Will Carling | Extraordinary Life Stories

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0:42Spend 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? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And I'd be scared. And I'm thinking, you're not meant to be scared. I don't think anyone else is scared. But I was scared. Scared of not being good enough. Scared of letting teammates down. Bravery is not the absence of fear. It's just, it's the mastery of it. You were the youngest captain of the England team.

1:15Did you ever get the feedback on why you were made captain? Last roll of the dice. I looked and went, what? Look, I loved it. And I loved being able to be in the side with those guys and everything else. But I wasn't, when people go, you're my hero. and I look at them and go, no, I wasn't. From someone that dreamed of playing for his country to then captain in the country at such a young age, on reflection and perspective, what advice would you give to your younger son? Will, thank you for joining me. Pleasure. I've been looking forward to this. I'm not sure you are. I am. Good. Well, tell me, who is Will Carling?

1:53I wish I knew. A guy who used to play rugby, I suppose. Loved rugby. then became a dad and loved that a little bit more and a husband there's imposter syndrome i'm going to bring that up straight away there's a whole like almost for someone that led his country when i was a school boy so we were all and we'll come to that from a role model point of view all lads playing rugby and then watching our heroes if you like on the tv you were the captain of that team and yet there's a really lovely humility about you people say it's not it's not humility I it's just I suppose trying to explain is that you all the guys that I kept were my heroes right so and I'd watched them when I was at school I'm in the sin there and you watch these guys and they were like wow and so um I know and I'm very uncomfortable with all the attention that you got because this young guy gets made captain these older guys ever right yeah but these these older guys look after him and and yet the young kid gets all the all the profile and the glory that's quite hard to get your head around in the sense that I sort of know what I did um and I know what they did and Jeff Cook and there's so so much more to this little guy didn't come in and go away you know look um follow me and they'll went oh gosh yes um you know just didn't happen like that so So you just, I am just uncomfortable with that whole idea that, you know, you were something different.

3:20I wasn't. You were the youngest captain of the England team. Someone decided that you had leadership qualities. Someone saw in you that you would lead a bunch of seriously hard, talented guys. Did you ever get the feedback on why you were made captain? Great story. So, which is true. So this guy, Jeff Cook, made me captain. and I never really asked him and so Lisa, my wife we were driving up to see her mum and I said the day before, I said listen we need to go up a bit early because we're going to see Jeff Cook for lunch and she said why I said because I want to ask him why he made me captain and she was like, okay that'll be interesting so she goes the whole way up, I'm sort of going I wonder if it could have been this, could have been that anyway, Jeff's classic Yorkshire, Lancashire Lake District, you know, sat down for lunch, sort of had first, he obviously knew why we were there, and eventually I sort of go, so Jeff, I've never asked you why, and he just sort of looked at me, gave me that look of, I'm not going to be blowing smoke up, you know, and he just went, last roll of the dice, and I went, I looked at him, I went, what, and he said, if you think about it, well, we had four captains my first first year and i was like yeah we did he said and we just thought give the kid a go um and i just looked and went all right um and lisa went it's a much quieter drive home it was just brilliant so um he was he was never he wasn't going to tell me um so i i you know you just i don't know it's it's a strange one but you embraced it and we had a chat uh you know when we met a couple of weeks ago about the kind of whole leadership siloes and you took it really seriously you crash-coursed on reading and researching leadership and went out hunting out conversations of people that you could help you with leadership so you almost reverse engineered the snow because clearly you then immersed yourself in all sorts of invaluable information and content that made you a good leader well yeah i mean joking aside you know you think you i'd gone home for dinner sort of you know well rehearsed but and and i'd been asked to call jeff which i and i genuinely thought i'd been dropped you know because that's what happened and then i'm on the phone he goes no no i want to know if you're captain it and you're the youngest guy in the in the team by three years you sort of you put the phone down and then and you and you literally it's just like why did i say yes you know what on earth can i do which again is imposter syndrome well it's just so you're just like oh wow I need to I need to ask I think the great thing is it gives you a massive advantage people always talk to me now about leadership how vulnerability is is is so useful and I'm like well you know I had it because you know I'm 22 I don't know it's just I just ask for help I ask for ideas I went and spoke to all the people I could get to I mean and the one that sort of sticks with me is Mike Brearley who's a who'd been a practicing psychoanalyst was just fascinating brilliant but a fascinating man just the depth he went into learning about his players and it sort of made me realize I always remember then thinking god in my first season you you would arrive at the hotel and and the captain might sort of say hi and sometimes probably didn't even know my name and it just but didn't had no concept of what was happening in my life you know you walking into the hotel you haven't seen him for two weeks or whatever and so for me there was just that whole geez if I'm going to lead these men I need to start understanding them I need to know what's happening in their world I need to know you know as much as I can about I went to meet um so some of the key guys I went to meet their boss it was amateur so I just thought I want to go and find out from them what what are they like you know what how do you see them and and then speaking to as many successful leaders as I could and it was just like and read every book that was on leadership and you're just like it still didn't make any difference but it's like you know it was great you're far too humble I mean that's a sign of a good leader you put yourself into a position where you were seeking knowledge um and I love the fact that you bring the people element to it and that's such a good reminder as well that you played in the amateur and these guys these you know you leading a team out to an absolute kind of cauldron of noise at twickenham and for that and we're on front and back page um uh from a sort of media news point of view and then going back to a job potentially on the monday and you've lived through that whole transition now where sport is is big business you know it's taken a while to get anywhere near to closing up and where football's gone right because and it worked but i get that but you know my point being it's it's probably done something to drag other sports on with it because these guys you included weren't getting necessarily paid to get no it was great in the sense it kept you grounded right you know you um the people in the team kept you grounded anyway because they were they were pretty honest but it just yeah you you would have all this so-called and you know there's this um cold in the 80 000 people or whatever and then and then Monday you you were you were working what were you doing so what was your job during that time so I was so I was meant to go in the army and went to university um on an army scholarship was meant to go back to Sandhurst but there was a new commandant who sort of said I found out um he had changed his mind and it was or it was a new guy and he said listen when you come back to Sandhurst which was six months of course you won't be able to play rugby outside so that was the that was right you're not going to play for England and I'm sort of like much as there were things I'd love to have tried to do in the army, I just thought my dream since I was a kid was playing Beringlin.

