Troy Deeney | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:00Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. Hi, this is Zoe Deutsch. And Nick Robinson. Our brand new movie, Voicemails for Isabel, is all about those little moments that feel like the universe is looking out. Feeling homesick, then your sister calls. Hearing that perfect song exactly when you need it. Please stay. Sometimes life rigs things in our favor. Like learning about your new favorite rom-com, Voicemails for Isabel. Now playing only on Netflix. Trading at Schwab is now powered by Ameritrade, unlocking the power of Thinkorswim, the award-winning trading platforms loaded with features that let you dive deeper into the market.

0:39Visualize your trades in a new light on Thinkorswim Desktop with robust charting and analysis tools, all while you uncover new opportunities with up-to-the-minute market news and insights. Thinkorswim is available on desktop, web, and mobile to meet you where you are. It's built by the trading obsessed to help you trade brilliantly. Learn more at schwab.com slash trading. Troy, welcome. Hello sir, how are you? Very well, been looking forward to this. Thank you for inviting me to this wonderful part of town. Yeah, on a day with tube strikes. Yeah, it's not ideal. I love the fact you came through.

1:13Yeah, I'm not going to let you down. When I say I'm going to be there, I'll be there. I'm actually disappointed I was late. I was getting very frustrated in the car. Being late is a bare bug of mine, but an hour and 45 minutes to come from north-west London. What did that normally take? It said 25 minutes yesterday. well i mean you're a trooper for coming in tell me who is troy deaney who is troy deaney um it's ever evolving and i think that's the the beauty of it who who i am at my core is a family man uh a generous man somebody that likes to make people feel better at all costs sometimes to my own detriment and someone that wants to learn that ever evolving question of why not why not why not um you know without going all the way back but you know i i started in life at the bottom but we had we had little to nothing and um i have conversations with my kids now who are you know no other word and spoil and living a privileged life but you know we used to have to pay a pound to watch the tv we used to pay for our tv by putting a pound in it and you know and then my dad realized very quickly that if he just stuck a screwdriver in the side and broke it you know they had to pay one pound to keep watching it because the pound would fall back out but um no like that's that's where i'm from i'm from a council estate i'm from you know the biggest council estate in europe up until early 99 so you know we we we had to work it was poor it but it was but it was rich in love and values and you know it's it's interesting like the we're going to get onto it later but like the racism and the the the judgment only came the more money I got.

