BEX SMITH INTERVIEW
I had the pleasure to speak to Bex Smith about her career to date.
Bex Smith is an internationally successful footballer who's transitioned to a global executive in sports and business. She founded Crux Sports which consults with some of the world’s leading stakeholders in football including global brands, federations & confederations, international media platforms, AI technology, esports, agencies and some of the world’s top players, using its collective experience of years in football to identify, make, and capitalise on mutually valuable connections across its network.
Alongside Crux, Bex also hosts, moderates, and is a keynote speaker. She has worked at FIFA, Copa90, consults at Zone7, is a Venue Director for UEFA in the UEFA Women's Champions League, is a Board member for the Isokinetic Medical Group, the London Football Awards, and other private companies.
In her previous life, Bex was an international footballer who played for New Zealand. She was a World Cup and Olympic footballer captaining the New Zealand women's national football team whilst winning the UEFA Champions League, German League, and German Cup Winners up until her retirement in 2013.
BEX’S BUILD THE INVISIBLE CHAT HIGHLIGHTS
Comfort Zones
“thing that my dad always told me when I was growing up, he's like if you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room because what's the point of that?”
Being an Outlier
“I just think normal is boring and special should be used more as a compliment.”
Doing the Invisible Work
“Happy is hard.”
TRANSCRIPT
BS
I think that if you're not moving forwards and you're moving backwards, that if you're not constantly learning and not constantly growing, then you're already behind, so that is my mentality; it’s constantly trying to talk to people, learn from people, read, watch content, whatever it is but constantly trying to evolve and grow myself and what's the new phase in my life, so when I was playing, it was always, what's the next thing.
When I was in college, one of my coaches turned around to me after one game and was like, do you know that you're the best aerial player I've ever seen, and I was like, oh, and from that moment on I realized, oh I'm good in the air, I'm good at headers, cool, so then it was like, okay, now I'm going to focus on that and become actually the best aerial player that everyone's ever seen, you know, and I mean obviously I didn't do that because there's plenty of other people like Abby Wong knocked me out in my third game, but then once you feel like, okay I sort of dominate in that area, then it's like, okay, now what's the next thing I'm good at, and then it's, well, maybe it's leading people because that's the evolution of, as you get older and you start to become more of a leader in the team, then actually it's about providing that information and that guidance for others and that becomes sort of something that you add on to your game and the level of game and then that's how I kind of got bought by Wolfsburg because they saw me as then someone that could lead the defence and by leading the defence, start organizing the team from the back and sort of start leading.
So I think that sort of growth mentality has always been something, but what that means is, every challenge that you face or that you hit, and there's always challenges, and if you're not getting challenged and if there's not issues or problems or struggles to have, then you're not moving forward.
By definition, growth means that you have to face challenges and that's why I think that athletes, especially pro athletes, at the top of the game for many years are the best, most polished well-rounded human beings because you're constantly thrown so many challenges because it's mental, it's physical, it's emotional, whether it's being in a team or in an individual sport; you're constantly being thrown new challenges every second of every day, not just every day, so from a small example of, I have the ball and I'm going towards goal, I know where my goal is and I'm a midfielder and I'm heading towards that, like if you have then the first defender that knocks you over but because you've done enough training, your left leg can balance it and then the next one knocks you and then you almost fall on the ground but then because you've done a lot of proprioception and balance training, you can sort of pick yourself up from that, and then sometimes you just get flattened and you have to go get surgery, but in any case you just keep getting up, so that resilience I think is something that elite athletes just feel a little bit more, like not just okay with but I feel more comfortable in an environment where I'm sort of constantly being beat up a little bit and I know that sounds a bit weird but I kind of like it because it makes me feel like I'm pushing myself.
Another thing that my dad always told me when I was growing up, he's like if you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room because what's the point of that? Do you want to go around talking and I mean, I say that my dad definitely did not use those words but like, go around swinging your dick about how awesome you are or would you rather actually learn and grow? So if I walk into a room, I want to actually get something from that room. I don't want to impose how great I think I am; that doesn't actually bring me anything but actually to be able to sort of pick everyone's brain and get a little bit of knowledge from everyone else, I think is sort of always how I've approached interactions with other people and I think that's really important because then you're just better equipped to be dealing with things all the time. I think those are some of my life mottos.
