S17 BONUS EPISODE! Dan Carter: one of the greatest rugby players of all time on what failure taught him about winning

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1:16Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Dan Carter is considered by many to be one of the greatest rugby players in the history of the sport. The 41-year-old New Zealander played for the All Blacks in their Rugby World Cup winning teams in both 2011 and 2015, becoming one of only a handful of players to have won multiple World Cups.

2:06He holds the all-time international points scoring record and spent 12 years as the key playmaker of a team that achieved the highest winning percentage of any international sports team ever. But you don't have to be a sports fanatic to be interested in what Carter has to say. He's also a UNICEF ambassador and a sought-after corporate speaker in leadership, whose clients include Allbirds and LVMH. He was the first ever leader in practice at the Oxford Foundry, an entrepreneurship institute at the university founded by Apple CEO Tim Cook. A father of four, Carter's wife, Anna, is a former New Zealand hockey player, which I'm sure makes for some competitive games at the family home.

2:51And not that it's relevant to his sporting prowess, but Carter's other achievements include being voted the world's sexiest male athlete by cable channel E in 2010. In his new book, The Art of Winning, Carter distills two decades at the frontiers of high performance into 10 lessons on leadership, purpose, and potential. Some people look at failure as all doom and gloom, and at the time it is, he writes. But failure also presents opportunity to accept what went wrong and learn from it. And what can come out of that failure is greatness. Dan Carter, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you very much, Elizabeth.

3:36Great to be here. Very excited to be here and talk with you. And you've now got a new book for you on your bookshelf behind you. Yes, absolutely. And it's a very striking cover. Cable Channel E would be thrilled with that cover. Oh, my God. You clearly did your research, but I did not expect you to be bringing up that one statistic. Oh, my goodness. That was way back in 2010, though. Who knows who it is now? Yeah, I have no idea. Very embarrassed, but a great way to start the interview. I'm sorry to make you squirm. But that quote that I end on, honestly, reading your book, it was like it was designed for this podcast or vice versa.

4:11I'm so grateful to you. for being here and also for putting into words so much of my own philosophy. And I just wanted to start really on that note of greatness. Do you feel great? I feel great in your studio here about to talk to you. But I think greatness is, it's not something you achieve personally where you put, you know, the flag in the ground at the top of the mountain and go, I'm great. It's something you're always striving for. And whether you achieve it or not is determined by other people. And, you know, when you have a set purpose and something you're striving towards really does give you that motivation to strive of achieving, you know, very unique and special things.

4:56So it was something that was always inspiring me. I didn't want to be just an All Black. I wanted to be an All Black great. Yes. And now that I've finished playing, I'm not going to sit here in front of you and say, I achieved it. I'm one of the great All Blacks. But I achieved a lot through that journey. And a lot of the success that I had were off the back of learnings, failures, disappointments, setbacks. And that's why learning about your podcast, it really resonated with me because I sit here in front of you. And the person that I am today is off the back of the learnings that I got from those setbacks.

5:33It makes you so much more resilient, so much stronger. People focus on my success, but they forget about the injuries, the form, the self-doubt, the not reaching your goals, all those setbacks. And the learnings that I got from those made me stronger and made me even more motivated and determined to strive for greatness. Yeah, there's a big part of the book. And that's why it's great to sit here and be able to dive in a little bit more about some of those failures. Yeah. Well, I love New Zealanders. I've never been to New Zealand, but it's one of the biggest podcast audiences is New Zealand. Oh, that is brilliant.

6:12So shout out to everyone listening in New Zealand. I appreciate you. I flew all the way from New Zealand yesterday. So it's great to be here. And if so, a little bit jet lag. So if I start yawning, it's not you or your interview technique. It's my jet lag, but it's great to be here. Oh, it's so kind of you to come straight off a flight. You say in the book that the art of winning could just as easily have been called the art of evolution. Why is that? there is no structure or formula to winning it's like if you do this this this this you're guaranteed success so something that I learned is actually you need to navigate find your own style learn who you are take key learnings along the way so winning for me was was more of an art than a formula and that was just through a lot of the learnings and knowledge that I learned through playing professional sport for close to 20 years.

