Synergy IQ 0:01
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Daniel Franco 0:19
Hi, there synergizers and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today we have the ex AFL star and leadership development manager of the Adelaide Crows, Mr. Dan Jackson. It's a timely episode given the amazing third premiership won by the crows in the AFL women's competition where I am certain Dan's influence and development program that he had in place was foundational to their win. So quick congratulations to them the team with the crows amazing effort. So over the course of his career, Dan made over 150 appearances for the Richmond footy club, otherwise known as the Tigers hashtag yellow and black, picking up various accolades along the way. In 2013, he won the jack Doyle medal making him the oldest player when the targets best and fairest for the first time since the Great Matthew Richardson in 2007. In 2009, he also won the club's Jack Titus, middle, which is the best and fairest runner up. Dan has continued to go from strength to strength since his playing career, gaining a master's in performance and psychology at the University of Edinburgh, working as the director of his own company integrity of performance, and then excelling in his role as Leadership Development Manager at the Adelaide Football Club. In this episode, Dan and I talked about our life, I think the question should be what didn't we talk about, he is by far one of the most articulated communicators from the sporting world that I've ever come across. We deep dive into his journey through his AFL career to traveling the world and stumbling into the corporate world that he finds himself to his thoughts and culture and leadership in sport and how it applies to the corporate world. Plus, we talked about mindset resilience and dealing with stressful situations to box breathing and how to calm down your nervous system, how to deal with hotheads then on to creating positive habits. We also discuss some of the work that he's doing down at the crows and how the plaza today is so much different than to the players of yesteryear. Culture change vulnerability, connection, leadership or other topics, we stumbled upon how to build a culture in a high performance team. vision and mission was also a topic of discussion. And then we talked about recruitment and how character is fundamental to recruitment, and some of the best leaders that he's ever worked with plus so much more. It was an absolute pleasure talking with Dan and I know you're absolutely going to love this chat. So if you'd like to check out his profile, you can find that at Dan Jackson on LinkedIn, Twitter, on Instagram. And feel free to connect with me to where you can find me at Daniel Franco on LinkedIn. If you'd like to learn more about some of the other amazing leaders that we've had on this creating synergy podcast and be sure to jump onto our website at Synergy iq.com. Today, you will check us out at the creative synergy podcast on all the podcast outlets. So welcome back to the creative synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have the one and only Daniel Jackson or Dan Jackson on the show, preferably Yep, preferably. Thanks for coming on my

Daniel Jackson 3:27
No thank you for having me. And yeah, Dan, because whenever I get called Daniel, I always flinch a bit because that means that I was getting in trouble from my mom and it's always stuck with

Daniel Franco 3:36
I know the feeling that I share the same. So I want to start off the podcast with a personal experience about what I mean you and I have had some conversations off air and before previously and and we met through the Mr. Brendan Rinaldi again he's uh he recommends a lot of people on the show which is great when I was following you and I remember you playing for Richmond you grew up you know playing AFL for Richmond and were quite successful in your own right when he best and fairest and whatnot. But I one thing that really stood out to me when you were playing was your linguistically you were so far above any other football and your ability to communicate can communicate saying that wrong your ability to communicate and and connect the message and really be articulate about what you're experiencing even your sort of rundown on the way the game went was was really well articulated. And is that something that you growing up? Always took and put a lot of effort into was your communication style?

Daniel Jackson 4:46
What a good place to start? I've thought about this a lot. I've never landed on an on an answer. It's it's something that I love doing and like put me in front of an audience. I get as stressed or as anxious as anyone but I it's that more of a challenge mindset than if thread like, oh, here we go. This is kind of in my element. Yeah. But there are two things. I'm confident in life and one slowly falling away. That's public speaking and running. And I think they're getting old part impacts running, but you're getting all part helps the public speaking. I think I mean, I was always sort of had leadership positions, I had opportunities to speak through sport or at school and whatnot. But there is one time that I remembered, I think I've, I think a lot of public speaking is just confidence. And because of that lack of doubt, I just have conviction and what I'm going to say and there was one moment, or one opportunity I had that could have gone either way, and I was asked by a sort of a friend's boyfriend from uni. So I was studying commerce and this friend of mines partner, he was studying physio at a different university said, Matt, can you come and just do a bit of a q&a with our it's our first second or third year physio students at RMIT? So yeah, sure, no worries. And this was weeks before the actual event, I rock up there. And there's an auditorium full of people. There's this guy who was a former Head physio at SNN. And he's talking about his experience had been there for like 15 years. He was the doyen of sports physio. And this guy comes up the back and says, Oh, you must be dead. Yeah, sorry. So and so he's busy. But he said, Come and grab you. Look, you're not next next is going to be the next guy up was this, the guy who demanded the last surgery for the ACL. And he was going to talk to the physios about this thing. So all of a sudden, I'm gone. She's on third in line behind these guys. That's fine. I can do the q&a. And he goes, so if you got any slides or anything, I said, No, I've just just to Q and A's, and he said, No, no, you've got 20 minutes to speak. I genuinely hadn't heard anything I was I nearly went while I was about to walk away, not knowing I've met them honor, I've got to do what I say I said I was going to do. And so I sat there while the surgeon was up there talking for 20 minutes of his in his own presentation, no notepad or any to write anything down. I just sort of worked out in my head, like, what does the audience need today? The physio students, they need to know how to deal with athletes. So I went through my head, well, what are the things I can share from my experience? And I got up there and I just I spoke for 20 minutes or 15 minutes, did some questions, had no idea how it went in my mind, but got really good feedback, and brilliant. And afterwards, I just sort of just sort of stuck in there. Like, if I can do with that I can deal with anything? Yeah. And so I think that experience has given me the confidence to just don't have that self doubt. We speak. And that's what I think people go, Oh, you're a great speaker. Whereas if I was not, I'm not. Yeah, okay. Well, and I have all these ticks. Yeah, it's nothing to do with my ability. It's that confidence in what I have to say, I think

Daniel Franco 7:25
that's brilliant. I would walk. I get worried when I don't have questions prepared for the podcast, as mine.

Daniel Jackson 7:32
But if I took that away from you, you would ask great questions. And curiosity just becomes a crutch.

Daniel Franco 7:37
You're right, it does. But to speak for 20 minutes in the podcast situation. I'm not the one speaking. I'm the one asking. So what is interesting in that, I want to pull out a point. And what I do know about you is that you're meticulous in your approach and your preparation and the way you do go about things. So being in that uncomfortable situation. How did you get on top of your mindset in that space?

Daniel Jackson 7:59
Well, I think I mean, and I suspect, we could talk about ending today, I think we're gonna go down a few rabbit holes. Yeah, one of those rabbit holes might be resilience and whatnot. And if we take the difference, there's so many definitions, but the definition I use around resilience is to bounce back from adversity, in effect, to persist through struggle. And where I think we have this big mess at the moment with how we teach, educate, I don't have kids yet, but I'm gonna put it out there, tentatively and say raise young people is that we're trying to remove all obstacles to make them not have to suffer any form of anxiety or struggle. It's all about the lawnmower parent who paves the path rather than prepare the path for the child. It's paved the path for the more the helicopter parent who pulls them out at that moment when they can have an opportunity to struggle because that public speaking example that's given me confidence for the future, if I'd walked away at someone said, Okay, well, if you're not prepared, let's not do it. Maybe I never have the conviction. Maybe I don't do what I do now, because of that lack of conviction around public speaking. And so, for mine, I think it's, it's that idea of if we're going to prepare people for life, life is hard life is difficult. I think I shared this quote with you last time, this guy, Ben Crow, I mentored me a long time ago, and he does a lot of sort of more public broad stuff works with ash body, and he quotes this all the time from Scott pecks book from back in the 70s. Road Less Travelled. It's the first line of the book. That's what he says all the time. Life is difficult. Once we accept that life is difficult. Life is no longer difficult. Absolutely. We can't realize that life we can't accept that life's difficult without that struggle. So for me, the mindset piece of what I take from that is what at the time, I was just trying to calm myself down and get clarity on what I wanted to say what I reflected on afterwards is I can deal with really stressful situations. So that's sort of answering your question. Now with a lot more wisdom and maturity like I would have used breathing techniques to slow down my read. I still get nervous before I speak and then I can often speak too fast, so I'll use Box breathing, to calm down Mind physiological system so that then mentally I can have more clarity. So that would be a more specific answer.

Daniel Franco 10:05
What's box breathing, can you

Daniel Jackson 10:06
so box breathing is just simply, you breathe in for four seconds through your nose, you hold the full lungs for four breathe out for four empty lungs for four. If you do that, you do that four times 16 seconds per round, you're about a minute you could do I could do it quietly in this chair, as we will might checking before, but it comes down the whole, you're basically your nervous system. Yeah. Your vagus, there's a whole bunch of science behind it.

you do tend to just that blah blah a million miles an hour,

and you find yourself getting short of breath because you don't have you're not using the full capacity. So using slowing down, the respiratory system slows down the heart rate, then we can focus at us more about the part of their brain that we need.

Daniel Franco 10:45
Did you do that? When you used to play? Was that? Was that something you've developed after?

Daniel Jackson 10:50
I did late in my career? Because I mean, I'm now on all wars. People forget who what I was like, as a football like, Oh, you want to best in first and you came second? You played 150 games? Or you know, my first 100 games? I was awful. Like I was you're an angry man. That's exactly right. I had these I had this role where I had to go and be the angry Yeah, tough guy. And I kept getting suspended. And I love the guy off the field, but Whiteline fever on it. And I can tell the whole story if it becomes relevant later. But basically, I got to a point where I just had no control over in those situations where it was kind of getting heated, other people have that ability to go, No, this is wrong. Whereas I would, I would lash out or do something that would get me reported I get suspended. So I'd just go and learn a meditation practice, which I would use before every game, I'd use it daily. But specifically right before I went out to play in front of 80,000 people on MCG, I'd be doing my breathing a bit of visualization. And I'd go out with a lot less testosterone and adrenaline running through my system. And that enabled me to control my behavior.

Daniel Franco 11:52
Brilliant. Those moments are called Will Smith moments, right?

Daniel Jackson 11:57
He could have done with a little bit of box breathing?