I think the other thing, which is why I have started this business, is I want to support more players. Even though I had an economics degree, a Spanish degree, an MBA, a postgrad in psychology, had worked in law firms, consulting firms, media, marketing, sports, I've done so much, worked at Volkswagen, I was scared shitless when my career was ending because it's really scary. It’s a whole life transition that you have to go through so there's a fear that you have to overcome the identity that you had, that being a football player is going to disappear. You still might be known as an ex-footballer, or not at all if you're not good enough or not well known enough, now no one knows who you are; you're just a nobody, so I think there's that fear of finding a new identity that comes with being an elite athlete because by definition you have to put everything on the line to be a professional athlete.
I think there's a lot of fear and uncertainty around that and also during my career, I only ever signed one, I think, max my longest contract was with Wolfsburg and I think it was a two and a half year contract because I wanted the flexibility at the end of the year if I didn't like it, to be able to get out of it, but that meant that literally every year, you're reassessing, where's my next pay check coming from, what do I want to be doing. There's a lot of myths around the professional athlete environment and everything is so much easier to put on paper and to market in the way that you want to market things but we all know that behind closed doors, everything is always a lot more messy and a lot more complicated and a lot more emotionally challenging than everything looks on paper, so working at FIFA was really great for a lot of different reasons.
I got to travel the world and meet so many cool people and understand how governance works from the world's governing body, down to the confederations, how that works, and then the federations, and running one of the largest, I think it is actually the largest, women's sporting event on the planet, was really cool.
So when I left FIFA, I was really not sure what I wanted to do but I think having worked in the middle east on the project with Jordan and seeing Prince Ali is one of the most inspiring people I've ever met, that was one of those, I don't know, moments where I was leaning towards leaving the game and got brought back because I realized that actually, it's just too powerful, and there's too much of an opportunity socially but also commercially in the women's game right now, so that's the transitional points of my life.
Then starting my own business was a massive challenge because I think I just got to the point where I really had to stop and think about what my values were, what I want out of my life and really just take control of what I want and sometimes that's quite scary. I don't think people do that enough and I don't think that we necessarily all have the right skills to be able to even figure out what we want in life and that's not blaming other people. I think that we're not taught it; our educational systems are structured and incomplete. I think a lot of happiness from people comes from the arts or comes from culture or comes from music. A lot of people, when they say looking back, I regret not learning something when I was a kid, a lot of it is a musical instrument or a language, it's not I wish I had learned more maths and that's not an original thought.
There was this great podcast I was listening to, I'll try to find it for you, but I just think we knock out creativity from the child stage to the adult stage and I think that creativity is where I realize that I don't want to lose that and there's a lot of, this is how business is structured in sports but, actually, why does it have to be like that, and I don't think it does. It doesn't have to be like that all the time, just because that is how it is, I think that's the easy way to do things. It’s the road less or the road more travelled but actually I think there's a lot of joy and purpose that I find in building new things and I realize that that's actually kind of always what's been at the heart of when I feel most happy and most passionate; it’s when I'm building something new that's a creative idea that no one's thought of before or many people, millions of people, might have thought of, but I’ve never experienced it.
Most likely no idea is new, they always say, but at least I like to feel like it's something that's my own and build it and get other people involved and try to build a team and engender a lot of motivation and passion for other people to work in a team towards a goal that becomes like a bigger vision that's just different, that's innovative, that's maybe a little bit “not normal”.
I just think normal is boring. I genuinely think one of my most favourite words that I use as a compliment is weird. I love weird stuff. I love stuff that is different that makes you go, oh that's different and it's funny, because in this country, special is a word that has quite a negative connotation like, oh she's special or that's special or oh, that's different, and different for me is probably one of the best words you can use. If you were to describe me as someone that's different, that's unique, that's special, great, bring it on. Weird, love it.
I just think we all follow this this weird rat race.
I think the struggle is in creative unique thought and that's missing in so many elements when it comes to business life, how we look at relationships or how we want to raise our kids or whatever it is.