2:56It didn't at the start because we were all broke. It didn't matter if you were black, white, Asian, it didn't matter. Do you know what I mean? Everybody had problems. We lived in a flat, in a 20-story flat. So the four houses on our floor, it was all different races and nationalities, but everyone was broke. So if we ran out of milk, we went and knocked next door for milk. Do you get what I mean? I totally did. So that was... So you noticed a complete difference when you started to elevate through success with all your... yeah ego pride judgment but it's more people's lack of awareness of self it's more you know i'm going to try and put you down because that makes me feel better and yeah just so to answer your question it's ever evolving because those three things are the main version of me and who i am at my core but as it's gone through time and and life has hit and struggles i've had to develop characters to survive and now i'm not surviving so it's a whole new transition into trying to thrive and live yeah i feel like i've met you at a really interesting time in your life record number of appearances for watford and being a pro footballer but just fresh on the back of winning the sas who does yeah yeah yeah and and it feels like you're on that real sort of self discovery journey which is probably really humbling for you especially for someone who's always been a leader and someone that's probably had to not show emotion yeah in a world where it's like you know actually why would I show a weakness yeah that that part of not showing emotion stems from my mom believe it or not and uh we were we were together yesterday we had some breakfast and my mom I remember I said to her yesterday we we had an incident that happened when I was nine years old like my dad did some domestic violence with me and my mom and my dad and I never seen her cry once not once not even you're younger not once not not because she didn't cry because we had this conversation she cried a lot but it'd be when we've gone to bed she goes up to her room has her moment because she always felt that she had to project that everything was okay for us because if she didn't give it's not about monetary things but if she gave this like idea of woe is me we would then believe we can't achieve what we wanted to achieve and it's really interesting now well i'm the oldest of four five sorry jesus christ we've got one of my brothers there i'll survive and you know all of us are successful in our own right do you get what i mean we're all we're all it's not like monetary it's like we've all got our kids we're all decent parents we're all decent humans do you know with people you want to be around that stems from my mum so um the reason I touch on the domestic abuse part of it because up until nine years old when that happened I was the most happy-go-lucky kid you ever met DC Marvel comics I wanted to be Superman I thought I could be the Incredible Hulk all of those things I thought that could be but then my superman and my dad did that to us so my world came crashing down my reality came down and then you're sitting in school in year year five year six with a social worker sat next to you and you end up becoming the weird kid that everyone's looking at so now when I left primary school and secondary school this is the first defense that comes up now of right I'm not going to be that person I'm going to be the tough aggressive one and I held the record until my school got knocked down with the most detentions in one year I had 233 detentions just because I was like one a week from a school point one a day sorry one yes yeah one a day and you know I got removed from school whenever they used to have Ofsted come in I used to get suspended because like I was a bad kid school was easy to me they tell you that they tell you the answer to the question so they're going to say to you right um we're going to read between pages 9 and 15 here's the question sheet so right I know where I've got to go between 9 and 15 when did Romeo meet Juliet well then I've just got to find that that sentence somewhere bang there it is read that paragraph there's the answer done don't have to read all the pages I just got to find the answers to that so I'll be doing my work in 15 minutes the next half an hour is when I'm bored now so I'm gonna throw stuff I'm gonna do you know what I mean I'm gonna be really annoying but I put this defense up at like 11 years old that that would never happen to me again like no one would physically hurt me again no one would actually get me to a point where you know again I've spoke about this before but you know I used to wet myself when my dad came around just through fear do you know what i mean that's not that's not a pride prideful thing to say but you know that happened so but it's a very vulnerable thing to say and vulnerability with strength because you're sitting here now is a with all you've achieved and with this perspective and maturity to look back and to be real and i want it to be clear as well it's like it's a really conflicting message because those things happened until i was like 11 my dad was my hero still to this day i miss him every single day love him to death do you know i mean he was going through something it's only now i'm older that's the thing do you know i mean i'm like oh actually he was in his 30s and i was looking at him thinking he had it all sorted do you get do you mean so yeah it's only now me at 37 like my dad died at 47 years old what got you through that period and i imagine the uh the football side of things was a huge opportunity detentions you You found school easy, but obviously you probably weren't thinking about an academic job.

8:41I wanted to fit in. So I wanted to be one of the cool kids. That's the one thing I say to my kids now. Don't ever try and be one of the cool kids. Cool is not something you can force. Cool is just who you are. You've met that in business, right? There'll be someone that just walks in every day. They just look the part. They don't wake up and go, right, can I get three hours to get ready? It just oozes that aura off them. And then secondly, again, going back to that, I just never wanted to be like the kid that got picked on. I can't stand bullies. Can't stand it. Because you must have seen so much of that posturing through the football career.

9:16Yeah. Football was always my freedom. I played football on Sunday and I haven't ran or done anything in two years. And trust me, I felt it for the next couple of days. but I went and played football for no other reason than life's been stressful for the last six, seven months, getting things done, organising, SAS, you name it. So it was just a case of like, I was going to go play football with the lads, 90 minutes. It's a release. But it's the only time, whether I've been five years old since I can kick a ball or now at 37, where it's freedom. There's no one judging. It's me with the football.

9:57What can I do with that? what can I be creative with what skills can I do do you know I mean it's just it's just pure it's just pure unfiltered joy you mentioned SAS who dares wins um and obviously you know you won that is there an element of freedom again using that word liberation where you went there you put yourself through serious tests physically and mentally um and we met you know I had a memorable dinner with mutual great friend Alan Graham and again that sort of raw authenticity that was around that table and you were so open about how that was a real test for you that you embraced you wanted to put yourself through you you want you want to put yourself through something that freed you up more in the head I just retired at that time so yeah crossroads anyway because again I don't have footballer friends I don't have like a rich family history of people that have sold their businesses at 40 and retired like everyone in my family who's still alive is still working do you know i mean there's a retirement to me looks and feels like 70 75 and you're just basically working until you're you're in the ground and then these five years are like i haven't got long left so let's enjoy it so now when i retired at 35 like two years ago you're in this position of like now what did you have a whole identity crisis because you that's what you'd known for so long right no i had that he um getting in the way crisis because you forget in my head this is how retirement was going to happen my wife and kids and my dogs were going to be like dad's back this is great let's all do that the reality of it is wife's very busy with work dogs get walked by a dog walker they don't actually care unless i feed them and throw them a tennis ball and then the kids are at school so there's so much time you're just like okay it's nine o 'clock now everyone's gone so there's so many rounds of golf you can play there's only do you mean you just you just had you planned had you given any thought to what you were going to do or did you almost like not really because you're all in the moment aren't you i am but i think most athletes are like ignorant as well we never think we're gonna stop we're invincible do you know what I mean so I had a few things that were working and like businesses that were getting off the ground and then again you're you're we spoke about it off camera like my my relentlessness to get things done isn't always um accepted when there's HR involved let's put it that way so I'm like I don't care if we finished at five the job's not done so I'm not paying you overtime you were literally up to 3 30 in the morning yeah that's why my eyes are all messed up I should have put my glasses on that's a seriously uh big uh entrepreneurial trait I think you said you've five or six businesses on the go now yeah so you come from from that sort of relentlessness in playing days to then the hard stop to then like you know you've got yourself busy quick you know there's clearly an engine.