Daniel Franco 11:59
I think so. Yeah, I'm not sure he managed that in the in the way that he would have liked to looking back. And I think that's something that we all learn from though in that spirit of the moment, the breathing exercise, it's I use almost like the take five, right? Count down from five, hang on, how am I going to respond to this? count backwards from five. And I think that just it's almost like a circuit breaker in between stimulus and response is,

Daniel Jackson 12:28
and I think this is more so when I before I came back to work at the crows or kind of work at the crows, I was doing a lot of stuff with youth athletes and school kids. And I used to talk about mindfulness. And I share that story about learning to meditate meditation men a form of mindfulness. But what I've since learned is for some people, that's excellent that ability, like you say, to create that gap between stimulus and response. But I've stepped back from that now, especially for men like this Will Smith moment to identify, Okay, I need to be mindful of times when I may act poorly. So as an example, people as someone has a long day at work, they've gone home to their family, they've got a dog that's going to come and jump on them and a cup of kids who need some attention and a wife who's also working, but it's got home beforehand, it's preparing dinner, you want to go there and be supportive. But you've come from a workplace where you've dealt with some annoying employees and some argumentative clients and you walk out the door and you get in the car and unless you're mindful that hold on a minute, I don't want to carry the baggage from today into my household my family don't deserve that. Without being mindful of it. You'll just do it your walk in the door and get frustrated at the dog and kick him down and be frustrated the kid so I spent a lot more time now when I talk about mindfulness of let's be mindful of the occasions that we may act the way we don't want to act so for Will Smith. I don't I doubt this is just a one off he probably has a fiery temperament he seems to have the male lead role actor temperament of like a Russell Crowe throwing your phone and hear all these stories. Yeah, but be mindful to go okay. It's natural. In particular for men when they feel challenged or threatened for that testosterone to go up. Cortisol comes in their adrenaline comes in so we're gonna find it harder to act with clarity. If we can be aware of that. And then whether it's take a breath or not and go okay, this is a moment I'm getting seeing the world through red eyes. I need to go back to blue. Okay, don't stand up off your chair, even if he got up off the chair and walk towards it as he was going walking towards it if he'd been mindful previously around. I don't respond well in these situations. Right now. I'm not responding well, he could have walked out there and pretended to slap him made a joke and gone back down. At that point in time, he wasn't going to stop and do box breathing. He could have been more mindful and I think that's a different way to look at mindfulness and everyone can access

Daniel Franco 14:39
I wholeheartedly agree i i talked I talked about the you know the gap between stimulus and response and I called it a circuit breaker. I do that as part of my regular every day when I'm not injured. It seems like every other day I am. I get home from work and it's almost become a custom animal. Traditional whatever the word is in my household where everyone knows that I get home and I'll go for a quick half an hour run as a way of breaking up between on clearing my mind from the day that's just gone by, and then sort of entering in what is family and our family life with my two kids at home, helping them with schoolwork and getting dinner ready, and then all the inbox that is being a father being present. So in that time I put my phone or try to put my phone away and, and really create a space where, but that that's something that I've created habitually, right, it's something that I've now implemented into my life, do you think there's a place for people to be able to do that, and in that spirit of the moment, and you would know this being on a football field, and not not only now on the football field, but now in the corporate world? You deal with some hot heads and you deal with some egos and things can get heated and conversations can get, you know, turn pretty fiery pretty quickly? Is that a moment that you feel like you can create habit in where? Yeah, for sure.

Daniel Jackson 16:03
And we spoke about it's philosophically it's great to have interesting conversations. But if there are specific tools that we can share exercises, yeah, to get those. So one comes to mind for me. So similar example, you're, like you just said, you're going to have frustrating conversations, you get off the phone to a client or a potential client they're doing you're heading you're angry. There's one great little exercise reset exercise called the triple or let's just call it, which is take a moment to reflect. Right? It's kind of like reflecting assess how I feel right now, or I'm frustrated or really annoyed that client, I'm angry, okay, then we go, let's rest. So it could be a breathing exercise, it could be play a song could be just walk outside, it could be just just pause for a moment. And then it's reset. And the reset is tied to the question, how do I want to appear in my next engagement. So I'm about to walk into a staff meeting, which I'm leading, I've reflected that at the moment, I'm actually a bit tense and angry. I've just calmed down, physiologically, I've got a little bit of clarity, it takes 30 seconds. And now I want to be a really supportive leader of this team. So what does that look like we're resetting on that would be well, I'm just gonna go in with a smile on my face, because I want to bring in positive energy. So yeah, that would be a specific example, which you could build a habit around, every time I come out of could even be a positive meeting, pause just for a moment, before I leave the office reflect, yep, actually, I'm in a really good mood to take a breath anyway. And then I'm going to reset and I'm going to be this take control back over your emotion. So hopefully, that's useful. No

Daniel Franco 17:32
absolutely. Words forcing you to make a choice. I am by resetting I am going to and saying the words, I'm going to be this.

Daniel Jackson 17:42
Well, there's small things like Juergen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, there's a great clip I use with with leadership talks and development. And he, he says every person when I use it, as every leader, every leader, every person has a responsibility for the energy of the room they walk into. And you think about that, like especially you're the same as when you're over six foot guy, you got a big voice and you stand out physically, but this is forever and but you walk into a room and you've got this angry look on your face and your body language is tense. And so people without realizing that all the research that Robert Sapolsky does in this space really interesting. People queuing without rationalize it in their own head and go, Oh, okay, I'm a little bit intimidated by that. And you might not want that impact. But we're carrying the baggage from the rest of the day that we've had before. Versus walking in with a big smile and a gentle shoulder and jaw and open posture. People go, oh, okay, I can relax. Again. They may not even realize that. But that's that responsibility that I think you're going to talk about when you go into the room as a leader, you're going to influence the people's physiological status. Yeah. And then through that you're going to influence how they think how they behave. Absolutely. There's a responsibility.

Daniel Franco 18:48
And we've all I mean, we've all been there as children, right with mom and dad come home, and my dad is a fiery, Italian man. And you know, we're the world's nicest human. But there are days after work, and he works in the construction industry. And you can imagine some of the shit that he puts in that world. And I remember as a kid coming home, it's like, well, what type of Dad's coming home today, right? And you'd walk if he walks in with a smile. It's game on, right? Yeah, it's fine. But if he walks in, he's got that frown. And, er, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna be on the other room for a moment and let him cool down. I think we've all we've all been there. I think that it is a human characteristic. I really liked it. Do you believe that? When you talk about body language, and I know this is something that crews worked on a couple of years ago but might have been before you there with the power posing and stuff. Do you believe that that has influenced on your body and how you might react to a certain situation?

Daniel Jackson 19:41
Yeah, ironically, there is not ironically, factually, there is good evidence around things like power standards. So if you get someone to stand up in that power stance for those who didn't see that a few years ago, what the crows are doing shoulders backs, like a superwoman or Superman stance. Yeah, they do blood testing on that and they will measure increased levels of testosterone, so and lower levels of cortisol, cortisol being the stress hormone. Now, if you get someone, anyone who's sitting down in a chair right now, if you get them to hunched over and have their hands on their knees and think about that full on figure of someone sitting on a chair looking like that, we take people's blood when they do that, because the opposite effect lowers their testosterone increases their cortisol. So the facts are facts, like the science shows that a power stand. Now if the crows had have beaten Richmond, and I didn't play for Richmond at this point in that 27 Grand Final, every team would have gone and it's gone. Oh, let's look at these powers pose or stance thing. Richmond when and there and this is and we'll probably talk about this the research I went back and did after I retired on their culture change. Their culture change was all about vulnerability and authenticity and care and love and thriving and connection. So what are then we go and follow what is Nathan but we're called embedded bucks, or Nathan Buckley is done with Damien Hardwick did, he's gone from being this really disciplined, rigid athlete and coach to being really warm and accepting and understanding and flexibility. But yeah, and a lot of coaches now are going down that path. So the influence because of that one game, so yeah, the power stance thing. For people who are used to same thing you've got a young person who's going for a job interview often say, you know, go stand in the cubicle, do a power pose, maybe do some breathing, whatever, because then you'll come up with that confident assured maybe hopefully better conviction in the presentation.

Daniel Franco 21:22
I always look and you know, Grandfather, I think you can pick who's winning based on that this dance when they were Australian anthem is going I always look at the the way the clubs I'm a Geelong support, it's non Football Club supporter, and they they stand pretty casually, right? And I always critique them on that. And Richmond went in the grand final, when they won a tablet when they beat cats a couple of years back. They were standing there locked in arms, arms over each other and there was this real, I'm gonna say the word Brotherhood or this real community feel like a team feel that we're locked together. And instantly I remember seeing that footage of the cats, the Geelong boys standing over, so I just had been pretty casual and and I looked at the Richmond team, and I've got Richmond, I've got this. They've absolutely got this. And I think I remember thinking the same thing, because that was that's Richmond's approach is that look the arms in together, you know, arms around each other's shoulders. And that's the iPhone and it feels like a real team thing that they've got going on now that we're here for each other.

Daniel Jackson 22:26
Well, I'll, I'll come back to whether it works in footy because if we could do someone to do some research, we might be able to make some money again.

Daniel Franco 22:34
People on the octopus thing you know where the octopus picks the winner?

Daniel Jackson 22:39
People Grange has recently released a book called fear less and she's worked she used to work there for LPA worked at Richmond and then went and worked with the English football team leading into the World Cup and she's she's English by birth but turn a lot of time in Australia. She's she's she's a legend. Anyway, she I want to in a podcast that I listened to quite a piece of research that I haven't found yet. But if she's quite a good I suspect it's, it's reliable. But they looked at exactly what you're talking about the body language during penalty shootouts, and they found a pretty strong correlation with teams that support one of their players who miss a penalty. So their guy misses a penalty and it comes back in he gets physically and emotionally embraced by the team, which you know, that was kind of reflection. If you embrace him back in his, it's okay, we love you even though you missed the penalty. teams that do that, as opposed to teams who the guy misses the penalty, and they walk off to the side and no one really lets them back into the tribe, whether they realize it or not. The teams that embrace the missed kicker win more often than the teams who don't. And she talks about this idea of well, if I know that myself my worth in this team I place in this tribe is not dependent on my performance, I'm going to perform better because we could go into all that physiological freezing

Daniel Franco 23:53
our next book kicker it means that they're feeling a little bit more confident.