That's where the challenge comes because any time you introduce a new idea, everyone, no, 99% of people that I know, and I think probably 99% of the human race, is probably more conditioned when approached by something that's new, to have a little bit of fear and to be a little bit more against, rather than for, initially, and different cultures, I think, react in different ways.
I think that that's probably why I prefer the challenges and that sort of mentality because it comes packaged with new ideas and fresh ideas and sometimes you have to realize where that energy needs to be placed because sometimes you don't have to convince everybody that's a good idea as long as you can convince the right people for the right reason and just put your head down and go for it.
The proof is in the pudding, no, the proof is at the end of the day when you've built something that works. I'm sure everyone uses Steve jobs as an example but a thousand songs in your pocket or whatever it is with the iPod, everyone would have been, I don't get it, doesn't make any sense, so I think challenge is good.
I think the norm is boring and the types of people that I've always found to be the most interesting and successful, and by successful, by definition, when I say successful, it's well-rounded, happy, feel like they have a purpose, but also just really nice people. The most successful people for me are the ones that I think are always challenged, like the norms and the standards.
DG
I think there's so many things there to touch on, but if I just maybe do three, which was constant development and learning, growth mentality, struggles, and structure, routine, identity transition, that's why I was frantically writing as I went along because there was some cool stuff there.
One of the things in the book that I'm trying to get to grips with, is try to explain when people say to me or us, because you're definitely someone I know people will turn to as a mentor or a person to ask, how did you make it in the football industry after making transition, what did you do, what was the magic formula etc.
One of the things you touched on first was constant development, learning, pushing yourself, constantly thinking about new things and reaching out to people and asking questions, and listening, that to me is something that's very entrenched in a couple of books that I've read to do with the cross between what passion is or what actually I think is a better term, which is curiosity. It sounds like you're very curious by nature and is that something that you've built and developed or something that's pretty innate in you, and as a result how did you go about actioning that or just being something that you developed over time?
BS
I think we're born curious. I think that that's why we can learn as kids. That's how we learn new languages. That's how we learn what's right and wrong. That's how we learn, that's hot, don't touch it. So we are curious as innately, I think that's how we're born. I think curiosity gets beaten out of us with education and it's hard work to fight against that, because you're put in a classroom and you're graded and those grades then determine what path you then go to and, especially in this country, I find it shocking and terrible actually, like absolutely terrible, that from a very young age, whatever your grades are, your marks then determine what path you're going to take, and if you get into that top track, then it does open more doors for you to be able to have more money or better education.
A lot of people don't necessarily grow at the same rate, so some people who are 18, 19, 20, all of a sudden, decide they are interested actually in English and literature, and then all of a sudden, their world opens up and then they take off when they're late, but by then they're on a track that has already determined what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do and I think that's terrible. You can quote me on that.
I think the education system that they've set up that have those kinds of tracks are not right and also everyone's brain doesn't work like that. I was very, I would say, lucky, because my brain worked in that education system. I could study not very much. I could remember things, like regurgitate things. I could also think about how you can connect what I learned in history to psychology to existentialism and come up with a new idea and put it in something for my English class. My brain worked like that. My sister’s didn't at all. She has ADD, she is spatially and visually on the, sort of, genius spectrum, and she's terrible at maths and English and memorization, and we still think she might have dyslexia, although she's been tested and they say she doesn't. I'm pretty convinced she does, and I mean that in the nicest way, but now she's director of photography, a cinematographer, in Hollywood, like one of the top DPs, working at one of the top networks or multiple of the top networks and made movies and works on TV shows that are incredible, and she makes a shit-ton more money than I do, who's gone to business school, has a post-grad in psychology, all these things, because her brain just works differently and the educational system doesn't suit them, so I think curiosity is something we're born with but it's something that you have to work hard to retain and you have to work hard every day not to fall into the stereotypes and the social constructs that we create ourselves.
We're constantly forced and funnelled down to try to be like normal and normal and normal and normal but at the end of the day, it's boring, it's just boring if everyone's the same, so I think curiosity is a really important characteristic, but you constantly have to work at it.
