Two Coaches & a Coffee

Season 2 Episode 36

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 36

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Fresh from an invigorating trip to the UK, Darren shares enlightening conversations with notable figures Dave Carrolan and Dave Tenney, uncovering the relentless grind in professional sports. The reality behind the glamour is a world fraught with instability, where even top-tier professionals face sudden job losses and the tumultuous challenge of uprooting families. We shed light on the unseen grind of the sports industry, painting a raw picture of the service-oriented yet volatile environment those in this field navigate daily.

On a parallel journey, we explore the rugged terrain of entrepreneurship, sharing personal insights from our experiences with SpeedSig. It's a tale of tenacity and growth, where the power of education and venturing beyond the known horizons are crucial. Join us as we discuss the merits of listener engagement, fostering an encouraging community, and the continuous pursuit of personal development to achieve peak performance. We embrace innovative changes in recruitment, like statistical analysis, and extend our heartfelt gratitude to our listeners, who propel us forward in this ever-evolving adventure.

SpeedSig Intro

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

G'day and welcome to Two Coaches in a Coffee. I am very excited today to say that we're back to two coaches Darren's back. How are you going, mate?

Darren Burgess:

Loose definition of a coach. Yeah, going all right. Got back from the UK Sunday night very late, so it's now Tuesday lunchtime. I'm in work already, which is not ideal, but yeah, just trying to wait.

Jason Weber:

Back to the grindstone. But I guess the reason you're back there is in part, a bit of the theme we're going to talk today about is kind of people moving around and the volatility of where we exist, the sporting environment best, yeah, sporting environment, given, um, the state of the.

Darren Burgess:

So last two weeks I've had a magnificent time in the uk, of which a week of it was hiking in the lakes districts with my lovely partner and we were, um, there were a lot of, you know, long runs and a lot of commutes on when we're in london, uh, and a lot of walking through london. So a lot of podcast listening and caught up a lot with some people over there that I worked with some old coaches, which was great, and my Spanish got refreshed and caught up with our mate friend of the podcast, dave Carrolyn We've got to mention him again, dave Carrolyn.

Darren Burgess:

We've gone on a couple of podcasts without mentioning him, and one of the podcasts I listened to was talking to an athlete who'd become an entrepreneur and made millions and he was a mountain bike rider at number one. I'd not heard of him before, but anyway he talked about the 2% that the public sees of athletic life or professional sport life, and they don't see the 98% of the grind that athletes go through, especially at the top level that he was clearly at. And then this morning I had a long conversation with a very good friend of mine and probably one of the best high performance directors I've come across in Dave Tenney Absolute pioneer is not too big a word to say of the industry and he got let go by his club, austin FC, for the last 24 hours and I'll keep an eye on this as my role in FIFPRO. I've got to keep an eye on injury rates and things like that. So Major League Soccer injury rates Austin FC. That so major league soccer injury rates Austin FC in the top two or three for the last three years that he's been there in the top for high speed running.

Darren Burgess:

So by any objective metric which we can be judged by and we've spoken about what we can be judged by his, his tenure. There was a success and he set up the academy startup club. So it just speaks to the volatility and, and you know, maybe people in this podcast uh might want to work in professional sport. I might want to work up through the ranks and and the 98 just like the podcast that I listen to of the mountain bike rider uh, the two% where you hear somebody speak at a conference about some of the wonderful things they're doing in a club, or you see somebody on a sideline, you know and go, oh, it'd be great to be. You know, dave Tenney, on the sideline of Austin.

Jason Weber:

FC. Is that wrong?

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, whoever else. They don't see the 98% of the grind, which includes the volatility of a guy who's at the% of the grind, which includes the volatility of a guy who's at the top of his game. One of the best, and it's not the first person.

Jason Weber:

No.

Darren Burgess:

Certainly won't be the last. So how do you reconcile that yourself, I guess, jase with being part of the industry? Do you just go in there knowing no?

Jason Weber:

I think it's.

Darren Burgess:

Teachers and accountants. They'll never, ever get sacked, unless they do something extraordinary.

Jason Weber:

Abhorrent. Yeah, yeah, I think. Look man, I think you go into sport being very altruistic, like I want to do a great job, I want to work for the players, I want to do this thing, blah, blah, blah. It's all about other people and that's what we. We're a service industry, right, we help others, that's what we do. So there is that to it.

