SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to another episode of Slice of Pie, where the Pie is the psychologically informed environment, and the mission is to understand it, whether it's sports, business, or any other field, how can we help support performance and wellbeing in the places that we work, compete, or perform? Thanks to those who have been in touch since the Richard Keegan episode, Richard and myself talked about building careers and the potentially less appreciated path of building a wide variety of skills and experiences versus the classic notion of becoming a guru in one area. A couple of questions came in around this that I think are really worth digging into, and thanks for those that have sent in these questions. Those are one, does the wide base apply for, let's say, elite athletes, or is this better for those in business or other careers? And then can you create a wider base of skills within a specialist career? And at what point are you focusing your energies in too narrow a field? For me, I've reflected on this, and firstly, I don't think it is as clear-cut as saying specialist careers are vulnerable and the varied career is the desirable one. It's more that the varied jungle gym type career is not talked about as much. Therefore, Richard's keynote and authors like Reed Hoffman, who shine a light on it, are doing a valuable job in advocating for a different way to look at careers. Secondly, can you apply this thinking to a very specialist area, for example, elite athletes? This week's podcast is in many ways a natural segue on from the Richard Keegan conversation as we speak to CEO of Twitch the Play, Leon Floyd. After finishing as a professional rugby player, Leon transitioned into helping athletes from a range of different sports work on developing new skills and experiences that not only set them up for their next chapter after sports, but gives them valuable skills that actually improve them as athletes while they are still playing. One thing that is immediately clear in this interview is how passionate Leon is about what he does and how he's developed his own mindset over the years to cope with change, be that selection, injury, or career transitions. I found it a genuinely inspiring conversation and I hope you enjoy it as well. So let's get into it with Leon Laurie.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

I'm very good, thank you. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Not too bad, thanks. Thanks very much for for joining us on this sunny Wednesday morning. You've you've been out for a bike ride already, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I have, yes. For me, I've I've been blocked, I've been blocked out, my time's been blocked out with my studies. Uh I'm just coming towards the end of my MBA and I had a dissertation which was weighing me down, and I kept using the excuse, well, I can't do any fitness, I can't do any training until I finish this. I need to get this off my desk. Uh and that um that was done. I did that last week, so I've got no excuse now. So at 6 a.m. when I used to get up and read um enthralling academic journals, I now get up at 6 a.m. and go for a bike ride instead.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

6am? Are you are you one of these horrifying individuals that is up achieving things at 6 a.m. every day? Are you?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Absolutely not. That made that and I when I listen back to that what I've just said, then it sounds like I am, but no, generally I like to lay in. Just that I have what I am good at doing is chunking down my time and trying to think like what can I do, what needs to be done, how can I fit it in? And 6 a.m. for me, I've got two daughters, a dog, uh, and a wife that keeps me busy. So 6 a.m. nobody else is up at 6 a.m. So that's that's quality time in my house where I can actually get on to the important things.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Love it. Well, thanks very much for for making this one of your your chunks of time in in your day. Now we we've had this in the diary for a while because we were, as you've just mentioned, we were waiting for your MBA uh dissertation to finish. And I think you finished that last week. Dare I ask how you're feeling now? Are you feeling happy, relieved?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I am I am relieved to be honest. It's it's been a long two-year process, and you know, I left school at 16 um to sign pro in sport, so I'm far from being an academic. But the last four years, four or five years, I've I did my undergrad degree and I rolled straight into doing this MBA. And I think my attention, not my attention to detail, but my ability to retain information is certainly stretched. It's not what it would have been if I'd have done this 20 years ago. Um, so yes, I feel relieved. I feel like I've gained some headspace as well, which is much much needed now that that's sort of finished.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Well, I think going back into education at any point where you haven't progressed it that far originally, it's even harder. So hats off to you for doing that. And I'd love to dig into that a little bit more in a second. But but firstly, you know, I'm a rugby badger uh myself, and I I remember you playing for for Leicester, maybe with uh was that even as far back as playing with a letter on your back instead of a number?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Very yes, good memory, good memory, yes. Um in the good old days of playing with letters.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

