew them, I was comfortable with them and that helped me off the pitch.

Speaker 1:

so just everything sort of came together, meaning that, yeah, those things just worked a lot better and so at what point did you start to realise they're not going to offer me another contract?

Speaker 2:

I think halfway through the season in my second year it was at a point where the coaches had been moved up a level. So the coach in my first year had then been moved up to the what was now the-23s, because it was at the point I was in that period where the elite player performance plan was just implemented and so instead of reserve teams they now had under-23s. So that coach had been moved up and nothing against him. He's been responsible for a lot of players coming through, but sometimes he faced just don't fit. I just knew that even me, looking at that, I was kind of like even if I was offered a contract, I don't know if I would have wanted to go into that situation again, because I knew that I would have just been in the same situation as my first year. So when I really started to get halfway through the season and thinking, all right, cool, in a couple of months we're going to be getting decisions, I already kind of had one eye on what my options were externally.

Speaker 1:

And so emotion and how that perhaps felt aside, how did you know what your options were? I mean, like, what did you do to start understanding what your options were and where you could go after the scholarship?

Speaker 2:

So I tried my best, because it was unfortunate that again, it was at this point that I only started to realise how important agents and connections and knowing people and all of this was. So I probably I had one or two people that I spoke to and reached out to. So obviously, like I said, I came from a family where I didn't really have any knowledge about football and how any of it works. So I tried to meet a few people and I scrambled around trying to get an agent. But the agents have so many players. I'm just another player and all right, cool, I'm coming from a good academy, leicester. It was a category one academy, top tier but they're also dealing with how many hundreds of players get released every year. I am just another player, so I never really got anyone who really went back for me in that scenario. So it was just it was again. I was playing catch up, it was too late, and so what?

Speaker 1:

did you do?

Speaker 2:

So, like I said, I got a couple of people agents and stuff who got me a couple of trials. I went to a couple of trials up and down the country. Nothing really materialised. And then it wasn't until the first couple of games of the season. I can't remember how I ended up there, but I went to Hinkley United, who don't exist anymore. But yeah, I went there and I signed after. So I think I missed like the first three games of the season, three or four games of the season just again because it was that late. So all through the end of my last year, You've been playing catch up the whole way Just been playing.

Speaker 2:

yeah, I literally just been playing catch up. So whole way I've just been playing, yeah, I've literally just been playing catch up. So I think this is why it's again when I look at how things work now and obviously I'll touch on about what I'm looking to do with my organisation but it's just when I look back on my own experience, specifically in football, how much of an impact having someone in your corner who can kind of guide you through it and have you focusing on the right things, as opposed to constantly playing catch up and just figuring it out yeah, it is, and I'm I echo it the sentiment.

Speaker 1:

I know we'll touch on it, but it for me was. For me was something that I lacked as well. I just didn't know you would. Just you literally played the game, finished the game and that was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't realize conversation was supposed to happen afterwards that I can say agent should be chatting to the coach early and but yeah, it is. If you don't know, you are at a disadvantage and there is, there is a part of that that is necessary. But well, I guess, before we, we step into that then. So you're coming out, you're now starting to play non-league. How are you living? What's changed for you then? Because you're no longer in that shared house, you're no longer getting paid just to play football. What's going on?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so I'm. So I'm getting paid a little bit and at this point I'm still living with my mom, so I don't necessarily need a lot to live on. I need to pay my phone bill on my travel sort of thing, and enough money to go out on a saturday night. Do you know? I mean life. Once upon a time, life was good man. No, no bills.