Daniel Jackson 23:57
Exactly. They're relaxed. They're in that they're in that challenge state rather than threat state. So there's their blood will flow through what happens in a challenge versus threats. I think this stuff's interesting for people to know you can cut it out if it's not no big deal when we get nervous kind of year but depending on how we look at it. So this is a challenge and I'm excited let's say we think it's a threat. So we're stressed I just saw the last guy missed the penalty. Everyone cracked the sheets and talked poorly of him now I have to go so heart rate goes up. Adrenaline comes in heart rate goes up blood starts to pump, but the difference is the blood passages so whether it be veins and capillaries I'm not I'm not a doctor, so I won't articulate it well, but they all tighten up so that blood is trying to pump through but the body is tense so it doesn't go through it so you're not getting as much blood flow through to arms and legs and the things that need to perform. And then there are cognitive impacts as well. But I don't understand them well enough to explain the other side if it's the exact same thing I don't see it as a threat. I see it as a challenge like well, I can kick this goal to help win the World Cup. Yeah, adrenaline still there because that's normal fight and flight kind of risk. Once the blood starts to pump because your heart rate increases, because the adrenaline but the difference is all the capillaries and arteries and veins, they relaxed, they dilate. So the blood flow is much. So we talk about, you know, someone who's in the flow state, they look relaxed and they're moving, versus someone who stresses or tense. That's what's happening. And so that person who goes, I could win the World Cup. This is a challenge, or I've got to give this speech. How exciting. Yeah, they can use, they can optimize their physiological state. The other side, if it's a threat, oh, my god, I'd better not stuff this. You're not in an optimal state. Please don't miss. Yes, exactly. Right. Yeah. So I sort of I tell that because again, I think it's interesting hear the research behind these things. But you go back to the footy thing before a game, I know, often we go, they look like they're unified, or these guys look like they're tough. I would love to get someone who could do blood measuring on teams before games, because I watch this on the processing. So I'm not that kind of like plot out no bloody, but on the runner at the crows and applied in 150 games mode. And I was always curious about is there an optimal state for a team to go out there and perform because I've seen the rah rah, let's get videos, let's play the pumped up music, let's yell and scream. I've seen that work team goes out and they just blow their temper. But I've also seen teams go out that go out with that mindset and just make lots of mistakes, because they're not thinking clearly. Other times I've seen even our close guys, they're really relaxed and calm, and they're joking around and you think you're ready to play this as a combative sport. They go out there, and they're clinical in their execution. And so I'm yet to land on like, that's part of my role in being you know, this book, this background in performance psychology, and I work in this leadership and culture space. If someone says, what's the optimal state for a team? It's I don't know yet. I think it's dependent on team by team and even scenario by scenario. Yeah, fine. If we could work it out, though.

Daniel Franco 26:48
Well, it's so individual too, I think so. You can play around with that all hit 25 to 30% of the people in the room. It won't hit. Do you know what i mean?

Daniel Jackson 26:57
think that's a good reflection. Yeah. Especially team sport. Because if I'm a track athlete, it's just me, I can test that out. Tried to caffeine in the lab using really wasn't that great? Yeah, I tried the meditation and the passive music also, wasn't that great. We test somewhere.

Daniel Franco 27:11
I mean, I think I've heard you talk before about your pregame routine about rice and eggs or something like that, compared to some others who have eaten, you know, burgers, or whatever. And, you know, everyone's got their own approach. And what works for Yeah, I, before a game, I never used to eat, I actually are you gonna play better on an empty stomach than what I did. Because I just got, I got a stitch or something like that. And it just stopped me from playing. So I used to not eat at least six hours before a game. Yeah. Yeah, whenever I was playing, rounding off. So all this can tie back into the breathing that we were talking about, and being able to control the emotions before before you head into into battle. Your role is leadership in the leadership and culture space, Adelaide Crows. How is that is that a new role that has been created, and is that something that a lot of the footy clubs are doing across the iPhone era is that kind of new and unique to the crows,

Daniel Jackson 28:13
there's always there's always been someone involved at most clubs, that kind of looks after leadership development and culture development. And one of the same thing really, but traditionally, there are external consultants. So leading teams from the early 2000s, where the the big one was that Sydney exactly Roman clean model, and Hawthorne and whatnot. But then, originally, one or the early movers, may even may even have been the first when they went through their 2016 Troubles where there's nearly a board coup, and the media wanted the coach gone. And they did a big assessment. And they identified a bunch of stuff in their culture that needed fixing. And they also identified that they didn't want to just change the leadership. And that's what we often do, especially in sport. Something's not working here, culture is no good. Let's just get rid of all the leaders and bring in new ones that'll fix the problem. All that is always use the example that's like putting a new fresh rug over cracked foundations. It all looks good for now until the next person comes in, walks around and goes Hold on a minute, this giant stuffed rich woman, because the leadership of Peggy O'Neill, who's a great friend of mine, and I think it helped me that she was one a woman, the first woman to be president of an ephah club to American, not Australian, and three a lawyer, not just a, you know, a nun. That's not true, because a lot of the presidents in the AFL and Chairman do come from different backgrounds, but she saw the world through a non football ends because she didn't have this history of being around footy. So she looked at it and said, No, why would we just throw the leadership away? And so they went and I decided one of the things they need to do was invest more in this culture space. So they've got a guy Shane McCarthy, who's an absolute guru. His title was different to mine and the way the role plays out day to day is a bit different. But in essence, it was this full time person to look after leadership and culture and they love him their knees, they think he's had a huge influence on this on field success and also their off field. Success. They have since been some other clubs and I couldn't name them I think Fremantle and Collingwood, Nick maximum might have been doing something similar time word, but the crows kind of similar to Richmond in 2019, after having the two years after 2017 not going their way, also did a cultural audit, they decided that there was some leadership that needed to change, including the head coach and head of footy. Hence, Maddie Nix and Adam Kelly came in. But there was also recommended by these externals that they needed someone full time in this leadership and culture space. So that's kind of how it came about. And it's a very, you know, the question I hate more than anything is like, what do you do? It changes day to day now I can I know how to work my way around it. But every day is different because it's trying to teach and bu leadership and culture is such a unique process. But having me or I guess, me being there every day being the runner on game day, being out there on the training track enables me to have a really good finger on the pulse. Phil, what is the club environment? Like right now? In essence, what's the culture like? And how are our leaders leading whether they be player leaders, administrative leaders, or or coaches? So that's the background for the role. And it's again, long winded but I think it gives context for for this position came about?

Daniel Franco 31:12
So one question I want to say synergy IQ is that my business, we're a consulting firm, and we're we are leaders in helping businesses through change, right. And that change could be in in it, whether it's organizational change, cultural change, leadership change, or any sort of work in that space. We we help. We help businesses and through that journey. One thing that I do know that it's really tough area to quantify and really get some statistics behind and you know, return on investment and everything. So, have you have you sat down, and what's actually what's really exciting for me is that a Football Club's looking at this and going right, this is something that's important, culture is important. Leadership is important. And we know sport notoriously has this really big tick when it comes to leadership. We've seen some amazing leaders come out of the sporting industry, and it currently in the sporting industry, but you sit down with the Matthew nixes of the world and the Tim Silver's of the world and go and really define what is the culture? And then where do we want to be? And do you work with it on a corporate level as well? Do you that link between the players and the corporate space? So how do you manage and weave your way through that?

Daniel Jackson 32:25
It's, it's another good question, because it's not so that's such a simple answer. Yeah. I think firstly, the last two years with COVID has made it difficult in some senses. And that main part being the administrative part where Tim Sewell was has come in and running versus the football department have been quite disconnected, because we've really been risk mitigating. Yeah. But I'll come back to that, whether we're coming back in that space. The thing about leadership, I don't know where I stole this quote from the other day, I was reading one of my notebooks, I couldn't remember where probably from a podcast, but someone had said, and it resonated that as a leader, you make yourself in your culture. So wherever you are, as a leader, whoever you are, whether you want to or not, other people are going to start to become more like you if you've got that strong leadership presence with most most good leaders and head coaches do. So I started a few months after medics had to come on board. And he'd already had a lot of headway to start to change the culture and the environment. And I want to sidestep for a second as well, because it without even defining what I think culture is, it might make it a bit more confusing. But I My view is that culture is just a reflection of the people in any given environment and how they behave. So there is no such thing as culture without people, because we get caught up all cultures, the things that you the things that you stand for. It's written on that wall, you know, we believe in integrity. So it's culture has integrity. No, it's not. Culture is about how other people act with integrity. If there are no people, there are no culture. So put people in an environment. There's a culture that you put kids into the playground, if you left them there long enough, they would work out what their culture is going to be who's going to do what can you push kids over? Can you steal a toy? Culture just is exactly it just is because of the people in there and how they behave. So next year come in and his view of elite performing cultures is all about his statement really clearly. It's about prioritizing others. He believes great teams are built on people wanting to help someone else. Because if you go if I go in there, and I help 22 other people, then I've got 22 other people that want to help me we all get better. One plus one equals three. So when I walked in, walked in the door, I was expecting something different by way of the environment and culture because of the things that I've read. When I walked in, I was really pleasantly surprised. And I think also because when you what you read in AFL media is never fully accurate. Yeah. But also they've already done a lot of good work in the first few months. And so I walked in going, Wow, this is a really good base to build from. At the time. They still had some other changes to come. There were a bunch of players that were going to end up getting moved on coaches, new CEO new chairman. So at the time when I first I guess the first year or two During that COVID period, my role was really just to support many NICs on how do we build this culture initially around, prioritize others. And I can share some stories around that later. And then also, there was another one just about, I guess, delete excellence or hard work, it's quite simple. Like you can't be a successful team without hard work, and we had some work to do. And they will probably the two things that we focused on for those first two years, good people who want to help others, and people who just love to work hard. And so I didn't lead that as much as I did just support that, because I work really closely with the playing group, in both codes. And when both teams, the women and the men, I was able to sort of make sure that I'm feeding back staff to the coaches and the head of footy Adam Kelly, and vice versa, I can have that be that bridge in between. Now we've got an opportunity that all the key leaders are in place that we're trying to be a bit more holistic with that culture piece of the whole club, because there's been such disconnected, so much change team services coming in identified, there's a real opportunity for us to get great clarity on what our vision is going to be for the next five or 10 years, what we really want to stand for looking back at historically what we have stood for and a bit of that identity story. So now I'm getting involved in that as well. Mainly for the same reason that if well, I have the year of 44, men's players, 30 Women's players, then I can help reciprocate that shared kind of knowledge exchange around well, what do we want to stand for? What do we want to achieve? That's happening at the moment, which is pretty cool.

Daniel Franco 36:22
Remove the silos between the two groups, right?

Daniel Jackson 36:25
It's easier said than done. Sometimes.

Daniel Franco 36:27
It really is. Because just different mindsets, from mindsets, ones running a business, and the other is running, or trying to run a football team. Right?

Daniel Jackson 36:36
Well, I imagine you'd see it going into work. Do this kind of work in a big corporate Well, the marketing team has different goals and ambitions to the to the well got marketing sales might be similar, but to operations and finance. Absolutely. They might look at it differently.

Daniel Franco 36:48
Well, you're doing different work. But at the ultimate goal if the strategy and the vision is clear, and it's you know, the Beat the drums getting beaten, then that's kind of that's powerful. That's where we want to be this is where we want to. It's no I always use the Elon Musk's of the world. Right and go you walk into SpaceX is a picture of people who have populated the moon right. So like the vision is clear. Is that right? Yeah, he's got it. It's the moment the moment that you walked through the front doors at SpaceX. There's a picture of humans colonnaded on the on the moon. Right. And, and you couldn't get more visionary. Oh, right. Like that is what we're trying to do. This is what this is our mission.

