Brainfood Live On Air - Ep342 - Career Transition - Trips from Ex-Pro Athletes

I guess I might call Ruben alcohol, clean it up. I can guarantee it's not the scum on the camera, watch this. Something happened then? Well yeah, it's the light streaming into this room and I do that. Do you want to sort the curtain out then? No, but I can maybe place a blocker, there you go. Do you know what, this is the reason why it's impossible to work on the beach? Because the laptop reflects, it sort of reflects off the screen so badly, that there's no way you can actually see what's going on. So you have to be in the shade anyway. So yeah, we haven't picked that one out yet, have we? Anyway, welcome everybody to Brain Food Live On Air, bringing it to you every Friday. No fail. Adam Gordon is just shocked and surprised. The sunlight in Glasgow, hence he can't handle it and he can't get his camera right. But I hope everyone is having a good Friday and you've had a good week. There is some sun coming through this gray sort ofness that we've had over the last couple of days. So hopefully we're setting ourselves up for a reasonably good winter weekend. Anyway, let's say hello to Adam. I mean everyone knows Adam anyway, but it's been a couple of weeks since you've been back on. So you might as well say hello and introduce yourself, mate. Yeah, hi everybody. I'm Adam, been recruiting since 1999. I'm less shocked and scared about the fact that the sunlight in Glasgow in November and I'm more shocked and scared about the fact that I've been invited back because I thought that was it. I thought that was it for me. It was a good five weeks or something, I've not been on. Has it really been five weeks? That's crazy mate, maybe four. I think the only reason for this is your lack of availability, because you've been traveling a bit and also a scenario where the topic wasn't interesting or for you I thought, or some other reason. I've never said no to all the boring topics that I've come and joined you to talk about, but fair enough, I was in a completely different time zone last week. I was in Colorado and the most exciting thing that happened was we were sitting having dinner with some investors and we were talking about cars and I said, "Right guys, Cybertruck, yes or no?" And the investors all started laughing and one of them just slid a card over the table and said, "You tell us when we meet tomorrow." Just as well I was drinking water, right? Because he gave me a Cybertruck and I handed it back to him the following day after having driven around Scottsdale, Arizona, pressing the button that just takes you where you want to go. No hands on the wheel, no feet on the pedals, parks for you. This is a pretty incredible experience to be honest. Where was the first person video documentary of this Adam? I mean, this is where you got to share this intelligence with us. I've posted some of this stuff on YouTube, but I'll put a link to the video up here. It was a very cool experience. I was going to say, friends, do you want to see Adam Gordon drive a Cybertruck in Arizona? Or do you want to see a video of the Cybertruck driving? I'm going more to the point. Anyway, let's get on with the show, friends. Brain Food Live cannot continue without our support of our wonderful sponsors. Every week we have companies sponsoring this conversation, making sure we continue to come on air. And this week it's one of our favorites. It's been a stalwart, really, for the last couple of years. And we'll be again next year, I'm delighted to say. So it is, of course, Ashby, Ashby ATS. Everyone knows Ashby now. It's amazing how well they've done in terms of breaking into the landscape. They're in every conversation when it comes down to, okay, you're going to upgrade your ATS where you're going to go to. Ashby is always mentioned there. Very good reason for it. Very well respected as one of the most innovative and effective products in the market. But let me not sort of say too much, because we, of course, have Willem Vynance here, and he's going to come on and join us. And he can tell you all about it. Willem, I've just invited you on to the show, and you should get a pop-up, and we'll see you shortly. Okay, folks, just as Willem's already here, I was about to say something about the show coming up. There he is, fully on brand as usual. Lovely shirt, mate. It is. So Willem, oh, he's disappeared. Why don't you quickly introduce yourself, Willem? Who are you personally, and what is you do for Ashby? I'm Willem. I lead all the community efforts here in Europe. So originally a San Francisco-based company, but very European driven as well. Was it one of the early customers? Love that so much that I joined to help grow. So yeah, as you say, we've been growing quite quickly, and reached our, I think, 3500th customer a few weeks back. And currently, I'm just back from TRC conference yesterday. I traveled quite a bit through a lot of customer events. That's what I missed from my, when I was still ahead of TA, kind of like the focus on customers. That's my real drive. So throwing a lot of learning events and rackups events, and basically trying to educate the ecosystem. So hope to see many of you there one day in all the major cities in Europe. Yeah, fantastic stuff. And it's great to see you continue with that community vibe, Willem. There's another innovation sort of strategy that I think is impressive by Ashby, is this concept that there is an ecosystem to cultivate. And that is, I think, the future of how you basically do sales. I think this is the way in which you've got to do it. You can't just knock on the front door and expect things to happen. You've got to really build long-term relationships and add value well in advance of any sales. Tons of innovation has been going on, Willem, on the product wise. Maybe a good time also to talk a little bit about some of those. What's happened recently for Ashby customers and people who might be thinking about the product? Yeah, so traditionally, TA teams bought a lot of tools, point solutions. We try to minimize that. So we started that with sourcing components, scheduling, got all those point solutions built in into the ATS. And obviously, a lot of companies and users are using note-taking. That's our latest app to the family. So we have an app built by ourselves, note-taking. Some other features that I'm quite excited about is the AI fraud detection. So basically, everybody is getting a lot of applicants and some of them might be frauds. So we have a pretty ingenious system built out where it's not hampering the user to create accounts, et cetera. But we are able to see kind of on social background what if the email was created a few weeks ago, like the longevity of that and basically flagged the recruiters with like this could be a potential harmful candidate. So things like that trying to not impact the workflows of recruiters but trying to add a lot of value. And one thing that I'm quite excited about is the AI assistant that obviously knows the whole story because you source people through Ashki, maybe you schedule people, you have all the feedback in the system and also the note-taking, the transcript. So you can ask very, very neat questions to the AI assistant to help you maybe address an offer or a flag and potential risk. So it's quite great if you have all those tools in one closed container which