What was your letter?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I played on the wing or in the centre, so I played with either L, M, or K.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah. So for those that might not be familiar with the letter system or with uh Leon Lloyd and rugby in the late 90s, early 2000s, would you mind uh giving us a quick hitchhike through your your playing career and then that pivot into what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah, of course, yeah. So I grew up in a in a city of Coventry, uh, and my dream as a boy was to play football for Coventry City. Um unfortunately that I never really I haven't realized that dream yet. There's still a chance, never say never. Uh but at the age of 16, I ended up signing professionally uh rugby for Leicester Tigers, largely because I was I was relatively quick runner and I used to get in quite a lot of trouble at school. So I used to get involved in the odd scrap. So my PE teacher thought a bit of a scrapper and quick at running, you might be good at rugby. So they they forced me to play rugby, which I I reluctantly did. But the game wasn't professional then, so it was more I felt like it was a punishment. Then the game turned pro, I think it was 95, 96 time, and I'd signed for Leicester at the time. I lived with Martin Johnson, uh the former England captain, woke up winner, and then I suppose that was the start of my journey. It was it was then I was I was being paid to do something that I loved doing as a professional athlete at the age of 16-17 with a group, a special group of people. We went on to achieve some uh amazing things together over a uh sort of a 14-15 year career. I went from I went from Leicester to to Gloucester and on my journeys I was uh very fortunate to play for England uh a handful of times, and then I retired. I hate saying the word retirement, it sounds quite formal, isn't it? Quite uh I I retired from sport at the age of 30, which is young, really, if you think about it. Um but in sporting context, I started at made my debut at 17, so really had a had a lot of miles on the clock. My body was probably ready to retire maybe a year earlier, two years before that, but I managed to dig in and keep going. I'd love to have played longer, and a lot of my very close teammates continued playing, and that was tough to watch them play. Um, but they carried on playing until mid-30s. But I you know, I suppose that's because they probably started a little bit later than I did. And then I was sort of thrust into the the real world and have having to get a proper job and understanding that a full day is a full day, not just a couple of hours training each day with your mates. And and that that was a that was a challenge for me, uh as I say, because I left school at 16, went straight into uh professional sport. I hadn't I didn't see rugby as a job, I saw it as something that I did, I enjoyed doing, and I got paid a good salary for doing it. I was able to travel the world and meet great people, so it never really felt like a job, even when it was tough, even when it you got a pre-season or you have those dark moments of you know the losses and the cup final defeats and things like that. It was still an amazing environment to be a part of. So I was in search of trying to replicate that and found that it was very difficult to do that. So that sort of led me on to write I ended up writing a book actually.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

I wrote a book about uh, this is big room to boardroom, is it?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

It is, yeah, it is. And that's and I say, but before before I started writing it, the longest thing I'd written was a tweet or a text. So it was just it started off as it started off as I used to be invited by the RPA, which is the Rugby Players Association, to go and speak to the young up-and-coming academy players about the realities of elite sport. Um, because I was always one of those guys where I got injured at the age of 20, had my first knee operation, and I panicked because I thought, what if I don't recover from this knee injury? What if I if I lose if I lose my speed, what do I have to offer the team? Is that my career gone to? I sort of really, through fear, I I sort of went and shadowed our CEO at the club. I've worked in the ticket office, I worked in the groundsmen, I worked in the catering department, worked in the accounts department. I I literally did during the offseason, I worked in all those areas, much to my teammates' amusement. And they're they're calling me from Ibiza or wherever they were, Mallorca, and I was in the ticket office working. Um, because I just wanted to understand about business, I wanted to understand about how the club works, what was my role as a player in that environment, so that if I did have to leave the sport as a player, I still had something to add somewhere else down the line. Yeah, I was gonna say that, but but what happened was when I did retire, I was down at Gloucester, we just had our first daughter. The thing that blindsided me was not all the plans I'd put in place because all my teammates thought that you know, Robbie, all right, we'd be sat on the back of the bus and the lads would be talking. These are the guys who have won World Cups, you know, the guys who have been far more successful than I have. Uh and I'd be happy we'd be talking about what does the next phase look like. And they'd all say, Oh, it's alright, I'm gonna go and get a job with Lloydie. He's got his fingers in lots of pies. Uh, and if lots and if everyone's saying that, you sort of tend to believe it, you sort of think, Oh yeah, lad lads want to come and get a job with me, so I must be doing the right thing. However, when I was when uh it finally happened and the surgeon told me that he couldn't fix me um a final time, I got blindsided by the fact that for my whole life I've had so much structure, and I hadn't put in place that how how to replicate or fill that void of not being with the lads, not having that structure, not knowing where to be, what to wear, what to eat, what to do, all those things you take for granted in elite sport. And I sort of on my own, because all the lads were obviously still playing and training and getting ready for the match of the weekend. And there was me retiring by myself, which is which was really tough because in your mind when you talk about it, you think, Oh, I can't wait till we finish playing because then we can go and play golf and do all the things that we can't do now. And the reality is when you retire, you don't retire en masse, don't the whole team doesn't retire. And and very rarely do you decide uh the terms on which you retire anyway. So I was I was sort of out on my own, if you like, living down in Cheltenham because I was playing for Gloucester with a you know with a with a newborn daughter, uh, and walking around Cheltenham with my wife. And I used to I remember used to walk around Cheltenham at three o'clock on a Saturday. And three o'clock on a Saturday only means one thing to me, and that was game time. That was when my head in the game, and my whole life that's what it was. So I found myself walking around Cheltenham at three o'clock on a Saturday, and I just wasn't there, you know. I was I was just I was in a different place, and I really struggled to to snap out of that. It probably took me about a year, two years actually to try and snap out of that and think, well, that's gone, can't go back to that now. What what's next?