13:02That's where I was coming to. Yeah, I'm scared to stop from being told you on this video. So like, time, reflection, like reflection, like, yeah, that's scary to me because I've buried so much. I still do like therapy and get through day-to-day stuff, but, you know, like, when I really think about it, I had five people that raised me, three of them died in an 18-month spell. My great-grandma, my granddad and my dad they all passed away I've got my mom and my nan left when you look at it in that regard and again you've probably heard this story but I buried my dad on the Friday went to jail on the Monday I've never really settled never really gone but what does that done to me as a person as my as a dad do you know what I mean like what has that done because it was always survival it was always okay well yes we buried dad on the friday but i'm i'm i've got to jail monday i'm in court monday i've gone to jail then monday door shuts in the cell it's like well really i should be crying over my dad but now we're in jail and we need to need to put a whole new mask get a whole new front on because you're in there i was in i was in a real jail i wasn't in like i was in butlins do you know what i mean so um that whole shift again of right I've let my family down I've let my kids down I've let do what I mean I've let it down I feel sad and sorry but actually the work's got to be done did you turn what was clearly a very traumatic painful period into a kind of motivation if you like because you came out of jail and you you had some of the best play you've ever had right that was that was clearly a mindset I mean it's like a cork out of a bottle where you're like yeah and in that time which I think was three months yeah three months you were a lot of thinking time and a lot a lot of time to get yourself ready to come flying out and you had the support of Watford the club and everyone around you right so you you came out and you were a better version of yourself I made a deal I made a deal with myself though that this would never happen again so part of because I I was drunk as again hand in hand so I used to drink a lot because of my my dad and everyone passed away I'm Jamaican and Irish so we drink problems you have a drink and if there's more problems you have a drink than you have a fight that's how we deal with things we don't talk about it and I I was driving into work again I don't say this to be proud but it's just what was happening I was drinking four cans of Jet Daniels and Coke you know you can pick up for the garage four on the way into work train four on the way back park my car up and then I'm out for the day that was five six days a week um and try to perform and try to hold everything together basically i was just burying all of that stuff since sas i haven't drank i'm now 16 months sober now well done thank you but again when i when i when i make a decision it's you're all in yeah i'm and and that's life like i don't do you know when someone goes oh let's go let's go and have a drink let's have a pint it's like why what's the point what's the point yeah like and I I do this thing where it's like it's not I just want to win at everything so I we can't just go to have a friendly drink I'm going to drink faster than you I'm going to drink more than you and then when you tap out I'm going to do a bit I'm going to see how far I can push it to I mean even though like you know you've got mate I've got mates who will go I'm only out for an hour and then I'm going to go and take the kids for food and that and i'm yeah yeah we'll do that they go for an hour i'm in there for eight hours but i've said the same message that they've said like i'm gonna come home we're gonna have sunday roast i'll put the kids to bed but i'm eight hours in and then i'm already in trouble so let's just go out but that all ends worked so well for you think about yes you're playing yeah yeah yeah sas who does wins i mean my god you went in there to win clearly yeah you didn't go in there to take part no you went in there to give but it is it's all about it's all about winning so then coming to this part of life now this juncture in life is crossroads well what does winning look like and feel like because technically i've won what would be your definition of success sitting here right now to be happy with myself i love that to look in the mirror and go i did all right today and a very different answer probably to a younger troy yeah because it was all monetary related yeah winning the next game winning the next yeah but But again, a lot of like the football was a vehicle to get paid.