9:12So I just said, look, thanks, but, you know, so brought my way out of the army and worked for Mobile Oil. I sold oil, didn't make any margin. That was the bit that I didn't really get. And then stopped that after about 18 months because there was so much to do. And I remember going home for dinner one night and I said to my parents, I said, by the way, I've given up my job. And she went, all right, what are you going to do? And I went, not sure. But I said, there's so much that needs doing in terms of the rugby stuff. So it's all consuming. Yeah, which was crazy because I had no idea where I was going to earn any money.

9:52And you didn't. But it's just, for me, you'd been given this chance. Things needed to be sorted out. And I just thought I will always regret if I don't give this everything I've got. then, you know, it's an incredible honour. And I just thought, I want to do this with all I've got here. And hopefully something will turn up somewhere. So, you know, it's a little bit crazy, but hey. Was that a relatively unique position for you to be in amongst other players? It was still amateur in context of not working. You were the only one because you had the captaincy as well, right? So you had extra responsibility.

10:32Yeah, no, it was. I mean, like, you know, sort of like a Rob Andrew worked for Debenham, Chuse and Chilice. So he was, but they gave him time off lots of, you know, everyone sort of worked and lots of people got time off, but it's sort of, for me, you know, when I, when I look at, I just looking at sort of the lines, the backroom staff, all the sort of people that are now going, God, you had Jeff Cook and Roger Utley and John, it was a selector and you had the doctor and the physio and sort of, and that was it. and there was so much that needed doing in terms of just everything needed to change you know who was we needed better kit more kit no one had time to do that because you know jeff worked roger worked so it was just like um who was going to um keep taking up issues with the rfu no one there was a young guy martin heinz i remember um he got picked he was on the bench and we were playing the french and i said you know i remember going to him i said heinzy it's as great as your your girlfriend coming over, he said, I can't afford to.

