190: Joe Davis - Why Most Athletes Feel Lost After the Game

Joe thought he knew what life after football would look like.

He had the degree.
 He had the plan.
 He had a clear next step.

But the reality felt completely different.

In this episode, Ryan sits down with Joe to unpack what really happens when your identity is built around sport… and suddenly, it’s gone.

From growing up in a football family to playing professionally for over a decade, Joe shares how the transition out of the game hit harder than expected and why most athletes aren’t prepared for what comes next. 

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

- What “player care” actually means and why it’s missing the mark 

- The hidden pressures athletes face when they leave the game 

- Why most players don’t feel “ready” for life after sport 

- The identity and ego shift that hits after retirement 

- How relationships change when roles reverse financially 

- Why choosing the wrong second career is more common than you think 

- The mistake of jumping into the “obvious” next step 

- How Joe realized journalism wasn’t the path for him 

- The importance of creating calmness before making big decisions 

- Why uncomfortable environments accelerate growth 

This episode goes deeper than just career transition.

It’s about identity.

Joe opens up about leaving football with fear, not clarity.
 About losing his role as the provider.
 About not knowing how to carry “Joe the footballer” into the next phase of life. 

And that’s the part most people don’t see.

Because from the outside, it looks like a career change.
 But internally, it feels like starting from zero.

Want to go deeper?
If you are looking for career clarity for your next step, visit www.2ndwind.io
to learn more or book a consult.

Transcript

Cold Open On Losing Identity

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You two years before I was being interviewed, and now I'm interviewing someone else, another footballer. It was sort of um just get rid of it, and it allowed me to deal with that side of things, the identity and the ego side of things very quickly because I was sort of thrown into that situation in that environment. So I then started to then create and what happened was I was thrown in at the deep end into this role. I remember sitting down on day one. I'd never had a laptop before. I didn't know how to sort of um my own laptop that was, I was always borrowing laptops. I was sort of had to, I didn't know how to take a lunch break. I'd never been in an environment, I didn't know how to put holiday requests form in, I didn't know what a CRM system was. I was thrown in in serious situations where I had to learn so quickly, and it was perfect because it was that sort of environment where you either either sink or swim, and luckily I swam, and that then gave me the confidence in terms of that next career.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Hi, I'm Ryan Gunstalvert, 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 athlete 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 afterwards. Let's be inspired by the stories of others. Look, I'd chatting already, Joe, but I just formally say welcome to the Second Win Academy podcast. It's great to have you on here. Looking forward to learning a bit more about your journey and story.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan. I know we spoke previously, but it's good to sort of dive into uh different subjects and ones that I know we're both really passionate about. And so yeah, good to be on.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, talking about that, be interesting. Obviously, I know a bit about you, but for those listening and watching who don't know who Joe is, tell us who are you and what you're up to nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah, so I'm a professional footballer. I'm now building a sports technology business and one that supports with athlete transition and also sort of professionalising and trying to modernise player care within first of all the UK, but then obviously the sort of global sort of the global professionalisation of player support systems and trying to make sure that players are prepared. And that was ultimately built through my own first and hand experience of coming out of professional football after 10 years. Um then also, yeah, coming from a footballing background in that my dad was a professional footballer and went on to manage, and then also my brother was a professional footballer as well, so very much immersed in the footballing scene, or um saw an opportunity to do something quite unique and different.

What Player Care Really Means

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, and which I think is great. And what's interesting is you it's built from experience, like you said. You mentioned the word there that I think is interesting, and you mentioned player care, so it's the sport tech business that's focused in on player care. What's player care mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

For me, I think it means for different things for different people, but for me it's that holistic support system that goes just beyond the performance element. I think a lot of investments that are traditionally and historically been made within particularly football, are all attached to the performance and on-pitch data and on-pitch sort of metrics that are sort of wrapped around these players. Naturally, they are assets to the football club, obviously, um, but to get the true value out of each asset, there needs to be that holistic personal development of each individual to get the most out of them on pitch. So I see player care as the wraparound support system for all off-pitch needs, and I think a lot of that comes down to particularly in what we're doing, is trying to create a calmness in chapter two of their lives. So, how prepared are you for that next phase? What are you running in parallel with your athletic dreams to create an element of calmness that allows you to focus entirely on your performance on pitch? And at the moment, I think that what I've seen from player care is it has become there's a lot of people wanting to do great things, but a lot of them have their hands tied behind their backs with less computers, and nobody really knows what good looks like yet in terms of um standards, and it's trying to create a system and a process that helps them be less of a tick box and allow them to be more efficient and effective within their roles.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

