S1E23 · Jeremy Dooley

Hey legends, welcome to week 22 of the Virtus Performance podcast. Before we get stuck into today's episode, I'd love for you guys to rate and review the podcast if you're really enjoying it. I'd like for you to share and subscribe so you can keep getting hopefully these valuable and enjoyable lessons from all of our different guests. Today on the podcast I had the great man Jeremy Dooley. So, Dools is someone who I met when I was playing VFL footy at the Pies. He was our rehab coordinator for only a year, I thought it was a

little bit longer as we discussed in the podcast, but I only spent a little bit of time with Dools but his impact was lasting and he's someone who I really look up to and someone who is doing great things currently at the Reach Foundation, which was a role that he left the Pies for. So, obviously it was a big move moving up to Sydney and he talked about the reasons why and I guess what he's currently doing now. Enjoy! My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people have a story to tell.

The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests. Dools, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for coming down from Sydney purely to sit down and talk. No, I couldn't say no to this. That makes me very happy. First question for you, just to get them all rolling. What gets you out of bed in the morning? Great question. I think for me, it's the one consistent that I've had in all my professional career and all the different hats that I've worn is the chance to make an impact on people.

And I've been really lucky that I've been able to do that and help people do that, make an impact. Awesome. How are you currently making an impact at the moment? What do you spend your time doing? So, at the moment, I work for a charity. I work for the Reach Foundation. Awesome. And I've been involved with them in various capacities for most of my life now. And I train our facilitators. I train the people that go out and run the workshops. So, in that, they go into schools, they go into businesses and they get people emotionally connected.

It's basically emotional intelligence that I teach people. That's cool. It's under different guises. So, sometimes it's framed up as a leadership workshop. Sometimes it's framed up as peer dynamics. And while all those things are touched on, essentially, you keep peeling it all the way back at its core. It's self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Where do you think the general population go wrong with emotional intelligence or don't dive into learning about it? Because it's probably not something that me personally have really thought about until the last 12, 18 months. I think it's easy for people to get distracted now.

People have lost or forgotten the ability to have human interactions. It's really easy to be hyper-connected. Smartphones are fantastic but it also means that you take work with you and you're always checking the phone. You're always going to Facebook. I do it all the time. I have to really catch myself. So, I think that stopped people from having those conversations where people do connect on a human level. I think it's something that we're all kind of at the stage now, like 2017, we've got that data coming in daily or minutely. There's all that detail and it's figuring out what are the ways we can become a little bit more mindful.

One of the girls I've just put on, she started during the week. She showed me a plug-in for Chrome, which is called Newsfeed Eradicator. So if you're on your laptop and you're on Facebook, it gets rid of that newsfeed and it just has a quote. So you get your notifications and you can go in all your groups and everything but there's no newsfeed. You don't get lost in all the crap. And I think it's finding little things like that. Absolutely. All those little life hacks are super important. I think taking the time to have conversations with people is super important.

One of the things that I really love to do if I'm at dinner, especially with my girlfriend, is turn the phone face down just to be present. I think people aren't present anymore. Yeah. And what else do you do to be more present and be more mindful? Because I guess turning the phone face down is one thing, turning it off is another and leaving it home is kind of a bit of an extreme but no one does it. Yeah, absolutely. And it's hard with work. A big part of my job is communicating with guys who are late teens, early 20s and the easiest way to communicate with them if they're not in the office is via Facebook.

They're more likely to check a message on Facebook than they are to pick up the phone and answer a call or to check their emails. So Facebook is a big part of my job before the actual work starts. I practice mindfulness, I meditate daily and I make sure I take time where I have to be completely in the moment. So for me, sometimes it's lifting weights. You can't be thinking of something else and trying to crack out 150 on a deadlift or whatever. If you're not present, you're not going to make that lift regardless of how heavy it is.

Stuff like that, like I do martial arts. That's been a big part of my life and you have to be present. If you're not present, there's a very, very direct outcome and that's you're going to get hit in the face or you're going to get submitted depending on what style I'm training in. And also I study acting. It's exactly the same as martial arts. If you're not present, everyone else in the room knows. You might forget your lines. As soon as you drift off, it's so obvious and we can probably get away with it in most other aspects of our life because there's so many other things going on that it's really easy to get distracted.

And for the people that you're talking to to get distracted, I'm one that's like, "I suck at it. Someone will be talking to me." And we're sitting in front of a computer or in front of a laptop or in front of a phone and a message will come up and you kind of feel that connection to that person kind of drifts away and you're thinking of the phone and you're like, "Oh what did you say?" And that's something I've been trying to improve at because I know there's a few people close to me that hate when I do it and we all do it so I think it's finding the things that allow you to switch off.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the more present you are in life, the more time then you have to be focused and to self-reflect and the more you're going to be able to understand yourself. It's only going to make the quality of your life better because you'll know why you do certain things. Little sidebar for a second. Do you think social media and that ability to be connected is overall a positive or negative thing? I think overall it's a positive thing because it does allow you to keep in touch with people that you may have been traveling on the other side of the world but you may not see again otherwise.

And I think it's also you can find sources of inspiration from social media. I'm lucky I have a really tight circle and we're always sending each other different links for books or YouTube clips or podcasts and things that I would never have found off my own bat. In that regard, social media is awesome and I love a stupid meme. Exactly. It's always good for a laugh. It can get a little bit distracting. There's a lot of white noise on it but I think on the whole, if you know when to have that balance and when to switch it on and when to switch it off, I think it's a positive.

That's really cool. Growing up, and we'll change the title a little bit, but growing up did you always know that you wanted to make an impact? When I think back now and when I think to high school and what my goals were, I didn't really have a huge amount of goals. I wasn't really like I was just sort of following my nose a little bit and just whatever happened, happened. Yeah, I was really lucky. I was in year 10 and I guess what started to lift the veil up for me and open my eyes, my mates were asked to go to the school leadership day.

I went to school in a pretty shitty area. What did you go up? Broadmeadows. Broadmeadows, okay. Yeah, so I'm from Glenroy, went to school in Broadmeadows, which isn't, yeah, not the best of areas. For me it was normal, but it wasn't the greatest of areas. My mates were asked to go to the school leadership day in year 10 and I had the option of going, but I didn't want to go because it was the school leadership day. Surely it wasn't going to be fun. For me at the time, there is going to be nothing in this for me.