11:28So I was just like, right, okay, leave it with me. Went to see this guy, Don Rutherford. I said, Don, you've got to pay for Martin Hines' partner to come out. He said, we will not. I said, by the way, while we're at it, you can pay for everyone's partner to come out. You know, because why the hell are we paying? Do committee pay to their partners? I don't think they do, do they? So, and he went, I said, I think you will. You actually affected a lot of change. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You sort of go, I don't think the media, this is just crazy. and so and they I mean they hated it but for me it was just like why shouldn't his partner be able to come out and you know that's just was just but but they you know um they fought against quite a lot of stuff so were you getting paid at that point so you're not getting right so how are you surviving because you're the captain of England yeah I know um so because we weren't we weren't winning much so it's just like people weren't sort of going oh come and talk to us about leadership um there was just the odds but I look back and think god I know I have no idea I do remember sitting in my flat thinking you'd you'd watch your bank account go down thinking god I've got no idea how I'm going to pay you know but it just I'm trying to think things just sort of turn up you just you got through there's a real people element to you so in that in those days where you're not earning anything but making all sorts of probably quite big impact changes to the England set up at what point are you starting to think about that entrepreneurial career beyond hanging your boots because you can't play rugby forever right so you'll be super young when you got into it and they capped it but you must at some point be thinking okay bank accounts empty um when did you start having that sort of piecing together of the bigger picture i i didn't i i i was very aware of you were getting to meet fascinating people fans of rugby so so you were you knew that you were meeting a lot but I I was obsessed with rugby with England right so you know number one thought when I woke up was England you know um and that's the bit that's really quite and I'm sure you've heard this from lots of sports people is sports people are unbelievably selfish it's like obsessed yeah and for me it wasn't whoever was girlfriend at the time number one in my life was England and rugby and what needed to be done and and that was it did you enjoy it so being made captain put extra pressure on you at a time when you were starting to flourish as a player now you're captain i'm just just it's just on reflection because it seems a long time ago now right your point and yet you're not you're not an old man so it's like a lot happened very quickly for you when i would say if you look at like i think we talked about formula when we were together a couple weeks ago drivers are being given a drive at 17 18 now they had to kind of cut their teeth and come through formulas and then maybe get a drive in their 20s.

14:12And then it's that whole, like, actually, did you get to appreciate it? Did you get to actually enjoy it? Yeah, I did. I think the captaincy stopped me maybe, or this is my excuse anyway, developing as a player the way I think I would like to have. I think I could have offered more as a player. And I got consumed with the captaincy bit, which probably just hinted that a bit. I think the interesting bit is, you know, 22, you're Captain of England. I think the bit that was hardest was making sure that you understood who you were. It sounds crazy, right? Who you were, your identity. Because I wasn't Captain of England.

14:54It sounds crazy, right? I wasn't. I wasn't this thing that was portrayed in the media. You know, you become this sort of almost this cartoon, comic book sort of character, you know, and that's not you. but they decide that this is they build a picture of you and you're wherever you go you're sort of called you know captain of england skip all this and you're 20 22 23 it's very young yeah and there was no these guys now have got a team of people to learn how to deal with negative press or wrong which you had a load of right you probably had no one around you to advise you no i mean and the thing that i was really aware of is that and i was far from perfect but you think i don't want to ever put the trappings of this job ahead of looking after players and because that's what you're here for it's not for you will it's not for for all that sort of stuff and there's lots of it right it's every as long as you can look yourself in the mirror and think you're making the decisions for the best of players for the best of the team not for the best of you and you know oh i'm captain of england and that's hard and i'm sure i got it wrong in in in many instances but i i'd like to think i worked really hard to make sure that you do it for the right reasons that's admirable i love that you know but it's no i can tell even you've got i'm coming to it i'm hearing that that's proper leadership and i'm going to potentially be a little bit controversial here but i'm going to bring up the old farts comment talking about proper leadership and we had a chat only two weeks ago and i was quietly hoping it might have changed it's quite because i'm i'm sharing that i can see even from the outside as a proper rugby fan that there's there's shackles on you know what could be a sport that could flourish you know i'm probably getting in trouble if you'd like for saying that but it's just how it feels and you you're more immersed into that and you called them out as well you called the rfu out for you know what could be other things that could be doing to sort of help the sport flourish why is that why and that comes from leadership right yeah although i can't out man i didn't mean to um it was caught on camera no actually it was caught on a microphone i've been properly i'm properly caught on camera but you know what i mean no so it was it was a guy greg dyke who headed up the bbc what later went ahead you know which is interesting but did an interview with him didn't say it walked past the camera put my microphone down you know you've heard this but he obviously left his on and and so i walked behind the camera and and he just turned he said go on well if it goes fresh that's when i just turned i said i don't know greg but hey, I said you wouldn't need 57 old farts running, you know.