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Well, hell of a hitchhike. Um, so you've you've you've gone from potentially partnering Dion Dublin up front for Coventry to partnering Austin Healy in the back line.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah, very true, very true.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah, you've lived in what I can only assume is the world's most cramped house with Martin Johnson. Um you've gone from one of the most intensely supported clubs in the UK to probably one of the other most intensely supported clubs and going from Leicester to Gloucester. So and then the you know, the the injury that kind of the fear of you know what else can I do really driving you into looking outwards? What other players at that time were working in the ticket office and shadowing the CEO? Was that something that that other players were doing, or was that very much kind of breaking breaking the norm?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, absolutely not. There's a I have a look around my peers now. At the time they gave me a load of abuse for it, um, thinking I was you know I was mad, and now I'm reflectioning and in hindsight when we talk about it now, they're actually quite jealous that I'd taken that I've taken those steps because we all we all have the same fears, you know. And I'm I'm very fortunate. I work in sport now and I talk to athletes from all different sports. And when you ask them what the fears are, is the fear is what am I good at? What am I going to do next? What uh but no one ever talks about it because you don't want to be seen to not be focusing on the here and now. So I only found that afterwards. So you know, 15 years afterwards, I'd finished, and the lads were were were sort of thinking, I wish I'd have done that now because uh I've sort of wasted those years when I was just sat around doing nothing. But at the time they couldn't forward, they couldn't come forward and say that because they'd already spent so much time giving the abuse and banter about it. So it's fascinating now because I look at the the modern day athlete, and certainly if I just use rugby as an example, the modern day player now is far more switched on to the to the I suppose the shortness of a potential shortness of a career, and they do look for other opportunities and they do look for things. So whereas before I would definitely have been the minority. I I don't think if you look at a squad, I don't think 50% of a squad will be doing things like that now. But I certainly think there'll be more than a handful of people who are are studying, are developing their own business, are trying to gain work experience and trying to do all those things because I think the world has moved on and sport has moved on, and there's far more evidence now which supports the need for you know better people, make better athletes, and having having a better perspective on life, not just being so tunnel vision.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

I was I was just I was just gonna jump in on that because this I this notion of a more distributed uh athletic identity, as you as you've mentioned, has has got quite a bit more uh evidence to it than it than we previously we have. I know Rebecca Symes, who who's who's based with uh the England football team, talks a lot about athletic identity. She did a podcast, I think, with Don't Tell Me the Score, all about this. Is this something that you you talk about quite a lot now in your your role at Switch the Play?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think the athlete that's one of the biggest issues. Um I did a lot, quite a lot of research on it um around the key the major factors that influence a transition out of sport. And athletic identity was was one of the the most problematic, if if you like, because if I look back and I use myself as an example, even though I know that you know I'm the same as most of the people that I've spoken, you know 90% of the athletes I've spoken to, I never saw myself as Leon Lloyd, the husband, the father, the brother, the trustee, the the ambassador for a charity. I saw myself as Leon Lloyd the rugby player. Anyway, I wasn't Leon Lloyd, who also played rugby and did all those other things. I was just Leon Lloyd rugby player and everything else played second fiddle. So I didn't really know, no one really knew what I was good at or what I was interested in outside of outside of sport. So that that's really difficult to try and when you're dealing with your career, uh your sporting career ending anyway, that comes with lots of stresses. But then if you're still trying to you know investigate and figure out what it is, what's your purpose, what's your why you're here, as well as all those other things, it's it's quite a dangerous and difficult time to try and navigate. So to try and help you help yourself, if you can sort of help yourself see the wood for the trees if you like, and figure that out whilst you're still competing, you're just removing one one less hurdle for when that time comes, because as we know, the three guarantees in life, one of those guarantees is that your sporting career is going to end.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, yeah, and and and I suppose your your career ending is part of a a broader guarantee in life, which is change. And that's obviously an enormous change for an athlete. But there'll be changes that have happened before then. In your case, it was dreaming of playing football and being pushed into rugby. That was a big sliding doors moment for you, and you you took that change that change in in the best possible way by making a career out of it, and then coming out as another change, and there'll be more changes in in life after that, whether that's kids, whether that's employment, unemployment, loss. The interesting thing around athletic identity, I don't know whether you found this, is there's a lot of very popular theories, if bluntly used, can lead people down potentially some quite unhelpful paths. So if you think about the 10,000 hours, the notion of the 10,000 hours, putting all of these hours into becoming very skilled at something, and the more hours you put in, the better you are. The term marginal gains, you know, not leaving any stone unturned to get those little gains in performance. It feels like it can lead down uh athletes or any performers down a path where you're just obsessing over that one thing you want to be great at. But and yet there are some fantastic examples out there of the most elite athletes in the world, like your Jamie Roberts, who played for Wales many, many times, British Lions, and managed to become a doctor, trained to become a medical professional at the same time, or Marco Materazzi, who won the World Cup with Italy, also did an MBA in management, I believe. So there's some pretty good examples out there of you don't actually have to focus every single sinew, blood, sweat, and tear on that that performance area. There's there is enough room in your life for these other pursuits.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Absolutely. And I think it's that that's one thing that we try and do. We try and highlight those positive messages, the positive case studies, because you've named a couple there. Uh, Jimmy Roberts is phenomenal, what he achieved, you know, not only doing a degree and a master's and a PhD, but actually in medicine as well, alongside, as you say, winning all those caps for his country and for the British and Irish Lions. But I always point to people, other athletes, if you choose a sport vincing company, caps in Man City and doing what he's done on the field. He's did his MBA at Manchester University whilst doing those things as well.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Oh, right, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, Beth Tweddle, um, one of um our trustees at Switch the Play, she was at her best in gymnastics. She's won an Olympic bronze medal and three times world champion, but she was at her best performance-wise when she was doing something other than just gymnastics, and she set up total gymnastics business and she she coaches kids, she was coaching kids, uh, you know, thousands of kids around the UK while still competing at that you know international and global level, and that was what brought the best out of her because she had the ability to have more perspective and switch off from her sport. So I think there are more stories like that out there, and I suppose one of our jobs is to try and highlight those so that people can see you don't have to be, you don't have to just focus on your sport. Well, the the example that I like to use is there's two examples is one is the All Blacks, where when you know arguably the best team in the world for for centuries, not centuries, for decades, but they couldn't win, they couldn't win a World Cup final. And there's there was a study done on them. The time when they won the difference between the two squads when they won, when they didn't win, there's only two people when they didn't win, only two people outside of the squad of 30 did something other than trying their best to be the best all black they could be, the best rugby player they could be. And when they did win it for the first time, there's only two people that weren't doing something else outside of sport. They're a big believer in the better people, make better all blacks. And then when they when they managed to back it up and win it back to back, every single player of that squad would do was doing something else other than whether than playing rugby and being the best athlete they could be. And I think that's huge. And the same for the the German football team. The German football team, if you look at when they were world champions as well, we're talking about two teams who have dominated the the their sport, their respective sports. When they won the World Cup, you know, most of their squad were studying and in-between matches and group games. There was no border between the tournament and there's that that dash reboot, where you talk about their approach to developing the person, developing the mind, and then the sport will follow, uh, which is very which is very different then, but I think it's becoming more and more apparent and more um obvious in the modern day sport today.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