And a lot of that that you talk about, does that come from experience? Because you talk about you've been centering a football family, brother, father coming through. And so does is that holistic perspective something you've seen in their career that was lacking as they as they finished the game?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah, I would say I'm fortunate to have seen a transitioning athlete and be able to live for the world through my dad. So I guess all the challenges and everything that comes with that big pivot and you know, everything that comes with the identity piece and financial stresses and big drop and salary and trying to carve out your next career with very little knowledge or experience. So I think I have seen firsthand what that looks like. I think my dad was someone who was very driven around going in down the coaching route and made himself the best coach he could possibly be, and that's paid off. You know, he's gone and had a 20, 30 year career in professional football as a coach and as a manager. For me, I think I've seen lots of players drop out and who have struggled since. I know, and I really struggled to really identify a pathway and a next career that was right for me as a person. I would love to have had that proactive support system in place in terms of career exploration almost. And a lot of my worries from an anxiety standpoint around what was next was wrapped around second careers and the financial constraints or anxieties that come with that. So I think there's a quite a close connection between choosing the right second career and choosing a career that allows you to earn and have the capabilities to provide in the way that you want to for your family almost and yourself.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

You mentioned a calmness, so I'm just interested. For you, was it the opposite of a calmness as you as you came out of the game, or is it something you see more broadly?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

I didn't leave with a calmness, I left with a lot of fear and a lack of confidence, I would say. Whereas, you know, we speak now around how do we give more players a confident and exciting transition? So, how do we make them look forward to the next 30 years of their life? And I think at the minute it's there is just so much fear wrapped around transition in general, in that you have to give up something, whereas actually what do you gain in what's next? And how can you go and live out your second dream and whatever passion or whatever curiosity that may be? And yeah, for certainly for me, I really struggled with the concept, and I don't think this is spoken about enough. I was the breadwinner when I met my wife, and then suddenly I wasn't the breadwinner. I had to sort of she had to step up and provide in a way that she'd never seen before. And I think there's a relationship complexity that doesn't get spoken about enough around transition, and for me that was my biggest, I guess, challenge of yeah, all the classic symptoms that come with a retiring athlete around identity and financial stuff, but just not knowing how to package Joe the footballer up and put him into that next phase of life, I suppose. Um so yeah, there wasn't much calmness, and I've had to create that calmness through the connections that I've built and the education that I've had to go out and sort of put on myself.

Growing Up In Football’s Bubble

SPEAKER_00 8:00

You mentioned there the relationship, that relational transition that takes place. And without getting too much into the books, but we do talk about, you know, you've certainly got your own identity, you've got the financial, but then that relationship transition and friendships, how they all pivot and shift. And yeah, we don't talk about those often enough, and not and often we don't see it, okay? Because we'll have friends, let's say, or peers who will retire, will see them ahead of us, but we might not see that relationship piece shift. We just see them whenever we catch up with them, so we don't even get to feel it. Fully with you. We'll perhaps come back onto that in a little bit. I'm interested just at the start, just to understand for you, you know, because football clearly was a part of how you were brought up, right? It was everything, it must have been a lot that you saw. So, was it for you the path that you wanted to go as a school lad? Were you thinking I'm gonna be a professional footballer?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

It's funny you say that because I don't think I ever had a conscious decision made on what that next pathway looked like. I think it just growing up in the on the terraces and sat in the stands watching obviously my dad play and running around the hospitality boxes as a kid with my brother playing football. I think that naturally our uh role model in our life and our central sort of male figure who we'd sort of looked up to was going and living out his dream and doing well at that. That are naturally, or we wanted to go away and do that. So then I watched my Harry's career, my brother, unfold and he broke into the first team, and I was on that academy pathway with Port Vale and managed to break into the team at a young age. So the decision making on careers never really came, and there wasn't really ever a sit-down moment of Joe, what do you love? What are you passionate about? How do we sort of look at the career paths that are out there? So we we sort of went out and our dreams for a very young age were probably created through the role model that we had, and very fortunate to go on and obviously live out that dream. But in terms of the ability to then see what life looked like outside of that very small footballing bubble, myself and my brother didn't really have much exposure to what that was like. So our first exposure was probably in the first job that we had. So it was big learning curve, had to learn very quickly, had that so it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Well, was school part of it? So as you're coming through the academy, you'd have had to do some sorts of studies or something just to keep you that academic side. Where did that sit for you in terms of you know, a desire to get something done and to learn?

SPEAKER_01 10:27

I was quite academic at school. I was I took it really seriously in the sense that I actually enjoyed going to school. I had enjoyed the learning side of it. Became a little bit more difficult in the last couple of years of my school journey because then you start to be pulled out and football starts to become a little bit more serious around the you know, two days in at Port Vale out of school, and then you start to have to juggle things in school and play catch up a little bit. And I was quite ambitious and driven from an academic standpoint that I did quite well in my GCSEs, but then what I found was, and I was quite alarmed, not alarmed, but my eyes were opened a little bit that the same BTEC courses are now still being put on for the Academy Boys as just that mandatory sort of panned over in terms of like that's all that we can manage to facilitate inside the club environment. And then what I think that does is suppresses the ambition of those who are quite educationally driven.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah, absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I sort of found myself really held back at that stage in terms of like I would have loved to go on and do A levels and push myself and really stretch myself at that young age, but just felt like it wasn't really a conversation that was had at that point.