17:28So he got it on the microphone, which is a bit of a, I shouldn't have said it. But you just sort of go, yeah, there was a huge frustration while I was captain of England that actually the people running, winning wasn't important to them, right? The team achieving it wasn't important. You're fighting all the time for the chance to be on a level, say with the New Zealanders, the South Africans, being given the chance to win. And I always found that really strange that, you know, you're meant to be in charge of this game, that you don't, you're not interested in the success. It almost, players being successful was frustrating for them.

18:12And look, I don't think... That's ego-driven though, right? I mean, I'm allowed to call this out because I'm completely impartial and I don't want to get words in your mouth. But that for me is, it's like an old boys club and it's about us and then everyone else conforms into that which if there's any truth in what i'm saying that's restricting yeah i think i think it's become apparent to to most people now that the game really has hit a point and i think it hit it a long time where we need to look at a completely new way of of leading this game delivering this game attracting younger you know demographic interesting um young you know boys and girls it's just like how do you deliver heroes how do you excite them how do you deliver entertainment and all sorts of different ways and i think it really is hitting you know how do we deal with concussion you know it's something that they haven't fronted up to it's you know i think there are there are ways with technology of doing it and when was the last time anyone talked about the values of rugby you know I think in today's society that the discipline and respect that rugby players have the control they have on a pitch and a very all those kind of things are unbelievably important in today's world and yet no one talks about them no one you know the narrative around rugby has been wrong for so long and therefore for me the frustration is let's talk about you know what you learn from playing a sport like that what it gives you what it develops in you in terms of character and values and stuff i don't know and i think yeah it's it's huge so i you know i am still frustrated but hopefully you know there might be a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel somewhere yeah i appreciate that just on that um and that sort of comes to you as well when you ultimately did hang up your boots there's there's kind of no safety net from a sports person whether that's forced their injury or choosing to retire where you know there's there's then a sort of pension if you like or a role to feed into and I know that I've spoken to a number of particularly the 2003 kind of rugby world cup squad a lot of those guys have ended up being quite open about their mental health and the sort of after you know playing playing days they've been really difficult did you have any of that so after eight years eight and a bit years I I I resigned as captain which was really hard because um you know it's something that you love that you'd you'd given your all to but so i like and i geez when i went when 22 part of captaincy was i sat on selection you know people you're heroes and you're like picking and choosing and and the only way i'd get my head around that was you know you are not picking mates and you are not dropping people you're that you don't like you're picking the best players and being honest with myself towards the end of i just thought you are not captain in this the way you used to you're not speaking to players every week you are not pushing the envelope and and eventually it's just like you you drop yourself you know you go well this is it's not good enough lack of ego well it's not it's just an on it's just you've got to look yourself in the mirror haven't you and i just looked at it you make all sorts of excuses and so for me it was like right that that goes I wanted one more year of playing I hope playing alongside Jerry Gaskett but Jack made Phil the Granville captain and I thought well that's the end of me but he put Jerry on the bench and it was which was which was different um but that whole year I could feel I was just coasting and then I went through you know uh after that a couple of years just a sort of bit of a car crash in my life sort of um relationships went wrong i've not went wrong i got them wrong and because suddenly you lost you well yeah because you didn't wake up and you didn't have that one thing when you were consumed by something and suddenly your boyhood dream yeah yeah yeah and and and therefore that everything was just like well you know um this is a mess what got you through it meeting my wife um joking aside it's like everyone oh yeah what but it but but she did it just was like um she was strong enough to sort of proverbially slap me about the fake you know and just and i just loved um her view on on life she's sort of half italian just family and life and what was important in life and you know for me that was wow core values yeah yeah that was a a timely meeting then because you were that that sounds like a fragile time for you and i appreciate you being vulnerable about i think you know strong ex-captain captain of england and i think that whole vulnerability uh with strength is powerful but i you know it's weird isn't it i think that whole strength i remember i remember reading ages ago because i used to sort of build up to games and i'll be scared right and i'm thinking you're not meant to be scared i don't think anyone else is scared you know you're meant to be but i was scared scared of not being good enough scared of letting teammates down very rarely scared of getting injured you didn't relish the thought of getting injured but it wasn't really that it was just but you were scared right and I'm thinking and then I read you know that that um bravery is not the absence of fear it's just it's it's the mastery of it and and that's when you realize everyone is but it's how you deal with it and and it's not an issue don't sort of go I've never have been scared it's just like I was scared most days but it's just like you can deal with it so what did you do so you met your wife and you that's obviously giving you that sort of emotional stability and uh uh sort of personally a direction but in terms of because I actually don't know this you know coming up to date two weeks ago having a chat and so on I don't know the bit in between there's a whole chapter there of things you've been involved in and doing well documented documented when we got together lots of um negative press um lots of it how did you both deal with that i felt really sorry for her you know you sort of think um she dealt with that together and there were children involved in that and other people and it just you know part of it for me i've often looked and think you spent 10 years playing for england having smoke blown up your backside and then you got absolutely and part of it was like well that's grounded you I wouldn't have chosen for it but it certainly um you learn you learn who um who your friends are you learn a lot about yourself um and hey and and I got a lot of things wrong so but then we we set up a business together um which obviously she was the brains of um and did that which was which was which was brilliant um and from it's sort of different iterations of it ever since and the chat we had a couple weeks ago was uh your vision for what could be quite an exciting evolution of rugby sevens rugby needs needs something new it's it's it's wallowed it's stagnated for too long i think sevens offers it is the short form of the game right it's got men and women playing on a level playing, you know, parity, you think it's got, it can be packaged excitement, entertainment.