I think those I love that the all blacks example there. I didn't know that. That's a really, really, really interesting example. Also, my um my heritage is half Scottish, half Kiwi, and I wrote Christian Cullen, a fan, fan letter, in 1997. So what a legend is anything anything all blacks trivia, I'll be noting down. So thanks for that. I wonder, just super interested to know when okay, so when you're working with with athletes on this, let's say let's take a hypothetical athlete that maybe is quite resistant to the idea of having to develop another side of themselves. Does the the case study by highlighting other athletes that maybe they might look up to in their sport or in other sports, do you find that that's a very powerful agent for change? Maybe not to maybe convince them straight away, but maybe just to start questioning the beliefs that they might have.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Absolutely, yeah. I think um if you think about it as an athlete, what do you want to what do you want to be? What do you want to do? You want you want to be the best athlete you can possibly be. And you don't want to be focusing on what's coming next uh when you're no longer an athlete, because that's not gonna in your own mind, you don't think that's gonna make you a better athlete. So the education piece around how do you become the best version of yourself, the best athlete, what can you put, what can you put in place? And seeing those, your idols and your heroes, and the people you aspire to be as good as or better than, and understanding their journey, understanding their challenges they had and how they overcome them, that helps inspire and also helps shape careers of the next generation coming through. So if you're hearing stories of Jamie Roberts has done this and uh and Beth Tweddle has done this, and Yesin Harris, and all those all these other people that we've we've mentioned who have gone on to do and achieve amazing. Things whilst doing other things as well. That sort of chips away at the the excuse because you can always find an excuse. I'm not going to do that. Like I said before, about I wasn't doing any fitness because I wanted to get my dissertation finished. Now I know with my mentality that is an excuse. But what I've done is I've prioritized my dissertation. The fact that I'm saying I can't do any fitness because I'm doing a dissertation is an excuse, and that would be unacceptable in the the accountable world of elite sport. I can get away with it now because I haven't got a coach or teammates to hold me to account, and I can sort of trick myself that you know what I'm going to focus, I'm just prioritizing my dissertation, and when that's done, then I'm going to prioritize my fitness and everything else. So that's sort of drilled into you in elite sport, regardless of the sport. So if you can have that focus and understand that the stepping stones to be the best include a bit of study, a bit of something else, a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of downtime, a bit of all those things, then you'll prioritize those that are going to make you the best athlete you can be. So I don't know if that does that answer your question. I feel like I'm sort of talking around it.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Absolutely. I mean, it is okay for us to mention these case studies and let's say the research that supports having a distributed identity, but then there also has to be an acceptance of the environments with which any elite performer, whether it's sport, whether it's business, whether it's the military or medicine, if you're trying to develop other sides of yourself outside of your primary performance area, particularly when you're being paid for that primary performance area, you also have to recognise the constraints of that environment. So it might not be, let's say, the right thing to go to an elite footballer who left school at 16 and to look at Jamie Roberts and go, right, we're going to we're going to get you to study medicine in your free time. It's what what I suppose what is the appropriate other endeavour that you can point them towards or they can point themselves towards that they're interested in, but also kind of fits the the round, let's say, the the round shape and the round whole in terms of fitting into the rest of their lifestyle and the demands of that environment.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, absolutely. No, no two athletes are the same. I'm very fortunate to work with lots of different athletes from lots of different levels and age groups and different sports, and there's a common theme amongst all of them. But everyone's different. People aren't some people aren't going to go and go to university, they're not academic, they're not that way inclined. Some are more vocational. They don't want to go necessarily all want to go and work in the city or work in London. They're they're quite they're looking for more vocational opportunities. But I suppose the point is is separating your sport, you know, you are not your job, and just finding something else. Now that could be might just even be music or reading or cooking or gardening. It's about finding that escapism in any way that suits you, and it has to, it can't be forced. Um, I suppose if if anything needs to be forced, you know, the athlete should be forced to find something that they are passionate about outside of their sport, and that's it. Uh, encourage them to develop something outside of their sport. Now that could be anything, um, and but you know, as I say, research would show that the you don't wake you don't become a high achiever by not being dedicated and committed. So if they've got a passion outside of sport, then they're going to be dedicated and committed to that as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

