Lewis Moody: Rugby, Resilience, Purpose & Facing MND | Extraordinary Life Stories

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0:58iPhone 11 or later required. If there's anything that I can do or that I would like to get out of the time with you, which I've thoroughly enjoyed so far, is engage your audience to know that this disease is curable. Tell me, who is Lewis Moody? Best part of two decades playing professional rugby. Obviously because of my diagnosis now, I have another purpose and another cause in the charity space. To win a World Cup at the age of 24, and achieve all you'd wanted to achieve, you'd think that must be euphoric, you know, you'll be on a high for weeks, months, years and actually that euphoria lasts seconds but it was like okay now what?

1:38You know, now we've achieved all I've ever wanted to achieve, I'm 24, now what? Can I go there with you just in terms of being diagnosed, you were caught off guard by it, it wasn't like you'd ever get to prepare, can you describe what motor neurones disease is? It's the first time I've been asked that question since diagnosis. Yeah, certainly wasn't an easy thing to hear. That piece of information that changes your outlook on the future, that diagnosis is negative and the noise around it is negative. But when you start speaking to specialists, there's a lot of hope. This disease is curable.

2:21Thank you for joining me. Pleasure. I'm looking forward to this. Tell me, who is Lewis Moody? That's an excellent starting question. Your hardest one? I can tell you who I was. In a past life, I was a rugby player. I spent the best part of two decades playing professional rugby, mostly in Leicester. I then retired. I spent the last two years of my career playing in Bath, which is now where we live. and it was slightly easier to convince my wife to stay in Bath rather than move back to Leicester. So we've been there 15 years, you know, so I had a decade playing with England and, you know, as an athlete you are in, you know, you're in the highs and lows of a journey and I got the chance to enter teams that were hugely successful, you know, under the likes of Martin Johnson and various others, you know, playing alongside Johnny Wilkinson clive woodward's 2003 world cup winning squad and to go through all those highs but career and then come out of it and be retired for 15 years like i have been now and so who am i now i mean that is a very different different question i'm first and foremost a dad husband i would weirdly say uh a campaigner because i seem to have spent the majority of my retirement um in the charity in the sort of charity space.

3:46You know, we set up our own charity, supporting other charities. Obviously, because of my diagnosis now, I have another purpose and another cause in the charity space. So who is Lewis Moody? I suppose who is Lewis Moody now? I am an individual that loves connecting with people and loves working with people. and I think when I left the world of sport everyone tried to pigeonhole me or put me in this space of you'll be a great public speaker you get the leadership you do motivation you go work in the city you'll be brilliant actually the thing that I enjoyed most was was being and connecting with people and supporting others which is why I inevitably ended up working you know with charities and I suppose in terms of a career I ended up in exec coaching so you know initially supporting elite athletes on their journeys then supporting some of the individuals that I employed as young coaches and that all blended its way beautifully into sort of team development in business which I kind of enjoyed kind of didn't and that led to one-to-one coaching and again that human connection piece.

5:09I really feel that, that human connection piece, which actually aligns us. I just so enjoy conversations before leading to this one where we keep saying we need to bring this onto camera. It's a real passion of yours, and it's underlined with a selflessness. And that selflessness, I watched you play, and the sort of service to the team, if you like. I mean, just relentless, mad dog. No one sent you in, you went in willingly. And then when you came out of rugby, it's clear that you wanted to give back you're always looking to help other people yeah I've never looked at it as selfless but I absolutely loved you know if I if I look back through uh you know the the retrospective lens absolutely what I enjoyed most about playing the game was my ability to be able to sort of put myself in harm's way for the benefit of the team you know when I was leaving school wasn't particularly academic um you know failed my mass gcse three times i did eventually pass it but um you know so the academic process wasn't an easy one for me but sport and team um was it was the place where i felt a sense of belonging and comfort but because i offered something what that i felt others didn't maybe and that was uh you know a total commitment to the guys around me and the cause and maybe you know to say that others didn't offer that you know it was just my my view on what was important to me and yeah you know i loved the ability to if i had well certainly if i hadn't gone in there into into rugby would have gone into the military and so rugby was as close to sort of operating in that space and the mindset and the way that they think about um training obviously the outcome is very different so there's almost shared values though isn't there there's respect there's discipline that you you see that in the camaraderie of the team.