Preparing Early For Life After Sport

SPEAKER_00 11:37

And I agree, I don't think it was and to an extent isn't. Like you say, you look back now and you think, how is it the same BTEC? How is it the same course that's put on, especially given what we know and given what we're passionate about? Surely by now we will have shifted it in some way. So for you then during your career, any point during your career, did you have eyes outside of football sort of saying to you, Oh, yeah, let me go and try that, or have a think about what you would do after the game? Any of those moments sort of occur for you?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, I think I neglected that way of thinking for quite a while. So probably for the first I'll say for 75% of my career I was very much football focused. I think it's your classic penny drop moment of when you recognise and start to become aware of the trajectory of your career going in the wrong direction, going downward rather than up. That I then started to think, okay, I need to take my preparations a little bit more seriously. I was lucky enough in the first couple of years of my professional contract, start to see some of the senior players at Port Vale doing a sports journalism degree and sports writing degree and saying how much they enjoyed that. So I probably always had that in the back of my mind that that was something that I was going to come back to do. So yeah, I probably neglected it for too long. I wish I did it when, and I always say this now to the younger players, is you have so much time on your hands, you don't have the pressures and responsibilities that comes with family life or rent or all of the other mortgages and all that side of things, that that is the perfect time to start then pursuing curiosities. Whether it isn't a formalised higher education course, it might just be small digital courses or even attending networking events and just getting yourself out there or building your personal brand in a way, you know, join LinkedIn at a young age and start to see what else is out there and just open your eyes and take off the blinkers for a little bit and see how perhaps things could open up for you. So I started to do that, all of that piece of work at a faster rate and in a different state of mind, thinking that I needed to do something with a bit more urgency at a later time in my career. And luckily enough, I was quite I was a little bit busy. I'm a bit I'm quite busy on LinkedIn and put myself out there, I'm not afraid to do that. Whereas I think quite a lot of people hold back based on the fact that there's a bit of ego there and they don't have the confidence to go and do that. So to summarise that, I wish I did it at a younger age, but instead of in panic mode and feeling the uncertainties of transition when you're trying to make things happen.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah. When you look back at your younger self, what do you think you'd have had to hear or see to get you to think differently? You know, because I'm I'm with you, I'm I'm absolutely with you. Wish we did it early, and we'd we tell the men and women who were playing now and said, Yep, now's the time to do it. When you think back about yourself, do you see that's what I should have seen? Is there anything that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

I think the biggest thing is where what club you're at at a young age and the culture and the environment that's created from a personal development perspective. So if I think back to my journey, I don't think I could have done anything different or heard anything different because I don't think the environment was set up for outward, sort of external curiosities and it wasn't encouraged within the club. So for me to do that, I would have been an absolute outlier to start looking at other things, and perhaps it would have been challenged in a way whereby you need to focus on football, sort of your old school mentalities of sort of if you're not looking, you're not focusing on your football, you're not cleaning your boots, you're not doing this, you're not doing that, then your head's not not on not in it. So and I also don't think there is one piece of advice or one specific word that would have landed with me. I think it has to be embedded into the perhaps the apprenticeship program. So when you sign your first professional sort of terms, you go into that full-time environment, embedding sort of career exploration or transition preparation into the actual frameworks of BTEC or the life skills programs, or that's the only way it's really gonna land, I think. So that it's normalized, and I don't think my environment was normalized. So I think there we're seeing more today with academies. You know, I've been at a club this afternoon to present sort of mojo, and we're onboarding them onto the platform. And if I had an answer to that, boy, it's the thing that will uh land with that group, I'd certainly hold on to it and deliver it. But I don't think there is, I think it has to be embedded, and the staff within the clubs have to be empowered to deliver that messaging with confidence to the group, so you give them the confidence that it's okay to start looking at business ventures or what is life in sales or tech and sort of learning about everything other than just being the next football player.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

I think that's well said, Joe. I really do, and it is the environment is so important, and especially in a world where, especially in professional, you get a sense of we need to be we're in a privileged position, and therefore we should be grateful, and then to make the most out of it, it means focusing 100% on that pursuit of sport. But as you say, as we know, culturally we need to we need a better look a little bit out and experiment, small little things that actually support the individual, holistic level, to improve their performance in the game because I've got a good distraction, something else that makes them feel good, so that when you do a bad pass, the world doesn't end. It's like no, it's alright. I do enjoy this stuff as well.