That would be the other thing, I think there's a lot of talented people out there but hard work trumps that any day and I learned that on the pitch but also off the pitch that I've seen people who have had dyslexia overcome that and become incredible brilliant public speakers. I've seen people who are terrible in school or were in college who have gone on to have great careers just because they work their asses off and it's no different on the pitch. I've seen so many really talented players just fall by the wayside because they were told from a really young age, you're really talented, you're going to be the most amazing thing, and then they start their stuff and the second you stop working your ass off, you're basically dead. So curiosity, but hard work is another one.
DG
That fits in perfectly with the second bit which is, and it sounds like you've definitely read these books already, which is along the lines of growth mind-set versus fixed mind-set ideas.
Dr Carol Dweck talks a lot about it. Angela Duckworth talks a lot about it in Grit as well, which are two of my favourite books and that idea of either being constrained by your mind-set or freed by your mind-set, I find really empowering, which is the fixed mind-set of, you're so talented, you're so fantastic, you don't have to work so hard, talent is very natural, and you're completely defined by your innate ability to do something, which means if I have to work for it actually, then I've already failed because I should innately know what I'm doing and succeed as a result versus the growth mind-set of I need to keep working hard at it for all of the reasons, like I can grow and get better and realize that I'm going to make mistakes along the way, but actually that helps me become more resilient and persevere better and when bumps come along, I'm more likely to be not necessarily not hurt by it but understand it's not the end of the world and it doesn't define me and how do I then go about putting processes in place to deal with things that I can control and all of that type of stuff, rather than blame the rest of the world for my own, what can be wobbles or whatever else it might be.
You said something really interesting about all of that, which was talking about, you visualized you being the football player going around challenges and being unstable or sometimes being hit hard and having operations and coming back and the rest of it; did that type of mind-set, that was almost forged on the football pitch, help you obviously on the pitch, but also help you with the other stuff that then came as a result?
BS
Yeah definitely. I mean I couldn't believe my luck when I went to FIFA and organizing the women's world cups, as you probably can imagine, is no easy feat. All the teams fed into me, whether it was media, marketing, TV, legal, everything, all fed into that top part but I couldn't believe my luck about how easy it was. Literally, show up at eight o'clock and leave at maybe eight p.m., even 12-hour days when we were in the office and then traveling around and working even longer hours, but I was like, this is so easy compared to being an elite athlete. You have no idea what it's like to have to wake up and think every single thing that you do has to funnel into your performance on the pitch, so what I eat, when I sleep, who I talk to, my mental state, how much do I rest, how many hours am I on my feet, how I train, when I train, what I train, how the coach looks at me, how I interact with all my teammates; it's so draining.
At the end of my career, people are like, do you miss it? I was like, absolutely not.
It was so great; it formed who I am definitely, but it's the hardest job in the world. It just is, if you take it that seriously, so everything else after that felt really easy, it just did, but also because I didn't have a career.
I grew up in the US and then I played t the top college in the US and then went and played in the US and played for the US national team. I moved to Germany when I was 22 and didn't speak the language and basically was dropped in the deep end with the world's best players at that time, with the bearded princes and didn’t know what I was doing and didn't speak the language and so from there, realizing that that wasn't the right place for me, then switching clubs to another club within Frankfurt but then having to compete against those who are now my friends and then switching to Sweden, didn't speak the language there, totally different culture and then down to Australia, so there are so many different elements too.
It's not just the day-to-day waking up and playing but it was, yeah it is, I think it's a career path but it's a lifestyle that teaches you so many incredible skills should you choose to learn them, and that's the other part; I know a lot of players that ignore all of the great skills that they could be learning and are lazy or don't necessarily want to challenge themselves and that's fine, that's totally fine, but for me, I think it was a great opportunity to be able to go to my limit and then go beyond that and then still try to find some comfort in that, so that you're constantly pushing your own boundaries.
Everything after that was easy, the only thing that I struggle with a lot now is that I'm surrounded more often by people who don't all want to be better and that sometimes I find hard because when you're playing on an elite team and whether it's a national team or a club team, you all have the same goal that you individually want to get better every day, and as a team, you want to win everything all the time, so you’re constantly competing.