Jason Weber:

So you get a bit blinded. I would say I was blinded. I was talking yesterday to someone and I would say I was blinded. I was talking yesterday to someone and I said, like I only ever really coveted one job, I coveted my. I always wanted to work for the Wildeys. I wanted to do that. So I got that job, did that, I would say.

Jason Weber:

Once I got into AFL, I grew to love where I was and wanted to keep fighting, and I was one of those ones who had a contract expired during COVID and I've never had anything but the highest level of job reviews and it's gone. It's just gone. It's just switched off. There's nothing, there's no warning. Now, it's not an unusual story across our industry. In the US probably not, unlike Australia, where geographically it's really difficult people get switched off and they might have to move family from one side of the country to the other.

Jason Weber:

I know our great mate, dave Carroll, and he's moved around a lot in the UK but he does a lot of driving back home, so he would keep the family where they are. He would move off, work for a few days, come back. That's not always that easy, but there's no question. No question that there are people that get dismissed in this industry for no apparent reason. Now, dave, you've just used him as example. I'm not going to name this other guy, but I know a guy recently who had his contract extended and then had it rescinded at the last minute by an organisation, which was abhorrent, because this person was working on a visa and their whole existence was challenged, and again for no professional reason, and he had no recourse. He investigated ways to deal with it from maybe I guess you call it a legal perspective, but we lurk in a very volatile, very volatile environment and I think I would like to say that people younger than me are aware of where that's at, because it is.

Darren Burgess:

It can be fickle, it can be really fickle yeah, I think, maybe maybe it was brett bartholomew, or I recall him saying you need to have a side hustle or a backup plan, or maybe it was him who sort of publicized it first and you certainly need to do that.

Darren Burgess:

But I think, think more importantly and I'm in that phase at the moment because I'm hiring people left, right and centre, because a lot of people have left the crows to going on to bigger and better jobs, which is hopefully a testament to the program but you want to make them aware of the high pressure, high stakes nature of the environment and that it can end at any time, particularly in European soccer or global football, where the changes in coaches happen just all the time, you know, left, right, centre. So I think you have to pay into it by being aware of it, and we all know the importance of you know psych safety and making your employees feel valued and all that sort of stuff. But there is a harsh reality to it and unless you go into it knowing that that's the case, um, you're, you're bound to not handle it well right, I'm going to throw one at you, mate.

Jason Weber:

Now, this has never been my go, but there are many people I know that are bound to a coach. So you'll see the S&C, the performance guy, go with the coach. So wherever the coach goes, they go. Now, that's never been my thing and from the best of my knowledge it's not been your thing, but it's a commonplace. You see it in the world game football a lot. What's your take on that? What's your take on a pro who really is bound to a coach, to skills like the head coach? It's a strategy.

Darren Burgess:

It's nothing that I'm going to criticise because it's a pretty safe option. And you pay into that knowing that at some point that coach is going to criticize because it's a pretty safe option. Yeah, and you pay into that knowing that at some point that coach is going to move if he gets sacked or, in the best case scenario, get into a better club and a you know, and a, a better career and all that sort of stuff. So, um, I've got no objection to it whatsoever. Would that be my way of doing things? No, it's not. That doesn't make it right or wrong.

Jason Weber:

No, no, I don't think so either, but it is. It is something I've thought of. Like I've worked two very long-term jobs and had coaches come in and out and you kind of go well, where do we sit with this? Now? It's all well and good when the coach gets dismissed, but the club go hey, we want to keep you and you stay on. That's great, and I won't. I'll probably argue. The other side of the coin for a moment is there are points where, if you're good enough, you stay. But what I would say is the notion that there's loyalty in sport is absolutely untrue. I think there are elements of it here and there, but for the most part, loyalty is not a thing. And what I would say again is that a lot of clubs I'm going to say specifically AFL clubs prey on the idea that you want to work here and they want the culture around go above and beyond and all these things. I'm like how much harder can people work? Like we're already doing 70-hour weeks, like what else are we prepare to give?

Darren Burgess:

yes, it's again, you've got to pay into that and you you've got to not excuse it.

Darren Burgess:

It's that's the nature of our industry and there is a massive push and that probably 10 years ago it started maybe a bit less than that of oh, let's make sure that you don't burn out and let's make sure that you've got great work life balance and let's make sure all of that and, to an extent, right, and let's use the AFL, because people over in England had conversations with a couple of really good people at Arsenal that I employed when I was there and worked with and doing superb work over there in Tom with and doing superb work over there in Tom Allen and Sam Wilson, and they could not believe the work-life balance that happens in the AFL in terms of contact hours with the players compared to the Premier League.