that's what I loved six years ago now that I joined. But yeah, it's been a continuous journey for us to add that to the ecosystem. So exciting stuff. No, it's really exciting. And I particularly get the point that the sort of the agentic future, so to say, the agent is going to be more powerful when it has the full context for the candidate. And that's very powerful indeed. Good stuff, Vilem. Listen, check out Ashbi. If you're interested in upgrading your ATS, what can I say, you probably should already get a demo if you haven't already. And they've got a wonderful set of sort of newsletters and blogs and stuff like that in communities. Make yourself, get yourself involved in those. I mean, even if you don't end up being a customer, you're going to glean a ton of value from simply being part of that milieu. Okay, good stuff, Vilem. Listen, hang on to the rest of the show. It's going to be an exciting one. We're going to be talking about career transition folks. Athletes, ex-athletes, ex-elite athletes. What can they tell us about transitioning from a very different career that may have required a lot of focus into something else? And before we bring our crowd on by the way, we should have reviewed the newsletter, but I don't think we've got the time, Adam, which moves swiftly on it. That's all right. Let's talk about sports because you are actually semi-relevant to this topic. Because you weren't elite, but you were pretty good, weren't you, at some point in terms of sports? Yeah, but actually, I'm even more interested in this because I'm going to be 50 in 14 months, and I'd like to spend my 50s working in sport. A lot of my 50s working in sport. And so I joined the board of the local rugby club recently, about two months in. I decided that they needed somebody to take responsibility for marketing specifically. So I said, I'll do that, build a team of 10 volunteers, and now marketing at our rugby club is like doing really great. And I'm going to appoint somebody as the head of and move on to building another function and just use my recruiting skills to go and build up the functions better and better and better. And I'm doing this simply to learn more about how the business of sport works. So I'm very interested in... It's not quite the same as obviously what we're going to be talking about today, but I think there's learnings in every transition that you make. Yeah, definitely. And folks, the reason why I want to do this show is simply that obviously the world is in massive turmoil at this point. And it's just obviously a case where a lot of people will be thinking about what are the things you might be doing, whether that's sort of stuff that has motivated you to do it, or whether circumstances have forced you to consider it. And then the idea came, okay, maybe there's some other people have already gone through this process. And what can we learn from them, particularly as sports, I think typically requires such a focus at the elite level that you can't really hedge your bets, you're really all in. And you might be in a situation where, okay, that stops, then what are you going to do? You know, very, very interesting type of situation. So let's bring on some of our guests. They're going to talk to us about it. Okay, let's bring on Agna, who else we've got here. We've got tons of people actually. So, hey, there she is. How are you? Hi, I'm very well. How are you? Great to see you. Whilst we're getting everyone on screen, Agna, why don't you quickly introduce yourself for you? What is your do? Yeah, sure. So I'm Agni Chmiznikova, been born in Lithuania, but now shaped by almost 10 years of life and work in the UK. And before we start, maybe I just want to say that I always believed one thing at my core, that great work doesn't start the process. It actually starts with people most of the time. Maybe even like, I can say that always, right? And I'm a practice lead for talent and skills at people and transformational HR. And for over five years, I've been working at the crossroads of learning, workforce shape, human behavior and organizational evolution. So my world really spans around LND, learning ODI, also strategic workforce planning and employee well-being. And I would say it's not about like a separate disciplines. It's more about, you know, everything as an ecosystem that helps people and organizations flourish. And having spent many years as a professional athlete, more than decade, I used to be a race walker, very unusual sport for most of the people. They don't even know what is this. So I learned the lesson, neuroscience now confirms that, you know, performance isn't just physical. It's actually cognitive, it's emotional, it's social. And mindset is the operating system of potential. Amazing. Thank you so much, Agna. And great to see you. We met a couple of a couple of weeks ago, isn't it? Well, maybe even a couple of months or so ago now at a wonderful event, we ran with our friends at 50 Skills. So we had a great chat then. And that's when I found out that actually your history in sports, so wonderful to see you here. Niklas, I have invited you to the show as well. You should get a pop up. But I see there's two Niklas's here. So maybe I should invite the other one as well. And then, you know, we'll get double trouble. Let's do that. We have Charlie Mulrain. Charlie, wonderful to see you, sir. People don't know this. But Charlie and I used to work together. So wonderful to see you, mate, way back when. But why don't you quickly introduce yourself? Who are you? What is your do, Charlie? Yeah, no, thanks, Hank. Yeah, it's fantastic to be on the show. When I was waiting in the sidelines, I had those almost like pre-match nerves, you know, that excitement of being in the dressing room. So we're glad I've been unleashed now. But yeah, we worked together years and years ago in recruitment, in IT recruitment. So I've worked in the area of personal development, athlete transition for nine or 20 years now. So I'm a former athlete. So I play professional cricket strict in school. And then I played professional rugby for a few years after that. And then I ended up working with for the Professional Cricketers Association, which is the players union. So the remit of the PCA is to support the, I suppose, the holistic development of players in the game to allow them to enter the game safely, to fulfill their potential as players, but also to have an exit so that they can find success in new avenues beyond cricket. And we support players from academy level to pro to when they leave the game as well. So even past players and members of the PCA. So after I was there for about 19 years, left last year, came back like a bad penny. And I do about two, three days a week with the PCA. And then I've also got my private coaching practice. So career coaching, where I use the principles of how to transition in sport for non-sports people. So people in my vintage, Adam said the same. So in the 40s, 50s, they were looking to reinvent and reinvigorate their careers. Yeah, so much more, so much we can learn about just generally transition, I would say. But this is going to be super, super relevant. And we have Ben Stockin as well. Ben, great to see you again, sir. Why don't you quickly introduce yourself? Who are you? What is your do? Hey, I'm going to look at you again. Great to see everyone. Charlie, I've