6:55Yeah. But you also see that in the actual competition because you're clearly competitive. Oh, yeah. Which is quite an interesting, yeah, straight in on that, which often would come with ego. Yeah. And a lot of the people that perhaps often will write in or say, I'd like to come on X-Men Stories and let me tell you all about me and so on. I very much invited you and really, not convinced you, but was like, look, I'd love to have conversation because a competitive person has achieved a lot of success but actually comes from that selfless place is actually quite unusual i don't feel you fully appreciate that no i don't because i you know i'm me i'm you know i've been in this body now and you know i was i'm fiercely competitive and don't get me wrong that i didn't enjoy the success that i had during my career right you know i absolutely loved that you know that was uh it was very much something that drove me to want to be better to want to get into the team the following week you know to be playing for england again the next year so we can be a part of that next six nations victory the next grand slam can we get to another world cup final um all you know all of that was uh was enjoyable i certainly enjoyed it it's great because it proves you ultimately enjoying the journey well well so that's what i suppose i was going to say is that But the outcomes, those victories, they were great.

8:15But when you sit in it, we chatted earlier. Let's take, for instance, the World Cup final. You win a World Cup. As a young lad, all I ever wanted to do was play for England. Well, actually, all I ever wanted to do was play for Leicester Tigers, my boyhood club, which I did. Then all you want to do is play for England. Then all you want to do is win stuff with England. So to win a World Cup at the age of 24 and achieve all you'd wanted to achieve, you'd think that must be euphoric you know you'll be on a high for weeks months years and actually that euphoria lasts seconds you know and the final whistle goes that is the most honest release you know the most honest moment when that whistle goes you see all the lads running around joy excitement euphoria that's honest the rest of it felt like nonsense if i'm honest you know waving the flag signing stuff that all felt then sort of forced and when you suddenly change written afterwards it was like it was actually a lull there was like a dullness inside of me and and I chatted to a lot of the lads and some are similar some aren't but it was like okay now what you know now we've achieved all I've ever wanted to achieve I'm 24 now what and I suppose I can look back and I probably I don't know whether I realized this at the time or not but you know without a shadow of a doubt the thing I enjoy most the thing I miss most now is the day-to-day turning up having to prove yourself you know having that competitive element in everything you do like not just on the pitch it was you know in the banter in the changing room in the weights room in the conditioning suite you know in the analysis room um on the daily having to prove yourself in that sense that you could you could never give less than 100 because someone else will give that one percent more and they might be ahead of you at the weekend so they can complacence the journey you know as cheesy as it sounds the process i would say was the thing that i enjoyed more than anything yeah but from a physical sense and i'm quite a relaxed human being off the field but the physical it stimulated you oh yeah you went deep then in your eyes then you went went into it yeah i'm yeah i missed that and you can't replace it i've done all sorts of challenges around the around the world with awesome people and including some of my former world cup winning teammates but you know it still doesn't replace that sort of competitive outlet you get from playing right i was gonna say combat sport that's probably you know well it was with you yeah i should probably say an evasion sport but um and it's great to have met many of your your former colleagues and friends um through either filming together or different kind of rugby dinners and events and and you know i would watch you playing and be like who was that You started almost to build this pattern.

11:01It was probably Lewis and then the camera would zoom in and everyone was coming out of the rock or whatever and it was like, it was. You just used to go in hard and you come out ready for the next one. And I could see almost the shock of, again, former colleagues and opponents, how did he get up from that? Straight back in. And you thrive off it. Your eyes told it then. But that passion for what you did was real. well the passion is the thing that's always driven me you know whether it's someone talking to me about watches you know yeah and I'm like why would I listen to you know someone I like watches but not enough to go and listen to a talk and I sit in this talk and I'm like the sort of energy the uh the zest for the commitment to and the understanding and the knowledge and the passion with which he talks about his watchers like man I'm on this journey with you I've I've gone from not you know wanting to be in this space to be I will have three of those watches or whatever it is you're having i'm on it and i think there's there's a passion piece that has always connected me to people you know you spoke to me earlier about your enjoyment of doing this and having conversations with individuals because you're passionate about it and you get to connect and you're a curious character anyway and you know for me i suppose it's always been about the people if i feel connected to the individuals i would do anything for them yeah absolutely and that is not just you know on the rugby field which allowed me to amplify that sense of character that that when i say amplify it allowed me to focus really acutely on specific aspects of my character and it almost encouraged you to amplify them so let's say they're slightly crazy or selfless you know crazy you know if i was selfless it meant i could be really crazy selfless and just throw myself into stuff because you were encouraged to do so because it benefited you, it benefited the team.