17:34So I knew very quickly if I scored goals, I got paid a bonus. If I scored a load of goals, I'd get a move. If I scored even more goals, I'd get a move or I'd get a new contract. I signed a five-year contract five years in a row. Do you know what I mean? So every time like I did well, I was like, you're going to sell me? No, pay me. It was that, that transaction every time. So yeah, coming out of jail, to bring it back to your original question, to coming out of jail I made a conscious decision that's when I started writing you've got my bag over there if you open it up there's literally notebooks and notebooks I just write write thoughts I write get to-do lists get stuff done um and then I write okay what do I want to achieve by the end of today and I started doing that in jail that's cool so that's proper journey that's goal setting and that's also holding yourself accountable you've got it you've written it down and you can see it because I wanted to come on to that kind of both mental and physical fitness like you had a long playing career so by the fact you're training 17 years yeah so you're training all the time for the next game for the kind of next opportunity to run out on the pitch and by default you had a purpose and you still look fit right so you're still keeping that up I want to know kind of what you do to keep yourself I fell off for two years I fell off because I was a bit I don't use the word depressed because that that might be for other people.

18:55I don't do depressed. I fell off in the sense of felt sorry for myself. Why doesn't football want me? You know, all the self-indulgent things. Also now, well, I'm retired, so we went and watched. We went to America, did the NBA All-Star weekend and then you go to the Maldives. You start doing all these travelling things and then I'm like, well, actually, I've got no reason to trade. I've got arthritis in both ankles. I've got a hole in this knee. I need a hip replacement in this one. My shoulder doesn't work properly. I can't touch my shoulder with this elbow. All the injuries, it's like, why am I going to go to gym for then?

19:32You make all these excuses, don't you? And then you don't realise how fit you was at that time. I worked it out the other week because I started over the last month to get back on it. But we would cover well over 60 kilometres a week in running. Then you'd think about it. We had three gym sessions a day. whether that be prevention lifting or whatever so we do gym two three times a day six days a week you do stretching every day and then you go for two years we'll do nothing so 17 years of that and then two years of nothing i looked at a picture of myself the other day i was like jesus christ you got fat so quick so i need to fix it yeah yeah big time byproduct of all that physical exercise you're doing is it was helping your mindset 100 yeah that period but it was also So to interrupt you, there's also, there's something I'm thinking about doing.

20:27There's also a psychological edge around weight because I was always bigger than everyone. So I used to play at like 93 kilos, 94 kilos, which is bigger than most. Most will play anything between 65 and 85, depending on the character type of the person. So I'm playing at 93. Every day at work, when the body fat guys and all that are doing it, it's like 65 75 85 93 i'm always the biggest do you get what i mean yeah so it's always like you've got to lose weight you've got to get down even though i was like at my best i was 93 and 8 body fat like in good great nick but i'm bigger than everybody else so when you start going on holidays and you're taking your scales from home and i could tell you to within 0.5 kg of what my weight was before I stood on it.

21:19Go on a six-week holiday with the kids and the missus, it's like, ah, we've done Disneyland today, for example, and you've done this, this, this. You've got your 20 ,000 steps in, but I've had two cokes, two hamburgers, had a packet of popcorn, right, in the gym. I've got to go to the gym before we go dinner. Then you go for dinner, it's come home, all right, I need to go sauna now, I need to go swim. And it's like this constant fight of trying to be fit, trying to keep one top of it. Keeping the discipline as well. yeah but it gives you this like kind of phobia because ah if i don't come in right i'm in fat club on monday i don't know if you've heard of fat clubs yeah football is fat clubs yeah literally fat clubs if you're over 10 body fat you're in fat club until you shift it so then that's an extra set do you get what i mean so it's all this constant like and then you go ah do you know what one of the lads has got in earlier and they said the trucks outside which is the one where you lay down it does the the ultrasounds go because obviously with calipers if you know that's coming you can give away some trade secrets you just like before because it gets all of the the water out your system the calipers will say you're less when the big truck's in now you want to you can't get away from that because that's mri in your whole body so if you're meant to be in at nine and one of the lads got in early so that's there right before we get in let's go to the sauna for half an hour do you know i mean because once that comes back and says you're in fat cap you're in fat cap you can't get out of the way from it is that still is that still happening or is that yeah that was like two years ago so yeah but that's why when you look at the lads now I don't know how many footballs they're like this big they're like they're thin that's why in my opinion they break so much because there's no robustness there because they're always conscious of body fat body fat body fat body fat which actually puts a sort of prejudice against anyone with a bigger frame bigger build in the game of course there's been plenty of plenty of guys Michael Antonio look at him you know big build, big frame, and everyone just looks at it like, how many times I've played football, I've been called you fat, so it's by somebody that's a lot larger than me.

