“Take the Meeting” and “Get Some Scars” with Phil Smith, Vice-Chairman/Owner of Ossett United FC and Former Manchester United Executive

Phil D.: Welcome back to how soccer explains leadership. Thank you so much for being a part of this show. Thank you for just really being able to be part of this conversation. Paul Jobson, and I absolutely love getting to do what we do. And you know, the interview that I get to do is no exception. This is a guy that I met on clubhouse last year.

Really just talking about how Ted lasso Explains Leadership. And it was just a fun thing that we threw out there. And this dude from Manchester, England shows up on clubhouse and we ended up just hitting it off and having a blast together. So finally, I'm getting him to be able to have a conversation with us.

So today I have Phil Smith with me and Phil is vice chairman and owner of Ossett United it's in the sixth division of the English pyramid. If you don't know what the English pyramid is, just Google it, check it out. Six divisions, pretty darn high. He's the super proud father of a super cute little girl.

He owns [00:01:00] actually owns rights to Nerf. How cool is that? Then all the balls that we've been playing with for my entire childhood in UK, Europe and middle east, and he's a management consultant a whole lot more. I mean, I I'd go for a full hour just given this dude's bio. So Phil Smith, how are you doing man?

[00:01:15] Phil S.: Good. Good. This is early for you, but it's the end of my day. And I've, I've done a full day. I've walked the dog. I'm dressed in my does walk in a uniform. And, and they, we all sat in my kitchen. You made it out like, like we're friends though. I don't remember agreeing to, well,

[00:01:32] Phil D.: you know, I just do stuff like that on this show and, you know, cause I can edit out anything.

Right. So if I just that part where you said that, I just, I just want to make it known that like I know you and you know me, so it's one

[00:01:46] Phil S.: of, oh, Phil, Phil, listen, I couldn't live without him. I couldn't live without. Yeah.

[00:01:52] Phil D.: Thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate that. You know, see folks, if you didn't know already, like I know people, so that's, that's why I do this.

So that's why we're [00:02:00] able to do this is because we go way, way, way back. anyway, Speak in a way back. we've had some good conversations about you, kind of a crazy story. You, you know, this, this half of the season we've been able to share some really cool stories from people and yours is no exception, kind of how you got to be where you are today.

We throw out different things that you're doing, but your, your childhood going into college and after college first few years, there's some pretty cool things. Can you just share that story with our audience?

[00:02:32] Phil S.: So I was very fortunate to, to be offered a scholarship, to play soccer over in New York, on long island sort of a chance of a lifetime. Really two of us were, were offered this opportunity and the other guy never got on the plane and never, never told me or anything. It just landed on the other side of the.

Looking for the guy and he never, he was never there. So into the, into the breach on my own, I went on a, and you know, what a, an unbelievable experience playing soccer back in the day. [00:03:00]When, you know, if you had an English accent, you must be the best soccer player in the world. Before any real exposure of, of bricks and, and any real serious development of, of us soccer was, was put in.

I was lucky enough to be there as that started and. They started taking soccer a lot more seriously. And the investment, which is always needed, went into grassroots development, went into facilities. And I think the Americans are great at that. Americans are great at saying, right. Let's, let's push your sport.

Like let's push the kids and push the push the coaches and let's, let's see what we've got. And I think that's been very, very prevalent in the women's game over the past 20 years, you've seen a rapid growth in, in the, in the women's soccer program and the men's also, so for me very, very privileged to witness the birth of that sort of boom for us soccer Sunil Gulati, who I know it really well. And, and the guys over at MLS have, have really helped drive us soccer, but it'll always be about grassroots at [00:04:00] low is be about getting involved at that lower level and, and inspiring kids and showing them the love of sport. And, and as always, some will stay and some will go and hopefully the good ones stay and off we go.

So I was very privileged to, to play soccer in the U S my lecturer at college was an English guy who also was commercial advisor and, and on the board at the New York. It's quite funny. He was from Burton on Trent, which is nowhere near where I live, but obviously we're English. So the only English people at the school were were, were overnight buddies and he took a bit of a liking to me, like to talk about tea or the queen or, or you know cricket and, and he got his English fixed from me.

Oh yeah. You can not live without them, like live without your advice. And friendship. Crumpets is second on the list. How might even have some over there somewhere, but anyway, so I am quite fortunate. American education system was tested strongly with, because [00:05:00] we would have a game let's say away at Florida and he'd come over and say what are you playing this weekend?

We're down in Florida and he's in DC. Great. Okay. And then you hand out the homework and he'd go down the line and he wouldn't put any on my. And everybody else has got homework and I don't have any to do and I'd come back and we'd be at the class on Monday. You'd ever want to come their homework in. I have nothing to hand in.

And then on Wednesday or Thursday, you would hand the homework back and I would get a piece of paper with like a C plus on it. And I would get this average grade every single time I didn't do it. I didn't do any homework. I had to do it by the way. I had to got more than a C plus. Right. But they let me focus on, on playing soccer and it was a great program.

Loved it. He then offered me an internship, which I didn't know, meant work for free. I found out very quickly, but yeah, I worked with him, worked with him at the stadium and I wanted to, I, I was studying to be a sports agent during the film, Jerry Maguire with Tom cruise. Yeah. Yeah, that's[00:06:00] that's, that was my inspiration.

I wanted to be a sports agent and I, I studied it and I met a lot of the great guys in that field and wanted to follow them. But when I, when I went with, with my lecturer and started understanding sports, commercial sports business, and how the whole wheel works and, you know, the revenue they need to generate to just keep alive and, you know, to the, to the farm and to the outside world, it's all glitz and glamor and bright lights and, and, and sports.

But behind the scenes, there's a hell of a lot goes on to, to make that wheel turn you know, and a lot of the cash for a lot of sports clubs is. the facilities are a little bit tired. The systems aren't the best. The staff don't get paid as much because all the fundamental caches is, is on the field. No matter what sport that is, that seems to be synonymous with major sport.

And so I was really good working with Ford motors, working with Nike, working with the champion [00:07:00] sports, working with NBC working with Fox four and really driving commercial revenue for, for Yankee stadium. And I fell in love with it. I totally fell in love with, with how, how to do that. I mean, listen, when you work with teams like Yankees and another team, I mentioned that.

It's incoming. You don't have, you don't have to go back into much. Right, right. But, but you still got to deal with it and the best path to take. And how do we, how do we generate maximum revenue from each? And every deal I fell in love with it whether it was dealing with grass seeds, Footlights, beer seat, seat, coverings, whatever it was, it was a commercial deal and it was there to be hard.

And I got, I got involved in it. From there actually went and worked for Nike for a year and looked to new product development, any new product that was being launched in the states. They, Nike had a program long before social media, long before social media. It's funny. I'll show a space of time.

Social media is being with us. And yet we feel like. Experts and it's been a long forever, but the only way of knowing [00:08:00] if you sold the product well enough for Nike at that time or talking 2004 at that time was if a shop in Manhattan, reordered a second batch of a product, that was the only data, the only way to understand if you'd done well.

And there was a game I would tell the story, I quite enjoyed dying out in the story. Sometimes there was a game I don't if told you a story. There was a game between the New York Yankees and the Arizona diamond bucks. And I had one cap, this new baseball cap, it was this green and yellow Brazilian type design looking cap.