Speaker 1:

That's it. You were busy. You're like how was it so busy? I don't get it, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I never had time. I know I was, yeah, I was, I was out, out and about, but I didn't need a lot of money. So I think, in terms of that what it did, it gave me the opportunity because I was playing part-time, I did. I maintained a lot of training myself. So even though I was training twice a week and playing on a weekend, I'd still train every morning. But then I still found myself with a lot of time. So I started. The only thing I knew to do was go and speak to people that I already knew. So I went and volunteered at my old secondary school as a PE teacher and that was just something I did just to fill the time. And it was quite fortunate that I did that, because when I did get the injury, it kind of coincided with me putting more time into that, getting to know people better, which led to a full-time job there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and yeah, you're quite right, it is good, it's quite fortunate in some respects. But, like you were saying, many things you're doing it because you see it, and it's only as we look back that we can recognise well, that was a good decision, that was lucky. Which does make me always think, yeah, when we look back, we recognise that was a good decision, that was lucky. Which does make me always think, yeah, when we look back, we recognize it was a good decision. Probably was a good decision at the time too. We just didn't realize why. You know so. When so the injury kicks in, was that during that period? Did you then turn around and think, well, that's it, I'm not coming back from. This. Life is moving on. I gotta leave this football stuff behind no.

Speaker 2:

So it wasn't immediately obvious that it was going to be something like that. It wasn't even. It's not like I got snapped on the pitch, it's not like it was a crunching tackle, it was literally a block. And as I blocked it, my I went to run off. My knee felt a bit weird, a bit funny. I went down, physios come on and I've tried to run it off and it's just not feeling right. So I've come off and by the end of the game my knee's ballooned up. So I've still at this point thought, oh it's cool, I'm just going to need a couple of weeks off, let the swelling go down and whatever, and build my way back into it.

Speaker 2:

Obviously, being in sport, you get injured all the time. Do you know what I mean? And and you ask any any pro football, you'll know yourself You're never. You're never a hundred percent. You never play on. You've always got a little niggle, a little ankle, a little hamstring or something. You never play a hundred percent. So I just kind of thought, oh, it suits me. So it's the end of the season, I've got six weeks off and by the time pre-season comes it'll be fine. But it just wasn't the case and eventually it wasn't until a year, six months down the line, when I kept trying to run on it, and because this team was going into administration, they weren't willing to pay for my care. So I was literally just out there waiting for the NHS and I had no money to pay for it myself. So, yeah, that process took two years.

Speaker 1:

So what was the hardest thing to go through during that period?

Speaker 2:

It was the frustration of knowing that. You know, what was really frustrating is I played my first year in adult football and it means a lot to me, especially through the turbulent time I had at Leicester. I got the Supporters Player of the Season Award, which was for me when I'm playing football. Confidence was a massive thing for me. Football confidence was a massive thing for me. So to have that reassurance like this is your first year in football and you've clearly made an impact and people notice and so you want to push on, you want to kick on. And not being able to run around pain-free enough to play, and just thinking what could have been, I think that was when it, when it dawn on me like I say, six to 12 months later, where it's like I still can't run without my knee swelling up, that's when it kind of dawned on me like I don't know if this is going to happen.

Speaker 1:

And when you realised and when you accepted that wasn't going to happen, how did that feel?

Speaker 2:

It's tough, it's really tough. I think the only thing that saved me was the fact that I was already doing other things. So if I hadn't been volunteering and going to the school which led to me having a job, which also led to me being next to the forest training ground I went. I ended up going there and getting an evening job there doing coaching, and I'd started filling my time with all of this other stuff. I'd looked at going to uni and so, without all of this other stuff to quickly transition from one to the other, just sat there in my own thoughts.

Speaker 1:

Then I think I would have struggled a lot more and so it gave you a bit of so the fact you were doing stuff beforehand, following your interests in some respects and being there when people made it available to you, quite simply did you. At what point, at any point, did you start to formulate a all right, football to the side? Let's you know. Now, here's my career, here's where I want to go, pack your bags, let's do this. Did you start to get any kind of ideas about where you wanted to do job, career, study, those types of things?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So I, like I mentioned, I went to university. I actually got the place earlier on, but I deferred my start date for a year because I wanted to give my knee this chance to. It's fine, I'll get back into it. And I was like, right, I give myself a year. If I can really get back into it, then I won't go to uni and I will just focus on football, if I can get obviously back into playing full time. If not, I've got a place there. It's cool and that's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 2:

So, obviously, as we now know, the football it didn't really get started again. So I then took up my place at university and I went originally to do sports coaching because, like I said, during that time I'd started coaching at Forest and started doing other little coaching jobs. But it was quite. It became quite apparent to me that I wanted to do more than that. I didn't want to be a coach as a career. I enjoyed it and to this day I still coach, like I've coached a women's team for the last six years. I still enjoy coaching, but as my main source of income, as my career, it just didn't line up. So, yeah, I went on to sports management, and then through again trial and error, I realized that having a business was the way I wanted to go Trial and error.