Darren Burgess:

So there are some good things about it, but there is a simple fact that you know weekend work and late night, early morning text messages from players, and that's just a fact of it and you need to understand that before you come into the industry and not complain about it when you're in there, because it is what you signed up for. Yeah, no question. My point about the volatility is. It is what you signed up for, so don't necessarily complain about it, just be really aware of it. You will know this more than me that the Buddhism saying about meditating on death, that's what you should do. You should be aware of the fact that at some point it's going to come to an end.

Jason Weber:

Which brings you to that point of your side hustle, which has become now it's become a big thing. It's become a big thing and the one that is, I guess, most prevalent is the one with guys starting to teach. I've got two years' experience. Now I'm going to teach rehab, which kind of bugs me a little bit because, well, it bugs me a lot because I think there's some people teaching things that are really not their skill set, but nonetheless, again, you can't bag people for trying, but what? I think you kind of wonder whether it's possible. Like you talk about work-life balance and the athlete contact hours. That's driven by the athletes. That's not driven by our side of the equation at all. But you know who do it well, and I'm not sure every one of them do it well.

Jason Weber:

But the physiotherapists can do it very well, the ones who've got a practice established on the outside that they can keep churning over and that then maybe, if things blow up, they can step back into. Now they do that very well. Doctors do it very well, because doctors aren't full time. They always have practice on the outside. I'd love to see people in our industry being able to create something on the outside in that nature, not sure exactly how you do it. I think the the proliferation of facilities, um, that are aimed at more high performance. There's lots of them now and I and they're not all necessarily high performance, but they're. They're certainly bringing a higher standard of conditioning to general population, which I think is awesome. Um, facilities are, equipment's expensive, so it's all hard, but seeing people have their own practice outside of sports somehow very difficult.

Darren Burgess:

I think it's important to at least be aware of it. The facility stuff yep, that's something that I've gone into, obviously, with Peak. The side hustle that you've developed in SpeedSig has become like a really prominent part of your life and your suite of services that you offer. So I think it's something you should be aware of. My question to you, jason, is why are we doing this then, when we're getting $0 for it? Good question, good question, well. I think, I'm saying that facetiously by the way.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, I know, I know, but I would say and here's a genuine one We'll hit this real quick. I would like to circle back to just not talk about SpeedSync per se, but just the background of that. But why are we doing this? We're doing this because we used to catch up and do this anyway and we started saying, well, why don't we just record it and see what happens? I and we started saying, well, why don't we just record it and see what happens? I think there are people I'm really happy to pay it forward to, young practitioners, and I think there are people that helped me along the way. So I'm kind of I'm more than happy with that. What I would say to our? I think we've got 13 listeners now, I understand, which is really cool, but I've now enabled on our little the web on the description of the podcast. You can send a message. So if you're keen to understand something more about the industry or you want to ask questions, don't bag us. You know, I know Taylor tells us that haters are going to hate.

Darren Burgess:

I don't need to deal with that shit. I don't understand. Treat me like I'm a tech. You know. I'm know as anybody around. But on the podcast app or on the website. No no.

Jason Weber:

So, on the podcast description, which should be, most people are using either Apple or Spotify there should be an option there to click it and you can put a comment in and then you can put that comment to us and then, if there's things that you want us to talk about, things you don't want to talk about, don't do hater stuff because we're going to block you or do something with that. But we're trying to help people out and I think you know, darren and I are exploring ideas around this and what else we can do with it. And I think later in the year we're going to there's some stuff going on in Australia. Certainly, darren, in the year, there's some stuff going on in Australia. Certainly, darren and I are presenting with the Exercise and Sports Science Australia. We're going to do a live podcast and actually speak to some people. So we'll see how that goes.

Jason Weber:

But in terms of just going back, petal, you made the point about speed sig. What I would say to people is that, yes, promote the idea of side hustles now, whether they're another business, whether they're you becoming an academic, which lots of people are doing. You know, I do the PhD. Where can I end up? Doesn't matter what you do. It's all going to take longer than you think. That would be my one recommendation. So you, you have this idea that, hey, I'm going to launch this business and I've got this service. Whatever it is, I've come up with this thing. I do it cooler than everybody else. Whatever it is, it always takes longer to get things up and going than you think. And the very hardest part of all of it without question and this is from a tech guy who wrote algorithms and does all that technical sort of nerdy stuff the hardest part by far is marketing Getting it out to people, getting it communicating it like even with SpeedSync it's got some technical challenges, some technicalities to it. So me communicating it is a whole process. So whatever you're doing um, you know it's a challenge. Now what I would say that is so I did uh, I'm trying to think of what year was last year.