just had a look at your LinkedIn profile and seen some of the clubs you played for. Some of them I like, some of them are a project. So well done. Hey everyone, lovely to be here. So I started my career 20 years ago working for the RFU. So for England Rugby as a performance and development coach. So I've worked with a lot of athletes who have not quite made it into professional school and some that have. And then after six years with the RFU, I made the very natural transition into the world of recruitment. So I've got a bit of a personal perspective there at 26, 27, going on to the sales floor. And I worked in recruitment and the staffing space for 12 years. Both as a 360 recruiter, billing manager, then as a director of business. Last full-time role was head of people and performance for AP backed recruitment business where I was then assessing and hiring people coming into recruitment. And we can talk a bit more about why ex-professional athletes or sporting people often made it through those assessments. And the last five years, I have set up a leadership and development consultancy called West Peak that supports fast growth businesses both in recruitment and outside of recruitment to make sure that managers are better in class, well trained. Trained in the first place would be great to be able to enable the performance of their employees. Yeah, fantastic stuff. I've just shared Ben's LinkedIn in the chat as well. Make sure you connect. And we have Nicholas as well, Nicholas Ekberg. Wonderful to see you. Why don't you quickly introduce yourself. Who are you? What is your dude, Nicholas? Yeah, the rest of you. Yeah, my name is Nick. Used to be in golf, played college golf, league golf for a long time. And then now working in HR Tech sales. So we'll work at it. But also, in addition to doing sales at ref app, also run HR Tech Meetup in Stockholm. So we have a big community there. So if you ever come by Stockholm or if you're in the chat here, please add me to your LinkedIn network and be invited to the next event. Yeah, fantastic stuff, Nick. And let's kick off with just one question for everyone. And I guess this is maybe a tough one to start off with. But let's get out the way. When did you know it was time to change? Like, was there a moment where you realized, okay, it's not, this is not the path for me anymore? Was that something clear in your mind? Let's go to you first, Agno. Was that obvious to you? Like, was there a moment where you thought, okay, I'm no longer doing this? Yes, yes, it was. It came as both as whisper and as a wave. So my body was telling me one thing, like showing me very clearly, like I cannot do that anymore. For example, I used to have like blue lips during the competition, number limbs. And obviously we knew that something is wrong. But my curiosity was telling me another thing, you know, and as athletes, we often thought to push through and just keep doing it and, you know, ignore some of the signs. And I was diagnosed, like basically doctors told me that I've been born with a heart disease and I cannot do that anymore. And funny enough, at that time, I was trying to get into London Olympics. So they told me that I need to stop and I cannot do that anymore. And yeah, that was, that was very clearly showing me that is around the time where you need to do some changes in my life. Thank you for sharing that, Agne. Obviously it must have been a tough, a tough moment. Can you talk us through sort of how you felt at the time and how you kind of managed it mentally? Because this might have been a shock, I assume. Like it might have been a case where it's an externality coming at you and putting the prequalling. So how did you handle a shock and the steps that you took to move on? It was very hard at that moment, of course, because it was big news out of nowhere. So it was very difficult to hear that, especially when you dream about it for a decade, right? Every athlete has this goal to one day go to the Olympics. And it was very difficult. At the same time, I was quite fortunate because I studied psychology. So it really helped me to rewind and to see like the situation from different perspectives. And my dad is a coach. So I was very fortunate, you know, that I had someone in family who was able to support me and help me during that transition period. So I had around a year where I still trained after being diagnosed and I still competed in competitions, but I wasn't able to train at the same level, right? Because I was used to train sometimes two to three times per day. And then we heard that, obviously, we had to stop. So it was a bit of like cognitive dissonance, you know, when you know that it's actually very bad for you and it can end very badly, but you're still doing it. But I think it was very good that I had that year because it helped me to prepare mentally. Because when you train for a long period of time, you just cannot, you know, push the button or close the doors and walk away. Your body is still like going through processes. So you just need that. So that really helped. How long, I'm curious, how long did it take you for that kind of acceptance period of moving into that new kind of face? I would say around nine, 12 months. It was very hard. But obviously then I stopped training as hard as I used to. I saw that the results dropped like drastically, right? Because you kind of trying to save yourself. You're not pushing to the end. Like you used to, yeah. So around, I would say nine to 12 months. Nicholas, I mean, you and I had a chat in Tennessee about this, didn't we? So let's go to you on this. Tell us a little bit about your sporting journey, your career a little bit. And then again, the moment you realize, okay, I've got to do something else. And what was that? Yeah, for sure. I think also just I talked to people that might not have been as far down into something as your sport or some kind of endeavor, a company could be anything where it really goes hand in hand with your purpose of life. And I think that started to compete in golf when I was maybe 12 years old. It's, I think it almost becomes a part of you, like a hardwiring to get those kicks when developing in your sports and taking that next step for new skills or whatever it is that makes you develop. And the highs are really high. I played college golf in the U.S. before also playing a bit of competitive and pro golf. And I think talking to a lot of golfers, now it's very niche, but golf takes everything out of you. It's basically like a seven-part game where you're hitting shots from high grass, from the sand, you're putting, you're hitting it long, and it takes a lot out of you to be able to compete really well in all those aspects of the game. In terms of hours, it's everything that you do 24/7. So it makes, especially when you're at a level where you're not bringing food to the table from what you're playing or your wins, it's automatically kind of like, you're not going to prioritize a lot of other things in life in order to get to your goal. Because it's just like Agnes said, it's your everything. And for a lot of people, it's everything that in golf, it's what they've been doing for their whole life. Maybe you're getting injured, maybe you're playing half of the year and working half of the year in some really tough job that you're realizing that there's more to life than playing golf