12:49And there was something I very much enjoyed about that. So passion and connecting with people. I've gone off on such a tandem. No, I love, no, it's really interesting because when two weeks ago, 1 ,500 people come out to support you and your family in Battersea for the most memorable dinner. That was so awkward. That's where I was going with it, but it wasn't for anyone there. It was tingly. And just thinking of phil vickery a mountain of a man who got emotional talking about just how you know really want to repeat that word selfless you are and how uh it was so clear that you would do anything for them and i think it's it's probably a full circle moment where as much as you say it was awkward and it's probably the you probably dreaded the evening even though you know that good cause and the reason why everyone's coming together and we'll we'll kind of come to that as conversation you like but have you have you almost tried to embrace this now whereby there are people around you that love you and that whole room was full of love for you as Lewis the guy that threw himself into every situation possible on the field and then has done so much to try and help other people that now ultimately can receive help and support yeah I think it's been the thing I always struggled the most with was asking for help you know because when you come from a very competitive you know sort of i'll use the term alpha male because that's probably what how it would have been described at the time environment that it just it creates a sort of type of behavior and way of being and uh but to be to be sat in in a room um you know so i operated in that space and i probably conformed to a lot of those norms when i was in it as a player but actually my my innate character is doesn't like being at the center of attention doesn't like being the forefront or the focal point um i put up with it during a playing career not put up with it i recognize it's a byproduct yeah i reckon exactly there was a byproduct of what i did and i loved what i did so i i accepted it and embraced it for exactly you could then follow your passion yeah but now i'm not a rugby player and i'm not uh and choose to operate in media spotlight when i when i when i retired i chose to step away from it focus on my family um so being sort of thrust back into it in this way has been has been uncomfortable because people are suddenly saying loads of nice stuff about you know it's almost like going to your wake you know whilst you're alive which is actually a really lovely experience and i would suggest you know that the kindness that people have shown me i wish we'd show each other more of you know being more honest and open with each other expressing how we really feel men in general have never been great at that i think we're getting much better as the as time in the years move on but um it's a lovely way of framing that yeah so in answer to your question it was uncomfortable a lot of people put in a lot of hard work to make it happen and i very much felt the love in the room and the kindness and uh and listening to what people said about me in front of my kids was lovely you know so for my boys to experience that otherwise they'd have to wait until I wasn't you know I wasn't here which is not the best idea that that was that was a process due to my diagnosis right I feel grateful that because of the way that I've behaved in my life that people um I suppose there's an element of paying it forward type thing in here maybe that that comes to mind is that because of the way I behaved adapted, supported, hopefully others.

16:27You know, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life, like every human, but people have really rallied around me, and more importantly, rallied around my emotions always run just under the surface. When I talk about family support, the network that has come together for me and my family, so I feel very grateful that, you know, for the community I work within, how strongly they have taken us under their wing and chosen to support us because a diagnosis of my own orange disease is not an easy thing to have to grapple with, especially for young kids, but we are doing and the support makes it easier.