7:08And you do. You need to grow and evolve through that time in order to be successful. So you're constantly adapting. You're constantly sort of pivoting, changing direction, adjusting, learning, implementing, executing. It's just this huge learning curve that you're on. You're navigating it. And I saw that as an art. And that's why, you know, I titled the book The Art of Winning. What is Wakapapa and have I pronounced it correctly? Close. Okay. Yes, Whakapapa. Is that what? Are you serious? Yeah, Whakapapa. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a big part of our heritage, our Maori heritage in New Zealand. And in order to move forward, you have to look back at where you come from.

7:53And it's a really important part of the Maori culture is remembering the people that have gone before you. Where is your ancestors, your heritage? who are you as a person so we looked at that in the all-black environment back in 2004 when we were working on sort of reshaping the all-black culture so we can't move forward unless we actually look back so we started to look back at some of the incredible all-black sides that have gone before us the 1905 original all-blacks the 1924 invincible all-blacks two legendary all-black sides and the 1987 Rugby World Cup winning side, the 1996 All Black side.

8:37So we started looking back at the teams and then also the players that have gone before us. Effectively, that's our whakapapa, our history, our heritage, who we are. Once you learn a lot about your whakapapa, then it gives you the strength to move forward and feel like you've got that strength and empowerment of knowing the history of who you are and where you've come from and in order to give you the motivation to walk forward and embrace new challenges so when I finished playing I knew the power and strength of Whakapapa and as I was trying to navigate this new chapter of my life and sort of work out who I am as an individual now that I'm no longer playing rugby and a lot of people saw me and even I saw myself as geez I'm Dan Carter the rugby player when you realize actually you're not you're Dan Carter and rugby was a big part of your life but in this next chapter of my life I need to repurpose and in order to walk forward with confidence I needed to look back so you know I started talking to my parents about their ancestors and their people where they came from I learned a lot more about the little community the little village of Southbridge that I grew up on you know realized that you know identify myself with this mountain that is next to the village that we live in this This is my local river.

9:54This is my lake. This is who I am as a person. So once I learned a lot more about myself and where I came from, it gives you the confidence and belief to be able to move forward and accomplish anything you put your mind to. That's so beautiful because I often wonder on this podcast what the secret to self-esteem is or that kind of inner voice that knows itself. And for me, it's been a journey of authenticity. But I think what you're saying is sort of the missing piece in that. There's a community of people in your history that you've never met whose shoulders you stand on. And that idea of identifying yourself with a mountain, it's so striking to me.

10:35Yeah, it's just something that's much bigger than yourself. You're wanting to continue the legacy that's gone on before you. And it's something we used to really push to the players and the All Blacks. There's incredible history that we've learned about and we have these little all black books that has all these pages on the history of the all blacks. And when you become an all black, you get an all black jersey. It's not your all black jersey. You're just a custodian of that jersey and your sole mission is to enhance the legacy that has gone before you. So you can't be an all black forever, but your mission is to wake up each day and work at how can you enhance the legacy that's gone before you so when you finish playing for the All Blacks because you're just a custodian of that jersey you hand the jersey back and you get real satisfaction of whether you enhance the legacy or not and I felt like after playing for 13 years that I did enhance the legacy it's a really proud moment and as long as people are coming into that environment with that mentality of wanting to grow and enhance the All Black legacy the you know the your black culture and team is going to be in a very strong position.

11:48And how does that affect your parenting? There's probably a part of the book that is quite interesting. So I have really high sort of world-class standards in everything I do. It's all about high performance, aspiring for greatness. I'll use an example of when we first went into lockdown, when the pandemic came about. So we had to start homeschooling. At home, I had two children that got taken out of school and all of a sudden had homeschooling. So I was like, right, if we're homeschooling, this is going to be the best homeschooling in the world this is your breakfast time this is your mass time you can have a break here we can do PE here then we do writing then we're going to do reading and it was like a military camp that I'd set up for my children after day one they hated it my wife's looking at me going what the hell are you doing that children this is home this is they're not in the army and I was like okay I overstepped the mark there so it was a huge learning curve for me is to actually sort of let them grow and understand that they're just children you know I'm an adult and I need certain sort of procedures and structure in my life to be the best I possibly can whereas they're still navigating they're still finding what they care about what they like so I'm a little bit easier on them I'm more of a just a supportive father than one that you know that cracks the whip and say you're gonna do this or that and you know I just let them be children and try lots of different things.