Speaker 1:

What were the trials and what were the errors?

Speaker 2:

I guess that's where you start digging into the 10 jobs in 10, plus jobs in five years what were you looking? For as in job or as in deeper than deeper than that well, I think, in the job.

Speaker 1:

So actually I should say why? Whose decision was it to make all these leaps? Was it yours or was it the employer?

Speaker 2:

It was a bit of both, I'll be honest, it was a bit of both. So I was looking for you know what I was looking for. I was looking for that fire Football was the thing that even in the year that I didn't enjoy myself, I still enjoyed it. And it was the thing where one of the biggest things again that that first year there was a car crash it was horrible. It taught me was that if I really want something, I'm the type of person who will put my heart and soul and graft in every minute that God gives me into making that happen. And if I'm going to go through that effort, I need to get paid. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

And ultimately, I think that was still a hangover. That attitude was still a hangover of being a kid coming from an inner city area in Nottingham in a low income, growing up in a low income household, to then being 14, 15, seeing kids two or three years older than me driving around in Range Rovers and thinking that that was normal behaviour. Do you know what I mean? And so being in that elite environment distorts your whole perception of reality. So I was looking for something where it mixes with the fact that I I'll put as much work into it as possible and I'm happy to work, but I need to get something back and it's that and it's the speed with which it comes back, because in sport it's well okay.

Speaker 1:

It's not instant because we talk about you. I say not relatively instant but you as a first year scholar, you're putting in the effort, but the you saw the rewards by that second year so you could see it. But we still get almost an instant gratification with sport where you run, you're fast, you duck to the line first and it goes yeah, well, I won and the crowd cheers. You're like great pass, the crowd cheers so that bouncing around. Was you looking for that? Like you say that relatively instant gratification that link to boom job success. Here's the race, rover off, we go. What is that? Does that? Sound about right?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think it's, I think. But you know what? That? That was the initial, that was the initial position and that was my initial drive and definitely my first few jobs where it was just like what one? Obviously I need to make money now because I need to survive, and I think at this point, further down the line, I'd move that into my own flat and so now I do have some level of bills and utilities and stuff like that. So there was a level of that, but it was also like it still just came back to those two things.

Speaker 2:

I want to do better for myself.

Speaker 2:

I want to improve my own standard of living, but also I know that I'm willing to work for it and I'm not work shy.

Speaker 2:

So if I was able to be in that situation where I'm waking up every day and absolutely hating this but I'm still grafting, then whatever I put my time and my career into needs to be something that still gives me that fire where, even on the days where it's horrible, when I don't want to go into work, I'm still willing to do what's necessary and with that belief that at some point this is going to pay off.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, I just was bounced when I was doing all these different jobs, I just couldn't see how that ultimate bigger payoff of I just couldn't see it. So in coaching I knew I didn't want to be a first team coach because, again, I just don't, I'm not the right personality to do that. So the most I ever saw myself being was an academy manager and I still just kind of thought it's going to take me probably 10-15 years to get to that point and at that point is that that would be the pinnacle of my career. Am I happy with that? And the answer was no. So I had to keep moving yes.

Speaker 1:

So you had to keep moving. So when did current company, so when did that idea start to kick in?

Speaker 2:

so during uni I, like I said, I started on coaching but I quickly managed, realized that I wanted to do something more management and then I thought, all right, cool managers get paid more, so yeah, I'll do that. But then I realized, actually managers are just still another layer in a bigger cog. There's always someone above them. So then I realized, oh so the business owner is kind of the top of the tree, so why not go for that? And then I started learning more about entrepreneurship and property and watching YouTube videos, reading books and all your standard stuff Rich Dad, poor Dad and all of them kind of things.