The brand was called Joga Benita, which should play beautiful. And in a Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese I had one cap and the cap is on dirt Jeter's head. And he's been interviewed by a and B. And he's talking away and I've managed to get my product on there. Obviously I knew I knew them, so it was easy to do.

[00:09:00] He's wearing the Kathy's talking. And then I realized that with, with this hat being Portuguese and a Brazilian type brand to my right, about to go on Latino sports TV was Jorge Posada. And now I'm thinking I'm going to get more. I'm going to get more traction on Jorge's head. Then he said, he's, he's Brooklyn, Italian, right, right.

A great market. Don't get me wrong. I think, I think I need the hat on this guy said, and there's a footage on YouTube somewhere of there at G had been interviewed and somebody just grabs the hat off his head. And that's me because I needed the hat on Jorge facade is how, of course I'll find that footage.

And Sandy's quite funny. So yeah. So I did that job for a year. I loved it.

[00:09:48] Phil D.: And then I moved back to go back to Yankees. When you went into the Cashman's off.

[00:09:54] Phil S.: Never, never, ever. He never looked at me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. If he [00:10:00] watches this, he's going to send me a very stern email. But yeah. So, so my, my lecture.

Have a year off a sabbatical to write a book. And he he recommended that I stay on look after the, the portfolio that we're looking after, but he be a phone call away on long island if I needed him at 23

[00:10:21] Phil D.: or something. Right. Yeah.

[00:10:23] Phil S.: 2004, 2003. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fresh, fresh face and everything. And he wants to write a book.

He wrote a very successful book. Great, great book. And he had a year off to do it and we had a bat phone in the office pick up the phone and didn't even dial a number and it rang, it rang his house and he was out on long island in, in south Hampton. I believe he lived in Ohio. And it was, it would be there.

So I felt, listen, just do this, just do that. No problem. But the day-to-day work I was doing and enjoyed my dog, just saying, hello, I'm just as I'm talking to you. Yeah. [00:11:00] So so he said, listen, I've got an idea. I'm going to run it. I'm going to run it by the big chief. So we walked down this long corridor into the biggest office in the whole stadium, which is an unbelievable you see, you see these off of LA.

There you go. You see these unbelievable offices on unlike Jerry Maguire or, or Trading Day, Kevin Costner's trophies everywhere, and they've got the basketballs and the baseballs and everything's not gonna is the same, the same. And is it the far end of the office and he's, and he's writing he's, he's, he's writing or reading a book for giving me one or the other.

He's got his head down and, and, and, and. We were at the door and my colleague says I I've got to, you know, I'm having to, you know, having a year off and Cashman says, yeah, yep. I'm aware of that. And he said, well, I've got an idea how how we can carry on moving things forward in the commercial department.

And I suggest that Phil stays on rather than an internship. We, we obviously we pay, we pay him and I'll just be [00:12:00] on long island as a mentor. You won't even notice any difference. And it didn't even look up at me or at all. And he just went, okay, make it happen. And I kind of just went, I just got a job. I just went.

Thank you. Anyway. So didn't look any words that was a job.

[00:12:26] Phil D.: I don't even know who you were. He didn't know what you looked like.

[00:12:29] Phil S.: Well, possibly we'll walk past me in the corridor and I'd be like, Hey, okay, listen. Great, great guy, visionary, a solid, solid, solid Korea. But yeah, his brain was on a different frequency.

Some absolutely

[00:12:48] Phil D.: trusted his people apparently. So that was just the

[00:12:51] Phil S.: best interview I ever had.

[00:12:53] Phil D.: Absolutely. So go back, go back to where you were. So sorry. I just,

[00:12:58] Phil S.: I love that. And then I went to [00:13:00] Nike and then I ended up moving back to the UK 2006. Yeah. And not everyone knows this and I'm going to do a little bit of an exclusive, a little bit of a show you behind the wizard's curtain, back in 2006 Manchester United, Ferrari, and the New York Yankees had a sharing business.

 it was a financial company that they all had shares in and they. Be able to lend and borrow cash against that, against that fund, whether it be dollar Euro or pound. And, you know, depending on the market, there will be a fluctuation in dollars. Then they, all of a sudden it be shifted into Euros and it was a healthy trading account to help those trinkets.

And they borrowed, they borrowed against an agreed rate. The guy that managed that fund, who works for the Glazer family red football out of Tampa called me and said, when you get to the back to UK, I want you to go and meet a guy who co-founded the Muppets with Jim Henson [00:14:00] and then took the Cirque de Soleil from being a street act to being 30, 30 shows a night, anywhere in the world extravaganza.

He's now working for the Glazer family and he's running new Manchester United business Monday nights split into two there's Monday night football club and Manchester United limited, which is the. And he's running the limited side, David Gill's running the football side. So I said, why not? I'd love to meet that guy.

Long story short. I, I meet the guy and I get a job at Man United I had a, a cool job called the client relationship executive. Look after renewal of hospitality's a big spenders at the club, making sure we retain revenue again, same, same conversation from, from previous there's so much goes on to retain revenue, incoming money, sponsorship, money, corporate hospitality, whatever.

So there was one lady who donated. 300,000 pounds per year to the club [00:15:00] in order for her two sons to attend one game and sit in the director's box once a season. And she would, she would give 300,000 pounds just for them to have the privilege of doing that. And we would pick these two kids up from the airport to one of them, one of them not even.

So you're looking forward to the game now we'll have not bothered. And we take these two kids to the ground and we'd show them around and treat them like royalty. And, and they wouldn't eat the food in the, in the five-star chef had made this amazing food. They, they, they w a big Macs. Of course, you have to send someone out for big Mac and they'd sit at the table.

Everybody else is eating the silver, silver service. And these two kids were in big Macs in the director's house, but I did. That's what we did. We retained revenue. And we made sure that those clients got what, you know, what they needed within, within the realm. Reality. So it was, he was a great job.

Love United said that approximate time.

[00:15:57] Phil D.: Go back to that story to the way you got [00:16:00] jobs. I say this because you never know who knows who, and you never know it. Part of leadership is, is listening and being available and just going and meeting people that you don't know what they're going to do for you.

So you said you had the buddy who knew the guy who ran limited, right? So you met, met him and then he got you an interview with the guys that, or I don't know if it was in that conversation, but I remember you talking about them asking you if you were going to go work for the competitors or whatever.

[00:16:33] Phil S.: So, yeah, so they it was a great conversation.

We hit it off. We, we shared some similar values, but there wasn't a job. There was, there was no, there was no job. And he, we shook hands and I left actually. And he called, he called me later that evening or the following day, very soon after I met him and said, I've been thinking about our meeting, really enjoyed it.

But let me ask you a question. If I don't give you a job, where are you going to go and work for? [00:17:00] And I joke, and he said, Manchester city, Liverpool, Everton picking somebody fairly close geographically. And he said, Hmm, that's what concerns me. That's what concerns me. I said, okay. And he said, could you come back on Monday, the following week after the following week, I'll be back on Monday.

I'd like you to meet for you. Other people in the business. So I did, I went back on the Monday expecting to meet him and another couple of people for a coffee. And I walk in this room and there's nine people sat on a boardroom table. I'm on the board or there on a Monday morning. And I. I recognize a couple of them, a couple of famous people on the boat and I'm sat there going, oh my.

And they said, listen, we've got a conversation over the weekend, which is great. I mean, look at it. Think about it now. Right. That at the time I was like, okay, now I'm thinking the board spoke about this job over the weekend. And that was pretty important that. [00:18:00] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm going to blow, I run a boat.