13:12Your wife sounds brilliant and I wonder how helpful it is having someone who understands the pressures of a very high level of athleticism. Was that important to you? Oh it was incredible. Just the fact that she played hockey for New Zealand and was often traveling, she knew the demands that it took of being an international sports person the the sacrifice the dedication that you have to make to play at the highest level so she took a lot of weight off my shoulders because she knew especially when we started having children and she actually had to give up work and sport to raise a family whereas I was still playing I was still in all black still playing professionally she knew there were certain things that I needed to be the best rugby player that I could you know things like I've never actually woken up in the middle of the night to look after our children she understood the importance of sleep and rest and recovery in order to be able to to go to work each day so she sacrificed a lot but she knew you know what it took to play sport at the highest level and you know I'm really grateful that she was so understanding and had that knowledge and was really sort of supportive of me continuing to chase my dreams when effectively you know she stopped hers to raise a family.

14:32Do you get up in the night now? Not so much. She's amazing. I get up early in the morning. I do the morning shift. She gets up through the night and then I'll let her sleep in the morning while I do the school lunches and breakfasts and everything. So yeah. Before we get onto your failures, or actually this probably leads into your first failure, but I'm really interested, given that you have spoken so eloquently about the idea of legacy and heritage. What were you like? Dan Carter, aged five. I grew up in a little town of 750 people, a farming community in Southbridge. This farming community lived and breathed rugby.

15:11My father was a builder, my mother a school teacher, and dad's lived on the same street his whole life. 67 years, lived on the same street, built a house, five houses down from where he grew up, Nana's house. So they're part of the DNA of this community. So as a five-year-old boy it was very sort of carefree, great country lifestyle, weekends down at the rugby club where dad was playing rugby, he had four brothers and they all played rugby so it was a big part of my life and then there was this rugby world cup that was on in 1987, it was the inaugural rugby world cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand and the All Blacks went on to win that rugby world cup and something was ingrained in me as a five-year-old boy it's like man these are my idols man I want to be an all black this is my dream but I never actually thought it would happen because I grew up in this little country town and a five-year-old mindset was like all blacks are supposed to come from the big cities like you know and Christchurch Auckland Wellington they're not supposed to come from little villages like like Southbridge but it was a dream of mine so it was a very sort of carefree upbringing hanging around with my cousins, my mates out on the backyard.

16:23Every day after school, we're playing rugby or kicking goals. It was, yeah, it was a great childhood. For someone who's never played rugby, what is it that you love about it, physically speaking? What does it feel like? It is a physical contact sport, but the camaraderie of going to war, and a game is like going to war. you're literally going into battle against your opposition it's physical it's demanding these high pressure a whole lot of expectation and you're implementing this game plan against your opponents and anything can happen at any time obviously within the rules but that feeling that you get at the end of 80 minutes where you're sitting in the changing room and you're looking at your teammate in the eye and you're going I'm proud of you you know really satisfying moment of working all week going to war and then sharing you know a drink with them in the changing room is just something I love that going to war with your best mates having done the planning the preparation the work and then executing out on the field for 80 minutes one of the most sort of special parts of the week that I love was immediately afterwards where you're looking at your teammates in the eye and going bloody well done or actually on a few occasions in my career and I can tend to remember the games that I lost more than the games that I won where you look at each other and the guy didn't quite get it right but we're going to be so much better for learning from these mistakes and learning from this setback this disappointment and it almost gives you new motivation it's like right we're much better than this let's go again and you almost want to play another game the next day.