So yeah, yeah, you you are not your job. I think that's a really good sandbite to take from from some of those reflections. And I'd love to dig a little bit deeper in a second into what you feel are some of the key transferable skills that elite athletes are taking into other environments. But before we do that, I'd I'd love to just bring the focus back on your own journey for a second. So you mentioned the book from boot room to boardroom. When reflecting on your life in elite sport and then taking some of those skills and experiences now into the boardroom, what what do you feel has transferred well? And what are the bits that you felt that might have transferred well, but in in hindsight haven't really done so?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Again, my personal speaking personally, I'm I'm very I'm like a sponge. I I like to learn, and because I suppose you your product of the environment, and so much as when you're in an elite environment, you always strive to be better. And and my clubs that I played for, Leicester, Tigers, for however many years, 13 years or so, then Gloucester for a couple of years, they were very similar in so much. They're all driven. How can I how can I make you better at your job? Because if I make you better at your job, then that means the team's gonna be better and I'm gonna be better at my job, as opposed to just being so focused on yourself. That was that was a huge thing that I took from one living with with John O, Martin Johnson, then I was sort of mentored, if you like, by Neil Back, again, another World Cup winner. So I've been very fortunate to be surrounded by these elite individuals.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yeah, there's some uh some high, high level, high-level performers there.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah, phenomenal. And and they're they're the older guys, they're the guys who are older than me. So my peer group would be the likes of Lewis Moody and Jordan Murphy. Again, they've got 70, 80 caps, played for their countries, played for the Lions. Lewis has won a World Cup, he's Captain England, played in two World Cup fights. People who the environment that I'm that I'm in all the time, it's always high-achieving elite people who who have driven to not only succeed but help other people succeed as well. So that they're the things I sort of take, I've taken and I try and highlight to other athletes who are in the same, looking to be in the same environment that they can take when they transition out of out of their sporting career. That's sort of stop saying retirement, really, for when I speak to athletes, because that seems quite formal, then it stops. And whilst the career stops, the person doesn't, the mind, you're still the same, you've still got the same mindset, and you're just transitioning. And I suppose it's more the focus of you're transitioning to something rather than transitioning from something. That's that's the suppose it's a mindset, mindset shift.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

So this word retirement, you you that's a dirty word to you now, is it?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

It is, it is. We we I don't I don't use retirement. I don't you I try not to use well, I don't I don't use life after sport, although my book's called Life After Sport from Boot Room to Boardroom. Uh we're we're we're definitely focused on life outside of sport, not after, because if you leave it till after, it's too late. So, what can you be doing now outside of your sport to make you better at your sport? These are the swat the very subtle word changes, um, but we found them to be really impactful when you when you when delivered.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

I suppose in your your world here, you're looking at all the little things that are gonna either reinforce your your mission to get athletic performers or any performer excited about distributing their identity. And if that means using the word transition instead of retirement or using the word to instead of from, those are sometimes the little things that can make the difference.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