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17:55Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Can I go there with you just in terms of being diagnosed and then the conversations with family? Because the person that takes everything on with force, that that's um it's something that you know you're not you're never prepared for right you know and uh you were caught off guard by it it wasn't like you ever get to prepare yeah it's not hereditary you know it's um you know something that you know you've got to go through your own emotions and i don't wonder whether you went with the whole like why me at all because that's so not you and then you've got to then have a conversation and probably be strong for your family i just wonder how that's been for you well 100 you feel you have to be strong right but a part of being strong for me is also being honest and sharing how you feel really about it with your kids um yeah certainly wasn't an easy thing to hear but i just see no benefit in in sitting and dwelling in the negativity or you know or woe is me and this but you know i probably did feel like that initially i can't recall exactly what i thought when i talk about myself and this disease i can be really pragmatic about it you know i can i can view the future um i can be aware of it i can talk about all the stuff we need to do to make sure we're prepared you know whether it's financial voice banking for a time when you know you'll be you'll potentially be non-verbal um you know whether it's movement you know preparing the house to be ready for a wheelchair you know that you're going to be sat in you know potentially and you know however long so all of that type of stuff i find quite easy to talk about the hardest thing is as always is you know talking about the impact as on the people around you processing other people's emotions about it you know it takes time to process your own emotions sure um i just don't see any benefit in it's not that it doesn't happen for me like i feel sad of course i do i feel sad about you know what you'll potentially miss um you know what life has what you've mapped out for your life and where you intended it to go you know it wasn't long ago i was talking about okay what's the next 15 years gonna look like from a working perspective and okay great i was mapping that out and then all of a sudden you get this piece of news and the future becomes irrelevant because you don't know what it is or how long it lasts or and it's given me this really and i haven't found a better word for it yet i'm going to say privileged position to hyper focus on the things that are important for me now and everyone talks about being present and the importance of being present and i think i've always been conscious of that but never really recognized what it looked like now i recognize what it looks like and it's just simplifying you know it's really simplifying and focusing on the priorities always important for me now today um in the short term medium term and inevitably it comes down to time with the people that you love um doing the things you enjoy uh and really diminishing the things that do the opposite of either of those you know so it brings you no joy if it causes stress um and so yeah it's it's a really strange position to be in but i think that's the athlete mindset almost prepares you i think i want to be able to cope i i've been it's just that last piece of everything you said there has probably captured so many of the kind of questions i had and thank you for sharing that you know that resilience piece as the player that you were and the discipline you learn to then in some way prepare you for someone that loves challenges with setting yourself challenging to then be tasked with such an unwelcome challenge but you take it and then you work out how to how to manage it and and you know what and in the months since diagnosis it's only been eight eight eight months yeah eight months yeah since sort of told everyone in i think it was september i forget the exact date now it's probably something i should remember the detail is something it's never been massively important i've always been let's crack on yeah you know go but it's the challenge that word that almost sort of reinvigorates me now it's like god i won't say dormant seems like a an exaggeration because the last 15 years haven't been dormant i've done a lot of stuff since i finished playing you know set up companies set up a charity um you know changed a career path been to various different parts of the world on challenges raising money and they're pretty extreme bringing in al chambers talking to him that your that dinner you had here a few a few weeks ago yeah just listening to what some of the things you've done challenges yeah proper challenges well the north and south pole where you know we had a you know the plane landed and the you know the hydraulics of the one of the wheel housings collapsed so we're sliding down there i say the wrong way it's just a ice strip yeah which had a crack in it and the reason that the the wheel collapsed was because we went over the crack and it just forced the i don't know like the hydraulic system through the fuselage um but you know none of it was a we were just sort of like that leaning down the runway it's like uh mate this doesn't feel right no this doesn't feel right and then the whole plane sort of lurches up as it comes to a standstill you get off and you look back at it and go crikey that was uh that was interesting and then you like focus on because there's nothing around you no thousands of miles yeah and you're then just right let's crack on with the next job and you know so so walking to the north pole was the greatest, one of the greatest experiences of my life, certainly the most uncomfortable I've ever felt.