DG
On that point then, because a lot of that fits in to identity. All of that feels like you're saying, this was my identity as a player, which was an elite athlete that was doing everything they could, day in, day out, to get better and then that transition into the professional football world off pitch, you maintained that identity but maybe what others weren't necessarily aligned or you had to pull and push people up that path at different times. The reason I say that is because another part of what I'm thinking about for the book is all to do with these, it's what this guy James Clear talks about in his book called Atomic Habits; he talks about compounding and compounding effects, the idea of getting one percent better every day by the little small things that you do and the compound rate of being able to do that is then massively undervalued.
As a result of that, what I mean is that if all of those habits that you're used to doing by way of your professional football on-pitch routine you've taken into the commercial football side of the business, do you find that your professional career has very much helped in your transition to what you do now, in terms of your identity, in terms of your ethic, work ethic, in terms of your ethos generally, or are both things quite separate and actually need different elements?
BS
I think what happens is, and this is just in life anyway, whether you're a footballer or a lawyer, I think that a lot of people try to find a definition for who they are, and we love labels as humans, so we love to put things in boxes, and I think there's a danger in labelling yourself a footballer.
First that career ends much earlier than most careers, so what I think was always important for me, was that I never saw myself as a footballer first, and still, looking back, I never wanted to be a professional footballer; I just enjoyed it.
I had the opportunity to captain my national team. I could go to a world cup in an Olympics so I knew that, if I was going to do that in three years, I needed to play consistently and not be an embarrassment to me and my country, so that meant that I had to put all those eggs in that basket but I never defined myself from a young age as just a footballer. I was always Bex Smith. I love surfing. I love playing basketball. I won state championships with basketball. I also lettered in softball and water polo and then when I went to college, I was an economic student first and then I did Spanish as well and so, there were all these different things. I love to travel. I'm a kiwi. I'm American. My identity was always pretty diverse and I wanted to keep it that way because I just knew there was a finite limit to that identity and I didn't want to put a time limit on who I was and try to figure out what am I now. I kind of saw that coming before it even started but I think that that's something that I work with players on now; who are you as a person, what do you value, what's important to you, what's not important to you, what do you think is right, what is wrong, what are the things that make you happy, where do you want to go in the rest of your life - you don't know? - that's cool. What gets you going now? - is it music, is it politics, is it whatever, and I think the more that you start identifying yourself as a human being and a person first that has all these other passions and you happen to play football, just as you do, you love your talking, you're going to write a book, but you’re also a lawyer so that all comes under that sort of identity but there's so much more to who you are.
I think that that is a more healthy way of living your life because of the fact that football in particular ends but I don't think it's restricted to or restrained to football. I think that it's more extreme because you literally cannot do anything at all. You can and I did but you're still spending, even when you're studying, you're still thinking about the training that you have to do and you're still being defined as a footballer first, so I think we just need to, and this is not limited to what maybe even what your book is, well, maybe your book is talking about that, but I just think we need to look at ourselves as human beings first and how we interact with other people first and foremost and I think in that sense, we will be a happier human race if that makes any sense.
DG
It does. It's interesting because I find sometimes I spend a decent amount of time trying to create a marketing image or, not necessarily a professional image; if it's something football or sports related and you need legal help, then hopefully my name springs to mind, almost that hook in a way, but at the same time, a lot of the time, I don't want to be identified as just someone that is only interested in football or sports, that I'm hopefully more multifaceted than that in itself, but at the same time, I find that you need to specialize in order to be able to show expertise and value in particular areas, I guess, in exactly the same way that you've done to a degree and finding that balance between being rounded but also knowing a certain amount of specialist knowledge about a particular area is also the difficult balancing act that I have trouble with sometimes.
BS
I think it’s a matter of how you want to define yourself and how you want to market yourself and sometimes it's because we're told, well the audience won't get that, people don't understand that, you have to specialize but again, why, like who said that, who made those rules? Yes, maybe that's your experience but actually I think I like being someone with a lot of different pies and I think it suits me because depending on, but you also have to have I think deep relationships in all those different pies to be able to have a network that's big enough and that's maybe the difference to be able to then get anything back from it.