Now you get anything out that was over the weekend. Nothing. I'm not even answering my phone. So, so yeah, so, so we, we we've got this conversation and we, we, we put together a position we'd like you to consider it and listen to w it was the consideration lasted 0.4 seconds, right? I mean, I'm in the gun. Yes.

Do it. Let's let's, let's, let's, let's get on with it. And it was amazing, you know, I got to do some great stuff, traveled on a plane with a, with a players to away games. Funny enough not name-dropping, but I just bumped into Rio Ferdinand in Manchester this afternoon. And we were just talking about two stories where he, he, we were playing Inter Milan in a really important game and Champions League, and his back was so bad that he stood up on the plane the whole way there, because if he sat down it would seize up.

And I remember stood at the back. I've just gone to the, to the toilet and then he stood up at the backend and we said, all right. Yeah. I'm not going to sit down if I do that every now and again, then masseuse would come over and give him a little rub and [00:19:00] rub on his back. And I'm thinking this guy is preparing for a Champions League game.

No one knows this. The fans don't know this, and he's having to stand up on a, what was probably, I don't know, two and a half hour flight. And then to, Inter Milan, just to play in that game, he couldn't sit down and have a great game and, and, you know, it's real food and one of the best, we're the best defenders in the country, if not in Europe, it's time.

And, and I was privileged to get, to get to do that. And I've visited the training ground and, and, and, and still do know some of the, the players now from that time you know, I slowly, I was in town in the middle of town and he's walked past me and Hey, Phil, how you doing? A little bit of non-monetary value.

That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to have that. And it's also nice to think that he could do that and didn't think, oh, that's that idiot. That to, that used to work at Man United, I must've done some things good with him. Anyway, moving on that job became a 13 man team. In the end, the client [00:20:00]relationship team became a 13 person department and is now a 92 million pound revenue source for the club.

So yeah, probably probably a normal. Now last time I checked it would generate 92 million a season in incoming funds at United. So a very important role, a very important now important department at the club. Well, I, I wish

[00:20:23] Phil D.: I would've known you when I went back to old Trafford in March of 19.

Cause I actually. Went to the game through one of those hospitality packages that you created, they weren't cheap. And you know, and now I feel like if I'd have known you, I, I, you could have gotten me a deal. You could have got me like 5% off or something, you know? I don't know. Yeah. Oh, maybe that's true.

That's true. You would have had the, you would have made some money on the deal probably. Yeah. That's maybe gets good thing. I didn't know exactly, exactly. Cause I get to hang out with you because we might see Rio Ferdinand in the street and Manchester, so you never know. So [00:21:00] yeah, that makes sense.

[00:21:01] Phil S.: Yeah. So, I mean, I loved that job.

I would have stayed and it's funny. I don't know. I don't know where that would've gone. I would've stayed. And this is a topic too we can bring back into, into the fray is I sat down with, with Michael Bollingbrook, who went on to become coincidentally, the CEO of Inter Milan. After that job, I just mentioned them in a previous story, but, and I sat down with Michael and said, listen, I've done this job for a few years now.

And it kind of runs itself. We put the right ethos into it, that everyone understands it. The team all get it. There's processes in place and it works. I'm looking for the next thing. Now what's the next thing. And he said, well, listen, you report into the board. The next step is the board. And he said, well, you're way too young.

You don't have enough scars. You you need an I won't, I won't use the exact words in case this is at a time when other people are listening. But he said to me, in order to come back here at that level, you need to [00:22:00] go away. You need to find yourself in a boardroom where you lose arguments and you get the *&%# kicked out of you verbally.

You then need to get those scars and understand how to fight your corner in a board room. And then you need to win some fights in a boardroom. And then, and only then can you come back at that level? And at the time I'm thinking, what does he mean? And you know, what, what was he talking about? And I did, I went away and, and, and I worked at a couple of companies where I was at a board level.

And not everybody's your friend. Not everybody in the board room is your friend. There are people that might want you job. There are people that want to get ahead of you. There are people that are looking for pay rises therapies to personal agendas sometimes, and you'll never understand what they are and why they exist.

And that is, that is the working environment. And in a board level, I do believe it's a dog eat dog sort of world. And certainly in the businesses I were working in, you act to know your numbers, know your figures. If you stick [00:23:00] your hand up to, to question something, you, you better get it right. And I understood it, but only years later, I understood what you meant by get some scars in a board room.

And so, yeah, I I got it and I worked with a couple of great companies, postman United. I then went a bit freelance and decided to be a renegade for hire working with new brands specifically in the Northwest. A lot of restaurants, a lot of bars and helping them penetrate the market. I ended up finding myself at Melia hotel Spain's largest hotel group.

Very, very great big company run by a family, still run by Gabriela Scott and his father. And that was fantastic. Love working for Melia. A lot of traveling had a child at the time, only less than one and found myself missing out on, on little things. I said this to someone earlier today, I would, I would come back from a trip and my little girl would be able to color in the lines and not smudge over the lines.

Oh my God. Look at this. She's coloring in the lines. And my partner would say he should have been doing that for four weeks. [00:24:00] And she didn't know she developed a new word or understand what was going on on the TV and point and say a word, oh my God, look, she can, I just put the pig. And she, they, she recognized that three weeks ago and I realized that I was losing out on this wonderful little person's development for the sake of.

And that work life balance was wrong. So I stopped working for Melia purely because I wanted to see my little girl grow up. And, and that, that's an interesting lesson to learn. When do you stop chasing the dollars and, and realize what the important things are in life. And that was a bit of a shock for me.

That one, what nobody told me about that not just happened on a random Thursday evening. I, that hit me like a truck, to be honest with you. Yeah. I, I now say I changed. I changed, I worked more than that. And, and now I find myself owning a, and co-running a non-league soccer team down in in level six division six of the English pyramid.

As you mentioned before, I'd also working in, in tech [00:25:00] specifically for large sports stadiums and arenas. That's what I'm currently finding my, my daily work. And as you mentioned, also, I acquired along with a friend of mine, the rights to Nerf in the UK, Europe and the middle east during lockdown did a deal with Hasbro to obtain those rights.

And we're launching a whole series of products in the UK at the moment. Take you further out and that's pretty much a last

[00:25:26] Phil D.: well, and the nerve thing, if you're in Manchester, if you're visiting Manchester, you need something to do between, you know, games or whatever. And, and you, you want to go and just battle with people.

You can do like Nerf battle nerve for in this new facility. That is a, is it open yet? Or is it open in September? So wait till September CA catch a couple matches. Oh, you said open

[00:25:49] Phil S.: or it's open. Let's create a, let's create a code or a password from people who listened to this podcast and they can, they can get in at half prices.

[00:25:58] Phil D.: H S E [00:26:00] L

[00:26:00] Phil S.: 50. There we go. Because,

[00:26:04] Phil D.: because you have HSEL50, you have the cashless payment systems that you're working with. So that's what you're doing now. Right? So that, that's, that's this idea that we're just going to cross market everything here. That that's what we do. So that's, this is one of the first, by the way, that's a big sponsorship.

So you just, you just committed to all kinds of cash for that. So we can do it on the cashless system that we're going to create for you

[00:26:30] Phil S.: the PM. And I'm so drunk right now.

[00:26:35] Phil D.: Not true folks for the kids listening out there. He is not and drinking apple juice as far as I know. And you know, he's not, so that's good.