all the time. And my journey was very similar. So I think it's, but it comes down to that kind of, that that purpose, I think, in life and that it's hard to, because you're so, in such an energy of momentum moving forward with whatever you're doing and you're so deep into it, that it's so hard to step away. And I think that most of the people here can probably resemble or feel that feeling of stepping away from something that's like, you're everything. It's super tough. But for me, it was realizing or at least daring to try out other things in life. Daring to try out, that's a really interesting phrasing, Nicholas. Because I think it suggests also because it is your life, isn't it? It's all consuming for a certain period of time that actually you've got almost like a very, very deep specialism. But anything outside is pretty new. You're very new to everything else. So suddenly that becomes potentially sort of a new learning area, which of course, out of comfort zone. Nicholas, you did mention, I think, on when we were in Nashville, it took you a long time psychologically to get to the point where you were able to settle it in yourself. Can you tell us a little bit about that if you're okay with it and sort of what you learned from that sort of journey of just resolving in your own mind? Yeah, yeah. And Ben, Charlie, Agne, Adam, feel free to add to this. But I think for me, given that golf is such a game where it takes everything out, I think most sports probably are at that kind of elite level. You are your sport in a lot of ways. It probably took me, I would say probably about five years to even for my body to kind of feel comfortable coming home from a regular day of work and not feeling like I had to kind of do something in order to prepare for the next day. Am I reading something? Am I preparing in any kind of really, really great. So just being at ease probably took about half a decade. And not being able to put that, or always, previously always had that energy to put whatever it was, whatever required to be successful into that, into the game of golf. So going into a regular kind of work where you're working same hours, you're working where you have a lot of time set aside for other things, that to me just felt so different because it was 24/7 with golf. It was never off. Yeah, thank you, Nicholas. I really appreciate you sharing these stories, guys, by the way. I know it's not easy still. Charlie, let's go to you. I mean, I guess you've had two goals of this in a way, in the sense that you're a multi-sport athlete and you transition from one to the other. Tell us a little bit about that. Like how was it when you decided on the cricket side, okay, this is not happening. I don't want to do this. I want to do the rugby instead. And how did it work after the rugby career? And you decided to conclude that also. What's the psychological process that you can remember going through? And how did you handle it? I wish it had been as smooth as you've just described because it really was. I mean, just listening to Nicholas and Agne there. Sport was who I was. I mean, it was everything. You know, it was my identity and it really was my identity. So it was how I perceived myself. And I think it's how everyone perceived me to be. So you're dealing with that. You're dealing with the pressure of this is how you judge yourself. You judge yourself against the sport that you're doing. So everything that happens in that sport where it goes, you know, well, you feel like a hero, but you always could have done better. Or if it doesn't go well, then you are a failure. So for me, you know, I played cricket first because that was the only professional sport at that point. That shows my age. Rugby then wasn't a professional sport. So I got offered a contract playing cricket. Now I was released. We used to call it sacked. You know, the players would say you've been sacked. It was pretty brutal. You know, I had two years on the Warwickshire staff, which was a surreal experience of being in a dressing room with some of my heroes, you know, that era. You know, it was Brian Lara and Alan Donald and Dermot Reed and Gladstone Small, Tim Munton, you know, some big names of that era. And when you're sat in that dressing room, I think that's the thing that it is such a mental aspect of sport when you sit there and you think, should I be here? And you've got that dialogue in your head. Now I've spoken to, you know, my role at the moment, supporting athletes. You know, even the top athletes say the same thing. They still have that element of, should I be here? Am I good enough? And it's how you battle through that. So when I got released from cricket, it was, it was like a double death in a way, because in my eyes, I'd failed as a sportsperson. And then in my eyes, I was, I'd failed in front of my peers. So I had, you know, it was dealing with that, which was pretty heavy. And then rugby then became professional. So I was sort of fortunate in a way, you know, I had enough talent to be able to take my rugby to a position where I could play it professionally. And I remember I had to pick up the phone to the coach at Gloucester, because I wanted to move from Moseley to Gloucester. And I picked up the phone to Richard Hill, who was the former England player. And it was like having an interview. I had my rugby CV out in front of me and things to talk about. And it was like I was being interviewed about my career. And I played at Gloucester for a few seasons. And I played at Gloucester, went abroad, played in South Africa, came back, played for London Scottish, played mostly for two stints. But it was when I was at London Scottish, which was still in the premiership, so the top tier of English rugby then. And it was, I don't know, it was just something in my head going, "Do you want to be doing this forever? How long do you want to be sitting on a bench or playing?" Because I was in and out of the first team. So when you're being paid to do something and you're not actually able to do it all the time, because you're not the number one scrum half, you're number two. I was just sat there in my rugby kit going, "Is there more to life than this?" It was weird for me to think about having those thoughts now, but I was thinking maybe there's something else out there. I mean, I agree so much. It's the same feeling. Yeah. And I made the decision, I just made the decision. It's time to call it a day. It wasn't massively logical, it was just an instinct. I went, "That's it." And I left at the end of the season, ended up going into recruitment. And this is when I was at the company that we worked together at. And two weeks into that first job after sport, the phone rang, and it was my former coach who was then the coach of Saracens. And he was saying that the, Kieran Bracken, who was the England scrum half then, he's injured his back. "Can you come and train with us?" And I had this sort of split second, you know, recruitment. Or play rugby for a premiership team. And I went, "Thanks very much, Alan, but I've changed career now." And it's just, sometimes things are just so clear. But what Nicholas said, it took me a long time to get over the loss of identity. It really did, you know, a long time. That's something I want to hit on. Because it's only after speaking to everyone here that I realized that the identity aspect was very, very