I genuinely am interested in sports medicine and the research element of it and the lack of research on women's side and so I talk about it quite passionately and I'm on the isokinetics medical board which may or may not mean shit, but I think it's because I've talked about it to certain people that are quite well connected in that industry as well, that then certain things then come back to me as an opportunity, so I don't necessarily go out to market and go who's Bex Smith, well I'm this, that but I genuinely care about it and I want to talk about the things that I care about.
The only problem with it now is that I have too many projects and too much to do and not enough time.
DG
Can I ask about that point just very briefly, because what it sounds like, one of the first things that you said was, you were lucky, in the sense of, in school, you were able to connect quite, I guess, disassociated dots together, that's what it almost feels like on some of the stuff that you're really adding the value is, and looking at lots of different disparate subjects which may not necessarily look like they're connected but actually connect them accordingly, possibly, and I guess for new ideas or new ways of looking at things, and that's actually how innovation starts, I guess, is my understanding.
BS
I think so and I think that the issue with, it's a really good point actually Daniel, because the point about specializing is, you become a specialist in just that, but actually I think the world is changing so quickly anyway, but even if it hadn't, I think being able, for example, being able to consult now in the sports industry, if a brand wants me to come on and consult with them and they say, okay, we want to, maybe, get into women's football, what do you think? I can look at it from a player perspective, a governing body's perspective, so do you want to buy rights to the UEFA or is it CAF, or is it a league somewhere?
I've worked with all of them and I understand how they work both from a player's perspective and a governance perspective and now from a media and a consulting perspective, you can just give a more well-rounded viewpoint on different things and I think the problem too that we face in terms of specialization or, another way of looking at specialization is polarization that either you're a blue or you're red, either you're black or you're white, either you're liberal or, what is it in this country, liberal or labour, no labour or conservative.
I don't see the world like that. It's lazy is what it is and I know why we do it because we as humans, we need heuristics to help simplify our lives but actually we've oversimplified and I think we're too lazy to have conversations and discussions to be able to mediate and find a middle ground now and I know this is a bit of an extreme view, because you need a specialist if you're doing contract law for players, big name players, big brands, I'd probably come to you because that's what you've done before many many times and I don't really want to go to someone that knows everything and there are some moments where you do need specialists but I do also think that there's a lot of value in having a wider range of knowledge in a lot of different things that don't seem like they connect but there's so much we can learn from music, for example, in sports, and there's so much we can learn from business and bring into sports that we could run our sports industry so much better if we had more people who just came from a business background or a consulting background, like a proper structured way of setting up a business and understanding finances.
How is it possible that some of these clubs are broke within weeks from COVID? It’s scary, that's really scary. Anyway that's maybe a whole other topic, but I think it totally depends, I think legal is a different one isn't it, because you kind of have to specialize in the legal industry.
DG
I think on your point, which I'm completely in agreement with, is that it's only, firstly, the more you know, the less you know, that's how I feel. The more I learn, the more I'm like, I don't know about that or I don't know about that, I don't know about that, and that keeps you a bit more humble and grounded to have that growth mentality to go and do but also the more inquisitive and curious I am outside of particular areas, I think is very much more useful, because it's usually in that disparate idea vacuum that new stuff connects and becomes useful for you in, if even if it's a specialist area or not, so I definitely see that. Those connections happen when you're not expecting connections to happen and that's what I quite like.
Last question for you Bex, unless there's anything else you want to chat about?
BS
Anything else you and I can chat about? How many days do you have there?
DG
Well maybe we'll do a marathon podcast at some point.
BS
Yeah that would be good.
DG
You actually mentioned one of the things right at the beginning, so I take this from a guy called Tim Ferris that you might have heard of. He's written loads of cool books including the four hour work week and four hour; lots of different things, and he wrote a book where he interviewed about 50 or 100 leading individuals in the world and asked 13 different questions.