23:30But you talk about challenge and embracing challenge and, you know, this MND challenge feels like one I'm almost reinvigorated by, you know, a little bit like going to the North Pole. You're out of your comfort zone. It's when you feel most alive. I don't know if you ever experienced that, but, you know, certainly five years after doing the North Pole, I went to the South Pole and we had this sort of weather system approaching, which we didn't know what it was, you know is it storm system is it you know blizzard is it minus 50 what is it and i'm looking at the the leaders in the group you know the polar explorers and various others and they're like they're right we're gonna set up camp now guys we're gonna prepare for what's what's coming our way i'm like well what's coming our way is that well we're unclear at the moment but we need to be prepared doctor right okay so he starts he's like right we'll get the dead men out or the dead man out i think they called it which is this ice screw so you screw it into the ground you basically attach anything you don't want to get blown away yeah to it as a terrible name for i'm anxious already like do you mean get the dead man out like so screwing this has probably got a slightly different day but so we're screwing that and you can see this weather front approaching across the entire horizon because the plateau is completely flat and um and you're totally unsure and and i'm watching al and he's building the snow wall around his tent and a couple of my uh you know my tent buddies are inside the tent i'm like labs what are you doing we need to build a wall bigger than ours because you know if he's if he's still building a wall we definitely need to be building a wall they're like no no no it'll be fine it'll be fine so i'm out there building this wall and i was building a secondary wall i'm like oh my god what is coming what is coming over there i'm like panicking in my mind as we're doing that there's this almighty um it's almost like an explosion uh and the whole ground shuddered underneath us and i was like i mean you're on the plateau so you're on a land mass you know just on a sheet on land mass so you're not going to fall through um but you're still like oh my god what is coming our way and anyway the long story short the weather system was actually really mild passed without incident but the anxiety that i went through knowing that i'll slow my breathing down yeah there was nothing nothing that i could do to change this situation right i'm here we've built our snow walls al has said he doesn't know what it is we've just got to sit it out and see what happens and then chatting to the other the two guides and cleaning out saying mate what was that what was that explosion why did the entire ground just shake he was like i've honestly got no idea i've been doing this for 20 years that's never happened to me before and apparently what it was is so that i sound like i'm really knowledgeable on this but i'm just sharing information that's passed to me after the event is the whole sort of uh the plateau itself sits it's an ice bowl basically yeah and as it melts it creates this tiny sort of layer of water underneath the whole plateau and eventually that has to shift and the ice just drops you know only a millimeter or so but you're talking sort of you know a couple hundred thousand miles worth of ice that's being shifted and that's what created it yeah in the moment a tiny shift of that is it gonna you're gonna feel that what you obviously did yeah well in that moment talking about being most alive i was like oh this is i was i was anxious almost terrified but exhilarated by it as well because you know you're really experiencing life now right and there's something about those challenges and there's something about this in its you know in its horrible and horrible nature of the disease that presents something that excites me again yeah you know gets you get your teeth stuck into a little bit as much you can there's an element to um live like you're dying i like that and the point being that uh some of the people i've met that are the most alive have stared death in the face yeah and um they live differently to people that in the nicest possible way will watch 10 episodes of something this afternoon and then not eat particularly well and so on not trying to be specific but my point being you value time now so much more than and it feels like you always have because you've needed that challenge but that coming alive yeah you can feel that when you you light up when you're passionate about something yeah and i must thank you as well i said to you we had breakfast earlier just you How you choose to do with what you do with your time now is clearly something you give a lot of thought.

27:56So thank you for making the time to have this conversation. Well, I do genuinely enjoy these conversations as well. You're great to talk with. We're just exploring and I can be awful at going off on random tangents. So I apologize. And then often my brain doesn't bring me back to where I started, which is not a great quality when you're interviewing. We're very similar. And I'll feed off you. But I think if we bring that story you told, which brings leadership in, you've been around phenomenal. leadership, Al, preparing for the worst. Those walls he's building, he's experienced something that's come.

28:26You know, I'm going with it. So you didn't have the onslaught of bad weather, but he'll have had that. And that's preparation, that's leadership. You've experienced it with Jono on the field and others. What would you say are the leadership values that stand out for you is the most important i always find it difficult to define court like qualities of of leaders or anything it's like you know someone saying well who's your best mate so what's the thing what's the one thing that you have to focus on so why don't i when people used to say that i was like i don't should i have a best mate because i've got really close group of good mates but i wouldn't describe any of them as my best mate so when people talk to me about leadership they're like what are the values what are the qualities i just for me good leadership is recognizing your strengths and your weaknesses really quickly and really well people that i've seen or consider great leaders you know clive woodward martin johnson and the places that i've been in the sporting world i operated in alan chambers in the world beyond you know and talking about adventure and exploration and you know they understand their strengths their weaknesses and they and they put people around them that fill those knowledge gaps and they don't try and be what they're not you know so you know i'll use clive woodard as an example because he was one of the if not the sort of greatest manager coach i had and i really think he understood super quick what his strengths and weaknesses were and he really wanted to be the world's best coach and i hope I'm not doing a massive disservice if I say that.