Daniel Jackson 37:30
All see this? I like this. I might steal this example. This one into writing my new romance. Yeah, yes, go there. Because this idea of vision and mission, I think we use them interchangeably. Like it's the same thing. But my personal experience and view. And I do a lot of reading in this space. But it doesn't mean that I'm right. This is just how I understand it is. That is the perfect example of vision because I don't think he actually wants to colonize the moon, I think what he's saying is we want to go and change the way we live in that we could live into in Interstellar. Yeah, and we could go to other places. So the mission might be more acute. Like right now the mission, which is more of the in my mind, it's the objective thing we can tick off is we need to have the capability in our rockets to go to the far flung parts of the universe, we need to build capability to be able to sustain life in outer space. Absolute vision, though is this bigger picture, we can't really take it, it's we want to be able to, we just want to go and explore and expand through the through the universe. And I've wrestled with that for a long time. Because in tech sport for an example, people go well, what's your vision and mission? Well, that's your mission. My view in football is just to win games. Like that's what we're there to do. The mission is to win premierships. But the vision is bigger than that. Because if we just go out there to win, we might miss a whole lot of opportunities to build connection with our community. Like there's an opportunity in South Australia for the Crows to really represent more than it probably does Richmond's. And they don't necessarily use this language, but they say their purpose is to connect is connecting to thrive. And when they want to connect their communities together the work they do in the indigenous space, the work they do in community sport, they want to bring that together, help everybody thrive, that's internal as well. And then they know they will win and they can define winning how they want. But they have a mission about being a strong and bold premiership club, in effect, they want to win. That's the mission. That's the vision and I are excited to share that now. Because it helps me put a line in the sand to go this is what I think and if I say it, then I'm going to have to believe it.

Daniel Franco 39:22
No, you're right. And it's and it's a with Elon Musk is a very clear example that I use all the time I actually say his mission is to is is for human beings to be spread across the universe, right? Similar to what you said. So let's let's not let's D risk right, let's take away the key person risk of human beings surviving by removing him from Earth and getting him around. Now that is a big hairy audacious goal. It's the B hag. Yeah, it's almost in where we are right now. It's almost unachievable. Like it's just not gonna happen. We're not going to see it in our lifetime. But that was JFK on the moon. Absolutely right. Whereas His mission is to get paid boots on the moon. So we can see that it can be done. Right? That's the thing. It's to create the, the buy in from the rest of us, like, you know, I can't remember the exact meters with the sprinters, but when when they beat I think it was under a minute or under two minutes. They got the it was a 1500 in under a minute or two minutes or whatever. And then no one could ever get it under the two minute mark. It could be

Daniel Jackson 40:20
Oh, yeah, the four minute mile,

Daniel Franco 40:21
the four minute mile,

Daniel Jackson 40:22
Roger Bannister.

Daniel Franco 40:23
That's the one correct

Daniel Jackson 40:24
he does it. And then within next four months, four more blocks do exactly.

Daniel Franco 40:27
And I think that's, that is the power of what Elon is trying to do. Yeah, for sure. You get people on Mars, all of a sudden, like, oh, shit, this is something we can achieve. Yeah, we are actually going to do this. And there'll be so much more innovation that comes out of that. So you are right. There is a big difference between vision vision and mission mission is the part that we play now. Yeah,

Daniel Jackson 40:47
we can ticket Yeah, absolutely. Vision we probably don't take we want to help change the world of, of sustainable transport. What does it look like? How can we tick? Have you changed the world yet? I don't know. But it's motivating. And here's the other thing. I think as leaders, you got to identify who wants because the leadership in my mind is just taking people on a journey somewhere, it's not going anywhere, then we're not leading to lead someone, we've got to go somewhere. And I'll look at this kind of three ways you can take people on that journey, the first one's the most, I think the easiest one is will what do the people around here need from me, because if you look after your people, and you make them, you empower them, and you make them feel good, and you just make it a great environment, they'll probably follow you wherever you want to go, a lot of people don't have the direction. So you can just lead the people by being good to people. Next part of it. And they don't necessarily go in order, you can be a visionary leader and get people to bind to something really big like Elon does, like geez, I don't even know if this is real. But I love his ambition. And I want to help change the world in regards to being able to leave, or some people go, they're very mission goal directed, they might just want to bring the stock price up so they can make tons of cash, they might want to sell this many widgets. So they can just show that they've done that that's how they're motivated. But knowing how different people are motivated or groups of people I think can make you a more effective leader. So that people the purpose, which is the vision or the plan, and then you go the process part about being a good communicator, being empathetic, having Crucial Conversations. That's management. Really, yeah, that's that difference management and leadership. Okay, we'll follow the plan. The leader sets the plan, though, that's

Daniel Franco 42:18
absolutely leadership. It's Tim's job and Matt's job at the Crows to to lead that vision. What is it that we're actually trying to achieve? This is the strategy. This is where we want Crows to be in the next five to 10 years, right? And five to 10 years is, is looking out there. And you know, most people and especially the supporters want to see the runs on the board now, but it just they do. Yeah. And but we all know, shareholders are no different to the supporters. Right. And when you compare it to the business world, they want to be able to fill their pockets now. But I think if anyone that knows culture, it's not something that turns around, it's a slow moving ship. It's not turns around quickly. It's a slow moving ship. It turns around with time with finesse. And it's bloody hard. It goes back to this god pack. You know, life is difficult culture is difficult to take culture change is difficult. Yeah, it absolutely is. Because it relies on so much it relies on our own great leaders. It relies on egos, it relies on processes, it relies on systems, it relies on, you know, being on board with a vision and being on board with the strategy being on board, and everyone working together. That's tough, especially when you got you know, hundreds if not 1000s of people in

Daniel Jackson 43:32
one. And that's the key again, if looking at culture being the head of people interact in an environment, to change culture, you either have to change the people or you change the environment, ie the way they behave in that. And I was talking to a group yesterday, outside another sporting organization and in South Australia, not that not the crows. And they asked that about positive and negative influences in your environment. Because we see that in sport, we keep the ship bloke because he's a great player, we can't afford to get rid of him. Yeah, but that person in that environment that's influencing your culture, because he either makes other big lowers the psychological safety. Yeah, or creates a clique or other people go, it's okay to behave this way. Yeah. So you can go okay, well, we want to change our culture. So you're gonna change the environment where you can try but if this guy doesn't want to change his behavior, you're not going to get very far. So you let him go. And all of a sudden, there's this vacuum that gets filled with different behaviors. And if you've got good person that comes in to fill it, then the way they behave influences the environment that will kind of turns a little bit and because as that environment gets stronger, a new person comes in and they look in there and they go, how do you behave it they're like, Okay, well, you look after other people, you have humility, but geez, you work hard. So they adopt some of those behaviors. And if they're awarded for doing exactly so it goes back and forth. new person comes in, they reinforced that and then as people leave and come and go, if it's the right people, and the culture is strong, it gets just keeps going around and around. But if you lose one of your key cultural architects, who was really strong and you're in that environment, you may feel There's a bit of a reduction in the quality of your culture. So if like you say, if you've got hundreds of 1000s of people in a huge organization, well, the dynamic nature of your environments can be really hard to quantify and measure, but there will still be people or groups of people, individuals that can influence it positive

Daniel Franco 45:15
What's accountability 101, isn't it? Right? Like if there is that, you know, we, in the corporate world, it's the, it's the brilliant jerk, right, and then, you know, in the footy footy world, it's similar and, and if you hold that person accountable, it's that quote, you know, the standard that you walk past is the standard you accept, right? If you're walking past someone who's behaving, and you're in a negative or unproductive, or in the harassing or whatever they're doing, and you walk past that, as a leader and accept it, or even just let it go. You don't say any things. I'm not gonna get involved, not my space, you are creating a culture where that behavior is tolerated. And it's accepted. Yep. So leadership is huge in this space. Do you recruit based on on Mike now I know back in the day it was we just need a whole bunch of great footballers. And we want to win premierships, right. Do you recruit now based on leadership capability?

Daniel Jackson 46:11
Yes, while sitting in a lot of the draft interviews, I don't get a huge say on the decisions made at the end, but we go through and we rank subjectively rank or rate, all the potential kids that we could draft on a whole range of things, obviously, the predominant stuff is fully ability and physical capability. But we do look, it's probably not so much leadership, it is his character. You know, a good character can become good leadership. So we do look at that. And it doesn't necessarily mean that we would rule no, that's not true. If if we might sort of part of this being the development team will decide no, this, this guy is just not going to fit our environment. Low, low humility, high ego, and a whole bunch of other stuff we made, we may be more inclined to go that we don't want it now if he's a super town, and we need that what he has on the football field. May we go Can we back our environment and our leaders to help that person change? So it's not as black and white as

Daniel Franco 47:03
Oregon Geelong are really good at that. Right? Where they've adopted a few

Daniel Jackson 47:07
Yeah, and Sydney have always been good, or you've

Daniel Franco 47:09
thought you've got the young lad who's come over from the old previously at the Crows, Tyson Stenglein. Yeah, exactly. And seems to be flourishing under the leadership of, of Solon danger, and that at the moment.

Daniel Jackson 47:21
Yeah. And look, getting him out of his home state where there are less influence with smaller downloads. Well, there's a whole bunch of things. But yeah, we do. Look at that. The only caveat for people in sports a little bit different. I think it's it's great to draw some synergies, but there's also differences. But you get can get caught in the trap of just recruiting for a type. So our culture is where this, but if you only bring in people that are just like that, then you're missing out on one of the greatest assets for innovation and performance, which is diversity. And diversity has to be managed, because you are more inclined to have disconnections of beliefs and views and values, you might be finding it harder to manage the conflict, but conflict and and disconnected views is often what creates new ideas if it's done well. So you don't wanna have that homage homogenous environment where everyone's the same, right? We don't get anywhere, then there's always a balance. Ah,

Daniel Franco 48:09
yeah, when the diversity inclusion piece is a massive, massive thing, especially in the corporate world were notoriously you know, the old, if you look at any board 15 20 years ago, it's the male pale in style, right. And now the, it's really exciting that, you know, organizations like the Australian Institute of company directors they're looking at, and they're pushed, there's a real push on how to be more inclusive and be more diverse in boards and get those thoughts out there. And we're seeing businesses reap the benefits of that, especially through the innovation bases. What can we I'm interested in your career and how you did get to this point, we've kind of we want to be this OS about where we've talked about all the the technical stuff, can you tell us a little bit about your career and how you ended up in this world? And, and, you know, what does it look like for you moving forward as well?