That's good. All right. Hey, I want to go back and talk about that. You said we'll come back to it. I do want to talk about that. So you talked about the board and he talks about this idea of scars. Right? Like in, in, I think in leadership to write any, anything in leadership [00:27:00] to be a great leader, you gotta be a great follower to be a great leader.

You have to fail. If you're, if you're not failing, you're not learning. Right. All these ideas that we hear. How many of those in, what, what lessons did you take from your playing days into the Yankees, Manchester United, the board, these things that you're doing now, how many of the things, how much of what you're doing now is colored by you playing and learning on the pitch.

[00:27:31] Phil S.: Great question. and, and so many I'm trying to, I'm trying to literally hold one. As they fly, fly box, just a couple,

[00:27:37] Phil D.: two or three of the.

[00:27:39] Phil S.: And there was a, there was a great, a great coach of still is a great coach in Sheffield where I'm originally from. And he was coaching at Sheffield United, and I had the fortunate to spend a couple of seasons in, in his care and he would tell players, especially wingers wide players, go [00:28:00] beat the fullback, go beat him.

That's the job. Get behind the fallback, deliver the ball. Don't don't, don't deliver it too early. I want it. I want, I want the w the one V one success, and then I want the ball whipped in. And I remember there being one guy his name was Ryan, a really good kid. And he was at my age group, but he got called up to play in the first first team.

And it was his debut and all night long, he was running at this fullback and failing and I mean, falling over, kicking the ball out, play, getting tackled. And I remember the coach. I remember the coach saying, keep going. Keep doing it. And some of the teammates were getting frustrated and you don't even give him the ball.

You know, we were getting no success down that side. Both the manager kept insisting, play the ball out. Why play the block? Keep going, keep going, keep going on. It was one, one with about four or five minutes to go. I don't remember the board going up, but there's four or five minutes left to go gate games, hitting the final whistle.[00:29:00]

And he beats, the fallback, the guy slipped it's a little bit wet. It just slipped on. He beat him and he crossed the ball in and they scored and one-to-one. And I remember after the, the, the, the look on that kid's face the, the belief that he'd now got in himself, it just gone from being a very good footballer to being a very good footballer with an understanding of what he could achieve.

What's possible. I bet you felt 10 feet tall. His teammates now adore him. And, and, you know, you look at a coach on the sideline who just does this. Yeah. You know, he knew, and I know as a coach, but it hasn't mixed time. I told that story because I coach, I coached after playing. And as a coach, if you can implement something, a system, a style of plate, a technique, a skill, and then see that in action on the big show.

That's the holy grail done it. And I remember that lesson. Well, it was [00:30:00] about, don't get both believe in yourself and eventually it'll come. You know, that guy went and played in the first team for a lot more times. And, and you know what, it didn't take him all game to beat that fallback anymore because he believed in himself, but it took someone else to the Australians, call it, pump your tires up.

Alright, pump up the tires. Right? And once these tires are pumped up, the kid was unstoppable. He always, he always had that in him. He just needed that belief. Right. I needed that. So someone else to believe in it, maybe. Right. And

[00:30:33] Phil D.: he needed the co it's it's, it's kind of a, a backwards thing a little bit, but it, it, this idea that when you fail and the, and the, the coach, the manager still has faith in you and tells you to keep doing it right.

That gives you a confidence and the freedom to fail. Right. If he didn't give him that freedom to fail, he could have pulled them after two minutes and said,

[00:30:57] Phil S.: Yeah, that goes back to [00:31:00] Bolingbrook. Seemed to me. You need to go make some mistakes. We don't want you to make an mistakes here. Right. But you need to go some lower level, boardroom, something wrong, get, get, get, make the mistake, fall over, get be berated by somebody, deal with it and go again.

Yeah. And it's the same. Yeah. Didn't even think about the link and the connection there, but he was telling me you need to go and fall over and make some mistakes and beat some fallbacks in the boardroom, right? Yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, I know I always, I always take that coach. It's quite funny. I didn't like that.

Coach, when I first started playing for him, I used to think he was picking on me at one stage his name's Kevin fog. And you know what I'll, I will, I'll send him a link to this so he can, he can know that I'd really value his time. Now, Kevin, Kevin Fogwood, I thought I was picking on me. Why did you pick it on me?

Why is that? Why is he focusing on me? And it wasn't until two or three seasons later, I realized he wasn't picking on me. He was trying to push me to my potential. He's trying to find [00:32:00] what, where am I buttons? Everyone's got different buttons to press. Some people need a hope. Some people need a yell. Some people need showing, telling, you know, there's so many different ways of learning.

I, I think I need, I need to do it first before I can learn. You can tell me it doesn't go in. Right. I need to write, what do I need to go and do it? And then I go, oh, right. Yeah, I get it. You do this. Okay. I understand it. And I think there's, there's always been those three ways of learning, visual, verbal, and actually doing it.

And once I've gone through Kevin's program and understood why he did things, I then realized he was the best coach I ever had. He made me the best person that could ever be. Yeah. That's his job done tick onto the next one. That's right. So yeah.

[00:32:43] Phil D.: Yeah. I'll go ahead.

[00:32:44] Phil S.: Sorry. No, no, no, no. I was going to say I'd really value Kevin, and, and even some of the stuff that he taught me that, like you said, I, I still have it in my

[00:32:50] Phil D.: brain now.

Absolutely. And you're using it. And I look at, I'm just thinking of this idea that you speak. Some people would think you're not. [00:33:00] You had this job at Manchester United, it's like the top of the pyramid, literally the English pyramid and every pyramid. And in global football, especially when you're talking about the business side of it and the marketing of it, but he says, Hey, if you really want to get to that next level, you need to actually take a step back in most people's book to be able to go forward.

Right. Which is an incredible leadership principle. Right?

[00:33:25] Phil S.: You don't like to hear them. No, of course

[00:33:27] Phil D.: not. But think about the kids going on loan. I just watched a garner the other day playing for Nottingham Forest. Right. He's still in the FA cup. United's not interestingly. Which is who would have who to bet on that.

Right. But the point being, this is a kid who was, you know, one of the jewels of the academy, great player. Yep. Yep. And they say, I imagine when they bring him in and say, Hey, you're not going first team. We're going, you're going on loan to Nottingham forest. He's like,

[00:33:55] Phil S.: yeah.

[00:33:55] Phil D.: He's like, oh,

[00:33:57] Phil S.: Right. But I still believe [00:34:00] play is at that level.

Even today, don't get the value and the positive, what is positive and here's why, and I think they've got to go

[00:34:09] Phil D.: and do it. Sure. And they, and they, I think the fact that there that's the, that's the way that these guys have seen to develop your youth. You gotta get on the fit pitch and you gotta make mistakes and you gotta play, but you're not ready to play at this level yet, but you very well might be.

And that's really saying to you, like, I don't know that you're going to be able to play at this level or to be able to lead at this level, but you'll never know if you don't go do it somewhere

[00:34:36] Phil S.: else. Great. And a great example to bring that back into my, my own world and my own understanding is that we had we had a player come to us from Sunderland on loan to Ossett.

This is the club that I'm a one of the administrators of, and He came to us from Sunderland and it was a seasoned. Some of them were getting relegated all the championships. So they knew they were going to leave one big, big, big, some Netflix actually that year

[00:34:59] Phil D.: [00:35:00] Sunderland ‘til I die. Great. I just actually talked to somebody earlier about that dude from Sunderland that's underlined right away.