30:06But I feel like he recognised quickly that there were people that maybe coached better than him. So he was like, okay, let's get the world's best coaches. Let's get the people that are best at what they do in this place. I recognise it's something I want to be good at, but my skill set is in management. My skill set is in seeing the bigger picture and putting all the pieces in place to make sure the team have everything they need to go on and be successful. So for me, it's as simple as that. and I think the values are dependent on the individual. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that always sticks with me.

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31:16Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Parenting. We're both aligned in the fact that that's probably the one thing we'd like to be the best at. yeah oh good good husband good dad yeah um and the journey you've gone on with dylan going into football yeah and so the values the the passion that that comes through two sets of games that are quite different and i really liked what you were saying about the uh the sort of the deep rooted passion and the singing that goes with the game yeah uh that's perhaps slightly different to rugby yeah and then this um the leadership the mentoring side of of being a dad and how that sort of transitioned well well parenting has been the best teacher to me of all right you know we've all been to school you know i attempted going to university um you know we've had great examples of leaders in whatever our work has been and you know teachers and mentors along the way but you know for me the greatest sort of lessons i've i've ever been taught whereas as a parent and and they're normally all through the you know the mistakes that you make right as a dad you know thinking i've got two boys ethan and dylan you know i parent dylan one way so apparently ethan the same that'll probably you know elicit the exact same outcome i couldn't be more wrong you know me and ethan are very similar we're responsive we're emotional you know whereas you know if dylan has done something i'll just say mate you know can you do this he'll go off you know he'll often go off and do it he might ask why he's doing it um or if you know we've had a disagreement we can resolve it pretty quickly you know with ethan he's very emotional being like me and you suddenly realize that okay if he's emotional okay i respond to energy it's like a ladder yeah i'm getting emotional how's this working not very well but i'm still in the emotional state so i'm going to keep going he's getting more emotional i was like what is going on and then it's only when you sort of step back from it or your wife comes in and goes mate why don't you take a little why don't you step out for a minute i was like well why do i need to step out he's clearly not listening to what i'm asking and you and you reflect you reflect on it and i came across uh um oh no rich i'm gonna forget his name rich shorter he's on uh instagram as non-perfect dad he's i think a priest or a vicar and i started looking at some of his stuff and it was really it was just really interesting about being a parent in your expectations but you know i very quickly realized that i fed off my son's energy and if i got more cross because i expected a certain way of behaving off of him because of my learned behavior with dylan sure and i didn't get it that amplified my emotion so if I lent into it that amplified his emotion what did I need to do actually I need to do the opposite of what I felt always and and often rich would say actually what you need to do is when the kids are young distract so might be tickle might be hug they might have done something you know wrong that makes you feel like you need to tell them off or sure you know all that that actually says that's not going to help the situation do what do what helps right situation yeah and or even to the point of you know just recognizing that i am an emotional being and that it's very difficult as an adult to control your emotions so imagine how hard it is as a child to control your emotions um so if i'm finding it hard and i need support from my wife um you know to recognize it and tell me and have that conversation together and go look if i'm ever you know triggered or you know or looking like i'm you know going in a different direction than you want me to go just tell me and I'll step out and you can come in and and calm things down so I mean there's just been so much I've learned as a as a parent in how to interact with humans especially young humans on a on a better level but it's made me much more self-aware.