Daniel Jackson 49:05
That that I have no idea. I probably should get us get myself a new mentor, and I haven't got any moment to work out where I'm gonna go by. Yeah, the journey to here has been a different one. I did a commerce degree at Melbourne, uni mailman, financial planner. I initially was going to major in finance and accounting because he's like, you know, get numbers you'll be very employable. He's, he's quite pragmatic, risk averse. But I got into the second year subjects. This is terrible. And I did a week at Ernst and Young one of the guys on the board at Richmond was a partner there. And he set me up for a weekend offseason where I spent a day in each different department and quickly realized like audit, audit and tax are just not my thing. I could never do this. But I loved the so many other things like the mergers and acquisitions because there was this challenge of kind of get companies to come together. Some of just the basic consulting stuff they did. So I reassessed, threw out a bunch of other experiences and said no, I'm going to is going through management and marketing which had Melbourne Uni because that's the easy way out. But I love strategy. I love ideas. And I love people. And I'm in sport where I can use those things. So I started to go down this path. And later in my career, I had a mentor that was head of Nike, Southeast Asia, Australia. And he organized some offseason to go and do an eight week it was that point, it was a six week into internship kind of thing at Portland Nikes Global office in Portland, Oregon. And I actually end up retiring another year, my contract probably tell that story later, retired early. And so it ended up being there for eight weeks, and then didn't never come back to Australia. I travelled for a while and stayed in North America. And at that point, I was going into this blog, probably get into sports marketing, or brand marketing. But I lived in Toronto, and they just didn't have any opportunities there at the time. If I'd been in Australia, Nike, Australia, because of the you know, when you're an athlete or a footballer, you do get helped out more than the average person. If you're smart about it, if I'd stayed here, I probably would have gone that path. Couldn't get work in Toronto, like I met the head of one of the heads of brand, Nike brand marketing in Toronto, in Canada. And she said, Well, it's nothing at the moment, we give you a job selling shoes in one of our shops. And I honestly thought about it, I was like, I don't care, I've just spent the last 11 years of professional athlete, it'd be nice just to have a job that I can not have to stress too much about. No, I didn't end up doing and I fell into this small consulting company with an Aussie guy in Toronto, and he was a pitch consultants who would help people with teams. So one of his big clients with CBRE commercial real estate pitch for big opportunities, you know, 100 million dollar developments that they wanted to do and when. And then there are also other companies in there like Audible that we're trying to get there. We're trying to integrate some of the audiobooks system into certain car manufacturers. So that can be really interesting. I love learning this is maybe part of the white reason why public speaking, became a thing as we sort of started with because I learned the structure of how to be persuasive with with proper structure. But what I realized is every time I went into the CBRE, or to an audible, I wasn't looking at the pitch or worried about the money that could when I was looking at the dynamics in the teams and why certain leaders did certain things. And I then moved over to the UK for visa reasons more than anything. And I moved into a share house with some teachers that are friends of mine and needed some money. And so they said I used to do all these talks at schools 10 years, yeah, I used to talk about resilience and leadership and high performance. And but it was just from my experience as an athlete, like, Yeah, we love that stuff. If you want some money, throw a couple 100 quid to do some stuff. So I'd go to schools couple times a week when I could. And I talk about stuff that I kind of intuitively knew, but didn't have any real solid foundation behind. And I really, really enjoyed it, I was getting great feedback when I was like, I'm not going to be able to make a long term career out of this. So I looked at where I could go and build my sort of background up a bit and found this masters of performance psychology up in University of Edinburgh. So I was living in London, or do some cash geeks to try and get speaking gigs in schools and development workshops and stuff. And I traveled up every week to do my course up there. And I'd come back. So that gave me this much better grounding around how individuals and teams can optimize their performance. And then it just kind of naturally flow with all these Aussies over in the UK that I'd never be with someone and tell them what I was studying and doing the guys what my team needs. So what do you mean? Oh, well, we we struggle with just coming back from setbacks like our sales team, they have a tough week. I don't know how to get him back up. Or we've got these great people. They just don't work well together. And I'd go Oh, geez. Yeah, well, you could try this and they go, you should. Can you come in and do it I go, there was just an idea. I've never done this before. Just come and do it. So I had these things where I've walked rock up, go, I have no idea what to do. But I'll just pile it some things. And

Daniel Franco 53:39
I 5% More than they do so well. Maybe Yeah.

Daniel Jackson 53:42
And that's kind of all sort of flowed out and then I met my now fiance. I'm getting married next weekend in presentations. Lottie, Charlotte, I think. So she we met in London. She's a doctor, she was coming back to finish her last two years of specialization, dermatologist. And so she came back to Adelaide, and I had another year of my masters and all this stuff going on. So we sort of just said, let's see how things play out. But through 2019, I was traveling back and forth between Adelaide London to see her and a bunch of other things in Australia. And that's where I'd caught up with the Crows who at that point didn't have this position. But through a connection went had a beer with Andrew vagin and just thought was trying to build networks. And then as it all played out, they weren't sure who to fill this new role with as articulated before, it was just sort of thrust upon them by this these external consultants. And in phase two said, Geez, this Dan Jackson guy, he's a good fella. He's got some unique backgrounds, he knows footy. Maybe he's worth talking to. And so that's kind of how the journey got here was this mismatch of Well, I understand business and I've studied that I've played our performance sports. So I know the stresses and the pressures have then gone and I've learned how to articulate and strategize around business development and pitching so the communication part of it I've seen under the would have a number of different industries. And now I've gone and researched what is performing individuals and teams do. It kind of all came together to go well, it's a unique background, you haven't really got any runs on the board. But we'd love for you to come on this this journey. And that's where I am right now. So where does it go next? I'm still working that out a bit. I don't think I'll stay in sport solely forever. I'd love to be at the Crows until we reach the pinnacle of what we can winning on and off the field for the resume good for the resume. And I learned every single day like COVID comes there's no playbook. There's no research papers on that. So we learned how to manage through that. But I love the idea of being able to apply what I learned in sport into business and spending time in business and learning what sport can learn from that and even just still working with you. I love working with school kids around teaching them high performance, what it makes what it takes to be an elite performer what it takes to be resilient. So I probably need to work out in 10 years, what do I specifically want to do? Because then I can channel it a bit more. But I've also always been of this mindset about just be curious, do lots of things and interesting people will find opportunities for you to do interesting work.

Daniel Franco 56:05
It's the Richard Branson way say yes to everything and figure out how you do it later. Yeah, the resilience piece is one that's front and center at the moment, you know, going through a pandemic, businesses working from home sport is like, you know, it's been decimated, especially from like the crowd point of view and and even just now with with, you know, teams, you look at West coastal, you know, I've relied who've been half the teams out with COVID. And everyone's resilience is getting tested, what is what is some of those in those workshops? What were some of the key points that you and even now in some of the work that you're doing with the the boys or the lads and the girls at the Crows? And what are you? What are you what are you working on in the resilience space.

Daniel Jackson 56:56
At the crows, we have sort of a tower head up the development team. So we have a psychologist who's there, sports Psych and we've got three now really great player development slash welfare managers. So it's not just me, we'll kind of collaborate together. My pillars of resilience that you know, if I was going external to do I'll do a little bit of consulting outside. So if I was going to a school or a corporate the pillars that I work around for resilience, the first one connection, we have this huge issue now with we're so connected digitally, but we're so disconnected, particularly young people from each other and your your look through history we've been, we are a tribal people we've always had, you go to Italy, I mean, amazing small towns in Italy, what happens at the end of the day, they're not sitting in there watching TV on the cat TV, and yet, they're out the front of their house, talking to each other's neighbors, they go to the local butcher, who's known them since they were children. And they have this familiarity, so people are always checking out for them. So this idea of connection being a fundamental part of who we are. So there's a whole bunch of stuff doing that space, you talk about the vulnerability and authenticity and sharing, there's that one. Another part for me is perspective. And this comes back to that idea of don't pave the path for the child prepare the child for the path that's for adults to so being able to look at things but with that challenge, mindset versus threat, being able to reflect back on failures and actually take learnings and embrace them and realize that they don't reflect who I am like I'm better for having gone through all through this past experience. And then that mindfulness piece we chatted about earlier, which as I said is less and less for me now about practicing meditation, that's phenomenal. But it's actually being more mindful and being aware of how the world is impacting us right now and how we're impacting the world. So connecting with people reflecting through to create the right perspective that's going to help us thrive, they're resilient, and then be mindful how we behave. So they're the three pillars around

Daniel Franco 58:45
reflecting paces learning, like the growth mindset versus fixed mindset stuff. Carol Dweck is running you play on on that a little bit?

Daniel Jackson 58:53
Absolutely. I mean, that you can help someone who's got a bit of a fixed mindset through reflective practices can be journaling, just different in software questions, help them realize where they actually are being fixed, and then help slowly move them across to nothing's fixed, like you can improve in this space. So you can do with this

Daniel Franco 59:09
good exam, I reckon it's a really good point, because and you know, you talk about these scenarios as adults and kids, right, where you can talk about the differences in mindset. And there's just one story that really stuck out with me and I, as a parent, two young daughters of you know, 10 and 10, and eight years old, and I apply these practices pretty much on a daily basis. There was one story I heard it was a mother who her son had, you know, 13 14 year old son had had been doing a math assignment all weekend working really hard getting it done, like put a whole heap of time and effort into it. And then on the day, on the Monday morning, he went off to school and he left the math assignment on the on the kitchen table, forgot to take him to school was due that day. And so the mum, she sat there and she You started freaking out a bit as I go on, I've got a I've got to run this into the school and I've got to save him. Right, you know, that save save mentality. But she stopped herself. And she wrote this message on Facebook and said, you know, this is the scenario this is was my, my son's done. And what should I do? It was there was an overwhelming response saying no, no, he's got to learn his lesson. He's got to learn his lesson, like leave it. And, and so she did. And she didn't run the assignment to school and, and, you know, it was thinking about her her actions all day and like, oh, you know, what have I done? And like, you know, and, and so that night, the son comes home and he and he walks into the kitchen, he has one math assignment, I, I forgot to take this insulation, because I've been meaning to ask how did you guys saw it there, and I didn't know what to do. So I just thought, oh, you know, maybe he goes now I went in there. And I put when to pull it out of my bag to hand up and went to the teacher and I didn't have it. And then he goes, so what I did was then I explained to the teacher, everything that I'd done. And this is the way I did it. And this is how I went about it. And these are the answers that I got. And then the teachers, clearly you've done it, that's great. So just bring it in tomorrow, right? And so the opportunity to almost negotiate the opportunity to then work through to work through a problem and talk through it and speak with another individual and go hey, look, I have done it. I know what I'm talking about. Can we just renegotiate this day for tomorrow? Great life skill? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You think being you know, I don't know if you've ever watched the inside out the kids movie, right? Where you know, you've created a memory right. And I really think that is a pivotal part to learning is that you have to let people fail. You have to let them make the mistakes. And you would see that day in day out in the sporting industry and well,

Daniel Jackson 1:01:46
yeah, and sport, especially as the rules. It's a game of imperfection. It's the team that makes the least mistakes that wins unlike American football, which you just can't afford to make mistakes. So for us, yeah, trying to navigate that with our guys. And because we can't them strive for perfection or help them strive for mastery, I think it's a better one because even the best pianist is never going to master playing the piano. There's only another level. So that idea of we want you to keep getting better, but not to be perfect. And it's a hard balance. Yeah, if you get it right, that comes back, I think to that ability to play in a flow state because I will make mistakes and that's okay. But I won't take won't rest at inadequate performance. I want to master my my game.