[00:35:06] Phil S.: And that season is a player. There's actually a scene where it's snowing. And these academy kids are throwing a snowball at first in place. The kid that what our kids at through to snowball in the Netflix production is a guy called Jacob Young. Jacob Young was the captain of the Australian under eighteens national side.

He was a captain of the under eighteens Sunderland development youth side and Sunderland are heading into the abyss, right? Yeah. And they decide all our players are 18, 19 years old are either going to play next season in league one. And that's how they're going to save money or they're going to sell them.

That's how they're going to make money. And so they sent out the entire, under 18 squad out. Let's get, let's see, let's see what we can do out in the world, because they're currently playing on lovely grass and lovely facilities against other [00:36:00] 18 year olds. And everything's taken too much of a look around, have another touch.

Oh, you know what? I'll pass it to you. Give me back a, pass it to you is nice. Right? That's not soccer in the premier league. That's certain not soccer in league one. Right. So correct. Soccer league. One is you put your gum shield in cause it's gonna be a rough ride. That's right, right. That's right. So this young kid turned up our club and we were playing away in Manchester, a tough to have team called Mozley.

You don't get, you don't win many games at Mozley. They just did a good site. And he played and he was like a rabbit in the headlights. This, we were three, one down at halftime. He's having the balls coming to him. Right. He's having a first touch and from nowhere bank. Yeah. He's out. Isn't a stand. Yeah.

Next minute is going to win ahead to the guy. Boom. And he's ribcage. Thank you very much. I'm off this way. He's winded. I saw him defend the corner without looking on one of the opposing players, little Chuck, and that Adam's [00:37:00] apple is that he's gone. Like this balls come in, had a goal. It's just, he's he's, he's an under 18 academy player.

So we got, we brought him off at halftime with three, one down. We ended up winning the game for three very, very good game. We shouldn't have won that game. And we did wound for free. And Jacob learned a tough lesson and it took him three or four weeks. He stayed with us for four months. And on the last game of the season, he marked the league's top goal scorer

and won man of the match for preventing him from scoring and Sunderland decided. To play in league one, they were going to sell it and they sold him to Wolfsburg for 1.4 million. And he ended playing Bundes league and the next year, wow. So he, he came and the bow that was missing the string that was missing from his.

Bow was now everywhere has rainbows and butterflies. There are times [00:38:00] when you've just got to move that ball, move on, move on. And, and, you know, again, a message from Kevin fog, you always said, you should know what you're going to do with that ball before you get it. That should be some sort of idea. You know what?

I'm going to Crossfield pass, you know what? I'm going to lay it back to the goalkeeper. You know what? I'm going to play down the line. If I got it, what if, what if, what if he didn't have that? What if he didn't, he didn't decide what to do until he got the ball and then he look up bam. So it's too late developed that.

And he went on and played. And so, yeah, I don't. Again, the same, same understanding of soccer and the boardroom is that in order to go forwards, people have got to go and experience this, go on alone, go to a smaller environment, become a bigger fish in that smaller pool. Understand yourself, find out who you are.

Yep. Yep. Are you able to walk into a boardroom and kick some ass or are you the guy that goes in a ballroom and smiles and nods and says yes, because I don't want no conflict. [00:39:00] Yeah, you won't be in that bowl room very long, eh, unless you're agreeing with the top guy and he didn't want yes. Men all the time.

So, yeah, so I did that. I, I went in a few boardrooms and believe me, I got a few scars, lost a bit hair and I loved it. I'm not yet back at the border. There's a pathway. I'm sure that I could potentially get, get somewhere close to it. I'm not there yet, but but don't never say,

[00:39:25] Phil D.: well, what we've learned from your background is if you're meant to be there, you're going to get there, right?

Because you know, you tend to have that. One of the things you just said. I mean, it, it reminded me of just a couple of days ago in my practice with a high school girl and she was receiving the ball. She's a striker. She received the ball. What she didn't know was behind her was about 20 yards, 20 meters in your, in your neck of the woods of just open green field, blue turf, but whatever, it's still green and to me, and she didn't even look over her shoulder, she didn't [00:40:00] check for the space.

And I just looked at her and I said, especially as a striker, but I don't care what position you're playing, but you got to know that. Yeah, right. And, and I think that that's a great life lesson for us too. Right? You need to know what's around you and you gotta know who you are.

[00:40:20] Phil S.: Where's

[00:40:20] Phil D.: the success, right?

What exactly. If you're not eyes open, you wouldn't have seen that Yankees thing you would have been like, no, it's, it's an internship. Forget it. I'm going to spend this summer on the beach. Thank you very much. Exactly. And a lot of people do that. Yeah. Right. Go into Manchester. Well, I don't have time. I'm not going to, why what's it going to do for me?

Right. Why would I go to that meeting? You know? And then he says, you don't know, there's no jobs and okay. All right. Well then I'm done, you

[00:40:46] Phil S.: know? Yeah. You know, why don't you bring it out, bringing out a mantra. Sorry. I'm I'm, I'm talking to the thing. You're bringing out a mantra in me that I've not talked about.

You know, go, go to that meeting. Yep. Put the tie [00:41:00] on, get up early, go, go to that meeting. Go and do it because the worst thing is. You you're back where you started earlier in the day and you met

[00:41:08] Phil D.: someone

[00:41:09] Phil S.: new, the best thing is you working at one of the biggest sports franchise on the planet. Right? I know I saw something the other day on on, on Instagram.

I like all these sayings and, and there's Walnut. He's called the founder. I think he's called on, on Instagram. And it said having no money is tough. Making lots of money is tough. Choose your tough. Right. And that sat with me for a few days, the eyes, you know, AC he sit on the couch, watch the extra Netflix episode, play on FIFA on the Playstation.

And, and, and be where you are or don't. Put it down. Oh, go, go and go and find the opportunities. Go get off the couch, knock on the door, go to the meeting, you know, and it will happen. It will, it will. And there's nobody that unlucky, that [00:42:00] they've been to all the meetings and nothing has come out of it.

Nothing that's impossible. Something will, will happen. And I do believe, I do believe in rubbing shoulders, the right people put yourself in the right environment. Again, another Instagram silly quote about if, you know, if your circle of friends are not talking about positivity and, and progression and being good and helping each other, then you're in the wrong circle of friends.

Yeah. And I, and I've managed to build a good circle of friends and I, you know, I did count you in that circle and I fell, but I've got a good circle of friends who will push me and challenge me and help me. And, but also ask for help too. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very happy and a good space money and it goes based on.

[00:42:39] Phil D.: Yeah. And, and, you know, and that reminds me too of don't say no for them. No right. Too many people pre fail and go, well, I'm not good enough. I'm not going to write, or I don't have what it takes you. You could have easily said, I don't have qualifications for anything. When he said, Hey, you want to take this for the year?

When I'm going on [00:43:00] sabbatical, you could have been like, bro, I'm 23 and I'm from the UK. I don't even know baseball. I don't even know what these rules are. Right? Like you could have had all these reasons why it doesn't make sense because you know what? It didn't make sense. No. Right. And a lot of times the next move doesn't make sense.

If we went and put everything on paper, you'd have all these reasons why it doesn't make sense, but you know what? You got the opportunity. So then again, if you have that freedom to fail, if you have that ability to have a trust, but that does take an understanding of who you are. And I think this goes, it goes back to the, you know, the premise of the show on the field.