25:40It's brilliant. If you had live data on it, you know, you could see the Sevens players, the athleticism in them, the bravery in them is just outstanding. But it's easier to understand. It's quick, faster pace, got all the great skills of rugby and probably taken out, you know, scrums, pileups, Things that slow down the game that people don't understand. It's just easy and it's there. And you think, I think it has huge opportunity. In the LA7, Spain lost in the final to Argentina. Spain in the final of a rugby competition. Absolutely brilliant, right? And I've met Gabrielle, who's the vice president of Spanish Rugby.

26:21Their whole thinking about how they are expanding in Spain. But the CEO of Brazilian Rugby Union, she says, we've got a great women's team that's they're so interested in sevens and you think sevens can get to where 15s probably will never get to um i just think it's really really exciting yeah because i think listening to you it's your celebration it's more than just the sport and the sport itself and i'll use the drive to survive analogy with formula one my my wife will now sit with me and watch drive to survive she won't necessarily watch a grand prix but what the uh formula one scenario is done there by bringing entertainment and bringing kind of music and events around what effective is a race the race is a very small part of a huge kind of organized is that what you're thinking you're thinking about the whole community element and bringing people together and and and james gay reese who did drive to survive he's done a bit of filming in sevens he is a he's a rugby fan he's welsh um but he's a great guy but he he sort of said i've never been more excited about he said the men and women who play it he said brilliant athletes they play hard then they have fun he said it's just a great environment and I think you start portraying that out there in the world what what great examples role models right you know I think for you know as I said young young boys and girls out there you think these are great athletes if we can start taking them to great iconic cities around the world create great entertainment around them great experience going to watch music everything that wraps around it it it works in hong kong works in dubai it's shown that it can work and therefore you know i i'm hugely optimistic about what it can do well you already know for me i would love to in any way help you with that yeah no i think i can share the passion i'm a i've always been a fan of rugby uh it was a sport i played at school and i think you touched on role model and and kind of boys and girls right you know we talked to off camera about Lawrence Delaglio's charity, helping kids that are expelled from school to then get into rugby, which gives them that physical kind of discipline, if you like, helps with the mindset, keeps them out of trouble, builds camaraderie.