Choosing Journalism Then Rethinking It

SPEAKER_01 17:14

And I think I would have definitely benefited from that because I was admittedly a bit of an overthink in football, and if I was to make a mistake, the thing that probably hampered my sort of I guess confidence throughout football was making a mistakes at a really young age and not having the environment where that was accepted. It was you made a mistake, you were dropped for the next ten games, and then you were thrown back in, and there was a big thing made around, oh, we're putting Joe back in, but we need to make sure he doesn't make another mistake. So you might be in for the next three or four games, and then you sort of um you make another mistake, and then you're out for another. So it's a really disjointed introduction into the footballing landscape, and it's the natural pressures of like professional men's game are sort of times a hundred because you have sort of a coaching team and a management team who perhaps yeah don't have time to embed young players in and accept that there'll be mistakes made. So sort of I can't remember your current current current question, but I think in terms of um yeah, in terms of that, it it I found it quite difficult. My introduction into the footballing footballing world.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah. So when did you start to realise you're gonna be exiting the football world and what did you do?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

So first thing I did was a university degree. So I did that sports journalism degree that I I said that I saw the others doing. I'd actually identified that as a future career path in regards to I always loved writing, I was quite creative, loved storytelling element of anything that happened in goal and sort of the English side of things. I enjoyed, was always sort of the one to pick up the papers and try to keep tabs on latest top news. So naturally, when you put those things together in your mind, you think the route for you would be that sports journalism route. And so I did that through Staffordshire University, obviously lent on the PFA for their bursary funding to get support with the the payment of that, and then as soon as I sort of finished that, I dove headfirst into sports journalism thinking that was going to be my next 30 years. So left League Two football, went straight into sort of local, I was living in Liv them St. Ans at the time, so local sort of journalism world, and that was really when I had that moment of I think I've chosen the wrong path. So didn't enjoy it in the way that I would. I guess did didn't have the mentorship for people to sort of really educate me on what that world looked like. What was telling you that? I think that that my understanding of the industry was wrong. So I what I love to do was have the licence to be creative in those roles, and then suddenly realised that it was very uh a non-creative role when you're having to go out and and just do what the editor wants and write stories that perhaps didn't align with the values that you had. So very quickly became a little bit disillusioned with that, but then also combine that with the fact that there's not too many players that leave a League Two football club and never play football again and just go completely into a different industry. So I had the sort of the raised eyebrows of uh friends and teammates and people around me to say, like, that's a bit of a junk. Why don't you go and explore non-league or soften the transition, the landing with part-time football, which perhaps if I was to go back, I probably would do now. I'd probably give myself more time to explore through non-league football and the part-time football that is obviously at the moment quite lucrative in the English pyramid. Certainly, you can find clubs lower down who can just provide that cushion and coming back to calmness, it's trying to create calmness and give yourself time to think and breathe and grieve almost the loss of your sort of footballing identity and career. And then I think it that prevents you jumping headfirst into the wrong career because I find that a lot of players, and I'm seeing this today, jump into coaching naturally, because again, they probably see people to the left and the right of them in the dressing room with their UA for B booklets out, and they think maybe that's what I should do, and it's the easy route, and it's the route that everyone does. But then what happens is they get stuck there for the next 20, 30 years and don't enjoy it and aren't passionate about coaching, it was just the first thing that was presented to them afterwards, and the reason why they do that is because they haven't given themselves that cushion and that time frame to think and explore. So if I was to rewind, I would have done that, and sort of going back to what we're I'm trying to do today through Mojo is provide more opportunities for players to do that and make the correct decisions.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And so for you when You realised journalism wasn't that path for you. Was that really you know what did you do then? Did you just stop, or was it alright, I'll keep doing it and try and do something else?

Ego Detox Through A New Role

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah, so I would say that was the beginning of my challenges in sort of my transition. So for probably a couple of years, I'd put put a sort of a thing in place that allowed me to delay the transition challenges. And I then began probably for 12 to 18 months. That was when I really felt disorientated in regards to careers because I put all of my eggs in one basket and that didn't live up to the expectations that I'd built up in my own mind. So then I literally stopped, came home, you know, came home, stopped doing what I was doing, did a little bit of freelance stuff literally to get me by, but generally became a bit of a stay-at-home dad for 12 months, and that comes with it h with its own challenges. Because coming back to what I said before around my wife already having a career and being really career-driven, the complexities and dynamics of the relationship changed almost overnight because I became the support system to my wife, who was going out and really doubling down on her career. I had I was giving her the support to do that. But then when do you start to then plan within being a parent and you're then the support system for that what 20 years of career looks like? So I then started to luckily through a bit of the freelance writing in my local paper, it was picked up by the chairman of AFC Field, which was a local non-league club to me, and he gave me a job. He gave me the head of media role. So that allowed me to start reinventing myself, which came with more challenges because I'd played with a lot of the players who were playing for AFC Files a couple of years before, and suddenly I was the head of media that was interviewing them behind the camera. So that was probably the best thing for me because it allowed me very quickly to remove the football attack that I had because I was in a room with players that I played with, and I was a different role. So it's probably the best thing I could that could have happened to me at that moment.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