18:10Unfortunately, you have a whole week to learn and stew over and do better next time. But it's a challenging, demanding game. I think the average lifespan of a rugby player is only six years. Wow, you're 20. Yeah, I was able to drag it out into my late 30s, which is quite rare. But yeah, it's a gruelling, hugely demanding sport and my body is thanking me that I'm no longer a rugby player. I can assure you that. Do you still dream of it, literally dream, go to sleep at night and dream of a rugby match? No. Okay, have you ever? No, so now, oh, yeah, when I was playing all the time. But since finishing playing, there's not one part of me that wants to go out there and play another game of rugby again.

18:57I achieved so, so much. I was really happy and satisfied with the career that I had. and I was one of the rare few that was able to finish how I wanted to finish even though the pandemic sped it up slightly but to have a career that I did in the fairy tale finish of a rugby world cup final in 2015 which is my last international rugby game I'm just you know so grateful now my mind has switched off from being a professional rugby player so I don't miss going out and playing rugby. There are certain things that I miss around the camaraderie, the banter with your teammates, the constant competition and challenging each other at training that I miss, the real teamness and brotherhood of being a rugby player.

19:42I miss that. But the physicality, going out there to war for 80 minutes, I've switched off with my mind on that. And now I'm quite happy just sitting back and being a supporter like everyone else. final ignorant question from me I love it given that camaraderie is so important is it possible for you to be in a team with someone you don't like or how do you manage it if that happens yeah no no my wife often asks all these people in your team that you don't like or they're on a different journey and things like that I very I didn't have anyone that I didn't like you know there's obviously people that you'd spend more time with your closer friends but I didn't not like anyone in the team they were there for a reason they were there for a job I needed to trust them they needed to trust me so there is a real brotherhood especially when they buy into the purpose or the vision of the team it's like you're all aligned but yeah there can be occasions where they're not pushing the boundaries they're settling for you know maybe mediocrity that you know shouldn't live in a high performing environment like a professional sports team and there are going to be some times where you know you have debates and challenging each other but as long as those situations in particular you're not having a go at the person every decision that you make or every conversation that you have is what's best for the team and as long as you've got that mentality and you're able to deliver those messages you know in a way that's you know can be confrontational but it's not rude it's not personal and and if they don't understand that it's not for what's best for the team then you know tend to often that they don't last very long in the environment anyway so um yeah okay your first failure is the year that you decided to take your rugby more seriously which was 2000 and you moved didn't you so tell us what happened started playing rugby as a six-year-old after the story I just told you about being a five-year-old boy and wanting to being all black I started playing rugby the following year and I played all my junior rugby out in the country and it was my second to last year of high school I was 17 and I started to get selected in some rep teams for the first time New Zealand is made up of two islands the North Island and South Island and I made the South Island school boys team which was a big representative team for someone from the country little country school so it's a big moment for me and that's when the first time I ever thought maybe I should take rugby a bit more seriously.

22:22Actually maybe this is the stepping stone to me being a professional rugby player. Maybe this is a sign of actually I might be able to live my dream of being an All Black when I never thought that it was a realistic opportunity. So I'm going to take my rugby a lot more seriously. So I left the high school I was at in the little country school and moved into the city for my last year of high school. On your own? I would drive in and out each day, or else if we had training, I'd stay at my auntie's house who lived close to the school. But all of a sudden I was going to a school that had 400 students to go into an all-boys school, Christchurch Boys High, that had over 2 ,000 students.

23:05And it's known to be one of the top rugby schools in New Zealand. The high school that's had the second most amount of all-blacks produced from the school, So I was like, right, I'm going to go there and this is going to be a stepping stone to me being an All Black. So I went there and I remember walking in to the school for the first time and walking down the hallway. And all I saw was trophies, this incredible amount of rugby history. I was looking on the wall and that All Black went to the school. That All Black went to the school. Oh my God, Andrew Mertens, he's my childhood hero. He went to the school.

23:41I felt the sudden weight of pressure and expectation. I've come to this school and now I'm going to play in the first 15 and we're expected to win and be one of the best teams in New Zealand. And having never experienced that type of pressure and expectation before, I struggled. And I had one of the worst years I've ever had. I didn't really enjoy my school. I had a real focus on rugby. The rugby wasn't going well. I wasn't playing that well for the team. The first 15 at Christchurch Boys High were one of our worst seasons in history. And it was just a really challenging moment for me. So I kind of sat back and I was like, well, why?