Speaker 1:

But just pausing on that, because I know the books, I know exactly what you mean. But tell me, what did you get from reading Rich Dad, poor Dad, what did you get from reading these entrepreneurial books? It was control.

Speaker 2:

So the biggest downside that I found was that, even though I was first on in, last on out at football, if the manager doesn't like you and your face don't fit, it don't matter. So there are so many top players whose careers have been killed off and we don't know their names because they unfortunately had to suffer a season or two under the wrong manager, whereas you put you literally, you put the right person with the right manager in the right environment. There's so much luck involved and so much stuff outside of your control, and I'm not saying that that problem is totally solved by being a business owner, an entrepreneur, but I just feel like you have a lot more control of the direct outcomes yeah, which, I guess it?

Speaker 1:

the theme here is for your year, your car crash year. You took what was under your control, work harder at what you weren't as good at everybody else and, you know, push yourself forward in that way during the the studies, controlling, shifting what you, shifting what you were learning about and their trajectory that it was giving you. And then here, when you're thinking about the actual your career choice, it was well, which ones can you control? Your destiny, and that for you, was definitely moving towards business ownership where, yeah, you're right, the you're looking for that. What do you say? Product market fit, where you know your face fits, but get your product right. Get market fit where you know your face fits, but get your product right. Get in the right market and boom. That's where the success starts to come yeah, 100 and your trial and error was figuring that out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it literally, literally was and, like I said, there was no master plan. I didn't know, this is what I wanted, wanted to do, but it was that iterative process of this works, but this don't quite work. I like this bit, but I don't like this bit. And each new job, each new thing was a step towards what ultimately became us starting this business yeah, as one of the bits I learned was a chap he told me.

Speaker 1:

He said, yeah, more of what you, more of what you like and less of what you don't like.

Speaker 3:

Simple as that, yeah just do that, just do that in life renee house.

Speaker 1:

That's something that you and your partners you were saying set up and you know this is, this is. Is it? Do you get that sense of control that you were looking for, that we were just talking about then, by running the business? Why?

Speaker 2:

yes, yeah, I, yeah is is the short answer. The more detailed answer is we've built a company and an environment around ourselves that means that, in the main, I only do stuff that I'm the best at. I'm currently still going through a bit of a process of delegating or getting rid of tasks that I'm not the best person to do it, or I don't enjoy doing it or whatever like that, but again, that's within my control. I'm I'm the bottleneck in that scenario, whereas in most jobs, these are your tasks, whether you like them or not, and you you just deal with it yeah.

Speaker 1:

So finding that that best and it's really interesting you talk about, you do it when you're the best at it. That's the athletic mindset that comes in, which is I'm not winning, I'm yeah, if I'm not winning, I'm not doing it again that.

Speaker 1:

But it's a humility that comes through, which is well, there's going to be someone better than me. Let me go and keep doing this, but then find the person who's better than me to come and take us to that, that next level. But I'm interested in the elements that you spoke about, where you manage it. It's very much around the cogs of running the business the, the financial management side, the operational side of the organization, not the delivery aspect. And is that because, well, why is that? Why do you think those elements are where you've sort of naturally gravitated?

Speaker 2:

So I think the obvious thing is the fact that Tiff is. That is her experience, health and social care, that is her bag. So it just makes more sense. And she is, that is what she's good at. But quite early on it wasn't as obvious as it is now, and I can say that with a level of confidence, because when we started we were obviously figuring stuff out and we'd both try and do everything across a bit. And when we started it was just me and Tiff. We started on a shoestring and we built it up and we both just had to do everything. But we often found ourselves crossing wires because why are you doing that? Why are you wasting your time when it would just be easy for me to do it, and vice versa. And so, yeah, this business would never run if TIFF was controlling the finances, but it would also never run if I was in charge of service delivery. So it's just that became apparent.