One of his last questions was ‘if you had a massive billboard where you could say anything to inspire others, what would it say?’ I hate to put you on the spot, and we can talk about it later if necessary, but I'll just mention very briefly so when you mentioned about your dad saying, never be the smartest person in the room, I really like that from a growth mind-set perspective, from a resilience perspective, from challenging yourself and out of comfort zone and all of that type of stuff generally, and it doesn't need to be anything catchy or otherwise, so for example, I interviewed someone else the other day who said that their billboard was ‘recommend more books to people’.
BS
Mine would just say ‘why not’.
I think we build up so many reasons why we can't do things, that we stop ourselves before we even start. I think our own reality is, what's in your head. It's all relative, it's all perspective, so if you want to go and do something, just do. Why not go for it basically.
The thing is too, is that even if you don't get to that, like let's say I have a vision and I have a dream, and it's to build an empire of whatever; I don't know, I want to be a TV media broadcast mogul. Even if I start moving in that direction I'm going to get somewhere, aren't I. I'm going to get somewhere that's along that path, in that journey.
I don't really believe in mistakes. I believe definitely that there's different consequences for different choices we make but it's all a learning process along the way and why not.
DG
I love it. That's the shortest one I've had, that's probably the most powerful so far.
[SLIGHT BREAK IN RECORDING]
BS
The guy, she sent it to me actually, I haven't listened to it, she said the guy said the one thing that we always hammer on about, is that we need purpose in life and he's like, I just completely disagree. I think that the thing that holds us back is that we have this concept of purpose, when actually, you don't need any purpose in life, and if you think about the Buddhist monks and most of Buddhism, it's kind of true.
I guess nirvana is really their purpose so that technically could be a purpose but it was just interesting, like, do we need a purpose or do we not need a purpose? I guess there's not a right answer but I thought it was interesting.
DG
The reason why I thought this would be quite useful, I guess there's obviously, it has to be a selfish part which is the bit of, I'd like to know because I think it will be good for me in terms of nourishment, or whatever it is, but my purpose in a way for this is to try and find some common themes about how successful people, again however you classify successful, are doing the right things that they want to be doing to help others on that charted path so they understand that it's not this easy win, and I don't mean that in a negative way.
I mean, it's like, just go back to basics, do the cool stuff hard for a long time with empathy and purpose and creativity and keep following that well-trodden path to get where you want to get to because everyone only sees the outcome of everything, the instagramable whatever it is of whatever it is, whereas no one sees under the iceberg and all the nonsense that goes on to get there, so when everyone says, oh I just want to be a football lawyer, can you tell me how to be a football lawyer, just as I'm sure they'd say the same to you, how did you manage to get to work at FIFA in such a fantastic position, there's a short answer, which is whatever the short answer is, which is, there is no short answer, the long answer which is the long answer, which is like, how long have you got, because it’s all of these tons of things combined for a long period of time and that's what I want to get everyone out of, which is, there's no such thing as short-termism for this type of stuff.
Wanting to do it, committing to do it, not being too daunted by it, but enjoy the process of doing and see where it takes you and compound everything day after day, week after week, and then to give that message to people, I think would be quite inspiring, which is, there's no easy way out, which is great because that means anybody can do it.
It's the most democratic thing within reason. I'm not saying everyone has the same initial opportunity but the idea that it's some type of meritocracy, I think has to be a positive.
BS
Lizzie and I do this this course on harnessing the elite athlete mind-set and one of the first chapters of it is goal setting and I would argue that choosing your outcome and the position that you want, is the wrong way to go about it.
We always look at outcomes, we're taught, like I want to be a teacher, I want to be a lawyer, I want his job, I want that, I want that, when actually we need to start from, and this is going to sound corny but it is so true, we need to start inside first. We need to start with, who am I, what are my values, what is the type of person I want to be, who are the type of people that I value, who are they, not what do they do.
I would argue that a lot of people probably want to be a sports or football lawyer because they actually like you and they like the values that you stand for, rather than they like what you do as a job because most people don't know what you do as a job, otherwise they'd be doing it, right? But they know you and they like you and they like the values that you stand for and so I would argue that they need to turn inward first and understand, who am I or what are the types of people that I like that I want to surround myself with, and then, why do I like them, because they have that value that, okay, what is the commonality value.