24:26Why have I had such a bad year? I've lost the love of rugby. This is my passion. Ever since I was a five-year-old boy, I have this dream of being an all-black and now I don't like rugby. It was actually quite a scary feeling as an 18-year-old. Your true love is taken away from you. So I finished my one year at Christchurch Boys High, finished high school and then I was trying to work out what's next, what job do I get myself into. I did some labouring work as a builder. With your dad? With my dad, yeah. So he was a builder. I worked for him for six months and that didn't end well because I wasn't a very good builder and he's been building for almost 50 years and I didn't really enjoy it.

25:05but with my rugby there was a couple of senior rugby teams in Christchurch that wanted me to play senior rugby straight out of high school and I was like I can't I need to find the reason that I love the game is for the enjoyment and I forgot the key part of rugby is enjoyment so I had that year there where I was far too serious thought it was a stepping stone started thinking about the future if I play here I'll be in all black and a whole lot of outcome focused things were controlling my mind so my year out of school I was like I'm just going to play social rugby I'm just going to go play with my friends play some age grade rugby non-competitive and just try and find the love of the game again and I one of the best most enjoyable fun years that I've possibly had just playing social rugby down at the club rooms no pressure no expectation and I found the love for the sport again and then things happened really quickly after that so two years after that season I was playing at a rugby world cup in 2003 so this is 2001 and it was all because of that learning that I had at Christchurch boys high where I started taking things too seriously and forgot why I was playing.

26:23You play for enjoyment. So that's been a key thing that I've learned ever from that year. My last year at high school was never forget why you're playing their game. You're doing it because you love it and you enjoy it. And if you ever take it too seriously, then it's a real red flag that you're not going to be successful, you're not going to be able to deliver. So it was as hard as it was in 2000 and not being able to perform at the Christchurch Boys High gave me a huge learning and something that stuck with me and making sure that I put a real emphasis on, are you having fun? Are you enjoying it?

26:57Did you feel very isolated during that year? Did you feel separate from your teammates that something wasn't quite gelling? It wasn't until the end of the year that I kind of had to reassess why it didn't go to plan. And I knew a couple of guys at the school. One of my best mates, Ben Jones, And so he did exactly what I did. He left his high school. We're going, right, let's go to Christchurch Boys High together. So we went to the school together with these huge expectations. We were a couple of the top players from our little country regions. And we thought, right, we'll test ourselves in the big city of Christchurch.

27:36He went on to have a fantastic year, played for the New Zealand secondary schools team, had an amazing season. You know, I struggled, the team struggled. but I still felt like part of the team, part of the culture but I was just wondering why did I not have this fulfillment that I thought that I'd have the excitement of going to this school that I had at the start of the year to feeling very sort of empty and disappointed and asking why did I not have this sense of energy and excitement and how did I lose the love of the sport that I cared so much about? It's interesting because it sounds like you did that on your own.

28:18Did you? Did you talk to anyone about it? No, I didn't. It's just something I stumbled upon and made a decision to myself that, actually, I'm just going to go play some social rugby. I'm just going to go have some fun. Stop forgetting about this dream of being an All Black. Stop forgetting about trying to play professionally and just going to have some fun. That's a lot of emotional maturity for a 17 and 18-year-old to work that out. So now, is that still one of your red flags, albeit not with rugby necessarily, but if you're feeling pressurized or that you're losing an enjoyment in something, do you know then because of this year, I need to go back to basics and rediscover that?

28:56A little bit, but I've actually learned a lot more about how to deal with pressure, embrace pressure, actually understand that it's actually a privilege to have pressure in your life. I love that line in your book pressure is a privilege some of the most successful people in this world live with pressure every day so that should excite you often people see it as a real weight on your shoulders the expectation exactly how I felt in 2000 at Christchurch Boys High I didn't enjoy being in that environment whereas as soon as you learn that the most successful people in this world live with pressure every day so it's actually a privilege to have pressure in your life so instead of it being a burden you want to walk towards it and understand that if you can execute, deliver in the highest amounts of pressure, you're on the verge of excellence.