35:04For anyone watching listening can you describe what motor neurons disease is? It's the first time I've been asked that question since diagnosis so motor neurons disease or ALS as is actually what I'm diagnosed with but motor neurone disease is how it's known in this country I believe. So it's a degenerative muscle condition which means the muscles in your body gradually waste away over time at varying different degrees and I think when you were given the diagnosis so you know ultimately the outcome of motor neurone disease is that you'll likely be wheelchair bound um you know stephen hawkins is a you know sometimes a visual that people will recognize he had it for over 50 years um that that is not the norm um you know the you know als is a life-limiting condition so you know that means you're well it means what it means right it means that there's no certainty around how long you're going to live um for instance sid lawrence who's a an international cricketer so he was diagnosed and and and passed within sort of a year but there's everything in between that 12 months and 50 years um so there's a lot of uncertainty um i think the average life expectancy with it is between five and five and seven um so in terms of the the disease itself what do you what do you change in your life at the minute not a huge amount but you change the way that you prepare for the future the thing I probably touched on that earlier but you have to you have to prepare for what's coming you know as at the minute each individual's progression is different mine is slow you know slow is relative but you know is as slow as it can be at the minute so I started eight months ago with a bit of shoulder weakness which was how i noticed my uh something was slightly amiss um and then that led to a bit of grip weakness and then i went and saw the physio who put me onto the specialist and then eventually we got the we got the diagnosis but um but yeah it just means you have to face a lot of difficult questions thankfully because of some of the decisions i made when I retired you know I met a lot of successful business people who talked to me well who I recognized I was looking at them if I just observe them I like watching people and I noticed they were trying to they were spending a lot of time with their families and they were sort of in the mid-50s and I was like okay this is wonderful you know I was like can you talk to me about life and what's it been like for you and you seem to spend a lot of time with your families now which is a wonderful thing like yes but I'm doing that now because I spent the last 20 years working so hard that I missed all the time so I want to catch it up and so there was there was two people that I spoke to basically said look if you're going to make any decision when you retire make sure you consider that you're the window of time you have with your kids is small so make the most of it so the only choice real decision I made when I retired immediately was whatever I did needed to afford me time with my family and I feel you know talk about serendipity or whatever you know I like to think that the choices you make and the people you surround yourself with mean that serendipitous moments are more likely to happen and so that choice i made because of a conversation the people i was surrounded by means that now you know my boys are 18 and 15 i've had all that time with them um to the point where not long ago i was looking at what's the next 15 years look like sure you know away from the boys what's work look like now that future is different and changed but um you know you've got you've got golden times that those those older people you were talking to um when you freshly retired remind me of when i was setting up a business um and about to become a dad and the the high net worths if you like that were the clients i was talking to all gave me the same advice which is no matter how much money you make and success you have yeah you won't get that time back if you don't make time for when your kids want to be with you and you no one can ever take that away from you no 100 i felt i feel fortunate that i had those conversations i met those people at yeah at the right time that's serendipity yeah well exactly yeah yeah i mean you were you were saying something then that triggered my thinking which is which has completely disappeared now but um i think you know if you look at but it's not that i'd the message that i'm trying to say is not that you don't you shouldn't work hard and you know find the things that you love and really commit to them of course you know that is a part of your journey and you know you were you were successful at what you did and then you you had a realization at a certain point it's like actually okay i want to go in a different direction now and the ability to adapt as humans you know and that be okay that you set you set off on a certain path you chose that and now you want to do something that that's a that's okay as well but i would i suppose what i'm trying to say is you know whatever it is that you're doing make sure you enjoy it and make sure well, you really do prioritize the right things.

40:22Yes, work hard, be committed to it and be passionate about it. But know that, you know, that will end at some stage. Yeah, there's fulfillment and purpose there, isn't there? 100%. Yeah. How much of the, almost the purpose that you've been handed in an unwelcome way, if you like, that is now in any one way immersing yourself in learning about M &D, that could in any way help you, but also help countless others in the future, almost like a legacy play to awareness fundraising that can in any way um you know prevent uh such a you know cruel disease when i was diagnosed the first thing you know after dealing with the obviously the you know the outcome of that diagnosis the conversation you have was okay what do we do now so i think every conversation i've had since then is like how can you know what's the biggest impact I can have in this space moving forward?