important. And for people who are non-sports people, by the way, I mean, we also have identity professionally, don't we? I mean, I still self-identify as a recruiter, you know, 25 years in. So it's like, you carry it with you. And how difficult is that to shift your identity? I think it's very difficult, isn't it? It's like, it feels unnatural almost. So you've got to rebuild all of this. So how do you go ahead and do that? Ben, maybe we can bring you in on this, because you're actually training, coaching people, have moved from that sort of multiple times, have moved from sports, something else. Have you dealt with the identity, the issue, and how have you coached people to, I guess, embrace a new vision of themselves in a different sort of career? Yeah, thanks, Adam. I just saw your comment. I love that. I identify as a recruiter as well, even at 41, and not being able to play anymore. Unfortunately, you don't look yet. Charlie, when your story kind of ended with Kieran Bracken, and you mentioned Richard Hill, as a failed rugby player before becoming a coach, so I walked into the Saracens gym, and the first thing I saw was Kieran Bracken, my hero, on his way out in the gym, and a fringe academy player who didn't make it, because I can't kick off my right foot, and my body was breaking. Like, actually, that's a really interesting moment. And so I kind of had a double failure transition bit myself. I thought, from the age of six, when I was first given a rugby ball, I thought, "That's it, I'm going to play rugby for my career." Realised at 21, when I was at university, being a tackle bag for those Saracens players, that actually, I wasn't going to be able to be an elite player, but I had an opportunity to join England as a coach, and so be a professional coach. And I think that period, and just briefly, my transition at the end of six years from that period was I had to move on, because as a coach working for the RFU at that time, you had a lovely car. You know, we were all sponsored by Landry. We had brilliant cars, but actually, when it came to salary, we were all working Tuesday, Thursday, evening, Saturdays, coaching clubs to try and make rent, etc. So actually, my transition ended up being I needed to move to be able to get on mortgage effectively, or I was going to have to move to a different country to try and get a coaching job and move away from the RFU, and I wasn't from a family perspective able to do that. So that was my journey, and Nicholas, when you shared about the identity bit and the day-to-day, not preparing, etc., it was really interesting, because my move from working for the RFU one week was giving in a company car, my private health, etc., to then starting on the base salary as a recruitment consultant in London. And I knew I needed to make commission in two months to be able to make this work. So there was a very quick transition of focus to, "I need to treat this like an elite environment." So almost my prep went up. I was like, "Right, what do I need to do? Who do I need to learn from to be able to make commission in two months?" Like, that was my elite mindset, and then hung to answer your question. Like, when I was a dharma partner, and we were running assessment days for grads or interviewing people, and we would evidently get ex-athletes from a variety of sports, you know, applying, or I would actively go looking for them. The kind of the identity bit was really interesting, because you could definitely tell from the assessment centres we would run and the exercises we would have with people, those people that could understand almost like how to optimise the scenario, and it was often those athletes, and then when they got to the day-to-day, they were actually very, very focused on the process behind what we were trying to get them to do, because they understood the process and performance goals, and I could see everyone nodding. Like, we understand the training that goes into that, versus people that just saw the 100 KOTE or whatever. So I actually hung on to answer my question. I think, you know, what part of the success in the transition is if you can help those athletes, all those people that come from those environments into recruitment worlds, but given the processes, given the why, and the coaching, and then the feedback they're used to, actually I think the transition can be relatively smooth. Yeah, go ahead, Anna. Yeah, just to add on, I think mine was slightly different, because I saw from early age how difficult it is to be a professional athlete, and also how difficult it is to be a coach, because obviously my dad was a coach, even though later he gave me to another person, because it was better for us to work in that way. But at home, I was constantly seeing battles with my mother, because it requires you not only financial support, but it also requires lots of time, lots of, like, uncertainty, what's going to happen, right? Because in sport, you never know what can happen, from injuries to, like, I don't know, losing a contract, or not going to certain camps, where it's needed for your preparation later, right? So for me, it was very clear that I don't want to be a professional athlete for the rest of my life, and that I want to have that plan B and C and D, probably. So I think that's why it helped me a lot during the transition period, because I never concentrated just on the one pathway. I always had few options just in case, and that's why it was a bit easier. Sounds like you're going to make a joke about men and women, but sounds like you're smarter than I was, picking my path being a woman. But I was just going to say, I totally agree, and I think that also on your comment there, Ben, that in terms of making that transition, I think looking back at my transition, one of the goals of going into what you do, Charlie, I think one thing that I took from golf was that I usually get better when I'm hanging around good golfers. That principle doesn't seem too far off that if I do the same going into work, even though realizing that my skills compared to a lot of people, probably even at my age, I don't have the same skills, but if I work hard and I'm in a good environment with people that are letting me grow in my new role, that would be a huge key. So I think that transitioning to a new role, new company, anything like that, I think that the environment of the people around you makes a huge difference for your development. So it's just something that I thought of top of mind just now, with all your other stories. So can I ask our guests? I mean, I have an impression that professional athletes are going to be better placed than a lot of other individuals, to make a transition at the end of that athlete career and move into different roles, as opposed to I work in finance and I want to transition to marketing or something like that. Big general question, give me your answer to that. Are professional athletes in a good place to be able to make a career transition? And are there specific sort of character traits or skills that they have that they can turn to their advantage? If I can, I wouldn't mind answering that. I've just come back from a couple of days on a conference. So the PCA run a two-day conference called the Futures Conference and we bring current professional cricketers to residential for two days. And we also bring in former players as mentors