People assume the hard part is the games.
It isn’t.
The hard part is the mental ups and downs, the training levels, and what came home with me.
Walking through the door to two young kids and not having it in me to be everything they needed me to be was so tough.
I was public about my mental health while I was still playing, at a time when that wasn’t a normal thing to do in a changing room. And I turned down the chance to play international rugby.
Not because I couldn’t do it. Because of what saying yes would have cost the people I went home to.
I don’t regret it. But I’ve thought a lot about why the choice had to be that stark.
Because it wasn’t the work. The work was always hard, that was the job. Nobody I played with struggled because the training was brutal.
They struggled because they didn’t know where they stood. Because they were carrying someone who wasn’t pulling their weight. Because of the conversation nobody would have with them.
None of that is a wellbeing problem. It’s a people-management problem.
I only really understood that afterwards, in business, when I found exactly the same thing going on with better manners.
What helped me was a pint with a mate, so I set up a beer company to encourage people to actually talk to their mates. I’ve always had a staunch belief that business can be done with people at its core.
The best coaches I had weren’t the best technically. They cared past the pitch and into your family, and they held the highest standards in the building.
Both at the same time.
The ones who pretended to care got found out inside a fortnight.
Being demanding and being good to people is the same job.
Most companies don’t believe that. They treat performance and wellbeing like a seesaw. Push one and lose the other.
So they buy perks and hope. Then nothing changes, and everyone quietly agrees not to mention it.
I think business can be done better than that. Not softer. Better.
With the people in it treated as the actual point, rather than the thing you manage around.
So my work isn’t about changing people. It’s about changing the environment they’re in.
Naming the conversation a team keeps avoiding. Turning it into a ritual they actually run. Turning those rituals into how the place works when we’re not in the room.
The teams I loved most were the hardest ones to be in.
That was never a contradiction.
My purpose is simple:
Nobody should have to guess where they stand, at work or at home.