Speaker 1:

Do you know what we should do? We should clip this, we should make a short clip and just end it just end it, yeah, we wouldn't have a business if she was doing the finances.

Speaker 1:

Cut. There you go, that'll be a good one. Now it's interesting how you sort of organically just figure these things out. You, you work through it, but you must both, I guess, have this state of mind where it's okay for this trial and error. You're 10 jobs, five years working it through, but then that incremental gains really is what you've been doing here.

Speaker 2:

I think the funny thing is it sounds bad for me. She's actually worse. She had 17 jobs in seven years, so we both knew this employment thing is just not for us and hers was a bit different. She is, she is very she's very moral and very ethical, and she has. She sets her own high standards and again, that comes in really well because she drives the business forward in terms of standards and what we want to achieve. But yeah, especially in the care sector, because you're so overworked and underpaid, companies cut a lot of corners and she often found herself like no, I'm not being involved in this, I don't like this. And that was again. It was her idea ultimately to start a supported housing business, because that was her last job and she worked somewhere where she saw behind the curtain and sort of disagreed with it.

Speaker 1:

And felt you two together could do better and take it further. So when you look at your business, you think about younger. You had this dream professional footballer. Now what's that dream?

Speaker 2:

Good question. So we think about this often, but I think ultimately, the goal is that we create an organisation that it does good. And that seems very simple on the face of it, but we literally had a meeting a couple of days ago and we were reflecting on the fact that what our business does is we support people who are homeless and vulnerable, and those are the main beneficiaries of the work that we do. But actually we have such a much deeper impact than that. So, for example, some of the staff that work for us what you find in this industry is that it attracts a lot of people who have personal experience.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of people that work for us may have experienced homelessness or have experienced mental health issues, have experienced drug and alcohol issues.

Speaker 2:

We've got ex-offenders that work for us.

Speaker 2:

We've got a woman that was stuck in a dead-end job where she was treated like absolute crap for years, but she had no other options and she didn't even think that she could go anywhere else.

Speaker 2:

And now she's been working for us for the last five or six months and she can't stop smiling about how much she loves the job like and it's deeper than what we initially set out to do. So that gives me a massive buzz, but it also is a situation where I'm also getting what I wanted in the first place is where it's given me a platform to build a business, to improve my own life, but I'm doing it in a way where I'm having 10X impact on the people around me. So it's not just me winning because I think that was something that, through my trial and error of jobs, is what I found that actually, yes, I want to earn a lot of money and I want to do all of that, but I wasn't willing to do it at the expense of everything around me, because that being able to sleep comfortably at night is important for me. I like my sleep.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's like it's also a shift in that, shift in mentality about who it's for Playing for yourself very much as a player, as an athlete. There is that about me type of attitude that we need, right. We need that ego in order to compete, but here what you're describing is that dream for you and the the business is is much bigger than that, much bigger than you, and it's like you say it's doing good, but for those vulnerable people and you're starting to see the impact it's having, not just on your livelihood, about how you're living your life, but then how it's impacting others as well, not just the your livelihood, about how you're living your life, but then how it's impacting others as well, not just the customers, but also your team, your employees.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is genuinely really important to me, and you touched on there about you need to have a level of ego in order to make it as an elite anything. But in the world of elite sport, there's not many people who don't have a level of maybe not ego, but at least a level of inner confidence. That, do you know? I mean, they believe in their own ability and I think that was the level of. You also need to have a level of selfishness and ruthlessness that I think I probably just didn't have quite enough of it, because I earn more on the side of. Do you know? I mean, I want to do well for myself, but I also want people around me to do well yes, yeah, there's a natural community spirit that's actually in there.

Speaker 1:

There's a. When we talk about value, it's not just you that gain, it's everyone gains with you, and you all come up together. And again, it's something I can resonate with and has been said about me. It said, yeah, yeah, I wanted to do well, but probably focused too much on the performance of others to help them improve and forgetting to look after myself at times, and I was like like, yeah, that's true, I'm glad for that now, because it's why I'm doing what I do. So when you look then at your business and that impacts that, your that direct impact. I'm interested then on that connection back to sport, and how would you like your impact to change with regards sport and helping other people, what do you see as what is next?