who help facilitate parts of the day. And then us as PCA employees, we deliver lots of the content and we have external speakers. And you've got a room full of professional athletes who often for the first time, they are being vulnerable. They are opening up to people who are their peers saying, "Actually, I'm worried about this. I'm anxious about this." Because if you speak to most athletes, these conversations, they're not happening in the dressing room. You know, you don't open up to other people going, "What are you going to do if you get injured or you finish sport?" No one talks about it. You know, there's that protection of your own place. You don't want to show weakness and lots of other things. So in many ways, I'd say yes, you know, you're right, Adam. They are so employable, unbelievably employable because of the skill sets. You know, and there are lots of, I suppose, cliches. And I think what we try and do during the two days is, "Okay, if we talk about leadership, decision-making, communication skills, let's go deeper. You know, how do you actually demonstrate that within your particular discipline?" And that's where the cricketers were able to say, "Actually, in a day's cricket, I'm delivering so many aspects that somebody in a job might deliver in a week or a month. You know, it's all at high speed. It's high decision-making, changing environments." But I think the biggest challenge for athletes is belief in themselves that they can make that transition. They're so comfortable in their own environment because they've been practicing, living by those rules, that framework for so long. The outside world is really scary. So I think it needs a lot of support for those companies that are perhaps employing athletes. It's not to think, "Hey, they'll be fine. You know, they're elite athletes. You know, they're used to all this stuff." They actually need quite a lot of support. But once they get going, I think, Ben, you mentioned this, their ability to acquire skills is really quick. So they often leapfrog. People that have been in industries for years, they get their qualifications and then they're flying, but they just need a bit of support at the beginning to say, "Right, this is how we're going to judge you. These are the parameters." And just another thing on that is feedback, that athletes on the whole like feedback, they're used to feedback. You don't really get that often in a commercial environment. You don't get somebody saying, "Every day, every hour, you need to work on this. That's good. Have you thought about this? You're left." So a lot of athletes can be a bit, "I don't know if I'm doing a good job or not because nobody's telling me." So if that's written into like a development plan via an employer, you can really get the best out of athletes and really let them flourish. Yeah, Charlie, I completely agree with that. And I think that plan-do-review cycle, that athletes and coaches and people in sport get into, like you don't do anything the same because you get that instantaneous feedback from performance or coaches or coaches to players. And I think that's something that you can see athletes who transition into the world like almost waiting for, like do something, picture the meeting and be like, "And?" And I think if that is missing, you break that framework that those athletes have been used to. And an athletic day is very, very structured from nutrition to rest, to performance, to skills, to conditioning, et cetera. And one of the things that I noticed just coming from a coaching pattern going into work was, you know, it's like, "Well, there's your desk. There's your number. There's your phone on a cord. And there's ADAPT, which is our theorem." It's like, "Go." And my experience in the first week was how many reps, for how long, with what feedback structure, et cetera. And I was fortunate to have a manager next to me that I could go, "Right, where's the captain or the dressing room captain, the player, the coach to observe?" And she was sat next to me, a million pound billow sat next to me. And I was like, "Right, I'm going to do what she does. I'm just going to stick with her and observe and do." And I think that's the bit where I was then bringing ex-athletes into recruitment was it was like, "Right, we'll provide that mentor for you that you can observe and assimilate off." And that's what they did really, really well. Really interesting of one. Go ahead, Ann. Yeah, I'm not an expert. So forgive me if this question's naive, but I imagine that some of the characteristics of somebody who is maybe in walk racing and somebody who's in rugby, a lot of that, a lot of the measurements of success in that is going to be your raw fitness and your brute physicality and things like that, whereas for something like golf or something like cricket, hugely technical, loads of margin of error and finite details. I mean, there is a cross-all sport, so I'm sort of generalizing slightly. Do you think there's any differences between people coming from certain types of sports in terms of what they are more naturally likely to thrive in in terms of a new environment or a new role? Yeah, I think any individual sport, you're usually your own company, just talking from an individual sports perspective. And I think that you set up your company, your personal trainer, your swing coach, your maybe even a manager that handles sponsorships and such as you see fit. A lot of people that think one of the major things that I've taken from golf is that one does their process the same. Everyone is very different, like everything from just training or practicing to how they play and everything is so different that you have to accept your own faults and strengths and that's just hammered into you by playing the game. That's just everything that goes into the whole process of golf. So I think that you learn to look at yourself very honestly where no one is ever going to manage you or end your game. And that's where I think your kind of self-management in an individual sports really translates to work in a lot of ways. Depending of course, what kind of culture you work in in your kind of what your employer is like, but that's just my two cents on that. That says to me that anybody who's done an individual sport like that where they are their own business and their own brand and they've got people sporting on the different specialist tasks in that, that would suggest to me that that kind of person would be a really great entrepreneur. Yeah, I think individual sports is very entrepreneurial. Yeah, it has I think much higher and stronger emotional aspects or aspect of it because we usually develop higher empathy. We very good at coaching because we used to be surrounded by coach most of the journey. We also quite good, at least from my experience, giving and receiving feedback because you constantly doing this as well. And I think in sport you learn how to respond to failure daily. I'm not sure is there a difference how you respond than you play in a team and how you respond in the individually. But at least this is what I saw like straight away then I had to adapt my path, right? That adaptability has been like one of the biggest assets at least on my path. And it really helped me to train and learn quicker. It helped me to rebuild after different setbacks. And I think that's gold for any organization. So