My mates went and they loved it. I just hated that feeling on the way home from school that day. On the train home, they were all talking about this day and I wasn't there and I felt really left out and really excluded. I hated that feeling because I had a genuinely good time. They weren't even being smartasses trying to rub it in my face. They genuinely had a good time and the next day the coordinator came around and said, "We have another leadership day." It literally, I think I nearly dislocated my shoulder. I threw my arm up so fast.

It was not the school leadership day, it was from the REACH Foundation they were putting on the day. I didn't know anything about it. My coordinator didn't know anything about it. To be fair, I wasn't super enthusiastic to go once my coordinator explained what it was like. It sounded so lame. You still did it? Yes, I went. There were a couple of factors that made me go. I was on review at school. If I had another cross next to my nail, I would have been asked to leave. I was put to me by one of the girls who was going, "If I didn't go," that she was going to tell the coordinator if I wagged the day.

There was that and I also knew there were going to be 400 people my age there. I was going to meet girls. Get out of school, meet girls, not get kicked out of school. I figured I'll go and I'll get a couple of phone numbers or something. I rocked up there. I was in this massive, massive hall in Camberwell, which might as well have been another planet from Broadmeadows. Different part of the world. Very different. Camberwell is a very upper class area in comparison. We went there and the room was just filled with rows and rows and rows of chairs.

I was being a smart ass and just not into it. Jim Stines, who was one of the REACH co-founders, was up on stage. I was being a real smart ass and trying to derail what he was doing. At the end of the day, he pulled me aside and was like, "What's your name?" I remember that feeling. You know that feeling where it's like everything in your stomach just drops and you're being caught out here. He's like, "What's your name? What school do you go to?" First, I gave him a fake name. Then, one of the guys from my school was like, "No, no.

That's not his name." I gave him my real name. A week later, sitting in class, nothing happened for the first few days. I forgot about it. Then, the announcement goes over the PA speaker at school, "Jeremy Dooley, can you please come to the principal's office?" I was like, "No." He never got called to the principal's office. You'd go to the head of campus, never to the principal unless you'd really messed up. I remember sitting there and I was probably waiting in the foyer for two minutes. It felt like two hours freaking out still on review. I was trying to figure out what I'd done and how I was going to get out of it.

So, it didn't click straight away? No. I get in there and he's sitting at his desk and I sat down. He didn't say anything. He was just reading a letter and I could tell it had the reach logo on it. I was like, "Oh, no. This is not going to be good for me." He's like, "So, I've gotten a letter from the REACH Foundation and they said that you're an outstanding leader and possess huge leadership qualities and they want you to be part of their leadership program." I was like, "I was speechless." What were you expecting?

Not what I was expecting at all. That's cool. I was so tense. I didn't actually know how to react to him in the moment. I think from that point on, I didn't really know why I was going there. I didn't really know the effect that it was having but I know that the stuff that they were doing really struck a chord with me and I couldn't really articulate why at the time. But in hindsight, it was because that was the first time in my life someone believed in me. So, that just opened up a whole world of possibilities.

It meant that I was able to leave Glenroy and the Broad Meadows area and help other people. I don't even like to use the word help because that's not what I do and I don't make other people believe in themselves. Is empowerment more of what you think? I think what I do is I open the door for people and some people look in and some people step in. Yeah, that's cool. I really, really like that. You open the door. Do you think Jimmy Stein's got your name and just thought, "You know what? We're going to challenge this kid to make a difference?"

Or do you think it's something else that happened that day? I think him and Paul Curry, the other founder, both liked that I was honest. I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I was just being myself. I didn't really give a shit if people weren't into it and that included them. I didn't really give a shit. But they really liked that and they saw something in me. I wasn't shy to put my voice out there and to either be the one in the spotlight, but I also have a really strong sense of justice. There was a

point on the day where someone was getting picked on by some people from another school and I gave them a bit of a serve and they shut up pretty quickly. Everyone's scared when you're from Broadmeadows. You didn't have the same beard. No, no. I had so much hair gel in back then. It was putrid. There was a lot of stuff going on above the head. That's great. So from that point and I guess being on review to being seen as a leader for the Reach Foundation, how did the rest of school through year 11 and 12 progress?

I was still a smartass. I think I didn't have a problem with authority as such, but I had a problem with disrespect and if people, whether that's teachers or students, were assholes for the sake of being assholes, I just didn't rate them. So if teachers gave me the time of day and treated me like a person, I would sit in their class, I would pay attention, I would do my work, I would do things on time. As soon as they didn't, I would go absolutely the other way and try and derail. I guess the big

thing that happened was probably halfway through year 11, I remember first semester I was doing info tech at school and I hated it and I made the switch to do drama second half and I remember one of the other guys in my class did the same thing because you had to get your teacher whose class you were leaving to sign the note to say that it was okay. So this guy was in the teacher's room to get the clearance to leave info tech and he gave him this huge lecture about dramas for no hope. There's computers of the future and it's the way the world's going to go.

What are you going to do in drama? You're just going to bludge and be nothing. He gave him this huge lecture and he walked out and he was clearly shell shocked from the spray that he just copped. He was like, "Oh, brace yourself, Jez. The teacher's going to give it to you." I went in there and the teacher grabbed a bit of paper, signed it, gave it back to me, and I'm standing there. I was hoping, "Yeah, yeah, nothing's cool. Get out." And so there was a little bit of like, "Oh, cool." But then I

went into drama and the teacher there, I think a lot of people have those one or two teachers that really backs them and I was lucky. I had two and she was one of them and she really backed me. Funny how often, and having done like 20 of these, 20-ish of these so far, drama teachers come up at like three or four of them as being that teacher. Like everyone's got one or two of those teachers. They're believed in them. Drama, it must be it. But it's for no hopers though, right? Exactly. And so she

genuinely backed me and it got to the point where at the start of year 12, I did drama again for VCE and she came up to me and one of my really good mates and she's like, "There's a competition in the Comedy Festival for high school-aged students. You guys should enter it." And we're like, "Yeah, yeah, all right." We never really thought too much about things. Just like, "Oh yeah, cool. Yeah, we can do that." And so we went and we did it and we ended up winning it. And that was a real game changer. I remember rocking up to school the next day and every class I went into, people started clapping.

That was just a moment where everything changed again and really, I guess, made me realize and reinforce the importance of having someone back you and believe you because it makes you feel good and it makes you feel confident. Yeah, yeah. Well, the reason why most people succeed and achieve things is because they're confident in their ability to do so. And if you don't, if you were never, I guess, backed in, you never would have done that comp, which never would have allowed you to move forward and to challenge yourself. So that's really cool. Yeah. That's really cool.