28:26And there's a proper crisis in youngsters at the moment with a lack of identity, particularly boys. There's been a documentary that's on Netflix called Adolescents that's really highlighted. Although it's fiction, it's and a half hit home. And there's lads that I think could be super inspired by exactly what you're doing. and those role models will carry through. And that's where I know I'm biased, but I do think rugby, because it's a physical game, there's elements of sort of bravery, but then discipline and respect and friendship. You sort of think there's some great values there. As you say, you watch Adolescent and it's like, wow.

29:08And then we need to be setting different sort of goals, different role models for for kids to look up to because they you know a lot of them obviously need help yeah and i and i'd love to think that you know great um female and male rugby players can can be those kind of role models fair play to you actually you just made me smile with the the respect element you know watching you guys coming off the uh the rugby rugby pitch blood all over you um punches thrown or certainly you know super physical contact that's legal and then shaking each other's hands and having a beer afterwards, that's important.

29:45That's proper respect and camaraderie. And the win or lose side of things, you know, depending on the game, is gone and there's a healthy respect that you're on the pitch playing together. Yeah, I remember lots of times where, you know, God, you think back, not as clever, but you were never sent off. Punches were thrown. It was brutal at times. But the referee, you would call him, sir, there was just that respect that actually if he sort of spoke everyone just stopped right there would never he might be tiny um and there were certain things on the game that you just didn't do right that everyone understood so that you might well have had a full-on you know game but at the end of it it's done and and there's you do respect your your opponents and and i think um that was is a key part of it is just yeah you go as hard as you can but at the end of it you know the game is over it's like there's no time nothing is ever taken off off the pitch i love that just isn't it's a really good point as well i used to struggle still do to watch a football game where when there's a you know a ref blowing the whistle you know players be crowding around and so on you'd have you know you'd have big players like put the ref a point and he'd go no like no one you'd never question it was just like no that's fine that's absolute respect is the discipline and discipline for me it was like and there's discipline within the team you know you're thinking there's there's that whole control because part of rugby is you've got to get yourself right to the edge you know in terms of build-up but you've got to be completely in control because as soon as you lose it you lose your discipline and that means you let your teammates down because everything is about control but being right on the edge so therefore you know that whole mental discipline and physical is is key to being able to play rugby at the top level.

31:36I love that. And you talk about the whole discipline that goes with looking at your teammates and so on. And then there's the individual side of things. So for a long period of your life, you were training for the next game, the next tournament. So that's physical training. And then all the stuff that you did mentally to become a good leader. When you hung up the boots, you're still in good shape, right? I knew you were going to smile at that because we had this chat before. But I didn't ask you what you do and how you stay disciplined and consistent with keeping fit when actually you're not training another game is that still important to you the physical mindset i feel better when when i train when i do exercise it was it was great just to eat you know and i ate five and then you just realize that wow i'm probably two stone overweight or something you know and then so because you would have been in you know really good physical condition i know there was a the drinking culture and so on which came with through the atmosphere but you were yeah but you burned it off right you were you were training and you took the captaincy seriously so you know you were you know burning it in here as well and i think just i quite enjoy so so got into cycling um because actually you know running just off all the pieces which is why when i was playing i got a stress fracture um because just feet strike there's all sorts of so i got into bikes and and and cycling so you you sort of um with a couple of schoolmates in fact we went we cycled to paris last year sort of challenges there's one coming up probably next year which is um in the lake district and it's just like it's it's a pretty brutal day but you have those challenges you think i've got i've got to train otherwise i'm going to be humiliated and it's just so um and i just i enjoy it i still enjoy i get frustrated because i can't do stuff that i could do when i was mid-20s and that's really stupid you know and you just sort of go why can't i do i can do that and then you go no i can't do that um i think that's quite a good mindset i i'm definitely guilty of that i'm still doing handstands and things that i was i was thinking the next day and go yeah there's you know things i've had to stop yeah yeah definitely but it's but hey at least at least you try yes on that there's a lot you have done um that would be attributed to being successful and i know you're yeah you're humble necessarily to come out but i want to know sitting here now what your definition of success is it's really interesting because lisa was like um she had been chatting to a friend um who's would be classed as psychiatrist i don't know but she said who do you regard as um successful people that you know and so we were talking it through and I've also said you know success to me is friendships it's family all right and and she goes who are the who do you think is successful and the people that I named were successful either in business financially whatever and and it was a real show and I sort of looked at her and she's like wow because it's actually not what I aspire to massively I would I'd love to make a difference um I think that's the same rugby it's like if we can create this new sevens it's not the financial part that that interests me that right it's it's making a difference and there's got to be a purpose to it all you know um so for me I genuinely success is is family it's and it's friendships i think you get the most i get the most joy i've ever had in anything some you know just sitting as a family laughing talking there are moments where you just go i love this i love this beyond any explanation and it's just that special yeah i can feel that fulfillment yeah can't you can't put any monetary value on the feeling you got when you went into almost a glow state when you talked about that and actually it's probably the last question i've got time to ask you but that there's a lot of maturity and perspective and i'm going to use that word humility again with from someone that dreamed of playing for his country to then captain at such a young age on reflection of perspective what advice would you give to your younger self Study and play.