29:45You're on the verge of doing things that haven't been done before. You're on the verge of achieving greatness. So it is, it's a real privilege to have that. Because if I only knew those tools back in 2000, it would have been a completely different year. But I was young, I was naive, I didn't have the tools. I grew up in the country where it was carefree, it was fun, it was free-flowing. So that's why I struggled and knew enjoyment was a big part of it. But now I have to make sure that I'm happy. I'm making happy choices is really important. Doing things that I care about that excite me, stimulate me and make me happy.

30:22But if there is pressure and amongst those things, I love it. I embrace it. I walk towards it almost even now that I've finished. I need pressure in my life or things that are going to challenge me or test me. For example, I've been retired for a year and I launched a new charity called the DC10 Fund and partnered with UNICEF. I was like, how are we going to launch this? I need something to challenge me physically and mentally. So I went and kicked conversions, got goals for 24 hours straight, just over one a minute for 24 hours, tested my body and my mind. And I didn't know if I was going to get injured.

31:01It had never been done before by anyone. So that pressure of walking towards the unknown and accomplishing that, the satisfaction that I had with achieving something like that, where I was under the excruciating amounts of pressure, it was all live streamed. There was people donating money. There was people giving their time. There was a whole events team that put on this event for me. I didn't want to let anyone down. So that was an example of me now that I've finished playing of setting up certain things in my life to try and put myself under pressure. That's where I feel like it's when I'm at my best.

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33:23Before we get on to your second failure, is there a difference between pressure and stress? I think so, yes. Learning to deal and walk towards pressure is a lot around your mindset. You're wanting to control your mind to making sure that you're really focusing on the process. and far too often you're focusing on outcomes or something that has happened in the past or something that you think might happen in the future and that's where stress comes involved is actually you're focusing on an outcome or something that's happened or could happen whereas pressure navigates you to think about the process like what is the process I need to do and it's a tool to help people that you know dealing with with stress because it's often that mind management of controlling your mind how can I control my mind when I'm under pressure or feeling stressed and if you have tools to help you focus on on the process nailing each task living in the moment then just achieving you know those little milestones and staying on task is a you know great way to help you be successful in those those moments you had some help from an amazing man called Gilbert is he a sports psychologist is that how you would describe him yes okay yeah and perhaps we'll go on to him when discussing your second failure but he taught you something very invaluable didn't he about writing down precisely the things that you have to do over the next 24 hours and that being your sole focus yeah so i'd let the team down and made a bad judgment call and went out drinking and put myself and what i wanted ahead of the team this is the taxi from wales to london it was yeah it was quite a quite a journey it's some ridiculous so expensive 300 pounds oh actually not as bad as I thought this is back in 2005 okay you could buy a house for that so the whole week and I was trying to prepare for a test match but my mind kept thinking about the people that I let down and the team friends family the all-black environment and I couldn't actually focus on the game and the training so for the first time in my career I knocked on the door of the psychologist and so i need help and back then early in my career if you went and saw the team psychologist everyone's kind of looking at you going mate are you all right what's wrong you're a bit of a wacko you know and that's what i love the most about today's game is actually if you're not seeing the psychologist your teammates go well why not if you wanted to get the best out of yourself like talk to him he's here to help you whereas we used to staunch rugby players we used to shy away and you just hide all your feelings and you just deal with it yourself so he taught me to help control my mind to stop it from drifting and and burning this unnecessary energy of thinking about things that I can't control I was really thinking about outcomes and things that I'd done in the past that he made me write every hour for 24 hours exactly what I needed to focus on and do okay you know breakfast at eight o 'clock stretch session at 8 30 team meeting at nine training this time swim recovery stretch and every time my mind would drift I'd find myself drifting and thinking about the outcome or the mistake that I'd made I would go okay what am I supposed to be doing okay I'm supposed to be doing this so it helped me just bring me back to the now focus, the process.