What did you do after school when you finished year 12? After school. So I finished school. I was 17 when I left school. I was one of the young guys in my year level and we ended up going on tour. That's cool. So the January, February after year 12, I didn't do well in VCE or anything like that. I had a really shit end to score, but it wasn't important for me at the time. So yeah, we went on tour. We went to WA and we did a season at the Fringe Festival and then after that, we did a season at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

What was that like? It was the best. It was the best experience. We were playing at the Athenaeum Theatre on Collins Street and it was just fun. You learn so much about yourself. There were nights where we might have 10 people in the room, but then there were nights where I remember our last night, which is the last gig we ever did, but it was standing room only. It was a fight hazard, but it was also one of those nights where when you're a comedian, you had these nights every so often where you could just look at the audience and that'd be in tears and it was one of those nights.

It was a really good way to finish and the people at the comedy festival loved us because we'd won the Class Clowns competition. We had no business doing a show at the festival at 17 and 18. That's awesome. They allowed you that platform. Yeah, they allowed it and they really helped us find a good venue and stuff like that. It was great. Made a lot of really good contacts and people who I'll still bump into today who still get the whole, "When are you going to do another show?" We might one day, but yeah. How old are you now?

32. 32, so 15 years ago. Yeah. So you've waited 15 years between the last show and maybe next one. Yeah, yeah. Look, we've had concepts and we've got ideas. I think it's just both of us getting to the place where it's right for both of us at the same time. Yeah, that's really cool. What was the main thing that experience taught you, both at the Fringe and at the comedy festival? If you were to nail down one or two key concepts, what did you learn from it? I think just have a crack. We didn't think too hard about it.

What was the best part? Yeah, it would have been really easy to be like, "I'm 17. Mars was 18. Surely we can't do this." But that never even entered our mind. We just went and did it. And we did gigs in some shit holes. We did a gig in a bikie pub where in some random place just outside of Perth and it was a dead crowd. And the guy who was emceeing hated us because we were kids from Victoria and he was real parochial WA. But we just went and we were headlining. Don't know how, but we were.

And we're just like, "Stuff it. Let's just go on and give it a crack." And that's just how we did it. And it's like, "Okay, cool. That's something we want to do. Let's just chase it." That's awesome. Yeah, that's been something that I've always just... So that's always been something you've followed, just have a crack. Yeah. It's like, "I want to do that. Cool. I'm going to try and do it." Yeah. And I think that's important because so many people kind of want to do those things and want to make that leap to experience something or try something, but they never do for fear or lack of confidence or whatever it may be.

Would you come back to say that that driver teacher backing you in would be the main thing that kind of got you started on that? Absolutely. That was the snowflake that started that avalanche. And she just had supreme belief in me and Mars, who I was doing the comedy with. And she was a great mentor for us. That's cool. What did you do after that? Did you roll into study or...? No, after that, I worked for the Starlight Foundation and I was Captain Starlight. Captain Starlight. Yeah. And it was great fun. I worked at the Children's Hospital and my whole job was to just make kids and their families just laugh and make their experience okay.

A little bit less sucky. Yeah. And it was great. It was intense. I don't think I've ever been to as many funerals in my life as I did in that couple of years that I was working there, but it was such a great experience and I felt really privileged that I got the chance to be Captain Starlight and to wear a silver cape to work and to have a good laugh. And then it's really funny that in a sort of funny how the world works type scenario, the guy that I did comedy with is now Captain Starlight all these years later.

It's really funny how that's worked out. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So I did that and I was still doing some stuff with REACH and that was basically my whole life was sort of I'd either go to a high school and be running a REACH workshop or I'd be at the hospital and performing magic tricks and just generally being really silly. Nice. Yeah, that's crazy. That's cool. How did you, I guess, get into the training and strength conditioning sphere? Because that's how I met you. I met you at Plies in your rehab coordinator. So how did you go from, I guess, that part of the world to a very different part of the world?

So martial arts has always been a huge part of my life. I started training in karate in 1995 when I was in grade five and just loved it and took to it really quickly and did pretty well at it. And it got to the point where sort of about 2007 and 2008, I just sort of was thinking about how to that point, I'd spent all my professional career working with other people to chase their dreams and to really hustle and go for things. And I thought it was about time where I did the same thing because role modeling is important and I felt like I hadn't done that for a little while yet.

So I quit my jobs. I was working for the Foundation for Young Australians at the time and quit my job and bought a one-way ticket and moved overseas. Some whereabouts? So first, I actually went to Thailand and trained at a kickboxing camp for three months. Yeah, cool. Which was incredible. And you learn so much with such a narrow focus. You're training two sessions a day, six days a week and that's all you think about. Literally, that's all you think about. You get to the point where you're in bed, half asleep throwing kicks, subtly making real jerky, evasive movements.

You've just got one thing you're focusing on. And it was fantastic. And then from there, I went over to the States and was living in a suburb of Los Angeles and was training twice a day and then competing and loved it. And then when I came back, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do for work. And a family friend owned a PT studio and was like, "Can you come in and do some kickboxing and some boxing classes?" And did that and really enjoyed it. And then a couple of people are like, "Oh, can you just do some general PT work?"

So I got my qualification as a PT just to serve three and four. And one of the guys I trained was the board man. So the guy in the coach's box moves the magnets around at Coburg in the VFL. And he said, "Oh, we need another person. Would you be interested in joining our fitness staff?" And called up the head of fitness there and started the next week and thought to myself, "Oh, I should probably get a bit more qualified in this." So then I went to uni and next minute I got a sports science degree.

That's cool. That's cool. Where did you go to uni? Just Vicki Uni. Yeah, sweet. What was it, I guess, you've kind of gone in a big circle around how normal sports science students and how definitely I went through it and most of our interns will go through it. They just kind of go, "Well, yeah, I love sport. Let's go straight into it." But you've had this whole raft of experiences before doing that. How do you think that helped you, I guess, dive into the sports science degree and then can carry on from that? I think

because I was a little bit older starting, I was in my mid-twenties when I started that degree and I was lucky the whole way through the degree I was working at the very least in the VFL. I was just able to connect with people. For me, I've never been super ... I know the science and I get it and can talk it but it was never the focus for me in my dealings with- It was always applying it. Yeah, it was about how do I connect with this person and it was not how do I make this athlete do X, Y, Z.