Speaker 2:

you, yeah yeah, so I my experience, as we've spoken about, is personal to me, but I feel like a lot of people who are coming from an athletic background will be able to resonate with at least some parts of what I've said, whether it's the early stage of growing up through an elite environment or the actual middle stage of being an elite athlete. And now obviously you're going to have players who are retiring or looking to retire soon, who are worried about that next stage and that, like I said, that five, that 10 jobs in five years period of my life before I got onto something which was like, yeah, okay, this is where I'm going. And the problem is I was fortunate because I had that period of my life when I was still really young. I didn't have a mortgage, I didn't have a mortgage, I didn't have kids, I didn't have massive car payments, I was driving around in my little Renault Clio, like it was, like I didn't have all of this.

Speaker 2:

But, yes, I think my the reason why I've started to want to look again, to use my experience to help others is that over the last six or 12 months, I've had numerous conversations with footballers but other athletes from other sports where they have made a career out of the game.

Speaker 2:

They have made a career out of the game, but now they're realising wherever they are in their career whether they're middle, just beginning or coming to the end they are in a position where I've got bills and kids and all of these kind of problems and I'm getting paid a lot of money for a very, very specific skill. When you're an athlete, you are paid for a narrow skill set, so once you stop doing that, you can't go somewhere else and get paid that exact same amount or the majority of people can't. So my perspective is entrepreneurship isn't right for everyone. It's not, and it's been a whole journey in itself. But I think that from my experience of going through the elite environment, elite sport environment, I feel like there are a lot of skills and a lot of qualities and tendencies that you build up from being an elite athlete that lend itself really nicely into being a successful entrepreneur, and so that's why I've started a coaching business to help people start and grow their own organization. So elite athletes start and grow their own organizations.

Speaker 1:

Which I think is which is great. Do you what's it called? How do you? How are?

Speaker 2:

you seeing about it being structured. Yeah, so currently it's called beyond game, so it's beyond beyond the game program. It's a program where I've put a bit of structure but also I've not filled it out to the nth degree because I think there is a lot of flexibility within everyone's own situation. But as an overview, I've split it into four sort of stages. So you've got the initial stage where someone wants to come in. They don't quite know if this is right for them.

Speaker 2:

So it's about learning about what entrepreneurship is and what it means and how it can be applied to you. The second stage is actually applying what entrepreneurship is to your skills and looking at your skills, your time, your resources and how could you employ that and how can you come up with a minimum viable product. So, whether it's a service or anything like that, how can you put that together? The third stage is actually putting it out into the world and getting some feedback, because I am the worst person at sitting on an idea and analysing it and over-analysing it and put it together, get it out there. And then the fourth stage is just going through that repeated iteration and growing and making it better.

Speaker 1:

So wherever someone falls along that spectrum, you can help them to navigate that and look, it sounds like a great structure. In fact I had probably it might even be a year ago, maybe not a year, but I had James who joined me on the show and he spoke a lot about franchise owners and he could see this beautiful link between elite athletes and franchise owners because they had that entrepreneurial edge to them. Beautiful thing about a franchise is there's a given structure which is kind of what we would expect as a coach or as an athlete to be coached on. Do these six things and you'll be a success. I'll do those things every day and make it happen.

Speaker 1:

So I'm with you in that entrepreneurial edge. You know, is some something that's in there from an athlete perspective. I guess a question I have to you is without your 10 jobs in five years, without Tiff's 17 jobs in seven years, would you have been an entrepreneur? Did you need to go through that, that bouncing around, that trial and error in order to help you become a successful entrepreneur like you are today?

Speaker 2:

I think that whether or not I would have been an entrepreneur, I think I would have eventually got here, because I never, I never found a job that I was happy. You know, like people I know it's a it's kind of an old thing now, but people staying in jobs for like four years, I never, ever ever saw myself being that kind of person ever. So that was one thing. So I think I would have eventually got here. But what I will say is that that breadth of experience. So I literally tried to be an electrician, I. I tried to be a marketer. I did door-to-door sales, I did telephone sales and, like I said, I worked in a bank.