Sometimes they don't even know what that is and you find the commonality and then that's where you're going to be on the right path for you, so that you constantly keep surrounding yourself with things that you're passionate about; I like that, I got a lot of energy from that, I like that person, so you go towards it, you go towards it, and then you start finding paths open up for you in the right way, in the right time, and everything, rather than, I'm going to go there, I'm going to push through everything, I'm going to get everybody out of my way, there's challenges, I don't care, it's like, if there's that many challenges, it's probably not right for you anyway, because even when you get there, you're not going to be happy because you haven't enjoyed the journey.
DG
I think a lot of people are allured by the glamour which isn't there when, you know much better than I from being on the inside of it, it's like the glamour of doing a football transfer or the glamour of going to a game to watch whatever it is, or the glamour of and when you're on the inside, that isn't glamorous and it's almost sometimes the exact opposite of whatever glamour actually is, and in the end, the thing that sustains you is your enjoyment of the thing that you're doing, rather than the end product because otherwise, exactly as you said, if you've got a goal to reach, and you'll just do anything you can do to get there, to maintain those habits are actually very difficult if you're only aiming for the end goal, and then even, god forbid, you actually get to that end goal and you're like, right, I'm here, then you're going to have some very difficult questions to ask of yourself, which is well I’m here, I've attained, what next, what do I actually do, which I think is tricky.
BS
I think that the goal setting process has to be different, so we call it flipping goal setting on its head, because we're always looking at, what's the outcome, and then it's only at the very end that we even look at, does this even make me happy? Happy is hard, that's maybe not the right word, but it's so much about that process and that journey and enjoying it along the way, it has to be, it just has to be. Even with this podcast, it's kind of like, I could literally give a shit about the numbers, I really don't care, but I've enjoyed so much, like, recording with the players, and having the chats, but it's a lot of hard work, and parts of it I like, parts of it I like less, and so I'm learning along the way.
If it's something that is enjoyable for me, I'll continue doing it. I really don't care about the numbers; they are so irrelevant to me. If it's the most successful podcast on the planet, if I don't enjoy doing it, I will not do it, I just won't.
DG
The way that I see it, and I'm sorry for going on ages about it, but the way I see certain things is, you're always going to get haters and you're always going to have people that measure you by different standards that you measure yourself by, or otherwise, my very simple approach to anything that I put out now is, does it help one person with anything, and if the answer to that is yes, I'm good, I'm absolutely good with that. Also the bit I think, which forms part of that, is that when people reach out and, let's get this right, there's a lot more people that will reach out or say negative things, rather than reach out and say positive things, because it's not necessarily in people's nature to be positive and affirm nice things, which I think is always really important, which I think is a very important thing generally to do, to enjoy the positive satisfaction that comes from helping someone improve and that is something I think I've put way too down the list in terms of priorities of, a pat on the back, well done, actually, you've made a positive difference to somebody and having that internal gratitude for that particular reason.
BS
Which is so cool, and I would, I can imagine, or I kind of believe that most people, well you have to have satisfaction within yourself to be able to even compliment and genuinely mean it to other people, and I think that's where it's just really sad.
If I feel really good about what I'm doing, I'm making good money, I'm working on cool projects, I have great people around me, my dog loves me, I've got a gorgeous Christmas tree, it's so easy for me to say, hey, well done Dan, this is a really cool idea, what a great book, rather than feel jealous that you're doing something really really cool, you're doing something that you're passionate about, and I don't really have a passion and I'm not really following it, I think again, it goes back to figure out your own shit first really, and focus on that rather than comparing yourself to everybody else.
DG
The race is long and usually it's only with yourself.
BS
It's always with yourself. It's your own damn head on the pillow every night, like that's it, really I mean, and I think the more you travel, the more you live in different countries, and the less shits I give because I'm like, I really couldn't give a shit what anybody here in London says, because I know it's just different in Germany versus in LA and everyone here thinks that this is the world, this is the world, this is it, this is the bubble that we live in but actually it's so much bigger than that, so it's just, if people don't get it, I don't give a shit, it doesn't matter, but most people do which is cool, so yeah.