It was about how do I connect to the person and that's always been my focus. I remember when I was having my conversations with Colin Wood before accepting the role there it was I asked him, "What's your philosophy?" because I wanted to hear them say it was about the person, not about the athlete and that's always been the thing that's driven me in strength and conditioning. They also gave you the right answer because you- Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was cool. That's always been my philosophy in strength and conditioning in any role but I think especially in strength and conditioning and sports science it's really easy to get caught up in the science and the numbers.

And all sorts of reps and all that kind of stuff but at the end of the day what's theoretical doesn't really matter if people don't get buy in. Anyone can create a program. They're not always going to be good but anyone can write up a program but if the athlete isn't going to buy in and make that human connection with you and then run through walls for you, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, that's really cool. What were your go-to's in gaining someone's respect and trust and building a rapport is one of those words that's used too much but building rapport and getting to know someone, was it that genuine want to know them?

Yeah, I genuinely was interested and I didn't pretend. I think the big thing that's always helped me instead is I've never talked about footy. When I was working footy club, it didn't matter who you were, I'd never talk about footy straight away. Because that's the last thing as a player, that's the last thing I want to talk about. Exactly. So that was my thing. I wanted to connect as a person first and then all that stuff would come and follow that. When did you finish your sports last year? Would have been 2015. Awesome, so pretty recent.

Yeah, I did it part time. How long did it take you out? Four or five years. Do you think that was a benefit rather than just pumping it out? Yeah, absolutely. Because I was working in the field, I could genuinely apply it and also too it meant that I could go back to uni with a bit more of a critical lens on things. Like uni is great and I strongly recommend doing the further education, but a lot of the scenarios they sort of go through a perfect world. You don't have access to some of the

things that they talk about, even at AFL, even at some of the gyms I went to in LA where Exelos, LA Galaxy, huge financial backing behind them. They still don't have access to things. So it only gave me that good awareness of what's real and what's not. You see a lot of young guys who go straight from high school straight to uni and then try and get an internship without the experience and they struggle because they don't know how to connect with people and they only know what uni's taught them. And they know the science. Yeah, that's kind of something that we struggle with with our internship program.

Every three months we get a new bunch of interns and it's almost like they're progressively, as a collective, there's some amazing interns we get coming through, but as a collective they're progressively becoming less and less experienced because they finish school, they get shoved into a sports ice degree, they all work stacking shelves or doing something like that while they're at uni and go, "Oh no, I'll start coaching when I finish," and that ability for you. I kind of went through the same thing unintentionally because I did my CERT 3 and 4 first and I was

playing footy at some elite level, so I was able to see all that and apply it on myself and all my clients while I was PTing while I was at uni. So you get that ability to experience it, but then to just try things and realize that, yeah, no, we don't have a $20,000 force play, we don't have a WAP bike, all we've got is two legs and a couple of barbells and to make the best from that and to be resourceful and to figure out what we can use. I think that's really important. When

I was at Coburg, our first two seasons there, or my first two seasons there, for the whole pre-season we didn't have access to a gym or to our own ground because the cricket club used it, so everything we did was either body weight or we'd write programming and just hope that the players would do it in their own gyms. They probably didn't. No, exactly, yeah. There was a lot of bicep curls being done and bench and that's probably about it. Yeah, plan on. Yeah. Yeah, it's a set external function I guess. Exactly. And yeah, that

ability to be resourceful and one of the, I can't remember who it was, one of my mentors at uni were talking about something along these lines and I definitely didn't understand it as well back then, but he said the best resource you'll ever have is your resourcefulness, to be able to just make it work, regardless of what you're doing. From Coburg, is that when you went to Pius? No, from Coburg I was also at Melbourne Storm, I did an internship there, maybe 2010 or 11, maybe 12. I did my work experience at Melbourne Storm, but that was 2007, so I think that was a while before you.

Yeah, it would have been a good few years and so I was there while I was at Coburg, so I'd do Storm in the morning, Coburg at night, uni and work throughout the day and then when the alignment between Coburg and Richmond split, I was asked to go along to Richmond and so I jumped at that and was there for a couple of years. Richmond supporter? Always been a Richmond supporter and that was great being able to rock up to Punt Road and see Matty Richardson walk past me and the first number on my back was number three for Dale Waitman and he worked at the club and that was pretty cool and yeah, I loved it.

One of my family friends was at the club, was playing at the time, so that was cool and between quarters at a VFL game, I'd always see different relatives there because they wanted to support him and so it was good, I really loved it and made a lot of really good friendships there, it was great and then I just had an opportunity to go to Oakley Chargers and to head up the strength and conditioning there and to be the fitness boss and also I had a bit of a mandate to change the culture a little bit and make the players a bit more accountable.

So back to all the stuff that you, I guess, would have done with the Reach Foundation and Starlight Foundation, I wanted to meet people as a person rather than as a coach. And it was really interesting at Oakley because you have this weird dynamic there where you have a huge group of players, half of them are from elite private schools, half of them are from public schools and just the clashes that happened, like not only that but then because the private school boys all played sport against each other on weekends for their schools there was

always little tensions there and rivalries so being able to bring them together was huge and unfortunately I wasn't there for very long but that experience there was huge for me and I really loved being there and there was a saying at the club, "Once a Charger, always a Charger" and I was there for five minutes and I still backed the guys there like hugely and then Collingwood came calling and went over there and the rest is history. That's really cool. I asked you this question before and I really liked your answer, with being a Richmond

supporter and then spending a couple of years at Richmond, how did it change your perception of one, the club but two, being a supporter because my time at Piers has completely changed the way I look at footy and the way I look at the club and the way I look at being a diehard supporter. Yeah, yeah. One of the big things is going to a game, especially whilst working there, going to a game where I wasn't working, watching the AFL guys play, you wouldn't hear anything out of me. I'd just sit there, arms folded, wouldn't

say a word, wouldn't cheer, I'd just be sitting there watching and I'd be watching with a really different lens on because I knew the game plan intimately. I knew who was where in the game plan and why they needed to be in certain places so it made it hard to be a supporter. Also then could see why they hadn't been successful for quite a while. Culturally it wasn't super strong. The players loved the coach there, like genuinely loved Hardwick and he's a ripper. The game plan probably wasn't suited to the players and compare that to Collingwood where it's probably not the same amount of love for the coach and the game plan's not very good.