23:21But it's like, yeah, it's part of the past. Because, again, you're talking about mental resilience. How do you put yourself in that frame? To me, it was war. It was war. Not, you know, I want to kill you, but I want to win, and I'm going to do whatever I can to win. Once it's over, shake hands. Whether I win, lose, or do I always shake hands. Always say, well done. So you could turn it on when you needed it. Yeah, yeah. There was a Troy Deeney on the pitch and then there was a Troy... But then if we lost, don't be around me for at least three days. What did you do to get that out of your system?

23:55And obviously, how did that affect family? I got OCD, man. I watched the game three times. So just analysing, looking where you could... The same night. So even if we won, I'm going to watch... Like when we played for Watford, I'd watch Sky's version of it. with the sound on. I watched our Wisecout version, which had no sound, because then you could clip it up or whatever. And then I'd listen to Watford's own commentary with my other fan or they'd have someone that did it. So those three, I'd watch all three. But then by the time the manager come and did his clips the next morning, I could go, ah, actually, I messed up there because I did this, this and this.

24:30You'd already analysed it. You'd already studied it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You needed that for your own kind of sanity, your own kind of understanding. You were trying to make sure it didn't happen again. Nothing worse than playing a bad game of football knowing you've done everything right. There's nothing worse. Knowing Monday to Friday you've ticked every box, you've done all the sessions, you're feeling good, you had the great amount of sleep, but then Saturday for some reason it just didn't work. You played so many games. Who was the greatest player you ever played against? I was very fortunate to play with some exceptional players.

24:59I think when you talk about leadership and mentality and mindset, you'd have to say John Terry. John goes straight to the top of that list Vincent Kompany goes straight to the top of that list when you're talking about artists you're watching them it's like they're playing a completely different game to you yeah Mesut Ozil Kevin De Bojner David Silva I'd say Yaya Toure trying to think through Wayne Rooney Eden Hazard those guys when you're watching it you're going wait have they been practising longer what's happened I remember playing Man City in a game I've said this before and I counted how many players they had because it felt like they had two or three more players because we were fit we were organised we were going to get after but somehow they had like three players just over the other side which couldn't get near them yeah I've been really fortunate and really blessed to play against some exceptional players that's why I wanted to ask you because you've got amazing perspective on that and also you mentioned leadership if you do this and you are a natural leader.

26:07That's interesting. I don't think I am. I'd say you are because it goes back to you will see something through. Leadership for me is if you say you're going to do it, you do it and you lead by example which is actually something I want to come on to. Is that not trust? Sorry, I'm kind of challenging you. I would say it is trust but in terms of if I, if me and you, I can tell already that if me and you are going to organise something after this, there's no way you're going to let me down. That's leadership. Oh, okay. so and what i'm yeah you package because i package that as trust i don't package that as leadership i think trust is probably the most important part of leadership though if your team trusts you yeah and if you lead by example which i'll go i was i was going to ask you something separate no no not at all but i want to bring up role models and i think countless people over the years will have seen you and do see you as a role model and i want to know firstly if you see yourself as that if you embrace that and then also i want to bring up the fact that we've clearly got a crisis in young lads right now this lost boys report that came out at gareth southgate yeah it helped we talked i know the csj the center of social justice very well they put the report together the stats are damning yeah a lot of it is lads that haven't got a father figure whether it's a broken home um whether it's a father that for whatever reason they don't see as a role model or just a complete lack of and that's where at least this is a great question and you're going to get me on a rant now Well, rant away.

27:30So, first part, role models is nonsense. It's nonsense. When people put footballers or athletes or musicians as a role model, that to me is stupid because at some point that person is going to let you down because you only see the performance. You don't see who they really are behind closed doors. So role model, I've always tried to stay away from that term because I think it's daft. I think for me, role model does start at home. again it doesn't have to be a male like in my case it was my mum and it was my nan just two genuine people again it goes back to that trust my mum would do anything for anybody doesn't want for much doesn't ask for much but if you ask her she'll always be there so that to me is like at home then talk about these rules and these like these things that are coming out do a lot about single parent homes.