It's about it's about getting buy-in. You know, if you if you wind, so I've been retired now 12 years. We write just rewind 12 years, we wouldn't be having this conversation really on a podcast, I don't think, because there wasn't much talk about it. It wasn't we didn't have as many high-profile athletes come out and talk about the challenges that they've had. Now it's become more a conversation, more a topic that people are happy and comfortable to talk about. Uh, and I think that's only going to develop. I think we'll if we fast forward another 12 years, we'll look back on the on this podcast and we'll be amazed that not everybody was talking about it at the time. How did we, how did teams manage to cope without being so open and without having other things outside their sport? I'm confident that that will be the case uh as we move forward. But I think it's just small steps. The world has moved so much in the last two or three years, so it can only get but it's going in the right direction. So I think there's gonna be a momentum shift.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

And I suppose that that getting buy-in, I think it's quite interesting. And I'm assuming that buy-in is not just with athletes but also with clubs or organizations that are buying into the work that switch the play or the type of companies like switch the play do. And just with my marketing hat on for a second, I can imagine you know, if you go to a sport organization or a club and say we want to help athletes and and performers distribute their identity, learn other skills, and it comes from a let's say more of a kind of philanthropic element, then you know they might be able to take it or leave it. But if you're coming to them with a you know case study around the the all blacks and you know the German World Cup team, you're saying not only is this going to help your athletes when they transition outer sport, it is going to make them better in the here and now and improve your club.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

You're right, yeah. That's the real game changer. Professor David Lavelli, who's at Abate University, did a lot of papers on on this particular topic. I think he's the first ever professor of duty of care or athlete welfare, I think. And he was involved in the the government review that Tany Gray Thompson led on the duty of care review. Uh and until that that came out, until that that those papers were made available, trying to go into any organization where let's use football as an example and use the Premier League, and we're now very fortunate to work with the Premier League and go and work with uh the academy players there and deliver them sessions. But if we were to go in there and talk about, you know, we were a life after sport and we're talking about not achieving your goal or your career could be over, no coach is going to want you to have access to their players because they're judged on Saturday to Saturday. And if they lose, especially at that level, if you lose five, six consecutive games, you may not get a chance to lose the seventh one because you might be out the door. So it's about trying to find um the tangible win-wins, and and that that paper and that that research that's now available that shows that you can actually gain performance advantages from having more perspective and having interest outside sport and highlighting the like the athletes we met, the individual athletes we mentioned before, but equally the teams who have been world champions and the best in in their field. It's very difficult then for a coach or manager, director of football, rugby, or or anybody then to say, do you know what it's not it's not worth it because everyone's looking for and go back to you mentioned marginal gains. Now, if this is seen as a marginal gain, then so be it. If this if this is helping get an extra 1%, 2%, 5% out of an athlete by encouraging them to do things in their downtime, then as a coach, I'm not a coach, but if I was, I'd be trying to maximize those things to make sure that on the Saturday where I'm judged as a coach, things go according to plan.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

I mean that that completely makes sense, not just from the athlete's perspective, but from the club's perspective, and and from a as I said, from a kind of a commercial perspective, it's it seems like a no-brainer to buy into that David uh Laverley paper. I will in all of these podcasts I'm I'm trying to leave as many resources and and links in the description of the podcast for people to go and have a look at these things. So I'll see if I can find it.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Yeah, I can send you those. I can I've I've written two two dissertations now on uh athlete transition. So I have lots of those papers, so I can definitely forward those to you so you can share them.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

We'll take them, we'll take them. Good. So just to kind of get into the final stretch of of the conversation, I would love to lean into your working food switch the player, you're working with athletes, performers all the time on that transition to the next thing. What are the the clutch? Maybe the maybe this is is is hard to answer, and if so, t tell me if it isn't this simple, but what of the what are the kind of clutch of of skills that you find crop up the most with elite athletes, elite performers, and working on how they can use those skills in their next next chapter of their career?