You gotta play to know your strengths. Yeah. If you never step on the field to play, you don't know what you can do, or,

[00:43:49] Phil S.: and I think it comes back to that coach. It's all right. To fail. Fine. It's fine. You know that the champion is that guy that just [00:44:00] failed one less time than, you know it. He tried it one more time than you did.

Cause yeah, you know, again, there's more coming out of this in my brain as a talk him, but you know, you know, in business go it's all right, get, get something wrong. We go back to this boardroom thing, go and get the scars, go and fall out. People go make the wrong decision. It's the same again, go. What's the worst thing that would really happen.

It's not that bad. I think our lives are all made of moments. Right. And the moment that you're in, won't be that it's not a fixed point. You're not stuck in that moment forever. It'll pass. Okay. So, so don't get too caught up on that moment. And I, likewise, the happiness amazing moment will also pass. So don't, don't, don't be too don't be too vain about that or celebrate that too much because that good moment will pass to find the next moment and go, and, and the worst thing that can happen is you go, yeah, I probably won't do that again.

Yeah. Now, now you're strong

[00:44:53] Phil D.: a person. That's right. We had a penalty kick shootout in our Crosstown rivalry [00:45:00] and a couple of girls, three girls actually stepped up and missed. We lost, we showed up in our, in a, it was a Saturday night, Monday afternoon. We had a game on Tuesday and that we get in there Monday afternoon.

I said, Hey don't want to say the name. Hey, a penalty kick taker. Number one. Did you wake up on Sunday morning? She says, yeah, it's kind of confused. I look at the next drug. Did you wake up on Sunday morning was like, yeah. And third one same thing. And they're like, You missed move on. It happens. It's not the end of the world.

You're still breathing. You're still living. You can use it as a learning experience. And you know what? Next time you have a peak taking shootout, step up to take the next one. There you go. Right. And again, let's go again. If you don't take it, you already missed. I mean, that's part of the problem we had is no one raised their hand to take it right.

And I said, that is what I have a problem with. Not that they missed. I have a problem that our team didn't have the [00:46:00] confidence to say, Hey, I want to take one right now. Let's go. And I think that, that again goes to not knowing yourself, being afraid of what others are thinking, all these other things that we pre fail, we say, oh, I'm not going to make it.

If you walk up sand, you're not gonna make it. You're not gonna make it. If you walk into an interview saying, I'm not going, there's no way I'm going to get this job. You won't get the job because that will shine through. And you know, so

[00:46:23] Phil S.: how you're doing, what that coach said, what if you were thinking, what if, what if, what if, what if I did.

Well, if there's a chance here and, and they want to talk to me and I talk, I talk openly and freely and yes, I'm interested and this is me and they might go, yeah, we want you. Yep. Nope. There's every chance that will happen.

[00:46:43] Phil D.: And are you ready for it?

[00:46:46] Phil S.: I think, you know, even if, yeah, and if, even if inside your head, you're still doubt know self by doing that job, and this is, this is the job with Cashman, but by doing the job you learn, you learn and you [00:47:00] adapt and you understand, and you, you, you understand, you start acquiring knowledge and putting things into play.

And all of a sudden you look back three months down the line and going, whoa, I'm doing it. Yeah, absolutely. And you go find any, I could name 10 now and I'm shamed. Some of them go and find any CEO of some business, any, any chief operating officer, managing director. There's a time in their career where.

Well, I did. They, they just said, alright, I'll do that. Or I to do it. And they weren't sure they weren't sure about themselves. They did doubt themselves, but they did it and they got the paycheck and they learned the job and they understand it. And now they're doing fine. That's right. You got a lovely house and a nice car and a pool.

And, but there was a time when they will something to go ahead. I'm not sure I could do this, right?

[00:47:46] Phil D.: Yep.

[00:47:48] Phil S.: I'm saying do it, do it. Yeah.

[00:47:50] Phil D.: Yeah, absolutely. Well, last episode, I mean, folks go back and listen last step. So Jay Demerit, that's his story. If he, if you go listen to that, if you don't know the story, go listen to the last episode, [00:48:00] go watch Rise and Shine his documentary on his life.

But that was his story in college. The college coach said, Hey, do you play defender? He's just never played center back, but I played basketball. So it can't be that much different with the amendments. And so sure I'll play second year of college. And he was always just. But he said, sure, I'll go, I'll try it.

He ended up being, you know, spoiler alert, Watford center, back national national team center, back, all these different things. The story on how he got there is a similar deal. It's totally different story. But the similar idea of, yeah, you got to work really hard and you gotta be ready to, you gotta be ready for the moment.

You gotta not be afraid to fail because if you're afraid to fail, you're gonna fail. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what, and if you're not afraid to get rather you're going to fail, how do you respond to the failure? And that's the key. So

[00:48:48] Phil S.: I'm telling people go fail and what it feels like to get it wrong, go and go and go and feel what those girls felt like the next day.

After missing those penalty kicks, take that feeling [00:49:00] or understand. And then use that to say, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to everything I can to try and not feel that again. But use that, use that experience. Don't, don't be ashamed of it. Don't shy away from it. If anything, welcome it. Welcome that challenge.

And, and don't try and fail obviously, but if you it's okay, it's

[00:49:18] Phil D.: totally fine to fail. That's right. That's like, if you go skiing and you, I didn't fall all day and you're like, then you weren't trying hard

[00:49:25] Phil S.: enough. Right. You just,

[00:49:29] Phil D.: yeah. You're not going for the jumps. You're not going for the moguls. You're not going for these different things.

Right. It's that same idea. So. We have a little bit longer and we could go on for days as you can imagine.

[00:49:40] Phil S.: Close that. All right. Then was like pre revelation. All right. I know, you know, lead into like, we're going to do a quiz. There's a free giveaway. Give you a car away to one of the listeners. I'm sure that's what you said you can do anyway.

But that's what that, all right then just then

[00:49:55] Phil D.: yeah, pretty much, pretty much. We're we're we're gonna move into something like [00:50:00] that. Something like that. It, it, it's, it's different type of goal, different type of giveaway. Cause we're going to hear from you what is, what is your kind of, why what's your purpose statement?

What, what is what you're driving towards every day when you wake up?

[00:50:13] Phil S.: Okay. Let's do this. This, this is turned into therapy

[00:50:16] Phil D.: pretty much. Yeah. It's a question. If you don't know this, we got to work on it. No,

[00:50:20] Phil S.: no, no. My, my, what is my why? I don't know if I can process that question enough. What is my, why? I I.

Whether it's a blessing or a curse. I am a people pleaser. And therefore, I, I set my targets of my goals to make either the client I'm working for or with or somebody else in my corporation happy through projects, successful project management, gaining more revenue is a, is an easy one to say. So my, [00:51:00] I think it's a blessing under the curse at the same time.

I waking up every day, wanting to make the people in my circle happy. I, it doesn't always work. I fail. I fail sometimes. I, I get it wrong and is as what a horrible byproduct of wanting to be, that person a really horrible by-product of wanting to always please people, is that along the way, you will let someone down because you can't please everybody.

And I'm a yes, man. Yes, I'll do that. Yeah, I'll do that. Yeah. I'll solve that. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, you look at the diary and you've put three meetings in at 10:00 AM. Well, two of them are going to lose. Yeah. You know what I mean? One, so that's my blessing and my curse. My, why is I like to please everybody?