28:29We do a lot about backgrounds of where you're from and all this. One thing we never talk about, accountability. Accountability. Me as a parent, I had my son at 20. I didn't know, pardon the language, my backside from my elbow when it comes to parenting. You figure it out. I made mistakes along the way. Loads of mistakes. My son's 16 now. Loads of mistakes along the way. accountability do you know why i bought him into this one me and his mum bought him into this world see it through see it through what we've got now in my opinion and we talk about this a lot in our household is so many parents wanted to be the kid's friend so your job is my opinion your job as a parent isn't to be liked it's to be respected again probably what i grew up in i was more worried what my dad would say or my granddad would say than any policeman on the street.

29:25If they found out, I was in trouble. If the police found out I was a kid, it's whatever. In my household, my kids are, they'll go to them, I've got two mothers to two different kids, they'll go tell their mum everything. They're very limited what they'll tell me. But accountability is the key man it's always the key like my son perfect example just got his gcses got a's and b's across the board great phones me and i'm like oh okay well done you know what next because that's always my thing what next anyway he goes and plays paddle with his mate shows how spoiled he is goes and plays paddle and then has a nando's with his friends the next morning he says do you want to tell me what you really thought I said what do you mean he's like because I know you wasn't happy was you said I was happy I was disappointed for you because I think you can achieve more but I was happy he went you know what I was thinking about it last night I should have got A's across the board my preparation wasn't properly it wasn't done properly now I come across as the bad guy because I'm saying A's and B's is it good enough considering I got kicked out of school in year 10 is excellent but my wants and and um application towards him and accountability of actually you went to private school all the way through you've had the last six seven weeks of prepping your way so i'm going to hold you accountable to the things you said and now he's like i want to be a chef you know this he wants to be a chef he's figured out his next five years every single move how it's going to be i love some people that's bad parenting because you should be telling them how great it is to me it's the the best version both your parents are alive if you don't mind me asking yeah the best version of knowing you've got parenting right is when you you as kids still want to go and see your mother my kids at like five years time 15 years time don't want to be around me i messed up as a parent yeah that's a really so much there resonates and i think um you know sorry that's not everyone's way and again no no i think it's really important to say so really important to say if if any one person knew how to parent properly they'd write one book and everyone would i was just about to say there's no manual right i've been there i've been there i remember coming home from the hospital the night i've become a dad and it's life-changing suddenly it's not all about you anymore you know you have the most ridiculous respect for the mother of your child yeah and you are going to wake up the next day and there's a whole different purpose so there's no judgment for me and anything about how you uh go about bringing up your kids what what really resonated as well is i know you set up the troydini foundation yeah so that moment you had with your son the fact that you have come through such hard graft and grit to be the troydini that you are today and have set up that that um that kind of family setup if you like that allows you to be spoiled yeah um but i guess i'm interested to know that sort of deep set feeling that you've got through I guess the fact there wasn't help for you outside of your own graft and help and was that the reason why you set the foundation up to help people that uh you know ultimately great question I think the Troy Deedee foundation when we set that up probably was an ego thing if I'm being totally honest like I've done well let me give back and it's kind of it's all self wasn't it it's like look how good I am because I'm giving back so we're fully we've closed that down now we've got a whole new thing which is um it's called vision for all and that's got a purpose now so that that's nothing to do i'm part of it but it's nothing to do with me so that makes sense it's like and the reason it's called vision for all is is literally that i believe every person every young kid has a dream as a special talent special gift it's only us parents that knock you out of them because we project our fears you know how many times have we all heard everyone in this room probably heard like um let's get a trade get a trade get a safe job and when you've got a safe job don't be camera people like that that's gonna run out ai will take all of that soon you know like that type of stuff that's only parents being scared for the kid so vision for all for us is we try and give an opportunity in the space with accountability that you can be whatever you want and whatever that dream is we're going to try and make you get in front of that so if you want to be a chef we're going to try and put you in front of a chef there are six kids now who were kicked out of school um they've been with us for two years we've got them back in school finished school finished their gcse's and are now on apprenticeships brilliant that for us is is the big thing these kids didn't have a dream because it was knocked out of them now and there's no safety net for them is there no but we've sent them to four different um car car schools to learn how to manufacture, how to paint, all these different things.