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Yeah, I think there's I think athletes get pigeon-holded. We work with uh uh members of the military as well, and there's a real synergy with the mindset of people who work in elite the elite forces and elite sport and elite in business. They have the same traits, if you like, and they've been developed over time. So leadership is one, and that's not necessarily people just people will assume that because you're an elite athlete that you're a good leader. Not necessarily leadership can mean lots of things, it means you're knowing when to lead and also when to follow. And I think athletes are very good at understanding that, especially the the team athletes. But you know, we work with individual athletes as well, like golfers and uh tennis players. Working under pressure uh is very you know, playing in front of thousands, millions of people and making the right decision at the right time, keeping a calm head when the pressure's on. That's that's taken for granted for athlet by athletes. They don't necessarily realize that when the proverbial hits the fan and other people around them might be running around panicking, shouting fire, fire, fire. Uh, I could promise you that the person who sat calmly, who has read the instructions when a fire's happening and has got that high level of attention to detail, which is another one, will be the person who's trying to calm the situation down uh and trying to get things done more efficiently because you know, as an athlete, you get you get things happen so quickly, and you're only sometimes gonna get one chance in a race or in a match, or to take advantage of that. So making making the correct decisions under pressure. But I suppose linked to that is also as well is making decisions, so decision-making, and there's good decision, bad decision, and no decision. Athletes certainly are the elite and make decisions and they make them good decisions, even if they start off as being a bad one. Uh and that that's tied into resilience because you get knockbacks all the time, be that through injury, non-selection, um, losing in in big major cup finals, as I've experienced, which is horrendous. But equally I wouldn't change that now because that drives that drives the feeling for when you do win. One of my big, I suppose my life motto is sweet and sour. Uh and what that means is to fully appreciate the sweet, you must have experienced the sour. And and I I use my own example of I'm very fortunate to have played in 11, won 11 trophies for Leicester, but I've also lost in five finals. Now those five finals are bitterly painful, and I remember them like they were yesterday. I don't necessarily remember the all of the 11 levels that we won, but I do remember the five that we lost, and it's that that pain that drives me and my teammates on to go and win those, and those what the the feeling of winning after you've lost in something is makes it far better. And I give the example that would I love to be sat here now talking to you, saying I'd win in six, I've got sixteen trophies. I think I would. I'd be lying if I if I said I wouldn't. However, I don't think the ones, the eleven that we won would taste as good if I hadn't tasted that the pain of defeat. So I think that's just in my in my example, and it look across all athletes. Everyone gets injured, everyone gets dropped uh or or left out or overlooked at a key moment in time. And how do you bounce back? I I don't know many other environments where you're left out for a cup final, and the first thing you do is you go up to the person who's got your shirt for that cup final and say, Look, anything I can do to help you get ready for the game, let me know. That that's just phenomenal, you know. That that mindset of okay, I'm not in bitterly disappointed, uh devastated even, but still, you know, the I am not the game, the game is bigger than me, the team's bigger than me, how can I make the team win? Those those sort of that's those sort of approaches to to challenges and to teamwork, and you know, I've mentioned a number of transferable skills there. A lot of those things are taken for granted by athletes. They don't realise that's not normal in outside outside of the sporting environment. So it's about understanding them, how can they emphasize and how can they harness those things that are that have been drilled into them for so many years, how can they take them to the next level in an in a different environment. So it's transferable and translatable as well into different environments.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

It's it's almost lovely to hear in some respects that there are these people that have these character traits or these these skills inside them that they don't even realize how valuable they are, which I think is is a super optimistic outlook. There are another couple of things in there that I really love. The life motto, sweet and sour. Absolutely love it. I think there was a Tom Cruise movie where one of the lines was the sweet ain't so sweet without the bitter. I'll have to look that up afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I think is a guilty, uh, a guilty pleasure of mine, Tom Cruise. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to look that up.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

I think it might have been vanilla sky. I'm gonna I'm gonna Google check that, fact check that afterwards, and might have to do an edit if you get it wrong. But um, the other thing is the the lead the leadership aspect that you mentioned, and and that there were many different facets of of leadership, which I think is super interesting. There's a couple of athletes I've worked with in in team sports that refer to themselves as leaders, but are also naturally and will accept that they are naturally quite introverted and won't necessarily make the kind of rousing Paul Connell-esque speech. But they they kind of see themselves as leaders as standard bearers in the way that they hold themselves, the way that they behave, the way that they train and take nutrition rest seriously, the way that they put an arm around others in in those lower moments, or hold their head up high and shake an opponent's hand after a tough loss. So the leadership can can come through behaviours and standards as much as it is the kind of the rousing, you know, any given Sunday speech.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Absolutely, yeah. And if you look at any successful team, a team full of people who need to get their you know their voice heard is not going to work. So it takes it needs a balance of different types of leadership traits. And again, again, mentioning the knowing when to speak, when not to speak, when to lead, when to follow, when someone's got a better idea than yourself, how do you get behind them and support them and empower them? That is leadership. You know, there are lots of different types of leadership, and that's what I that's what I did my degree in in uh to start off with, because I've I've worked under and played for some great managers, some great coaches, some amazing captains. We've also had the odd, terrible ones as well. Uh, and understanding the differences, and I've been able to take the little bits and borrow the little bits of leadership stuff which I've which has really resonated with myself, uh, and then put that into practice outside of sport has been fascinating. You know, there's there's those stick and carrot ways of of leadership and understanding the different situational types has been really an eye-opener for me, really, coming from that elite world.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

And and leadership, big element of of this wider, I suppose, topic of the podcast, which is the psychologically informed environment. Just just to finish, what does a psychologically informed environment mean to you, Leon?