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36:38Cocktails up here feel just right. It's Cambria amazing, all right. Bring a date, your team, or even your mom. Book direct at choicehotels.com. See you on the roof. enjoy it just have allowed myself to be to be proud of it quietly I think um for all sorts of reasons I never and it's like my kids will say you you never talk about it and I don't and I've never it's sort of it's not embarrassing it makes me uncomfortable and I just think and yet it it was it was my my dream back then and therefore not quite sure so I think I do know I wish I'd just allowed myself just to be a little bit prouder of it quietly while it was happening rather than just constantly you know it's not good enough it's not me it's not you know whatever um and just to have enjoyed it I still find myself it's quite hard to to look back can think yeah i'm you know i'm quite proud of that i'm really glad to hear that yeah because you know i've made my feelings clear as a as someone that has got very fond memories of watching you yeah and and uh i i you you felt that sense of pride in what you were doing you felt that so win or lose but it's really hard right because when people say oh and i met someone today as well and he said I loved watching you but I loved your he said you brought me and I look at him and it's that bit of I wasn't that person do you know what I mean isn't it weird right I've got all sorts of for all sorts of things right I'm not I wasn't that guy I'm sort of and it's without being funny I wouldn't change it anyway but it's it's really and I and I find that uncomfortable because it's just that whole look I loved it and I loved being able to be in the side with those guys and everything else but i wasn't when people go you're my hero and i look at them i go oh no no i wasn't right um and that that's weird isn't it and i know but i love it i think it's a really interesting perspective and what you've elaborated in this conversation is you immerse yourself you've assessed yourself with the role so you couldn't be anyone else you shouldn't be so hard it's not necessarily for me to say but you were all in so that person but there's no other way but that but that's admirable that's what a captain of his team should be doing obsessing over how best to even to the point where you actually knew when to remove yourself that's hence been mentioning the lack of ego for me listening to that that is fascinated and genuinely curious about leadership entrepreneurship all of that goes hand that they're massively powerful transferable skills yeah because leadership is not about you it's about your team do you know i mean and that's the bit where it's about serving your team it's about caring about your team that's leadership if you're doing it for yourself career ego profile whatever you got it wrong right it should be about them and and that it just my view is that's that's what leadership is yeah powerful i i didn't know we were going to spend so much time talking about the playing days and the whole sort of feelings towards it so thank you for doing that because I think I think it probably both assumed in some way we would move on from that and you in your own words have said you're almost uncomfortable talking about it but it's been super inspiring to have this chat I'm hoping some way some sort of therapy stroke um you know what I mean because you yeah I mean that in the sense that you don't talk about it that much you know your own kids saying that but it's I've come at it from a genuine place of interest to understand and ask questions I wanted to know answers to you that have got you thinking about stuff you may not have thought about before now no it's been well yeah it's been interesting from where we started have you enjoyed it yeah no i have i have well thank you i appreciate it you made time to talk with me and um i've loved it absolutely loved it well thanks