at least this part is I think where I see the biggest difference. Yeah, but don't have any like science back it up all of this just my experience. It's really interesting to learn because it's the opposite of what I would have thought because I would have thought that individual athletes are more likely to be quite sort of internalized and self-centered and self-driven and not really wanting necessarily to collaborate in that type of way. So it's very interesting to hear. Basically, I mean, again, I'm just going off the party stuff. But I remember there's a lot of speakers, a lot pro athletes end up being after dinner speakers and stuff. And even the super like a solo-ish type of sports, sprinting, for instance, stuff like that. They'll always say, it's a team sport, I'm on the track, but actually there's a whole group of people around making this happen. But folks, I'm conscious of the time we're moving towards the end of this. So what I want to do is kind of, you know, communicate some advice that we might have that you guys have learned to other people out there, whether they're athletes or not, that might be thinking of a career transition, probably like mid-career now. Like all of you have kind of spent 5, 10 years really hyper focused, sometimes even longer than 5, 10 years at a particular tunnel. Then you thought, OK, we've got to do something different. What have you learned from your own transition that you think could be useful for others that might be thinking along the same lines? Because, you know, people identify as an accountant, maybe actually they've come to the end of the road there. OK, I'm sure they have the same existential crisis, right? And I'm sure they think, who am I? This is that conversation. Like if I decide to jettison this, then what the heck am I? I've just spent, you know, 40 hours of a week, every week for the last 10 years doing this, big question. So what's your advice to someone who is thinking about career transition? Any tips that you could offer that help them get to the next thing faster? Ben, let's start with you, actually, on this. Cool, so really quickly, for me, when I was thinking about leaving rugby, my manager at the time knew this, she knew it really well, and she said, well, go and spend some time. Like take a week off, find a recruitment business, and go and spend some time in that business for a week. And I knew some people who ran recruitment businesses, and so I just went and spent a week. I took a week's holiday, and I spent a week in a recruitment business, and absolutely loved it. I found the right one, et cetera, and loved it. So my advice would be, whatever time you've got, go and experience what you think you want to do, and see what it's actually like under the hood. Like if you've got that opportunity a week, a day, whatever it might be, go and find a business or someone doing what you think you want to do, and see what the suit, you know, fits like when you're wearing it for a bit of time. That's really good advice, because it's almost like internship again, isn't it? We see it, you know, what is it that you think you want to do? We see the brochure in the front, but is it what it really is? I mean, most jobs aren't, as they're advertised, you only know when you're doing it. So great advice, let's get closer to reality, get into a business before, or get into whatever you think you're going to do. It doesn't have to be a business. And before you make any leap, Nicholas, go to you on this. What advice would you give to someone who's thinking of career transition? Funny enough, it was, my transition from golf was very similar. I was, it was not going to start working. I was going to try what it was like to work for a while. So it was also kind of, again, that that purpose is coming back to that. It's so strong that leaving it at like cold turkey would have been too tough, just making that step right away. And I found out that I have other skills that come to me, sometimes even more naturally than golf does. So for me, it was also about trying out something new. But I think, again, for me, it was also finding that it was very particular on the environment. What kind of people am I working with? Is this an environment that I can probably make a lot of mistakes in, still grow and have a good chance of succeeding and contributing? Yeah, and I suppose being an athlete at a high level, does that, would that give you like a sense of self-confidence that you could do it? I mean, is that, does the self-confidence carry beyond the domain of expertise? Or was it the case that it was very tightly locked to that expertise? I suppose that should have been a question sort of midway through this chat, but I'm quite interested to explore that. Any thoughts? It's got to depend on the individual, surely. As a non, as not somebody who's like, surely it's all about the individual. I said on the chat earlier, I've done loads of study around boxers and boxing and the psychology of those sports people. I mean, some of them are very well set to retire and go and be even more successful outside of the sport. And some of them, the absolute opposite. And in really tragic ways. I think what I've learned, you know, working with athletes for so long is not to make assumptions. You know, there's so much individuality even in one sport. And, you know, there are people with skill sets that you think are, you know, as you would expect in others that are completely different. And I think, you know, adding to the great advice that's been offered already, definitely, there's this practical way, explore it, try it, try it before you buy it, you know, really get a sense of what opportunities are like. But also go back, you know, find your golden thread, you know, go back into your story, your life story, you know, before you ended up being an athlete, and find out those little gems, those things that either piqued your interest, those obstacles you overcame, whatever they might be, because sometimes those can be the seeds for something beyond the sport. And then the last thing I'd say would be to, you know, look for people and not for jobs or not just for jobs. So conversations, speak to people in areas of interest that challenge you, that just excite you and just learn about those industries, because you just don't know where those conversations will go. I love that, Charlie. Thank you, thank you so much on this. Golden threads, folks. Like, what is the thing that drove you to become this athlete in the first place? There might have been other things in there that you could just, you could weave that into a different story from the same, from the same start, sort of say. And of course, I love the concept of let's not just go to an abstract job or career path, go and interact with people that give you the sort of sense that yes, this is the sort of person or the sort of people that I can get inspiration from and do well with. Final word to you, what advice do you give to a career transitioner? We're all career transitioners, by the way. You know, I mean, how many people are going to be doing a 20-year career in recruiting or HR or accountancy, whatever? Maybe we all need to be thinking about this in the future that's unfolding before us. So what advice would you have for others when thinking about creative change, Agnes? I would say a few things. First one, that change