So, yeah, I think it definitely changed how I supported the club. And then even when I went to Collingwood, I still didn't really pay a huge amount of attention to Richmond then because my focus was on Collingwood. So I'd be at the VFL games and I'd be at whatever AFL games I was required to be at. And then you'd see the scores later on, you'd be like, "Oh, cool," and you'd move on. Yeah, exactly. I probably paid more attention to Oakley Charge's results than Richmond. That's really interesting. That's something that when people ask you, do you still follow it as much?

I say no, but it's hard to articulate and I think you're spot on. When you understand, I guess, almost intimately how the inner sanctum works, you start to realise that it's just another group of people trying to do things and you take them off that pedestal. Absolutely. You realise the players are human beings and that while they might be a super skilled and talented player, you still realise that they just do exactly the same. It's like going to a magic show and you learn all the tricks and you don't watch it the same way. Yeah, that's a really cool analogy.

That's really interesting. So what was your big take out from Collingwood? How long were you there for? Three? Two? Actually, it wasn't as long as you'd think it was. It was probably only one year I was there. But it's actually for me, because a lot of people are like, "Oh, you were there for a couple of years." That for me actually makes me feel really good because it feels like a couple of years. It feels like I made a big impact there. You definitely did, from a player's point of view. I think for me, my big learning and takeaway was just the power of connection there.

Especially that first season, with taps and just how connected the group was to each other. And there was genuine care for the person. And that was not just players, that was players and footy department and volunteers. Everyone was really close and genuinely gave a shit about each other. And I think you can tell when clubs do that and when clubs don't do that. Clubs that do that generally are going to be more successful and the clubs that don't. If they're super talented, they might get to a certain point, but they're never going to get over that hurdle.

And that's something that I noticed from my first year. There was two, for lack of a better term, crisis meetings between the AFL guys and the AFL guys, because there was no cohesiveness, it was just them and us. And then when taps jumped in as coach, my second year, it was just every year built on top of the last year. And you're able to get to a point where, when I first wanted to play VFL, I just wanted to play a game. And then after the first year, when I played a few games, I was like, well, I want to play three years.

That's my three years is my thing. And then I went to three years and I'm just like, nah, I'm not leaving, we're building something. And I loved that amongst the group because everyone genuinely cared about each other, whether it was Flop or Gaddy or all the trainers or all the players. We had that really cool core group that stayed around for a bunch because we genuinely cared about each other and we genuinely wanted to succeed together, which doesn't happen very often. That's something we've been lucky enough to have at our local club, and we've been pretty successful, winning seven out of eight flags.

That level of success doesn't happen by accident. No, not at all. I think when I had my initial conversations about coming across to Collingwood, Luke Gaddy, who was football manager at the time there, really strongly emphasised how much having good vibes was important and building on those good vibes. And I guess a couple of things that I then was able to implement, which I feel helped add to that, was the stories or the jokes at the end of the warm up, and then the appreciations before weights. And they were just small things, but the little things can have a huge effect.

Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. Talk to me about the appreciation because that's something that as soon as we did that the first night, I think our next meeting at work, I applied it and we just kind of brought it back, but it's been something that's made a big difference to us and our team. Talk to us, talk everyone through that. It's really easy in a workplace, in any workplace, to see the person for, to use a footy context, their jump up or their position in a business context as just their email signature or the person at the other end of a Skype meeting in a gym.

And your gyms will be different, your gym's more community based, you guys are a team, but in some gyms it's the other PT is a competitor. And then, you know, at a gym where it is community based, it's still, you don't have that super strong connection there and you might be able to say, okay, that person, their programming is awesome and they're doing really well. But the appreciations was about taking that beyond that and actually acknowledging them for the person that they are and not the job that they do. And so at Collingwood we, yeah,

before the weights session, it started off just two people had to pick out another two people and say what they appreciated about them and it wasn't meant to be that footy, it had to be about the person. And then, you know, those two people who got the acknowledgement that week, they were the ones that kicked it off the next week and then it just sort of went that way. Five minutes, huge effect. Yeah, and back to that little thing to make a big effect, that just added to that culture that we built and really made it, you know, you think, because as soon as someone starts talking about things like that, you think, what do I appreciate about these people?

And you start to kind of like double down on all of that and it just fosters that positive environment. Absolutely. I remember when, and I won't name them, but when one of the guys acknowledged one of the department staff for really supporting him and the emotion that like came up then, and I remember looking around the room, I sort of detached myself from that moment and looked around the room and everyone was just like there and super present and the vibe and the closeness after that was massive, massive. But in that moment, the guy who was delivering the acknowledgement, he made it okay for people to really be there and to be included.

Yeah, yeah. And he was just talking directly to that person, but it was, it's almost like he was talking for everyone else. Exactly. And like for me, I felt really privileged to be in the room at that moment. That's really cool. When, so moving on from Piers, you moved up to Sydney, picked up and shot north. Why did you do that? I don't think I've told this story to any of the guys at Collingwood. So at the time when I was there at the Piers, I was also doing just some general PT work in the city.

And it was a Friday afternoon, mid, mid January and I've just been, I was just about to finish up and was with a client and she'd had some hammy issues. So we're going through the difference between stretching out your hammies in a muscular sense but then a neural sense and I remember one of the floor staff, like the floor managers like, "Oh, can you come out the front, like need a bit of a hand?" I assumed he meant, I need a hand carrying some weights into the gym or something like that. I was like, you know, is everything sweet?

Like, you know, how heavy is he? He's like, "Oh, it's a first aid situation." I was like, "Yeah, okay, cool." And finished with my client, you know, teed up the time for the next session and I walked out the front and I walked out onto Burke Street and someone had just driven up the full path and hit a lot of people and it was like, I could never properly articulate what it was like. It was this weird, like eerie, like it was silent. It was peak hour in the middle of the day, lunch rush, but it was silent.