That's interesting. You feel it was the best thing because I know for many they struggle with that. I mean, didn't you just fancy jumping the other side of the camera or getting on the field and saying, it's only two years, I can do that still.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Yeah, there was. There was times when we were losing, and I was thinking I'll be gonna lose track on it. But I think that detachment of ego is the biggest challenge for a lot of footballers that they don't deal with very quickly, and by throw being thrown into that situation at the deep end where you have to get rid of the ego because you're then the interviewer for you two years before I was being interviewed, and now I'm interviewing someone else, another footballer. It was sort of um just get rid of it, and it allowed me to deal with that side of things, the identity and the ego side of things very quickly because I was sort of thrown into that situation in that environment. So I then started to then create, and what happened was I was thrown in at the deep end into this role. I remember sitting down on day one. I'd never had a laptop before. I didn't know how to sort of um my own laptop that was, I was always borrowing laptops. I was sort of had to, I didn't know how to take a lunch break. I'd never been in an environment, I didn't know how to put holiday requests form in, I didn't know what a CRM system was. I was thrown in in serious situations where I had to learn so quickly, and it was perfect because it was that sort of environment where you either sink or swim, and luckily I swam, and that then gave me the confidence in terms of that next career. So if I'd have tiptoed around that side of things, probably won't uh it would have delayed my progression in my next sort of chat.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Sounds like you learnt to swim by just being thrown in the sea, and you know, you cut everything off. It was like, right, he's either gonna swim or he's gonna drown. It's another two, and you swam.

Sink Or Swim Career Growth

SPEAKER_01 25:58

It was good, it was the best thing that happened to me. Like I said, I jumped around a little bit after that. I went to a cut a company called League Football Education, which was fantastic, and was the beginning of my real interest in the the sort of academy system. It allowed me to have a voice in those boardrooms at League Football Education level, and that it is yeah, the viewers might not know what that is, but it's an arm to the EFL and it's the educational arm. So it's the the company that oversees the apprenticeship programs for all of the academy players in England and looks after the player care and life skills initiatives that are implemented by the clubs, but then also by the federations and the stakeholders within football. So I got to see firsthand the work that was being done, but then translate that to the gaps that I saw as a transition athlete, and then really add value at a level that you know I was quite proud to be in. So I was having those conversations at boardroom level to create change within some of the programs that were being distributed into football, and then that gave me the passion around dual careers and sort of um transition programs and allowed me to do my own thinking and package that up to then present into my own business that I have today. Became the catalyst almost for what I'm doing today.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

That's kind of what was perfect because you got into the room. First, you were just watching, you'd had a bit of media train, so you could start hearing what people were saying, but you got yourself into the room there where you started to see what decisions were made, or indeed how decisions were made and how things were therefore being implemented. And what it sounds like is given your experience, you could see some of the gaps. You could think, oh, they're gonna do that. I don't think that's gonna work. Or I think that's fantastic for these reasons. I mean, that that's a great experience, isn't it? Just to be able to sit and and watch, but still be there to add value at the same time. There are too many stories of bankruptcies, mental health issues, and fortunately suicide. And so I think it's time for it. Every year, we see thousands of athletes that reach a point where they need to consider their life activities for it might be a retirement, injury, or they need to juggle your careers between sport and a job. As a former English professional footballer, I have somehow managed to transition from sport into banking, strategy, innovation, and now life coach, career practitioner, and founder of the Second Wind Academy. So I want to help those around me find their career second with. Find me on Insta or through my new Facebook group, Second Wind Academy, where I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

What I found is when I look back, and you don't reflex very often, so this is great for me to reflect on some of the things that I've done. So it allows me to look back rather than forward. And I think when I look back at sort of my own personal development, how I've progressed as an individual, it's been thrown in into uncomfortable situations at the right time. So I'd probably done my piece of work at the HC File and then worked it my way into sort of league football education, and then it became around standing up and presenting in boardrooms, which I'd never done before. And how do you present your thoughts in a way that people are going to listen? And I remember feeling so uncomfortable, first of all, when you should do this thing on a uh on sort of a monthly end-of-the-month sort of recap uh in the boardroom when you have all your departments in there and you'd go around the table and you'd all have to say your piece around what you were doing, what you'd done, what you've delivered, and the vision for what you want to deliver over the next month. And I remember dreading the sort of the pace in which it was coming around to me. And suddenly you do one and then you feel okay, and then you do another, and by the end of it, you're sort of maybe you know confidently leading those those conversations. So I think when you look back at you know, I'd been dropped into an uncomfortable situation where my remit was quite wide, but stretched me and got me to do new things, and then six months down the line, you're really comfortable in that situation. You then start to look for the next thing, and for the next thing for me, then was moving into sort of a sports technology company. I knew nothing about technology, and that then allowed me to learn new things. So I was dropped again into another ocean, if you want to put it put it like that, and um again it's another sink or swim moment. So I think when I look back, it's how many sink or swim moments can you get into, and how many can you come up with the other the other died of? And uh I think that's really how you you grow as an individual in your next chapter in transition, and it's trying to seek those uncomfortable moments, and I still find myself trying to do that obviously today.