isn't about leaving something behind. I think it's about caring forward what really matters for you personally and also think about transferable skills because they are your toolkit. So you just need to learn how to use them in a new game. And also, I'm a big fan of Tim Groover's "Relentless Book" I'm not sure how many of you heard about it, but that's brilliant. And please read that one if you're interested about how to become more or less resilient in life. And one of my favorite takeaways from it is when he says, "Don't chase motivation, chase high standards," right? And it's cliche as it sounds, like "Motivation builds, discipline doesn't." But actually, that's true. And most of all, three transitions are becoming, not escaping. And also, you're not switching paths most of the time. I think you are just upgrading your operating system. You're upgrading yourself. This is how all of us grow. And we're changing during the years, right? Like even psychologically speaking, the personality can change every five years, like drastically if there are any key events, like difficulties in a person's life. So that would be my advice. Thank you very much, Agni. What a wonderful show, folks. I think we could continue going for several hours on this topic. So interesting. And lots of human depth about it as well. I think it's a human story at the end of the day. How do we deal with change? How do we deal with the end of a story, beginning of a next? These are all sort of part of a life's rich pageant, so to say. OK, let's say goodbye to our guests. It's been great having everyone here. Ben Stockin, thanks for joining. Charlie Mulray, wonderful to see you, sir. We'll have the catch-up, mate. It's been 20 years or more. So let's find the time to do that. Nicholas Ekberg, great to see you. Thanks for joining the show. And Agni, wonderful to see you. Let me know when you're next in London. We'll have a proper catch-up as well. OK, folks, that's about it. Thanks for watching this show. We are back next week as usual. In fact, we're going to double-header next week. We're going to be-- actually, I'm going to be in Berlin. But I'll be doing this show from Berlin. We're going to do Friday, 12 o'clock, and 2 o'clock. We've got a double-header. It's going to be very exciting. 12 o'clock, we're going to be reviewing my recruitment predictions for 2025. So, Adam, you've got some readings to do. I made 20 predictions that I put some smart KPIs against, smart, measurable, sort of, have I got it right or wrong. Let's review those and see how the world of recruiting has gone, according to my predictions. Spoiler alert, got them all wrong, by the way. But I think it'd be useful to review as a kind of a journey towards the end of the year. We can then see, OK, what's actually happened. And then at 2 o'clock normal time, we're going to be doing diversity and inclusion in the era of ID verification, cybersecurity threats. We need to harden our recruitment approach to make sure we're defending against bad actors, let's say. But how do we do that and still maintain inclusion to underrepresented and underprivileged groups? That will be 2 o'clock. So that's it, folks. Hope you've enjoyed the chat. If you have, make sure you follow the channel. Follow me on LinkedIn as well. We'll be doing this live on there as well. So we'll see you there next week. OK, that's it. One reason why that was such an important show was because there's a lot of industries which are not growing right now. One of them which is growing at double digits is sport. The amount spent on broadcast rights for sport is growing something like 15% globally. It's billions and billions. And it's only going to keep going up. And so there's going to be more and more athletes because there's going to be more and more entertainment required by growing populations and people with more time to watch things. It's an interesting point. Like, what is the sport industry look like? And I share with you, but probably not as advanced as you, the economics of how sports works. Because obviously there's a huge amount of money in there. There is an economy going in. But how do you actually become a successful person in whatever fashion within the sports industry? A lot of recruitment as well. Relevant to recruitment. Talent acquisition is a big part of that. Skills development, personal development, big part of it. Organizational performance, culture, big part of that as well. So yeah, fascinating. There's a guy in London called Jordan Macaulay. And he is a sales guy in a tech company. But he runs a YouTube channel and newsletter called The Long Play. And it's all about the business of sport. And it's just really great. It's really, I do a lot of study on this. And it is a growing industry. And there's going to be more athletes. And there's going to be more professional athletes. And there's going to be more career transition as a result. Yeah, interesting one. Anyway, that's about it. Are we going to do last week's brain food next week then? Are we going to review last week's newsletter next week? No, we missed it. It was a good newsletter though. It was a good newsletter. This week is going to be as good. The content quality, I mean, it's not me. It's literally the stuff that's being produced by others. That's been fantastic. So yeah, it's going to be a very, very good one coming up. Can we just quickly talk about one of them, even if it's just me and you? Go on then. So the photographer who posted on LinkedIn about the scam of being approached by a recruiter from Mercor offering like decent rates to take part in an assessment and whatever. I mean, I don't know if this company is going and pretending to be the likes of Mercor and Scale and Micro One and whatever. But I mean, this is really normal. Real. I don't think it was a scam though. I think he misread it as a scam. And the point is that the exercise itself, and just a bit of context for us, everybody's still listening, Mercor are basically an AI training company. Or shall we say they're an AI company that is powering AI via human training. So they've got experts to train activities that teaches AI how to do things. Anyway, part of their assessment is to hire people that are going to volunteer their time to do this. And in order to get a job. High rate pay, good pay for doing the work. I don't think that fellow was paid though. I think that's why he thought it was a fraud. So in other words, it was part of an assessment, right? To see if you had the skills. Yes. Well, I mean, for any job you're going to have to prove you've got the skills or you're not. But this is where there's at least the CX or UX problem. Because the candidate in this case perceived him performing an assessment as free labor. Which in some cases, we've heard stories how that may be the case. Like definitely I've had in our business, I've had stories of candidates being told to produce a recruitment strategy. He's like, "All right, thanks for that. See you later." And they've just adopted the strategy. So I think there is this concept of, okay, is the assessment actually fraudulent? I don't think it was in this case. But because it is this kind of a new style of business, people will confuse about it. But yeah, it was a very interesting story. One of many from last week. But we'll do more as time goes on. All right, that's it. Cheers. Have a good weekend.