Jason Weber:

Early last year I did a entrepreneur course at curtain university, which is called Accelerate was just a half-year thing. It was one day a week for half a year. Awesome, absolutely unbelievable. But even that only really scratched the surface. But I know there are people out there doing MBAs to get a different slant on things. People are doing corporate directorship programs, things like that. So I know a couple of guys, one that stepped out last year of AFL and seems to be doing really well in a very big industry. Having done that path, I know a guy who stepped out of again high performance and is now in deep with Amazon just a whole different still in sport, but has taken his skill across to a technology industry.

Jason Weber:

So I think, yeah, don't lose sight of what you're trying to do. If you want to work in sport, you want to be like Darren and work at Arsenal and big clubs, go for it like, get after it. But yeah, I would do the Google thing and spend 10% of your week, maybe 5%, thinking building outside of the exact environment we're in, because it does pay dividends. So the point I just want to make with SpeedSig SpeedSig, to this point, is now pretty much onto its 11th year. We've been commercial for just over 18 months, but it's been 11 years I've been working on the project, right. So it takes a long time. If you think you're just going to click your fingers and start business, I once got told that it takes 18 months to get a business up and going. I would tell you it takes longer than that, right? So I'm not wanting to dissuade anybody from it, far from it. I'm actually super supportive of it, but you're going to have to grow a pair and keep digging, because it takes a while.

Darren Burgess:

It does. I'm conscious of time, so let me just end it on this. It's a great industry, right, it is a great industry and that's why, honestly, when you said let's pay it forward when we discussed this, that's the only reason why you and I are doing this. If, in a year's time, we need to commercialise it in order to pay rent, then yeah, we might look to that, but at the moment, I'm really passionate about the industry and I'm happy to to spend, you know, 40 minutes a week talking to you and and and putting it out to whoever might.

Darren Burgess:

Um, you know, listen the 13 people yeah, exactly, um, but uh, again, you know I'm a bit of a avid podcast listener different ones and I remember um, hearing something and I'll probably get this wrong, so I'm not even going to quote the podcast but one of the successful CEOs saying I spend Thursday morning from 8am to 2pm on myself and that's however I choose that to be, and that might be however I choose that to be, and that might be meditation, that might be researching new and better ways for me to achieve my goals, it might be looking at ways to innovate, but that is completely blocked out from my normal day-to-day work.

Darren Burgess:

And the podcaster said yeah, but don't people you hear of CEOs starting meetings at 7am and going to 7pm and you know how have you managed to both be successful and square off that time? And he said that's why I've been successful, because I've been able to square off that time to continue to work on me in some way, shape or form. So I think that's important while you're in a job, to be aware of exactly what you have said, that it does take time, so you need to devote some time to it.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, don't underestimate. Like you can find your thing. Like I'm going to tell you this is the nerdiest thing. So I enjoy coding, like I learned to code, and actually it's not like it's fun, but it's a great diversion in my thinking. If I want to do something fun, I'm surfing or I'm wing foiling or I'm doing all that sort of stuff which is wild and out there. But having interests that stimulate you intellectually in a different area will help your core practice, which I have no doubt in that and I think weird ass things like coding. I enjoy playing chess, we play musical instruments, all of that stuff I think helps. So you just got to find your thing.

Jason Weber:

And if I hark back to Darren, my, while Darren was away, I squeezed in those becoming, you know, becoming a high performance manager. One of the first ones I talked about in Episode 1 was know thyself, and I think Darren's point is exactly that Know yourself. What do you have to do to be the best you can be? Now, that might be meditate, that might be, you know, go and do a spin class, I don't know what it is, but you've definitely got to know yourself in that regard.

Darren Burgess:

All right.

Jason Weber:

Go back to more recruitment. Okay Well, I'm off to coding again. I've got some statistical analysis to do. We're going to get stats boards on SpeedSig real soon. It's about to happen, so we're getting very exciting stuff. Might make my hair grow back. Righto man, you look after yourself and all. To our 13 listeners we love you all. Drop us a message, tell us what you're thinking and see if we can't add something to that. See you, guys. You.