Why Technology Can Scale Support

SPEAKER_00 30:45

And yeah, finding those uncomfortable moments. Yeah, I like that. It I mean it it becomes a your ability to do that sooner, I think, you know, which is what we're both saying, is better because you can you're testing things out and bit by bit you're piecing together this jigsaw of what the future can look like. And the best way to do that is I guess through motions, through activity. Now, you talk then about sport tech and stepping into what is a sport tech business. I'm interested in the link. I'm interested because you say you're in the room, you're seeing gaps or you're seeing problems emerging, and you're then saying, right, well, I think I might have a solution for this. What made you think it's sport tech, not just another million dollars or something like that, or million pounds, I should say?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, so I think that what I saw in the landscape in sport as a whole, particularly when we come back to your initial question around what is player care, the scalability of player care is limited through lack naturally resource. And what I found in my early days of transition when I started to reach out to the um support systems that exist uh and oversee football in regards to the PFA. Obviously, player care six years ago wasn't even a thing. I found personally the gap mainly to be around lack of resource and lack of boots on the ground internally to be able to offer that personalised service. So when you look at how do you offer a hyper-personalised service to players that gets to know them and gets to know the pathways that are right for them and allow it to be scalable, you have to think around technology to enable that. And I think the quote of like change won't happen without change sort of thing is the pro since the professionalisation of UK sport, we've been putting on workshops, we've been putting on these pockets of support systems that have existed for so long, and yet the same statistics seem to be there, the same horror stories seem to come out once a year, the same challenges, the same struggles seem to exist. So why not do something that's going to disrupt the norm and offer a solution that's different? It might fly, it might fall on its head, but you know you can sleep at night knowing that you've tried to do something that's different to what's already being done. So I knew that I could add value to the conversation, and I knew that I could put on a workshop that would add value for an hour, but I wanted to add value to the Joe that was lost, and that's part of the reason why Joe is in the name mode. But beyond the hour workshop and beyond the 20 clubs that you have in a 20 players, sorry, that you have in a club, I wanted to do something that was going to capture the support of all the players, but then also add something that's new into the club environment as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

So let's take a moment then. Explain, I've got an understanding of why you're creating Mojo. I know I can visualize, but uh perhaps make it clearer to me who it's for and how Mojo can help to solve some of those problems.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

So there's two lenses to really look at this. I think that there is naturally we get the there's the transitioning athlete who is feeling the anxieties and uncertainties of that next phase of life. They're the ones who need immediate support around either a career pathway or an educational pathway, or it's just a new network. So who can mentor me? And I tell the story around this side of things of driving away from my last contract at Paul Vale and realizing my contact book was only full of former teammates I'd played with, coaches I'd played under, manager, my agent. It was a bit of a moment where it was like, who the hell helped me in that's this next phase of life? And it wasn't the people that I'd had in my circle. So it's some people in this bucket, the transitioning bucket, just need access to a network and a mentorship uh program that is going to support them in uh non-sporting life. Then you come back to the other side of things, and it's it's the first-year uh apprentices, the second year apprentices, and the first year pros. So that younger age group who need exposure because of naturally the conveyor belt of talents that is constantly flowing out of that age group and that demographic, need support with what else is out there. So that's the career exploration and your education around other pathways that exist. So there's the immediate support system for the transition athlete, and then there's the awareness and education for the younger profile. And the way that Mojo supports on that is through technology, through innovation, through the application that we've built, on entry point, we understand where they're at in their athletic journey, whether they are in this younger age demographic or they're at the end of their career. And the support systems vary then. So the personalization of support is delivered through AI, and they get access to opportunities that are tailored to them. They get access and matched with mentors who can really support them in the goal and their aspiration that they have. So if we translate that to me, I wanted to go into journalism. What I would have loved to have access to at that specific time was what careers are out there for me in terms of journalism. It doesn't have to be a classic sports writer. You can translate that skill set into other pathways. What mentors are out there? So, what athletes have in the past trodden the path that I would like to tread in journalism? And how can I have an honest and insightful education with them to make it less of a gamble and make it more of an informed decision on whether that next step is right for me? And then how can I get access to educational pathways that are really going to support my development and upskill me in that area of interest? It's wrapping support that is currently offline in an online format around them to allow them to thrive in that next phase. So hopefully that answers your question around demographic and the solution.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah, it does. It does. It paints a very rich picture. And you know, you've described at least two good segments there from the early professionalism through to those who are at that penny drop moment where it's, ooh, right, this is ending, I better get on something. And you've tempered the type of support uh or support versus awareness that that you're offering at at those points. So to me, that sounds well, I think it sounds absolutely fantastic, and fully agree it is uh the the type of thing that's needed. You know, one of the bits that's interesting when we talk though about that transitioning player, and you know, we talk a lot about what got us here, you know, as an as an athlete, and that's going to help us in that life after sport as we find that second wind and move into that second career. Is that something that you've found, well, I guess I'll say to always be true. I don't think it's always to be true, but do you think it is easy then for athletes to use a platform like yours to start to see, ah, well, given I like this, that means I should be good when I step out into, I'll say, the real world or the traditional workforce?