And there were, like I looked up on the other side of the road, everyone was standing there like jaws open or phones out, no one knew if it was a terrorist attack or if it was just some lunatic. And so, I had to, you know, help with first aid, like I was one of the first responders, the police hadn't been there at that point. And then they rocked up and because they didn't know if it was a terrorist attack, they didn't know how to deal with it. Yeah, so they were there full gear, AK-47 type

things, looking pretty hardcore, but I was, you know, I've worked in hospitals, so blood wasn't a huge issue, it was confronting as it was, but it was like, okay, so I had to just go into, let's try and do something here. You didn't know if you could help, you didn't know how you could help a lot of them. You know, one of the guys in my team, the guy who actually asked me for help, you know, he just had a newborn baby and we were near this iconic photo of a pram knocked over and that

was right near us and he was just like, I said, "Mate, you go inside, like you just have a glass of water, bring all the supplies to the door, you stay inside." And so, I was just like, just trying to help and everyone was working together, no one really knew what the hell to do or what was going on and I remember that day, I had this offer on the table from Reach and I just thought to myself, if I had walked out the door and been hit by that car, would I have been happy with my life and what I was doing at that point?

The answer was no, so I took the job. Because the job, like I knew I could make a bigger impact faster for people, like I loved working in the gym, I loved working at Collingwood when I started in strength and conditioning, that was my goal, was to work at Collingwood because Collingwood's the biggest club, the most well-resourced, I thought to myself, I'm just going to end up at Collingwood. I was working at a really good gym in the city with really good people, really enjoying it, it was in a really good place, but in that moment, I realised I could do a lot more.

So I took the job and I remember telling Dean, my boss, at Collingwood the next week, like I'm going to be leaving soon and I think he was about to cry as we walked out onto the field. It was a hard decision, but in a lot of ways, but a really easy decision in a lot of ways too. So I moved up to Sydney and I'm back working for the Reach Foundation, I didn't think I'd be back in the last few years, I've done the odd thing here or there for them in more of a

break glass in case of emergency type situation, but it's been cool to go up there and be able to make an impact and just help make an impact, not only within Reach but also outside of it. That's amazing. Do you think, year 10, you at that day would have thought that 15 years or 16, 17 years later you'd be working for that company in such an important role? No, year 10 me, I think, yeah, there's no way I would have been able to look down the track and seen all this sort of stuff, I probably

wouldn't have thought I would have even left the Glenroy Broadmeadows area, a lot of people didn't, a lot of my friends still live there, which is fine because it works for them, but I think for me, I probably would have had a job, I would probably be married, probably have kids, but also probably have a midlife crisis in my 40s and just follow that type of path and I think everything happens how it's supposed to happen and for me, I was meant to be there that day and Jim Stines and Paul Curry were meant to see something in me, I've just been really lucky and privileged and honoured.

That's cool that you've got that gratitude around everything that has happened because it's so many people kind of, whether it's turn their nose up or get angry at things that happen, and I'm a big one and if anyone listens to the podcast would understand me fighting with the things that happen for a reason kind of idea, but it does, you do the right things and things kind of always end up working out the right way. I think I've had in my life every reason to not be who I am today, there's been a lot of

hurdles from day dot, but I've also been able to choose how I respond to things versus how I react to things, it's really easy to react and to just jump at the first thing, but it's a little bit harder sometimes to respond and I've just been really lucky that that whole idea of react versus respond was drilled into me pretty young. That's really interesting. It's usually one of my last questions, but if you could give a Year 10 version of yourself some advice, what would it be? I wouldn't say anything, I'd probably just say something along the lines of just keep doing what you're doing because it'll all be okay.

I wouldn't try and handle any situation differently because the mistakes that I've made and the things that I've done have brought me to this point now, and I think life's about having experiences and learning from them, whether they're good experience or bad experiences if you don't learn from them, then it's a wasted experience. My jujitsu coach would always say you've got to tap out 10,000 times to get your black belt and I've tapped out a lot of times in my life, but you keep learning. My advice to Year 10 me would just be keep doing what you're doing because different things would happen which would expand my mind and broaden my horizons.

Keeping your ego to a point where you can tap out when you need to, it's okay to tap out as long as you learn from it. It's an amazing metaphor for life and everything that happens, it's crazy. So with your job now and your role now, what's it like, I guess, leading the leaders that teach so many different people and that run those workshops? It's cool, it was tough at the start because I was so used to being the one who ran the workshops but I did a lot of fulfillment from just imparting my knowledge and experiences onto the guys who are doing it now and they're better than me.

There's so many more ideas and concepts and inspiration that they can access at a lot faster rate than I did when I was doing that full-time, so I'm just really lucky that I work with a really epic group of people and the guys in Reach, especially in New South Wales, they're superstars and they can be anything that they want to be and I'm really lucky that at the moment what they want to be is working at Reach. Yeah, so you're just kind of tapping in and figuring out how you can make them better. At the moment, technically in my title the word "manage" is there but I don't do any managing whatsoever.

My thing is to give them the tools and give them some ideas and if they choose to go with those ideas, great, if it works for them. If they're like, "Oh, I don't know about that Jez, I'll try this one instead," that's fine because I'm not trying to make them into me because that's stupid. I'm me, they're not me, so it's how can I help them, I guess, open the door to be the best version of them. I'll give them a book, sometimes I'll just sit down and have a chat with them and sometimes I'll

give them different feedback points on how they run a workshop but ultimately I guess my philosophy is to make them feel really good about themselves because if they're feeling confident, they're going to do better work. How do you find that, like what tactics it is to find those, find what, I guess, way to approach each different individual? Is it just knowing that person really well or is it just having this toolbox full of tools of things that you can apply? I'm lucky that I do have the toolbox but the actual toolbox that all those tools

sit in is that's relationships and connection and for me, it's the same as working in footy with the players, it's all about building connection with them first because then I will get a bit of an idea of how they work and how they like to go about things and what's going to fill them with confidence and what's going to deflate them and then it's a progression from there. So for me, it always comes down to building connection. What are the key concepts you guys teach, both you teaching your facilitators but then them teaching their workshops? That's probably a big one is connection and self-awareness.

The more you understand yourself and why you do things and the effect that that can have in that trickle-down effect in all other areas of your life. So we do a lot of stuff around that, we do a lot of stuff around self-esteem and confidence and peer group dynamics, especially in the school and high school settings. Peer group dynamics are huge and positive relationships and connection pieces are massive in that sense. But again, it's all connection and it's all based and steeped in storytelling. Everything we do is underpinned by the hero's journey. So Joseph Campbell, his work, everything we do is underpinned by that process and that arc.

Everything that we do, everything that I do is about how can I get someone to go into the cave and slay the dragon that they fear the most to then come out of that cave with all of the knowledge to then live a better life and then go and slay another dragon. And make the world a better place. Yeah. And it's making the world a better place but it always starts with that one person so it's making their world a better place and making the world inside their head a better place and making themselves a better place so that they can go forward and impact.