Speaker 2:

These things are not connected. I tried to be a surveyor at one point. These things are not connected in the slightest. But that breadth of experience and I took a little piece from each of those things. But what I keep going back to is I was fortunate to be in a position where I could afford to do a lot of these things on paid or paid minimum wage, whereas we're dealing with people that may not have that time or the money to be able to have that space to. Let me just try this and let me. Just try that you. You want someone who can say look, follow these steps from your position. I'm not talking, I'm not just giving you generic information. I'm saying I've looked at your position, we've worked together, we've had a conversation. I know what your time, money and experiences are for you. Let's follow this plan and these should be. There is obviously you can't guarantee results, but, yeah, I'm giving you the best chance of of success I mean, you're distilling your experience.

Speaker 1:

You're those jobs that the emotions, the skills that you learn. You're distilling that, those skills and knowledge, into, into helping them beyond the game and getting that package to sort of. There's never a shortcut, as I say, but there's a way to perhaps accelerate through and it's helping them be on the game and giving them that package to sort of. There's another shortcut, as I say, but there's a way to perhaps accelerate through and it's helping them to do that, which I think is great, given your experience of people, of athletes, who want to go into that entrepreneurial journey post-sport, what, from your experience, what guidance would you give them?

Speaker 2:

The guidance that I always, I always say is and I've touched on it already what do you currently have? Where are you at the minute? Because I think that at the minute there's a lot of noise on social media like being an entrepreneur is is the new rock star, do you know? I mean, we now praise jeff bezos and mark zuckerberg and elon Elon Musk like these are the new rock stars, where that wasn't the case probably 34 years ago. So there is now a lot of noise of people just giving generic information, but actually it's survivorship bias. You're only hearing from people who made it, so they don't know your situation. They're just saying this is what worked for them.

Speaker 2:

So actually, what I'm saying is my experience is very wide and varied and within my business I do a lot of the stuff, that other skills that need to be across any business. So at the minute, I'm running a social housing business, but put me in I don't know any other business. Put me in a car sales showroom. I'll know the basics of how to run that business. I won't be a specialist in the cars, but I can run the business. So what I'm saying is the people that I work with you need to. The most important thing is figuring out what time do you have available, what money do you have available and what skills and experiences do you have available. And you can also probably throw in there what connections but I put that within with resources, your connections, your resource. So they're the three things money and resources you need to figure out, because that will determine what opportunities will give you the best chance of success.

Speaker 1:

Theo, listen, I want to say thanks because it's been an enlightening conversation, getting your perspective on through football to you know that immediate life after the game, but also where you are now and sort of the impact that you're having on. You know several areas, which is great. I probably love to keep chatting about how you're supporting the employees, never mind the beyond the game piece. What you've really spoken about are the embracing, the fundamentals of business, the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, which isn't usually spoken about people will normally talk about.

Speaker 1:

I had this great inspirational idea and boom, now I've got everyone following me. What you're saying is, yeah, my partner had the inspirational idea and I'm digging in and learning the fundamental bits of the processes, the systems, those bits that are repetitive, which, again, for a type of athlete, yeah, that's actually what they're going to enjoy because there's that thing that they can control. So thanks for breaking that down for me and for everyone else. I've really learned a lot. People are going to be watching and listening. They're going to want to get in touch or follow your journey. What's the best place, or where is the best place, to do that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can reach out to me, like I said to do that. Yeah, you can reach out to me. I'm, like I said, I'm just getting myself out there so you can find me. I'm most active on linkedin so if you search theo brown t-h-e-o-b-r-o-w-n, you can go to my, which is theobrownonlinecom, and then on tiktok and instagram you'll find me at theo brown online wonderful listen, theo.

Speaker 1:

I just gotta say massive thanks once again. Me on the show. Thanks. 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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