34:24They did that all over the summer. Apprenticeship, old school, didn't get paid for it. You're going to turn up. And if it works, there'll be an apprenticeship at the end of it. All six of them turned up. Bear in mind, we found them two years ago and they had 20 % school, 20 % of turning up for school. They turned up every single day. The reason they did that, not because Troy did it or the guys, Lucian or Brett did it, it's 100 % because we said, if you're accountable and you do that you're the reason you don't get to school not yourself you're putting the back to them but if you do it at the end of it it's a powerful thing because you did it you can all the things you want to change whether that be home life you're you want a new car whatever whatever the thing is your why for that moment you can change that all you got to do is turn up that goes back to leadership yeah and you know fundamentally they're all they're all there now when they're in and we're impacting 500 kids a week at the moment the aim that i'm trying to work towards with the guys over the next 18 months to get to five hours of the week it's such a what a way to give back there's yeah a lot we haven't talked about we're gonna have to do a sorry no not sorry i think just for me to finish um the troy i've met seems very content without any arrogance very very self-aware are you happy not yet i'm working towards it yeah i'm working towards it that's good to hear but again so i'm gonna wrap it up what is happiness what is happiness happiness to me was always involved a drink a wedding's happy but you're not getting on it you know yeah christians you've replaced that yeah that's all gone now so now i'm trying to understand well what is happiness is happiness going out for a meal being home at 11 o 'clock with no trouble with no do you know i mean it's a whole new thing but they're staying up till 3 30 working on a business yeah yeah but but when you've done you know 10 15 years of doing it the other way i've got that as a reference point now i've got 15 months it's quite yeah quite different you're building new good habits which is why which is what i can feel right oh thank you very much i only met you literally a couple of weeks ago but that that was very clear on the night and and today that there's a really naturally curious hungry chore that's taking on this next challenge It goes back to that original question, why not?

36:49Why not? And it's one real quick story I can tell you. It's two into one. I had this thing, I was never the coolest kid at school, never the coolest kid in my area, but I always had this desire to just do more. And I remember I got scouted for Warsaw at the time. I told you a story a few times, but where I'm from in Chambersville, there's four pubs on the corners, and that's a two-mile block. So I used to run that block. I got to one pub and there's a group of mates that I know and it's like, haha, look at him, what's he doing? You know, because they were doing what they were doing. But he's like, what are you doing?

37:21Then you get to the next block, he's like, don't do that, come in here, have a drink with us, because they're doing what they're doing. Get to the third one, same, fourth one, same. I ran that route every day for two years, even though I was playing. But it was a constant reminder to me of, if you fail, that's where you're going to go. That's where you're going to end up. why not just do this extra run every day and then you know hopefully I got a little bit more successful and I remember and I saw the lads yesterday it's why it's still prevalent so some of the lads from there and I drove past in a white Mercedes and they were like oh come on in here and I remember saying that'll never be me I'm still one of the lads I'm still there but that'll never be me I'll never be the guy that says you know you're going to be successful or you're trying to be successful come here with us where it's safe because it is safe and I say this to my kids all the time and just to wrap up the story before we end my mum said something on my wedding I got married last June not this June so the June before 24 my mum did a speech for me because obviously my dad's not around and we just wanted to make it a bit more both families say so it's like it's a union of families isn't it so I wanted to do that so my mum did this great speech My mum hates public speaking.

38:41And her last words were, now he's retired, now he's successful, I hope the world gets to see more of Troy and less of Troy Dini. And that was really, really, really powerful because it is that, like, Troy is just, why not, let's try and do something that's better. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller.

39:21Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners 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?