Transferable Traits And Better Matching

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yeah, so I have my own thoughts on the transferable skill sets conversation because I think transferable skills in general gets thrown down our throats as players, but I think that creates more fear because you lack the self-awareness of what those skill sets are. So I actually think it's trying to reposition that conversation to be around you have transferable traits and you have a fantastic foundation of personality traits and behaviours that you've had to hone over the last, you know, it might be 20 years up until becoming a professional footballer. But the skill sets element you have to recognise that you are very much a blank canvas in most of the careers that are out there, and you need to invest time in yourself to get you into a position of confidence with the skill sets that you now have, and how can you add value to people in that next phase? A reality check in terms of not over egging the fact that you should fall out, because I think it creates complacency. If you think you have skill sets and you have value to add, you have to invest in yourself. But then I also think on the piece that you mentioned, what we're building out of the moment, because as you enter into the Mojo platform as it stands today, we're asking you to input a goal. So you're learning goals. So, what do you want to start working towards today as an athlete outside of your athletic profession? But actually, what we found is it creates sometimes a bit of a stumbling block because it's a big question. It's almost like asking what you want to be when you're older, when you're about five. It's a massive question you don't really know how to answer. So, what we we are building out at the moment as part of that onboarding process is how can we bring them in, learn about them from a behavioural assessment sort of psychometric element, and then map them to careers that they would excel at and the data that we can capture on previous athletes who have transitioned successfully and what profiles and personalities they were, is that hopefully we can be quite uh predictive in terms of the careers that each person would come in and do well at. And I think that gives you it stops you being a blank canvas and it gives you options from the off and gives you confidence that there's opportunities out there.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

I think that prediction word, I think it's a I think it's a great word and a great way to talk about it. And I had earlier um Dr. Chris Platt, who who joined me a few months back, who's done a great study on where athletes have where footballers, English footballers have gone and sort of where they're ending up. And it can then map out some, you know, I guess the prediction is mapping out where they've been and trying to see from their journey where you might fit. Which is essentially why I have these conversations. That's why I've, you know, this podcast runs because I think there's so much for well, us as humans, full stop, I guess I can then say, but certainly for athletes, is we don't hear the stories of those who have gone before often enough to give us then this sort of indicator, which is, oh, well, I grew up like them, or I had those sorts of interests, and that's what they've gone and done. And as you've said, in the whole, I guess on the basis of experimentation and exploring, it's one that says, Oh, well, if they like that, maybe I should dip my toe in and just see if that's something that I want to do and really keep moving forward like that. So I'm very excited about where platforms like your with data, with views, with stories of others, can really paint a history that new individuals can come into and learn from, perhaps follow and definitely experiment with.

Redefining Academy Success Stories

SPEAKER_01 41:02

On that, Ryan, on the success story side of things, I think what we're trying to get academies to do, so you academy managers, when we have those conversations, is it's trying to redefine what success looks like from an academy standpoint. And to inspire the next generation of a success story, it doesn't have to be the ones who broke through into the first team or were sold on for a million pounds. It can be the ones who were part of the academy programme from nine to sixteen and didn't get a scholarship, who are now thriving in the local postcode in senior positions or just in a it just in a in content with life. So I think that bringing those stories back into that like we mentioned before, that demographic, that young professional to inspire and educate them on the fact that you have so much value to add beyond football because you have just been part of an academy is fantastic, and that that can only be delivered by creating relatability of someone who's been through that same academy experience and had success beyond it. But I don't think we do enough as an industry to do that and reshape success metrics uh what it looks like.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Yeah, that I'm fully with you. Um I think for me as a young lad, success was being the captain of England and lifting the World Cup. And anything other than that was well, I'm clearly not living I'm clearly not living my dream then. So, you know, sod it, do something. You know, it's like we maybe need to temper that a little bit. Uh hopefully someone will one day be the captain of England and lift the World Cup. Um, you know, but um but yeah, it does become a bit of a challenge and you know that redefinition of success at home, um you know, it becomes important. I mean, you you mentioned being spending time as a you know a stay-at-home dad. And you know, it's defining success as getting to spend time with your children, getting to spend time with with family and you know, things like that that we that we'd never have put down before and we probably would not have encouraged to say to see that as a positive.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