Yeah. I think then when you look after your own backyard and you've got all that, it allows you to go out and help other people look after theirs. Yeah. Absolutely. That's the most important thing. And it's something that I like how you don't like using the term manager because as a leader of people, I try and find those levels of improvement and everything that I've learned over the last 18 months has come back to looking after myself first and making sure that I clean up after myself or do those little things and then when I'm

not being hypocritical, when I'm asking my staff to do the same thing and I hold myself to those high standards and yes, I'm going to fuck up but it's a matter of picking myself up and dust myself off and doing better the next time but if I can hold myself to a higher standard and be that role model, then they're going to want to follow. Absolutely. They're going to want to be leaders in their own right. And then because you do that and because you role model, when you do fuck up, it also then shows

that you're a human being as well and because you've been humanized to your staff and to your team, they're going to get around you a lot more because you've been leading. Leaders make leaders and you can either be a manager or you can be a leader and you're absolutely a leader. Two different things, yeah. Yeah. And it shows, yeah. That's cool. What is that kind of your - if you're - when you're teaching team dynamics and this is something that obviously really interests me, having a team but also being involved in football teams, is that your key concept for team dynamics or are there other things that you touch on as well?

For me, yeah. It starts with connection and as soon as that level of trust has been established, then you can build on other things and then you can start to do your feedback and what have you and different things within the team because there's - you have - on a footy team, you have 18 guys on the field but then within there you have your backs, you have your mids, you have your forwards, so there's the mini teams within there. So it all starts with the bigger group first and you have to establish a point

where there's that trust and respect across all lines because if you really respect that person, you'll go for that hardball get that you're packing your dats for because you give a shit about that person and you want them to succeed. So for me, and that's the segue there, for me it's connection and it's like how can you make the person next to you the hero because if everyone has that mindset then - and the quote used to be in the corridors of the Holden Centre near the kitchen is a rising tide lifts all ships. So if you keep making the person next to you better, everyone lifts, yeah.

As soon as you get your kicks or your enjoyment out of knocking other people down, then it's just like - yeah, it's just downhill because then no one wins and you don't win because you're not getting the people up around you. Absolutely. Yeah, and success is so much better when shared. That's one of our non-negotiables for work. It's just that if we're all successful, then everyone wins and all our clients win and all our whole community wins, but if one of us is successful and kind of stands all over everyone else, then no one wins. It's just a shitty environment to be in.

Yeah, exactly. When I was at Piers with our intern there, Victor, one of my friends was to put so much work into him so that he would be able to succeed and especially knowing that I could leave and he would still succeed without me. Like, okay, maybe try this approach with this player and have a conversation, relax, try to fill him with confidence so that he could then step forward and be really good. He's smarter than me. He was smarter than me when he started. It was just about making him feel confident. You sharing your experiences with him to allow him to come into his own.

Yeah, and that's part of it. It's that sharing of experiences. It's being able to tell your stories and to be really open and honest about who you are because then it gives the other person permission to do the same and then you form a connection. Yeah, that's really cool. I've got a bunch of questions to finish this off. On that topic, why do you think mentors are so important and who are yours? Mentors are important because they're a soundboard and they can see, I guess, the road ahead like if they're in the same field and

they can see things from that sort of different perspective that it's really easy to get stuck in the forest and you can't see the individual trees then or the other way around but the mentor can see both because they've been in both. My mentors, the biggest mentor in my life has been Jim Stines. Jim was a huge mentor for me and I was really privileged and lucky to be really, really close with him growing up and he had a profound impact on my life. At the moment, the guys I work with are my mentors. I

am just constantly amazed at their level of insight and these guys who are late teens, early 20s but they're the ones that mentor me and I've got to learn so much from them and get a lot of guidance from them. But I've been lucky to have some really good mentors in. When I started in strength and conditioning, a guy called Rob Innes who's now the rehab guy at Richmond, he was a really good and strong mentor for me and he's someone who I still call up every so often and he's fantastic. Mentors are hugely, hugely important.

It's one of the things I encourage and work with all my team to do is to get mentors. It's really important that you don't just look at someone that's done it all. You look at your team that you're effectively leading but you allow them to lead you as well. That's really important. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think you've ever done? A lot of people would say fighting MMA is pretty crazy but for me, that was just a normal thing. The craziest thing I did was strip naked in front of probably about 400 drunk women on Grand Final Eve a few years ago.

That was pretty crazy. It was good fun. I was in a much better nick than I'm in now but that was pretty crazy. What led to that? Oh, look, it was for charity but I was just asked to do it and was told you don't have to go full mood or anything like that. In our first practice, all the other guys were like, "Yeah, so we're going to go all the way and hold Kitten Kaboodle." It's like, "All right then, here we go." One thing led to another and next minute, yeah, that happened. It was terrifying.

That's good. Do you have a mantra? Do you have something you would constantly repeat? If you're going to do it, do it properly. I say that all the time. I ask why all the time. They're probably my two and yeah, they're my two. What's your why? My why, why I do what I do, why I like to make a difference is because I've experienced the power of someone believing in me when they have no reason to and I know that what that can do for someone can be quite profound. That's why I do what I do.

Perfect. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be? There's a billion ways you could answer this. You could go climate change and go really political and absolutely both are super, super valid. I think my thing would be just to give people to laugh a little bit more. I feel like everyone's pretty angry these days. There's a lot of negativity in the world at the moment. It's really easy to get caught up in issues and make those issues feel like the biggest thing happening and people need to remember to laugh. Laughter makes people feel good about themselves and people feeling good about themselves and the trickle effect from that is huge.

That's not permission to bring the band back together and have another gig. Yeah, absolutely. If you could have dinner with three people currently alive or passed away, who would it be and why? Tim Ferriss. I love his books but also his podcast is really cool and he just interviews really great people and deconstructs how they go about things, what their process is. He alone is interesting but then the stories that he'd be able to tell from the conversations he's had would be awesome. He's one person who could then lead to a huge conversation. He would be one Peter Garrett from Mindanao.

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think he's fascinating in his stories, fascinating going from being a surf rock band to then a political band to then giving it up to go into politics and then having a shit experience and then going back to the band. I just find that really fascinating. And then the last person... Daniel Day-Lewis. He's my favourite actor. He's untouchable as an actor but his process is fascinating and the work that he does for a role is incredible. For example, in Gangs of New York, his character was a butcher so he went and did the whole thing and learnt how to be a butcher and really like throws himself into it.