39:56This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. That's brilliant. And you've been the best version of yourself that you've ever been on that self-discovery journey that continues. just before we um we sat down you had a message that came up about black history month yeah and it it prickled you a little bit because i guess the reality is it's almost like i'm going to call it like a tick box scenario where once a month you're getting past yeah well it it's a few it's a big question but you are you get that like okay we're gonna have a we're gonna have it's black history month so we need a panelist and then like you know let's let's look for the black guy to fill in on it right that bit annoys me secondly it annoys me because how can you do any sort of month that's one month is black history in 30 days that's mental i know if you have a if i had a pride month or whatever whatever the situation you can't condense it into one month we then always speak about very negative connotations like you know slavery happened and martin luther king it like it's very subjective with what we talk about and the biggest gripe for me on all of these conversations around race and discrimination anyway for any group is what next we never have that discussion it's always like slavery was terrible and now it's we've got to a point all right what's next literally what's the next part what's the next step are we are we celebrating you know how far we've come and look how far we can still go do you know i mean it's always like it's like a cut-off point we go let's go back to like slavery and the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and then let's go stop so but okay what next what next what's the next part of it i get that it's almost like talking about it and then a hard stop rather than solutions and building momentum things have moved forward the world's moved forward so can we talk about how we see the world look in the next five years can we work towards something again you know I've got a whole new group of friends like when I was younger I had friends from my area that was it I didn't want to change now in the rooms that we're in and different things there's all different walks of life and everyone's on their journey and everyone's had their hardships it's not like I had this this this will this will take it to a better place I had a real big frustration with the Premier League when they decided to stop doing the rainbow armband and the laces this season but then keeping taking a knee now most people would go well Troy you should be happy that ticks your box essentially but it doesn't what it does do then it creates confusion because it optically looks like you've chose one cause over the other one and this one's more important to us than this one which then with both sets of groups in this situation are actually fighting for the same thing but what we've now done is create an argument of what's more um yeah what yeah what's more relevant now do you get my point and it's kind of to a similar extent with what's going on at the moment like with the flag stuff look actually what we're missing is the fact that we you know we want to be patriotic and we want this thing to run all that so what we're going to do we're going to put England flags up everywhere and then we're going to have I don't know anti England flags everywhere else and now we're going to keep arguing about the same thing but the actual thing is we all want a better England so why not work towards that do you know what I mean it just seems like this massive distraction tactic along the way and no one's sitting back and going it's a bit daft and it's like just a little bit it's a little bit daft like what we're not we're arguing over you know who's right or wrong and go back to the race you know whether you know the the lbgtq plus community is more important than racism well actually isn't all discrimination wrong so why are we picking this one for this month and that one for that why should i just be all inclusive and how do we work towards better world and a better do you get what i mean I don't know maybe I'm too simple with it oh there'll be politics behind that me and you won't understand or won't know why because you've just articulated it beautifully and why would you not it doesn't make any sense so there must be all sorts of conversations and jostling I say that I'm part of a BPAC group with the Premier League so it's not in my you know wheelhouse to be going oh you know this is wrong I should be going this is great that we're keeping it in but I just think it's like optically it was stupid because you've made people now from two different sets of arguments go well ours is more important than that one but the narrative is wrong because the narrative needs to be all discrimination is wrong and we need to move into a new world where everything's moved forward and we get a better version of the game that makes sense yeah to me it makes sense i don't know does it make sense to everybody else no but it just seems like why who you know the people that get paid a lot more money than me and apparently are all across this made that stupid decision yeah i know i totally get it i'm intrigued if anything that's part of what i wanted to talk to you about off camera is the the the kind of whole mission alignment of that momentum you talk about and why is there not a sort of stage just on that sorry because i can i can really deep deep dive into this why does there have to be a mission alignment and why does there have to be programs and why does there have to be this sector we're going to focus on this when at the whole core of it all we want people to be better so if that's the bit that's that's submission alignment how do we make things better yeah not for this week we're going to focus on black history but next week we're going to focus on sexuality and the week after that we're going to should be a constant purpose a constant purpose of just being better and aligned with accountability.

45:57We said we're going to be better. How we think we're going to do that is by this. And now we're going to be held accountable. I hate politics with a passion. I think they're all lying so-and-sos. Because they'll tell you one thing, never do anything, and then tell you that the other people didn't do it. But accountability is a simple fact of, when you walk around London now, and I've spent a lot of time in New York recently, you can't tell me how these cities are, these great prominent cities now, are better than they were 10 years ago. You can't. And that's not about the people that's in there.

46:28That's on graffiti. That's on rubbish. You name it. I'm not going into all that. Who's right and who's wrong. But actually, the accountability of... When I see you drop some litter in front of me, Oi, pick your stuff up. We go, oh, he's disgusting. He shouldn't do that. And just walk past it. The accountability comes from being better humans. Now, there's an argument to go, well you know you might stab me okay well the accountability is where's the more police again go back to account if you can always go back to accountability you'll always get to an end result yeah love that sorry rant over not at all mate you're a pleasure to talk to you and learn from and again there's so many things in talk about so let's do it let's do it again whenever you're ready have no fear chosen foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of seedy oils and sketchy ingredients with cooking oils salad dressings and mayo all powered by the good fats from 100 % pure avocado oil and simple, delicious ingredients.

47:25Chosen Foods. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month plan, equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Default terms at MintMobile.com.