My weaknesses, I can't. There you go, that's a bit of therapy for

[00:51:54] Phil D.: you. Yeah. And we just, that's a good segue into my next question, which is it's actually the last episode we [00:52:00] did the last, how Ted lasso explains leadership episode was episodes nine and 10. We talked about that where Ted also similar to you and me, he's the people he likes, he's a people guy.

Right. And he didn't want to bench Roy and it, because he knew he'd be letting him down. But if he did, if he didn't bench, Roy, he'd be letting other people down. Right. And so on the pitch, if you're, if you're, you know, if you're dry, you know, the, the attacking midfielder and you have both wingers on the outside, calling for the ball, you know, either you're going to take it in and shoot, you're going to not make either of them happy.

You're going to pass it to one and make the other one unhappy or, you know, pass the other guy. And so that that's just. but with that, you know, we have our drivers, we have our filters that we need to put things through. And so that's something that is, is critical for us to understand ourselves and our struggle for that.

And to surround ourselves with other people who will, will help us understand, look, you're not going to make this person happy, but that's the [00:53:00] right thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that's the, that's the rub is that we aren't, we can't make everyone happy all the time. We can't please everyone all the time.

[00:53:10] Phil S.: Know, I can't, can't go into the detail of this, but yesterday I had a crossroads decision in business to make. And the right thing to do was to was to pull, pull the plug on, on a, on a project because it wasn't going to be the one wheel on. And I could see it and everybody else could see it, but dent, raise the flag or fire the flare into the sky and say, this is not, this is not working.

It's not working. I can see a lot of money going to this and it failing and a lot of money would have gone into, and it would have failed. And so not easy to pull the plug on that and do that, but the right thing, the right thing to do. And that comes out of reading a book that I read on vacation a couple of years ago.

It's a swear word. So I can't repeat the name of the book, so we'll call it the art of not caring.

[00:53:57] Phil D.: Here's what we'll call it. I think we know the book. Yeah. So

[00:53:59] Phil S.: [00:54:00] yes. And, and that book, isn't actually about not caring about caring about the things worth, caring about, right. And and prioritizing and understanding that you cannot please everybody and understanding that if you do the right thing and, and you stay true to your beliefs, Then you are, you are, you are doing the right thing.

And, and I, and I've taken from that book. That, that, that's why I made that decision yesterday, Phil of five years ago. No, no, let's do it. Let's do it. Right. No problems problem. And we hit a brick wall and we spent too much cash and it's not worked. And we all spend a few weeks licking our wounds. I've just saved the company, quite a bit of cash.

A lot of time, we move on to the next project. I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done that pre that book, you know?

[00:54:49] Phil D.: Yep. And that's what it is. It's learning. It's continually learning. It's continually. That's why leaders are learners, right? If we're, if we're going to be leading anyone, if we're going to be doing anything of value, you [00:55:00] gotta be learning and growing and innovating and taking initiative to, to be able to move forward.

All right. I was really wanting to go into talking about Ted Lasso, but you know what, I'm going to get you back on. And we're going to just do a whole show talking with you about Ted Lasso. So you can prepare for that.

[00:55:17] Phil S.: I'm due to watch it again. It's on a non-regulatory you indeed, you have to subscribe to some, some platform and get it, but I'm going to do it if it's worth it's a worthy cause.

And you know what, it's such a feel good show. There's so many lessons in not not just from tad, but you know, coach Beard. There's some great lessons on from Coach Beard as well. I'm the players on the, on the, in the chair, the chair woman. Yeah, let's do it. Let's I'd love to do that.

[00:55:43] Phil D.: We'll do that.

We'll do that a different time. Well, we'll have some fun with that because that, you know, that is how we connected. It was this, this strange dude from England showed up on a clubhouse room that I don't think either of us have been on clubhouse probably in a year, but we went on at the right time at the right time in history.[00:56:00]

Fortuitous that Phil's got together, you know, for better or worse. I don't know. We'll see through the doll. Exactly. You never know what might happen. You never know what might have this podcast never would have happened this episode. So folks, you know, just see, go through that door, go take the meeting.

Right. All right. Two more questions. We ask these of everybody. So what lesson learned directly from the game of soccer? Have you used in your parenting?

[00:56:27] Phil S.: My pet. All right, great. You, my parents in obviously I have a six year old and now she spends all the time trying to make me laugh when she's

[00:56:33] Phil D.: cuter than you.

So. Yeah, it's not too difficult. It's a low bar, but that's like my bar I have with my kids.

[00:56:41] Phil S.: I'm trying to think she's on almost every photograph then. What, what do I tell you? Oh, this is on the spot. What do I, what do I take to parenting from, from this? From my past from soccer I take, we're gonna end up on the same topic I take about telling her you're all right, to get things wrong.

You were allowed to get [00:57:00] things wrong. We were doing, she would do a lot of mathematics at the moment and she's, she's, she's struggling at some of it, all of, all of it. And you know, she'll, she'll pull, she'll pull and she's six, but you know, she'll, she'll do 150 is 1 0 5. I can see how she probably got there, but it's wrong.

Right? And I'll tell her, listen, that's wrong. And I can see the bottom lip go in and oh, I've done something wrong. And this is a bad thing. And I'm, and I'm giving her this information now. It's okay. And now we're going to go through it and maybe you'll like me. You need to do it to understand it. She's being shown it by a teacher and then talk, but she needs to go and do it.

So come on, let's get out the sticks and let's, let's count as 150 much sticks. There's a lot of muck let's count together. And what have you got left? And there's a hundred there and there's 50 there and okay. There's a hundred and, oh, there's 150. Amazing. Right, right. Now let's try with 215. Well there's [00:58:00] 250.

Yes. Good. You got it. So get things wrong. And we seem to have a running, running title, a running theme now is it's all right. Getting drama. You almost welcome it. Sometimes it's a time thing and that's, that comes in the, in the garden, you know, it's all right to, you know, get on the swings and, you know, try, try, try things.

I'm not saying be a bit of a Renegade, but if you, if you mess up own it own the fact you've messed up and we move on. That's no problem.

[00:58:30] Phil D.: Just folks for those of you who don't know the Queen's English, the garden would be the backyard, which is why there are swings in the garden. So that's like, you know, the boot is the trunk, you know, all these different things.

So we'll, we'll go through that. We'll have another exactly. We do a lot of things like that in the U S so we will we'll have a whole episode on the Queen's English as well with Phil Smith. It will be a fun, a fun episode. Yeah, for this side [00:59:00] of the pond. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know that anybody cares, so I don't think we'd have anyone listening.

[00:59:04] Phil S.: I asked when I first went to Adelphi university on long island and they, they they, people, this was new English people in new, and they say, Did you know, princess Diana? And I said, well, no, but my mom does yoga with her. Oh my God. Oh my God. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's so sad. That story so sad. And you know, the, you know, how many times have you met the queen?

Never. Oh yeah. You know, she was, she, she, she she's, she's a down in the local soccer pot watching the grandkids play yesterday and know I used to, I used to live the naive understanding of, of, of know England and stuff live and play and play on it a little bit. Why not tell everybody you're friends with

[00:59:50] Phil D.: no.

With how will they ever find out? Right. So, all right. Last question. What have you read, watched or listened to too, that has [01:00:00] informed your thinking on how soccer explains life and leadership,

[01:00:04] Phil S.: even prepped with this question, fill in prep. Hey. What have I watched read what my watch read or listen to what I watched read or listen to.