It's an incredible movie too. Yeah, great movie. He's such a good actor and how he fully becomes... He's obviously a method actor but he just becomes that character. He's fascinating. When he's not acting, he's a cobbler. Genuinely? Yeah, legit. That's amazing. And he's retiring at the top of his game. So I love that idea and would love to know what's informed that idea. Two-part question because we haven't talked about your acting at all. What's been your greatest experience as an actor and what has it taught you about yourself? I love the training of acting probably more than I like the experience of actually being on a set.

You might do a take 40 times and each time you're adjusting because the lighting might be slightly out or something could happen in the background and you could be completely on. But the trainings like where the work happens and the trainings where the growth and the learning happens so I love that. And if I had the funds, I'd do that full time. I love it. And the thing I love about it is it forces you to be present and you have to be present. You have to be living in the moment. And that's the thing

that I really take from all the training and from acting is the ability to be in the moment and in acting, it's always about the other person and responding to them which I think is a great lesson for life is it's about the other person. And you can read into that a million different ways. If someone's angry, it's not about you. It's about something that's happened for them. When you're working with someone, if you're making it about you, then you're not really a team then. But if you make it about the other person, then it boosts you guys both up.

And the idea of being present I think is quite huge and we touched on it at the start with social media. But being present and the effect that it can have on your own mind and then how you operate and go about things is massive. Cool. That's amazing. Do you have any morning rituals? Morning ritual, I never press snooze. I get up. I won't press snooze but I won't get out of bed straight away. I'll just lie there and think about what I have to do that day and what I have to achieve and what I want to get out of the day.

I'll go, I'll make coffee long black with a little bit of cinnamon in it, then I'll make the bed. I use an Aero press. I'm fancy. But always a long black. I'll make the bed and then I'll just go and attack the day. And for me, in strength and conditioning, we talk about intent, trying to move the weight quickly. For me, the day is about trying to have the right mindset and what's my intent for the day. Having a predator mindset to go out and attack the day rather than being proactive or reactive and waiting for everything to happen.

Exactly. It's being offensive instead of defensive for the day and always trying to go out and make an impact somehow. That's really interesting. What's your worst habit? I try and do too many things at once sometimes. At the moment, I think I've got one, two, so I've got the books that I'm reading at the moment, Legacy by James Kerr, and then I've got Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I've got Tools of Titans and I've also got Norse Mythology. Yeah, they're all really similar topics. Yeah. So there's a bit of that in there. I think it's one of my, your gift is your curse.

And one of my things is that I always have one eye on the horizon, which means it's hard to be settled in the moment with life, even though I'm present in moment to moment. But my circumstances, I always am like, "Oh, what else is there? Is there something else?" Always searching, which is good and bad. Yeah, definitely. That's something I kind of struggle with, that wanting to be better and improve and things like that, but also enjoying the process, which, yeah, I think I'm getting better at. What's your greatest achievement? My greatest achievement is that I've been able to impact other people to then go on and make a bigger impact than I ever could.

Tell me something very few people know about you. It's a really tough one. In the work that I do, a lot of it's about having those conversations that generally are hidden away a little bit. So I think for me, I'm a pretty emotional guy. That's probably something that you wouldn't probably know about me. My favorite movie or one of my favorite movies in my sort of top few is Strictly Ballroom. Genuinely? Genuinely. Love that movie. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. That's different. I kind of want to watch it now. Yeah. Great movie. Love it. Great storytelling. Baz Luhrmann's a great director.

Those two questions are kind of two-parties. I don't want you to overthink it. I want you to think the first thing that comes into your head. What's the nicest thing you've ever done for someone? Made someone feel good about themselves. What's the nicest thing someone's ever done for you? Exactly the same. Awesome. What's the best piece of advice you've been given? Step into the fire. Oh, good. What's the best piece of advice you have given? At the moment, working with someone and talking about the difference between what you want and what you need. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And getting them to unwrap that. That's really cool. That could go a couple of different ways. Absolutely, yeah. If you could have a billboard seen by millions of people, what would you put on it? I stole this from Tim Ferriss. Yeah. It'd be... I'd have two words on it. Breathe and listen. Cool. Last few things, couple of favorites to finish off. You've already told me your favorite movie or one of your favorite movies. What's your favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon? The next Sunday that's coming, I'm going to be hanging out with mates and watching the UFC, which I just love hanging out with loved ones.

So whether that's... Shared experience. Yeah, exactly. So sometimes it'll be having a really nice breakfast with my girlfriend and going to the beach with her or if I'm just in Victoria, seeing some family and friends and taking the time to read and to do something for myself as well on those days, whether that's the gym or not have an alarm. Nice. What's your favorite book? It's called The Fighter's Mind by a guy called Sam Sheridan. And I've read it probably four or five times. I love people that have one book they've read a bunch of times, so they keep going through.

The corners of the pages are all folded. There's so many things underlined and highlighted in there. And in the book, he just goes to different martial artists and not even martial artists. He uses the term fighters as a broader thing. So there's ultra marathon runners and chess guys and stuff like that in there and just their process. And it's just fascinating in why they do what they do. Do all of those... And I haven't read it, but I probably will now. Do all those different people have similar philosophies and why's or do they all have a big variation?

One of the common things that comes up and it's not for everyone, but it's the idea that everyone's fighting something. Some people know what it is, some people don't. So that's one of the things that pops up in there, but then also the need to push your own boundaries and limits. It's really easy to play it safe and to stay inside your comfort zone. The magic happens when you get outside. It's that cliche that gets said a little bit, but it's true. Cliches and cliches for a reason. Exactly. What's your favourite resource for new information? The people I work with.

Good, I get the same answer. Favourite hobby? If you could pick one. One. One hobby. Martial arts. Favourite quote? You can't steal second base if you're afraid to get off first. Good. Elite quote. Mate, thank you very much for coming on. No, thanks for having me. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Do you have any more for everyone listening? No, it's just been a really great experience and conversation and I think you're creating a community and that's why I was more than happy to be on this. Awesome. Awesome. If people want to learn more about the Reach Foundation and what you guys do, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

reach.org.au or you can find me on LinkedIn and I'll be happy to have a chat and stuff. Awesome, mate. Love your work. Cheers. Thanks, lucky. Thanks, guys. See you next time. Bye.