41:19So that is where my driver's at at the minute. So the first part of receiving that diagnosis was making sure the family's secure and financially get all those things in place. And the next part is, how do we have the biggest impact in the MND space? And the sad reality of that is that MND isn't incurable. In fact, the space I've arrived at because of Doddy and all those guys that have gone before is that there's a lot more hope in this space. Now, yes, when you first get that piece of information that changes your outlook on the future, that diagnosis is negative and the noise around it is negative.

41:57But when you start speaking to specialists, there's a lot of hope. For the first time in 25 years, there has been a drug being developed that almost reverses symptoms for those people with genetic MND. but that's only three percent of people living with it so of the you know the six people that are diagnosed every day with mnd you know you're talking a tiny proportion right 6 000 people living with mnd and in this country alone again you're talking tiny proportions so how do we hit how do we hit the 97 percent and ultimately so it's not incurable it's just underfunded that is that is the message and if there's anything that i can do although i would like to get out of the time with you which i've thoroughly enjoyed so far is engage your audience to know that this disease is curable curable is i want to just define that you know a little bit maybe like aids it's about symptom repression you know the cure is a very difficult thing to find because yeah from what i'm understanding there's so many facets to it is that there are going to be multiple things that need to happen for a cure to be achieved so actually it's about symptom repression rather than a cure but that is achievable and they're proving it so what it needs is is more funding so you know my mission with my name's doddy foundation which is where i'll be applying my charitable effort you know so i didn't feel the need to set up another charity and distract from the great work that the existing charities are doing um expedia and visit scotland invite you to come experience the beauty that awaits in scotland The sweep of wild coastlines, quiet locks and untamed landscapes Fresh cuisine that feels rooted in the land Come experience the kind of stillness that stays with you long after you leave Plan your Scottish escape today at Expedia.com slash VisitScotland Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus Let's go!

43:58Get ready for a new case We're going to crack this case and prove we're the greatest partners of all time. New friends. You are... Gary Death Snake. And your last name? Death Snake. Dream Team. New habitats. Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record-breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly working at it. Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus Rated PG. Again, that's very selfless. I really commend you for that. work that the infrastructure set up and you recognize that but also a different personality would would want to somehow create their own identity that you you're combining to conquer yeah and that you know but that's been the thing that i've enjoyed in life is like how do you work with people to create a great outcome how can i be so endearing i can't stress you enough yeah but i don't know whether you found it so when i retired like i spent 15 years in many ways doing it all on my own and i speak to some of the lads about it and like do you know what yeah we did that as well as like but the time we were at our best was when we were part of integral part of a team like why have we all gone our own different ways anyway you come back to this point so yeah i mean i would love to engage anyone that watches this in in supporting this the work of my name's dhoy foundation um and ultimately helping us you know find a way of uh of curing this disease because it is it is curable you speak the specialist there's there's hope there's excitement there's so many people doing so much incredible stuff out there they just need the money and the resources to be able to do it and it's not always about money don't get me wrong but ultimately you know if we're gonna if we're gonna make a big difference that's what that's what we need to do yeah i'm glad you said that when we talked to others like what what can i do to help you and in any way amplify which i use that word a lot and i'm not just you do as well i like it to amplify awareness and in any way reach people that can with means to help and support.

45:51But I'm going to thank you again. Time, super important. And you made it available to talk to me today. I've loved it. I'm really glad you have as well. And Lewis, if I can help you with anything in the future, in any way, please, please ask. Thank you. Honestly, I, you know, I said it before, but I love these conversations. I love just exploring my own thinking because, you know, you often don't even know what's going to come out your mouth right and well you said to me before you said well if i'm looking right at you i'm not i'm not thinking if i'm looking away and i'm i'm having a pause and you've done that a few times in this chat i'm good obviously got to yeah challenging yeah which you thrive off yeah and there's a million different ones that you know when you get to the end of any conversation you wish you'd shared or there's other things i'll go away and sit on the train and think oh we should answer that i'm guilty of that yeah but that's okay right you know we we share the things that are important to us in the moment.

46:44And we'll have another opportunity to share anything else. But thank you for providing the chance to, you know, talk about, my name is Doddy Foundation, talk about MND, sharing my experiences on life. But meeting new people and connecting with you has been fascinating. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure, Lewis.

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