100%. And I think there's um there can be embarrassment attached to that because you've had to spend time out, you know, raising clerks in that in that world and the perception of footballers is that they then come out and go straight into other careers and thrive. But actually it's yeah, I think looking back to that time, it was an amazing part of my own development and allowed me to spend time that was so valuable. It's I might not get again. So it's and also also very much helped with my organisation organization skills because I uh yeah, had the bust had the bust been heard later on. There was certainly uh things to say, things hadn't been done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah. It is a it is definitely a shift. Uh I'll I'll definitely give you that. And yeah, funny you mentioned the word embarrassment, but it I I think yeah, I guess I guess you're right. Well I I'll ask, was that was that an emotion you had at the time? Um, just coming back to that, that uh at least for a moment, that sense of embarrassment.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

I think it was more around the defensibility of why I was doing what I was doing, and it was more around trying to educate people on the dynamics of the sort of modern day relationship, that you know, there's so many people out there doing what what I did, and it's yeah, I guess it was more around it's challenging the perception of what what it has to look like, and I think things have changed, and that that was what was working for for us at that time, and I think it was probably more heightened by the fact that um yeah, I'd probably been in the professional setup in League Two not too much time before that. So it was more around like what's what's Joe, what's Joe doing these days? Ongoing defensibility of that conversation, which um is a challenge.

Where Mojo Goes Next And How To Follow

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Yeah, it is a challenge, and it's also getting other people to see you differently, or indeed not just see you differently, accept that there's a difference. It's not oh yeah, Joe the footballer, and that's what it does. It's like, oh, hold on, it's Joe the oh, actually, it's Joe. And you know, that in itself, we talk, you know, we touched on identity. That that's a challenge. 100% other view. Yeah. So look, Joe, I've just got to say so many questions today, and I I think it's been great to just get your perspective and your experience in this sort of career transition and and sort of where you are now. I guess I've got really a c a couple of questions just to wrap up, but one is so where's Mojo going next?

SPEAKER_01 45:29

So the where we're at today uh is we only launched into market sort of three months ago, but we have been building this thing for the last 18 months because as you know, you don't want to build anything on assumption, or I didn't want to build anything on purely my experience, so we need to make sure that we uh tested the market, we spoke to an awful lot of people in it who was going through this and had faced the challenges of the solution that we're trying to trying to provide. So we've built it on market research and validation. Um, so we've currently released the product, it's in the app store, it's available to download for current and former athletes. So we're thankfully seeing a lot of players and a lot of athletes come on and get value out of what we've built. But then also we're like I mentioned before, we've sold into um quite a lot of academies and clubs to be part of their player care solution and a lot of the aftercare you know, thing the program. So giving parents the confidence and the players the confidence that upon exit they are being released with a solution that is going to really support them beyond just the club that they're at. So I think a lot of clubs are putting a lot of investment into the aftercare support of their players and the alumni. So where we want to go is we want to um get into as many clubs with a lot as many players as we can within the football space at the minute, which is naturally where we've we've started out. But then the transferability into other sports um and other industries as well. So, as you as you probably know, the military, the performing arts world, the music and entertainment, those careers that have a very short lifespan and a heavy uh landing upon exit, because it's been your whole life. Obviously, the it this can be replicated into those industries as well. But then also the US collegiate market lends itself very nicely to what we've built, the technology that we've built. So, because we're a technology company, the beauty and the fluidity of what we've built is that we can go anywhere with it. And I think that was something that was very much in our business plan from the off that we wanted to bring it into spaces where we can add real value really quickly. So we'll see where we end up. We are obviously the luxury of what we've built, and we are very much a startup, is that we can bend ourselves into different different places and go where we need to go, and so I'm sure the conversation if we were to have this 12 months on would be completely different because we could be anywhere. Uh, but no, it's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

I I look forward to having that conversation then. So for people who want to follow your journey from now to that point, where's the best place to find you?

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yeah, so I'm mainly living uh digitally on LinkedIn, it's probably where I uh I spend most of the time. Um, but then also, yeah, obviously Instagram. Uh, but then it's in terms of the company channels, if any athletes are listening to this and can see that they can get value out of it or want to explore and just see what we're about, it's uh join Mojo on on most um most social media channels. So uh, and also you know, any conversations that I could have with athletes who want support, you know, we're more than happy to have that as well.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Joe, thanks very much for joining me on the show. Great to hear your stories.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Thanks to having me, Ryan. Thanks, mate.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

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 secondwin.io for more information or to book a consultation with me. I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Book 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.