Daniel Franco 1:02:29
Yeah, to talk about effort, because a lot of part of the lot of the growth mindset is wrapped up not so much the result. But the effort, right? It's not so much about how I kick the ball in that particular point. But it is the effort that it took me to go get that ball, right. It's the it's the head down. It's the grunt work, it's the lack of fear and whatever that comes along with running for that ball. Do you guys do much work in that space as well,

Daniel Jackson 1:02:53
I think what I've learned actually, since coming to the crows, and Nick's he's amazing at this as a leader. So I was probably playing in an era at the tail end of the old school, which is we never tell you how good you are at anything. We just constantly tell you what your flaws are. And we push you to work harder and harder. Yeah, in my experience, it does create a whole lot of self doubt, took attention away from the things that I was good at so that everyone would know now that sporting world schools is all about positive affirmation, positive reinforcement. Yeah, I have the last tricks, like there are times where you have to be firm and have all that stuff. But put all that aside, the thing that I've learned is there is so much power in that positive reinforcement of the smallest behaviors. And I mean, even when I've got a dog and a puppy, his name's Ernie Hungarian vissla, full of energy. But I've just learned now, and again, there's a balance, like all the trainers say everything's got to be positive, like don't have any. You don't, you know, try to give example that might get me in trouble because I don't hit my dog. But yeah, you know, if the dog jumps up, they say just just ignore it. And eventually he'll learn that something that you don't value, which I disagree with the dogs jumping out, we've got little kids running around, like we can't afford that. So he's got to be kicked out. He's got to be pushed down. And you know, he has to know boundaries. But you realize when you just give any kind of he loves, he'll do anything for for love. He doesn't care. So for food, but if he just he's so busy, visitors are a Velcro dog. Yeah, if you give him the love, then he'll do anything. So he does a small behavior, showering with love, he wants to do it again. And I've seen that now again and again, at the crows where there might be a player who has poor work ethic in the gym, for a whole bunch of reasons just Neverland push himself or whatever it might be. And I've seen the power of if someone invests just a small bit of positivity and a little gain, I make that little bit of effort to do a harder session to pump them up for it. It's just like the puppy. They walk a lot. You see their behavior changes. Oh, yeah. I think I'm looking a bit stronger. Absolutely. You. Yeah, I've seen you working out in there. You definitely look strong out in the field. Whether it's true or not. I mean, the behavior has to be genuine. Yeah, but the outcome may not have happened yet. And what happens the next time they go into the gym, or go in there and now Cool, well, I guess maybe that felt good the other day. So I'm going to lift a bit stronger and slowly what happens is you keep reinforcing. They change their self identity, the way they talk to themselves, or how they see themselves as well. I, everyone's told me, I'm lazy in the gym to know I am someone who works hard, I am big and strong. And then what six months, it might take six months might take 12 months, all of a sudden, they are big and strong, and they walk into their gym and they'd have this swagger about them. You go, I remember you told months ago, you were skinny, you were lazy, you shirked all the work that you were supposed to do. Traditionally, that approach would have just been, hey, we need to knuckle down, we need to make sure they do this work. And it was all this negative reinforcement, which just never worked. Work. It did work for some. But these days, I've Yeah, I'm much more a believer in just find that sliver of the behavior you want and make someone feel good about. Yeah, don't think that you can't choke the chain of someone who you're managing, like you would a dog.

Daniel Franco 1:05:53
I think you have to finesse your way through it, right? Because you've got it's the push and pull. You can provide someone you know, agonist antagonist you can provide someone with with so much positivity that they start believing that they're better than everyone else, right? So then you've got to hang on a second, you got to this,

Daniel Jackson 1:06:14
you've got to still be real with absolutely sure.

Daniel Franco 1:06:18
And you don't want people to get to it. You're just going oh, hey, everyone's telling me I'm the best. So therefore I am the best. Absolutely. So yeah, you have to finish your way through that I struggle with my kids on the real positivity. Like, I am very positive. I believe I'm emotionally intelligent, and all the above. But when they do something that you just like they play basketball, so I use basketball as an example. They just don't, right. They're just not they're not going for the door, knocking up and down the court. And so and so my attitude is like, that's not good enough, because you're letting people down, right? You've got to put in the effort. I don't care if you miss the you know, if you have a shot and you miss that. But the simple fact that you're not presenting is the big problem for me. So I go pretty hard on that space. But all the other soft stuff. You know, when you got the ball? You did really well. You bounced, you took you took you know you fend it off. You did this? You did that? Fantastic. Keep doing that. But I need more of this. Yeah, there's a there is a there's a bit of

Daniel Jackson 1:07:17
I guess that's that opportunity when they do like there might be one quarter in the game or the one game where one of the girls has actually worked up and down the court. And then afterwards, I saw you running a whole white guy. I've never seen you run that hard before. That was amazing. You know that? Oh, thanks, Dad. Yeah, doesn't guarantee the behavior change. But there's a little marker that maybe you're one of the Inside Out memories. Oh, that that's really proud of me when I work hard. He didn't even say anything about the points that I scored.

Daniel Franco 1:07:42
Yeah. And that's the growth mindset part. And yeah, it's the it's the positive reinforcement of the effort of the journey in the effort as opposed to the outcome. Correct. I just want to we're touching back on the leadership stuff. I'm curious. I like likely some story was one of the best leaders that you worked under, or played under within when you were in the AFL?

Daniel Jackson 1:08:05
Oh, good question. I mean, I had 123, I think you have four technically senior coaches, and 234 captains, and then a bunch of other people a couple of CO so as a footballer, I saw lots of different ones. And I think probably I saw great things in in each of them and all different iterations of time to I think the early ones, so Wayne Campbell and Kane Johnson, for all those vintage people out there. Yeah, they were very, very good at building strong connection with their peers. But with that connection, also very demanding of standards. And I think that's a really important balance of any generation of, you've got to show people you care. But if you're gonna get hype, create a hub for me environment, you've got to be able to have those hard conversations, you've got to demand excellence, you've got to be able to pull that chain of the puppy and go home that's not tolerated. We can't just be friendly, which I think's a big challenge in leadership at the moment or the HR stuff we get worried about. Yeah. So I think they go there. They were great in that space. I think Chris Newman and Trent coaching were the next two along and they're very different in some ways very similar. They were very good at was the first one would be a connection through going for a beer and being one of the lads they were very good at building genuine connection based on care and checking in. Showing that there's it's important to have balance in life and that family is important. So they're very good at role modeling the behaviors, both very hard, hard workers in their own right, probably not as confrontational as the first two. But they got outcomes because people knew that they cared about them and they didn't want to let them down. So they are from from from onfield sort of off field to play specific, but Brendan Gale and Peggy are near were fantastic leaders. At the crows. I see a lot of Tim Silver's sorry, yeah, Richmond I see a lot of Tim Silver's in the way they both got about it a really really humble but having this I like this idea of having a strong ego but not a big ego. So very strong in their convictions of what they stand for, and what they expect and how they want their people to behave. But not done in that egotistical, that big ego kind of way that it's my show, in fact that they're so far from that. So they're two leaders, again, that I guess I can share, the people who have not a football world

Daniel Franco 1:10:22
are some of the leaders that you see in today's game. In any club, not just the Crows but any club. And you think this is this is what leadership looks like.

Daniel Jackson 1:10:38
might take me too long to reflect a nail on one. But my pinnacle of great leadership in the moment, I think comes down to that balance, again, what I just explained around those who can have built meaningful connection with the people, their followers, the people they lead, but also be firm. With them, I just think that's the balance we need to get back to, I sort of look at it as traditionally in all walks of life, we used to have worse, not just in all walks of life, sorry. But in business and sport, because sport is obvious we have to perform. But in business, we get a bit lost around what our outcome is. But if I'm, if I'm CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I have to deliver value for the shareholder, that's part of what I need to do, I'm going to lose my job. If I'm in the military, and I'm leading opportunity to better well, my job is to keep them alive and execute the mission. Again, if I don't do that, then we don't we don't succeed. And if I'm principal of Early Learning Center, I need to develop and nurture these children. And that's performance. So performance has become a dirty world. And no, no, we need to make sure we nurture people make them feel good, though we do if that helps us reach performance. Yeah, if we go to world war three, which I used to just give us a sort of off the cuff statement now becoming a bit more stressful to say that the nurturing part may not be important for a while we move back to go back to a bit of the old school leadership, which is we just have to drive results because lives situational leadership, right, exactly. So traditionally, the situational leadership demanded or the the, the lever we pulled to get the outcome of performance was fear. So if you don't do this, I'm going to dock your pay, I'm gonna put you in the boxing ring. As a footballer, I'm gonna yell and scream at you. We now realize that that doesn't work. Like people don't respond to that they know they can go and get other jobs, they know they can leave relationships, they know. They just don't have to tolerate any more than go to HR and say, This guy's a bully, I want him gone. We still need the performance outcome though. So where I'm seeing what great leaders do, they've still got to pull a lever to get performance, you can't have people just come in there and have a great time and not work. But what how they do it now is through this lever of love and care. So if I build a strong relationship with you, like you, and I've met a few times, but we don't have a strong relationship, if I didn't rock up today, I'd feel guilty because we've met before, but it's not gonna be the enemy, if we were great mates. Or if we were brothers, or we had a really strong relationship, I'm never not going to rock up because I don't want to let you down which goes back to the hormone stuff, the oxytocin, the dopamine, and serotonin that comes through our interactions and the environment we create. I want that, like, I don't want to feel anxious for letting you down. I don't want to have shaved the Brene Brown stuff. So yeah, we get the outcome and you want me to come here and we want to have a great chat, but you don't do it by threatening me. Similarly, as a football coach, well, sometimes you've got to rant and rave but genuinely what I'm seeing now the great leaders in sport, building that care building that love so people don't want to let them down whether they'd be a captain or a coach and then that becomes so much more sustainable that like that's kind of inspiration versus the fear lever is more motivation. You'll get something for a while, but eventually people become dead to the ranting and raving the fear. The body just goes well I'm tired of being stressed. I'm just going to block you out. This is the other side you can never get enough of the love and the connection and the absolute belonging.

Daniel Franco 1:13:40
I love it. Pixar and Disney got that right in the in the Movie Monsters Inc. I watch a lot of kids movies. Right?

Daniel Jackson 1:13:47
We chatted this last time. You got to go back and watch that.