Okay. Okay. Recently, recently I watched the formula one Netflix show ride, or ride or die, right

[01:00:26] Phil D.: to survive practices. I survive drive to survive. Drive, drive to survive, I think is what it was F1, F1, F1 on Netflix here in the U S and,

[01:00:36] Phil S.: And that there was a big scenario. Forgive me. I, on the names of the drivers,

[01:00:41] Phil D.: I watched what I watched it.

It's pretty good.

[01:00:44] Phil S.: So there's a number one driver and in most teams as a number two driver, and unfortunately the number two drivers remit is to make sure number one wins. Yeah. And, and it was Lewis, Hamilton riding for Mercedes. [01:01:00] And I can't remember the other guy's name. So they like bought Tasmania and I can't remember his name.

And he was in, he was in the winning position. He wanted to win he's, he's trained all his life to be a winner and formula one, drivers can be some arrogant, but when you, when your formula wants him to the tennis and golf issue, you're not in soccer. You don't have that team mate to carry you through. And no matter what you say about the pit crew and everything.

No, no, you're on your own. You're on your own. And singular sports have a different type of animal to team sport players. I'm, I'm a S I'm a soccer player. I'm a team player. I want to be on a team in business. I want to get a team in a boardroom. I want to know I've got a team around me. I, I'm not, I'm not a singular player at all.

So this guy trained. driven into his DNA. When, when, when, when, when, and right up until he was number two at Mercedes, he would wouldn't 1, 1, 1, 1. So he tasted victory. Now he's going to the big show and he's told you can't you can't win. You're not allowed to win. Right. And it was listening to the [01:02:00] discipline.

Plus the frustration in that guy's conversation of, I won, I want to win. I'm here to win. I want, I want to be the winner. Anyway, it was, it became a decision to whether or not he overtook or stayed behind in a certain race. And his DNA got the better of him. And he, he went, he went through and won and he took it and he got in a lot of trouble with the team and another buddy.

But in the interview after he said, listen, I have been built a certain way. And being told to play a certain way. You can't take that. You can't take that away from me once you've done that, you've built into a monster. You can't then tell a monster. Yeah. And I, what I took from that is, you know, back to me, you can't, you can't tell me to go away and get the scars in the boardroom.

You can't tell me to go and kick the, or the people around and, and win and push your agenda. And then, and then not expect me to be that [01:03:00] type of character. I'm a friendly guy. I want to be friends, everybody, but when it's business, when a decision to make, I'm going to make a decision that's right.

For us to win, not for me to be your friend. And that's probably the. Thing I've taken from it is I'm fun-time Phil. I'm everybody's mate I'm everyone's name, but that there's something in the board room. You crossed that white land onto a soccer field. You crossed that door to the boardroom. There's something in that boardroom.

That's like a match day and it's like a game day and you've gotta be on your game. And you've got to, when you, you, you, the agenda is we're winning today and that could be winning a contract. It could be, it could be deciding on a new department to launch. It could be a new product we're playing with all we're products with killing.

Cause it's not good enough. You've got to make those decisions. You've got to be tough and you've got to, you've really got to do what's right for the, for the business. And I think that's what I've taken is it has made me tougher. It's made me a tougher person. I want it done that 10 and 20 years ago, I had to being fun-time Phil in the boardroom and I had lost, [01:04:00] and the business, the business was.

Yep. And that, yeah, that was a long guns, but I was thinking, as

[01:04:07] Phil D.: I was talking, I love it. Well, that's what we do. That's what we do. So it's okay.

[01:04:11] Phil S.: It's okay. It's 10 past 10 in the ear.

[01:04:14] Phil D.: It turns out that Glen Crooks, who is the, a broadcaster for NYCFC. I had him on early in the show and he used to coach at Rutgers, just down the road from Adelphi actually in New Jersey.

Yeah. But he talked about Jose Mourinho being a big F1 fan and bringing in one of the drivers to talk with his team. I forget whether it was a Chelsea or one of the other places, but he was surprised that, you know, that's who he was learning from, which was kind of creative. He's like, I didn't think marina learned from anybody.

I know that's not an either, but, but there is so much to learn from these different things that now I think you're the second person to bring up that F1 drive to survive on this, on the show. And is this fantastic they'll problem is at my house. I can't watch it. Most times they usually watch shows, you know, [01:05:00] when everyone's gone to bed and that shows so loud.

Cause it's like shakes the room and you can't not watch it that way. Cause that's the whole point. So, you know, so anyway, but great show. I strongly recommended as well. I'm not quite through it, but you know, there's some language, there's some other stuff, but it's, it's unbelievable when you talked about like the pit, I mean, Half second is the difference in those races.

Right? So like the

box

[01:05:29] Phil S.: racing formula one, when I was a kid I'm talking 10 years old, 1980, right. That, that pit change, we were absolutely astonished that they could change the wheels and refuel the car in 30 seconds. Right. Right. Oh my God. Watch this. And the clock would come on. Yeah. 28, 29, 30. Oh my God.

30 seconds. Yeah. Now what we're talking to.

[01:05:56] Phil D.: Yeah. It's like, I think it was three seconds. Like legitimately 3 [01:06:00] cents. It's

[01:06:00] Phil S.: insane. It doesn't even come on now. I know.

[01:06:04] Phil D.: It's unbelievable. It's put you back a, what, how did you even do that? I can't,

[01:06:09] Phil S.: that guy pulled that wheel off so quick. How does that wheel stay on the.

[01:06:12] Phil D.: Yeah, well, a couple of times they didn't tighten them enough or something and then like, come, yeah. You

[01:06:17] Phil S.: know, the amount of fuel that was gosh, straight through that fucking fascinating show that not just for the entertainment value, but there are some interesting lessons about self motivation, self preservation played being a team player, being an individual, being a Renegade there's loads of lessons in that show.

And all those drivers are, are in it to win it. And they, they, they, that's a serious business. It's

[01:06:39] Phil D.: amazing. Absolutely. All right. Well, as I said, we could talk for a lot longer, but we're not going to, we're going to cut it off here now. Cause so you can get to bed and folks out there, you can go on to do whatever else you're doing today.

So thanks again, Phil, for being a part of this and for your friendship and just for all that you're doing to make people have. [01:07:00]

[01:07:00] Phil S.: Good really enjoyed it. Thank you. Very privileged to be, to be involved. And thanks everyone for listening if you still are. Yeah.

[01:07:07] Phil D.: Yeah, absolutely. All right, folks. Well, thanks again for being a part of this.

Thank you for just, you know, again, P and part of the conversation. I do hope that you do reach out to us, phil@howsoccerexplainsleadership.com is my email. You can also join the Facebook group, how soccer explains leadership on Facebook. If you're interested in coaching, the bigger game, which is the program to help you be a better leader, and to lead yourself, lead your players and lead your team, check it out.

CoachingtheBiggergame.com. And if you weren't interested in the warrior way with Paul Jobson and Marci, his wife are doing some really cool things down in Waco, Texas. If you're interested in that, check it out@jobsonsoccer.com. All right, without more from me today, I do hope that you're taking everything you're learning from this show and you're using it to help you be a better leader.

Be a better parent, be a better spouse, be a better just person in your community, using it to help make people happy, like Phil does. [01:08:00] And you're using it to reminds you continually that soccer does explain life and leadership. Thanks a lot. Have a great week.