SPEAKER_00 39:58

That's a good question and a tough question as well, because I don't really I I would say my interpretation is, and it is it's this is a pure coincidence, maybe, is something that's linked to our switch to play core values, and that is one of our core values is being person-centred. So it's around around the individual and about how to help them thrive in their environment. But that that's that would be my interpretation.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

I don't know if that's a correct one or not, but I think that's probably the most succinct one we've had so far. Oh really? All right, person centred and and within that that person being able to thrive within that environment, I suppose, from the from the as a result of of how you set up the the challenge and support in that environment.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah, that yeah, as I say, that that's great that that to that resonates because for us, how we when we set up Switch to play, we focused on our own internal, our core values and team code, uh, to to make sure we get the right people involved first. That's more important than any CV that comes through the door. It's about the person, do they fit in the environment? Can they add value? Will they enjoy it? All those things. And again, I take that from my sporting environment because that was awesome. It never felt like work. So I don't want people to come and work at Switch of Play if it feels like work. I want them to enjoy it, thrive, raise us, raise the standards, hold us, hold me to account, equally hold themselves to account. I think that's all for me, that's what it that's what it means to me anyway.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

There you go. So from an environment perspective, you want an environment that is is person-centred and allows them to thrive, and then your personal motto, sweet and sour, this viewpoint that to lead a I've just been reading quite a lot on acceptance, commitment therapy, and I think that there's something that you said there that really chimes with that, which is we're we're not all trying to chase happiness because live living life at 10 out of 10 happiness all the time is is almost unrealistic. But what we're looking for is a rich and full and meaningful life, and that might mean that you have to experience a whole kind of kaleidoscope of emotions, but when you experience those emotions, you experience them fully. So if you lose a final, you almost have to lean into that that loss, that grief process. But then when you win a final, you get that full power and energy of that emotion, and and as as you mentioned before.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, absolutely. That that that's I suppose that's where I suppose that's where my personal motto comes from is that trying to turn again, it's resilience, isn't it? It's about bouncing back, not holding on, not harbouring those things. I think that's that's hugely important because if you're not trying, if you're not trying, if you're not failing, then really you have to ask yourself how hard are you actually trying? You sat within your comfort zone. You know, I I've I've played I've played with many an athlete who I've looked at and thought they are amazing, they are better than me. They haven't gone on to achieve what they should achieve because they weren't prepared to push themselves to an area which you probably need to to get to that level, which is absolutely fine. Um, but then you can't look yourself in the mirror and say come up with excuses and reasons why you haven't done it. So I think you have to fail, you have to push yourself outside your comfort zone. Yeah, but then accepting that is it really a failure, is it you know, because if you're learning from it, is it a failure? And I'm getting a bit deep on you now.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

That's fine, absolutely fine. Now, in in the spirit of pushing yourself, you've been up at 6 a.m., you've done your bike rides, I'm sure you've fed the dog, you've the kids' breakfast has been made, you've done a podcast, and you've got a webinar to do in in half an hour. So thank you again for making this one of the chunks of time in your day that you've decided to invest in. It really is hugely appreciated. For people that want to follow yourself, switch the play, find out more about what you guys are doing, where can people follow you?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Okay, so on social media, my my handle is Leon Lloyd13. So I haven't really moved away from what I uh said about not being your job. I've still got my my shirt number in my Twitter handle.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

It's not the letter though.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Yeah, yeah, true, yeah. Uh yeah, so Leon Lloyd13 uh or or switch or the handle for switch to play is switch underscore the underscore play. But my Nikki final does on my Twitter handle there. Also on LinkedIn as well. Reach out any any of those um platforms, it'd be good to chat.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Brilliant. Well, again, thanks so much, Leon. Best of luck with the webinar, finishing off the MBA and everything with you guys that you guys are doing with with switch to play.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Cheers, thanks, Pete.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Once again, if you are still listening, thank you so much for sharing another slice of pie. I hope you enjoyed Leon's insights. I decided not to do a half-time reflection this week, so what if we learnt at full time? For me, there were a couple of things. It's hopefully becoming clearer and clearer to sports clubs, organisations, and governing bodies that duty of care of athletes is hugely important. And the work that Switch the Play does is enormously valuable in helping athletes build new skills and think about other areas of their life that they'd like to develop. This is the type of work that could make the difference between an athlete finishing their sport career and struggling or suffering, or having something in place to get excited about and lean into the next stage of their lives. However, the reality is this. Currently, the way a lot of professional and elite sport is designed from the top is high pressure, is focused largely on performance, and could be quite short-term in its view. Therefore, switch the play, compiling case studies and working with researchers to prove the potential immediate benefits to performance, as Leon mentioned, is a game changer. It helps get the buy-in from an organizational perspective, which gives them access to do the great work that they do. Finally, on a personal level, I really buy into a lot of what Leon was saying there, the all-black notion of better people make better performance and you are not your job. Developing more skills in your armory and more sides to this concept of me, helping me balance my identity across a number of different sources and ensure that it's not just tied up in my job. I read a post from someone quite high up in LinkedIn last year that said, as parents or teachers, we often ask kids what do they want to be when they grow up? And the expected answer is normally a job. A fireman, an astronaut, or if you ask any primary school teacher nowadays, it's a YouTuber or a professional gamer. Even these little environmental cues may nudge us from a young age to tie up our identity and self-worth with our jobs. But as Leon argues, and for me very persuasively, we are much more than that. So, thanks again for listening. Have a great week and catch you for the next episode next Monday.