Daniel Franco 1:13:49
Yeah, but Monsters Inc. Yeah, we did talk about this last time. I wonder whether it was on a podcast and over Yeah, we saw Monsters Inc. You it's like when you the movie starts off with you know, in the monster world. They've got these doors which open to these kids closets, right. And they, they the way they generate energy for the monster community or the monster city is through the screams of the child's is like scam. And then they got this thing that captures the scream and they get energy from that. And it was it was worked out that later and the whole movie goes through. But it's worked out that actually there's so much more power in making the child laugh on the other side, right? And then you talk about loving and for me it's just a really good analogy for life that is that movies that yeah, you only go so far with a fearful scream, but you can get a lot further with, you know, a joyful laugh and and it's definitely something that I've really sort of put on as a hat and that's kind of the hat that I try to wear as a leader whether whether I get it right all the time. I mean Paula is sitting there now is smiling and probably nodding your head, but certainly shaking your head, I should say. But yeah, I think that I think you're right. And it's definitely a shift if you're looking at from sport and I fell back in the day, the beer drinking, you know, you'll be right, get up, don't miss a game, you know. And it's similar for the corporate world where, you know, if you're sick, you know, just get up and go to work anyway. Whereas now you can start saying no if actually, if you sick, we're going to we're going to work on this, and especially mental health is something that's picking up a lot more. Are you okay, like these sort of days are coming out? What, what is your thought process on where this is going for? Let's talk sport, and then we can kind of connect it back into the corporate world? How much more vulnerable? Can you get? Okay, and is that something that you guys are working on? Is there? Is there a fine line? Is there this Goldilocks zone that it's going to stay?

Daniel Jackson 1:15:59
Yeah, I think I wouldn't say vulnerability is a fad. But vulnerability is sexy, because we hear these stories about oh, this group, they really they, they were vulnerable, they opened up and it just, it was so amazing to see the emotion in the room, and they all banded together, and they went and performed. But yeah, there's truth in those stories I've seen and witnessed them and being a part of them. But it's not No, I don't think it's the sole thing what really the what we're I think it's going for sport and not any tribe, any group that comes together, I think it comes back to this hormonal state. I think I mentioned to one of the books that I sort of recommend the most around the leadership culture space by Owen Eastwood called belonging. And I remember if he writes about in the book, but he explained it well, in a podcast. And we said before, it's so hard to quantify, put your finger on what culture is and how it influences like a lot of people become a bit cynical. And they go, Yeah, but honestly, it's just a nice to have isn't it's not that important. Well, the way he articulates it, so I was I should just claim these things. Yes. And I thought of it myself, but I didn't know, he talks about, okay, well, if we know that someone's hormonal state influences their performance. So if they have high cortisol and high adrenaline, and they've got all these things that are making them all the stuff we've chatted about, then they're not in an optimal weight position to perform. We all agree on that. There's enough science, we've all experienced it there when we're stressed, like certain levels of stress, for sure. But once we get too much, it's no good for us. So if we agree on that, and then we go, the environment that we're in impacts our hormonal state, so the leader energy in the room, again, the stuff we've talked about, now, we have a direct correlation that the leader who creates the environment of the organization creates an environment that either optimizes people's physiological state, or it doesn't, it makes it worse. And then those people become they end up the victim or the beneficiary of that environment. Yeah, the output you get will be dependent on that. So the culture performance relationship is very, very lengthy. We just don't have strong data on it yet. Because we don't, we can't do the blood prick like we can with. And that's where I think I'd love to find somebody if they can tell me you do, how's my diabetes, I'll go and check my levels. insulin levels, right now, click go, Okay, I would love to find a technology, we could just use the same technology to go this person is in an absolute optimal state. And maybe it's too hard because everyone's optimal state is different. But we can get a range of Yep, there's a little bit of stress here. Because we need a little bit of stress. Jesus person's feeling connected to their peers right now, this is amazing. Like, whatever they've got is really, really powerful. This is trust. This is the science of trust. Yeah, if we could do that, that and create optimal environments, where everyday people come to work, and they're in that place, they're going to do great work, you're going to win more often than you lose. And if vulnerability and life goes up, yeah, if vulnerability helps to build that connection, then we go great, this situational leadership, this person or this group, they thrive in vulnerability. But I guarantee you there are people when you with my technology that doesn't exist, when you click their finger,

Daniel Franco 1:18:56
Elon Musk is creating something like that. He's

Daniel Jackson 1:18:59
your chip in your brain, come back to them. You go, vulnerability causes them huge stress, some people don't want to share. So if you come in there, if I come in there as a consultant and go, guys, I have the pinnacle of building connection, vulnerability, some people will go, Oh, I love talking about myself and being vulnerable. Others will go, this could go either way. And maybe it works for them. And there'll be other people who just physiologically just clam up and go, This is my greatest fear. Yeah, it's not fair to those people to make them be vulnerable, and you're not going to get the outcome you want. So that's when it comes to vulnerability. I think it plays a part in the right environments. Where's the future ever going? I think it's us. Ideally, don't want to have to put a chip in my brain, but you might get the same outcome. I'm happy to do bad measurements. But yeah, I think we're saying the same thing.

Daniel Franco 1:19:41
Yeah, I think just being at alarming, it's when you can, when you can track it, you can measure it and you can improve on it right? And where human beings are suckers for patterns, we'd like to see patterns and we want to,

Daniel Jackson 1:19:54
we want data we want we believe that data is the story and that's the thing people

Daniel Franco 1:19:58
I mean, that's why when you look up in the night's skyline. Apparently, people see pictures out there. I don't see anything but. But you're, that's the human being looking for a pattern. That's what we're trying to do. We've always been that way.

Daniel Jackson 1:20:12
And that's why we take data now being physical, you know that it's the new, it's the new commodity. But data will tell you any story you wanted to tell me when I started my master's and I don't have a great science background. So I battled through they gave the example of a category, it's not called provability. But anyway, that once upon a time, they believe that all swans were white. That was fact it's fact because we know that all swans were How do we know? Because we've never seen a black swan. And then this probably not true story or put me on it. They come to Australia and they see these black swans with red pills, and they go, Wow, okay, all slot swans are white, or black. And so the data at the time tells the story which becomes the truth. Someone else had who may have come in earlier and set up pretty sure there are other colored swans. No, you are wrong. So you got to be really careful just because

Daniel Franco 1:20:59
someone raves about it. Black Swan event? It's like, yeah, it's a very common event

Daniel Jackson 1:21:03
and is telling the story poorly. But in essence that what we can do with any data, we go, Oh, we've got this. These are numbers. This is hard science. Well, yeah. But you're construing it to tell the story that suits the narrative that right now might be real. I look at medicine. And I go, I bet in five years time, hopefully less than that. They'll go like we do with we talked about five years ago using leeches to blood let go. We used to das people with radiation to deal with cancer, that is inhumane. They look all they're bald, and they're sick. And some people died. Like, why would they have done that? But right, here we go. Well, that's what medical science tells.

Daniel Franco 1:21:36
through them. Yes, right. Yeah, look, and the data. And that's I mean, we can get into the AI world. But we've had, we've had a gentleman on the show, Dr. Terry Sweeney, who is the CEO of Digital Research Center at the Digital Health Research Center. And he in that conversation he was talking about, we've got that much data that we can use now. But it comes down to privacy, and privacy issues. He's like, right now, if someone let's say, a 40 year old, 40 to 50 year old male, Anglo Saxon male, got prostate cancer in this Situ in this environment, and all the other these are all the diseases blood type, this is this, this this the other, we could literally pull the data that we've got from across the world, and go, these are the, the treatments that worked 95% plus of the time for that individual in that circumstance, just through AI, putting it through a machine, bang, bang, bang, bang, but we're not allowed to use information like that, because of privacy laws. Yeah. Like this. It's such an amazing, and so we've got the data, this is what we're now allowed to do that. So you're right, the data does tell the story media, bend data, more in more ways. And once they're storytellers MORE THAN correct, and they use the data. But you could use the same point data point in three different conversations. Exactly. Yeah.

Daniel Jackson 1:23:00
It's not to say I don't think I think data is very important. I just think we got to be very careful when we say this is the facts that the data are telling us. Absolutely. You can listen to Joe Rogan. He will tell you all kinds of facts that I don't necessarily agree with. Agreed.

Daniel Franco 1:23:14
He lost his way through I think he's trying to claw his way back. Yeah. Which is good. Mr. Revenue, oh, we don't need to go and is I am conscious of time. I reckon I had 20 odd questions here. And we only asked a handful of them. So we'll have to do a put another podcast what another day. But as we round off, we always ask a few quick fire questions. But before I do that, I do want to touch back on what does the future look like for you? What are outside of sport? And obviously, you're getting married and kids are coming your way? You said you're going to raise some kids in the future? What what does the future look like for Dan Jackson?

Daniel Jackson 1:23:52
Yeah, it's a good question. As I said before, I'm sort of reluctant to go and say, to even do the work to go, this is where I want to be in 10 years because it's always served me well to keep an open mind. Or going down a path like I might I have a really clear purpose statement or vision for me personally, which is to enlighten people to what's possible, and then inspire, inspire and empower them to achieve it. Because that then is underpinned by my values, which are curiosity, compassion, and courage. So if every day I'm living my curiosity value and learning like this conversation helps me learn and reinforce what I believe. Hopefully, my people listening, they're now a bit more enlightened to some things they may not have thought of, hopefully, I've shared some things that they feel empowered, that they can go and use to try. And then hopefully, we've both inspired them to do it. So if that's if that's that's kind of my motivation for doing this. Every day I go to the crows, I've got the ability to execute on that help a young man on or off the field or woman learn something about themselves, which helps them go and perform better. So I'm very clear with what I'm trying to do every single day. That mission part though, about what that looks like to like. I'm curious about maybe going and doing a PhD and leveraging my connections in elite sports. To do some really good research around leadership and culture and high performing environments, but then I go, I've seen a lot of people get down these rabbit holes of PhDs and they find the data and they just block out everything else that could be out there. So maybe I'll do that maybe I'd maybe like to write a book about more the subjective experiences and interview people, you've come across a lot of great leaders to see the photos on the walls, you know, captured their experience, and then share that, but maybe I just want to consultant and do what I'm doing now. I've got to be married to a dermatologist, maybe she wants to work a lot. Maybe I'll just be a great dad, and walk the dog and go running and do triathlons. I don't really know. But I think as long as I'm, I genuinely believe, as long as I'm consistent with that personal purpose and living those values, wherever whatever I end up when I'm 45, in 10 years time, we apply some content with I might be wrong, people might go now you got to have a clear goal. But I'm sort of tossing that around at the

Daniel Franco 1:25:55
moment. I think so. I think. I think if you live to your values, I think you know, what makes you sing right? You know, what makes you feel good. So naturally, you kind of find the path of least resistance to that space. Anyway.

Daniel Jackson 1:26:09
That's my view. Yeah. But I also and we won't talk about it now that I'm a huge believer in goal setting. So I have this balance. If you don't have clear direction, there'll be missed opportunities.

Daniel Franco 1:26:18
Yeah. But we can you can you look back in your career and think about the missed opportunities.

Daniel Jackson 1:26:25
For sure. Like this is, you know, people ask the question, are there any regrets? Is there anything you would change? Like, there are so many things I could have done better? As a footballer like I'd 100% If I had myself now as a 17 year old when I got drafted, instead of retiring and having played 156 Okay, games and a few seasons that sort of stood out and a lot of rubbish ones. I reckon I could have played 2050 games and had a lot of success on and off the field. But I would never change it goes back to that perspective. piece. Like, I can sit here now and talk about the things I do passionately because I lived through making bad decisions, and I had to go and learn and speak to people.

Daniel Franco 1:27:01
I think Hindsight is a wonderful thing, though. Right? And if you think about going back, and yeah, could have played 250 games, you may not have learned what you know, now. Absolutely. Well, you may not be changing people's lives, you might have been a washed up footballer, that just you know what I mean? Like it

Daniel Jackson 1:27:16
could have I was gonna say, like, commentating and do something, but I would do no one to get myself in trouble.

Daniel Franco 1:27:21
No, no, no, we won't go down. You could have grown a beard like bucks now. But I think that's the thing is, you don't know, you don't actually know. And then you say I could have changed this. I could have changed all that. But it might have actually set you down a path that you might not have want to go on that list fulfill. Yeah, you play 100 You play an extra 100 games and you in a few extra breaths Tim Ferriss and, and throw in a premiership them you might get introduced to someone who's on the wrong side of the fence. All of a sudden, you're snorting a few extra cut lines and coke and died. You know what I mean? Like, you just don't just don't know. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the, if you're, it sounds to me, like everything that you're doing with your life is is true to what you want to be doing right now, with what you've got. I mean, you know, that's a testament and kudos to you for where you are.

Daniel Jackson 1:28:12
Well, I'd say it's a testament to the people along the journey that have sort of invested in me. I mean, my willingness to want to be invested in that's probably the the My advice for young people, as always, just be curious. Ted lesser, be curious. not judgmental. Yeah, that's probably something that I learned early that has served me well, because I've met people who have been willing to help and offer advice. And I've had the humility, open mind curiosity to listen. But I've had some amazing people that have helped course, correct. Along the way. And I think I've just been the beneficiary of that. And that's why I hope sometimes I can do that for others. Absolutely. Surrounding

Daniel Franco 1:28:47
yourself with great people. Is 100%, there's no other way. And if you're struggling, there's a lot of people that come to me and say, Dan, yeah, how do I find a mentor? How do I find a coach? I think it's being open and curious, right? That's really been my strength is similar to you in the sense that if it gets thrown at me, I'll try to catch it. And I'll figure it out. And then I'll just ask questions, and I'll be curious, and I'll learn more and, and strive for excellence, I have a sporting background in a junior curious or elite sport in my junior days, but I actually believe sport is fundamental to success, like just the mentality of application and how you, you go about training and how you go about the thought process of improvement. Right? And you set goals and all this thing, working with a team, you know, working with different personalities you got to me goes over here. You got some people who aren't trying so much over there. Like it's just,

Daniel Jackson 1:29:49
it helps teach a lot of life. It's the only way but it's one that's accessible to everyone. You don't have to be at the elite level to learn a lot of those things. I

Jindou Lee 1:29:56
don't think I agreed 100% right quick fire question Djinns What are you reading right now?

Daniel Jackson 1:30:02
Oh, actually, I started a book club which some of the boys when I first started, because when I played no one talked about what they read. So I'm kind of it was actually my turn this time when given what's happening in the world, we're reading prisoners of geography. Because it has a lot. There's a whole chapter on Russia and why they would never let this is from a few years ago, let the Ukraine join NATO or whatnot. So the context around why the world is as it is, socially, politically, economically, a lot ties into how he's an expert in geography, how geography influences those things. So that's interesting. Yeah, relevant. Exactly. It's a really it's, it's, what's it called prisoners, prisoners of geography by Timothy, I forget his last name. But I put it in the show notes. Yeah. And then the other one, I've just finished, which was more of my own choice. And I did choose their love of the book club was I think it's seven facts about the brain, or grits. Yeah, that was that was pretty. It was just one of these books that helps make neuroscience accessible. So you don't have to know the science background to actually enjoy it and take a

Daniel Franco 1:31:02
lot. Yeah, nice. Yeah. I'll have a read of that one,

Daniel Jackson 1:31:06
I think seven small facts about the brain, something like that.

Daniel Franco 1:31:09
Yeah. Excellent. What's one book like you talked about belonging before as being one book that you've recommended? Yeah. Can you provide another book that you've recommended, more so than others? And that's from a point of view of the self development from a point of view of becoming, improving our own behavior?

Daniel Jackson 1:31:30
Yeah, I think one of the early books I read that helped really set me up because it's one of the pinnacles of high performance was The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Now, a lot of people go to James clear atomic habits, but he basically just rewrote the book, he did one thing and I liked both, but I'm a loyalist to Charles Duhigg, power of habit. So for something that's explicitly that can go in there and realize that, like, success is just built on doing the little things right every single day. I thought that was a really good book, but I don't know it's less of a self help book. But Victor, Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning my favorite book of all, exactly. And when you're struggling, go back and read that book and put life into perspective. I think that's probably the book that I would

Daniel Franco 1:32:10
have given as a stimulus response right there. Exactly. That's one of my favorite books of all time. Powerful. Yeah. I'm, if you would ask me that question. What are you reading right now? I'm reading Charles Duhigg, Smarter, Better Faster.

Daniel Jackson 1:32:23
Also in Atlanta. Absolutely amazing. Hasn't dated at all. With all the new science principles are great.

Daniel Franco 1:32:29
100%. Do you listen to any other podcasts? Other than this one? Of course?

Daniel Jackson 1:32:36
Yeah, I mean, I could throw out you know, Brene, brown and all that. But one I like to recommend because I know the guy. What's it called? His name is Cody Royal. And his podcast is called I think it's where others won't. He's now released a couple of books. But he speaks to a lot of coaches and athletes and looks at how we can shift our thinking around coaching or high performance and looks at well, what can we let's not get stuck in the lane of what's always been done. So yeah, Cody rose where others won't.

Daniel Franco 1:33:06
And so coaches in sport, cobalt coach, yeah, life coaches, like all the above, well, he

Daniel Jackson 1:33:12
talks to business people as well. But he's got a thing in sport, but he's like you and I as a passion for sport and experiences, but likes to try and do cross learning. History. So not just for sports people.

Daniel Franco 1:33:21
I'm gonna take that out and be good. Yeah. Good one. What's one lesson is taking the longest to learn that is it Brene? Question. I've stolen that from her podcast? Actually?

Daniel Jackson 1:33:31
That's a good question. There's probably lots of them. I'd say I mean, one of the things I mentioned earlier that I learned early days was about being interested, not interesting. Like, if you're talking if you're the person talking the most in the room, you're not learning as much as he could. And I have lived that that curiosity. I love it. But I catch myself. Now realizing, and I'm trying to develop this as a skill. I have a photo of a photo, an image of Socrates, that is sort of across from my desk on the wall to remind me to lead use Socratic method of questioning. So I have a point that I want to make, because I know I'm generally older, and I've got some life experience psycho, I could share this wisdom. Now I've realized the power in helping someone else get to that piece of wisdom through their own experience and narrative. So the ability to ask questions, be interest did not interesting, it's very easy for me to go and tell stories, because I like to storytelling, I've had a lot of life experience, but be interested in someone else. And then allow them to guide their own way and at the right time, share an anecdote or share some research. So it's something that I've really lived on being interested in and interesting, but I think I've constantly tried to come back to it and go to the next level of what that looks like.

Daniel Franco 1:34:41
It's one of the things I actually actually apply that method in, in the sense that I remember was it How to Win Friends and Influence People? Would you remember that book? Yeah, it was I think there was a piece in there which is if you let if you go to an event and and speak to someone the whole night and save, say a maximum of 10 words. And that person will who's just talking about themselves the whole time will walk away thinking it was the best conversation that they've ever had. Right? So your ear be interested in it does it has a really positive effect on people powerful it is. Are you into stoicism buying? Yes. Yeah. So you met read meditations by meditations?

Daniel Jackson 1:35:24
The one piece that I probably take the most from or the book was letters from

Daniel Franco 1:35:29
say cynic is that more than that's that's never leaves my bedside table and speak it out. read a chapter at night. Well, I just whenever I feel like I need to pick up that book and just have a read. It is a tough read for people but

Daniel Jackson 1:35:44
you go slowly Riri Yeah, takes on it. Ryan Holiday now has taken a lot of it and made it really accessible. popularized it. But

Daniel Franco 1:35:51
yeah, brilliant. We could go. Well, some of the best advice that you've ever received.

Daniel Jackson 1:36:01
I guess without going back to be interested, not interesting. I've always loved and I don't think I received it. But LAIRD HAMILTON were the pioneers in big wave surfing, must have watched it in a daco. Or this is pre podcast days. He had this saying that I really resonated with which was I'd rather live a life of Oh wells than a life of what ifs. I think so many people they live in this space of they don't take risks for fear of what could happen. Whereas His attitude was, I think the question was probably like, are you worried about dying? He's like, Well, I'd rather be oh, well, then what if what would have been and I've loved that, but I think it's underpinned a lot of my decision making in life like retiring and 28, with a year on the contract having one the best and fairest the year before. There's a lot to walk away from. But if I didn't, I would have had all these what ifs around what if I'd gone overseas? And what if I'd gone and done other things? Like you said, I could have played another 100 games while I said that, if things had gone, well play another 100 games played a lot of 33 Star Family, really sustainable things that I value, but there'd be this lingering What if and maybe there's always a risk that I regretted having retired early? And this is one example. But I much happier deal with the oh, well, you know, I tried it. Yeah. Than the what? If so,

Daniel Franco 1:37:11
yeah. What if you can invite three people to dinner? Who would they be?

Daniel Jackson 1:37:17
Oh, well, that's a tough one. Actually, one of the guys yesterday, I ran a session and asked if you have younger boys about sharing a leader you admire and why and this guy is not actually so young. He's in a leadership group. Now he was a part of the session. I'll share him because he's a genius. Riley O'Brien. He's getting his car and I said why? And he, he just reached things and remembers them all and then articulate stuff, amazingly. And he explained, you know, he went through and I've read a bit of rounding has come but a ruthless dictator in some ways. But this ability to unite many different literal tribes, communities, to come under his empire and his open mindedness to get people to change his mind on what innovation looks like. And he wouldn't necessarily subjugate to the degree and go in there and slaughter he would go right. If you want to come on board, you're on board, and I want to adopt some of your practices, because I liked them. And I love that balance of hard leadership with open mind. I don't think we need as much of the heart anymore though. raping and pillaging. Yeah. But I think he'd be a cute I'd be curious to pick his brain on.

Daniel Franco 1:38:12
Yeah, in today's society, it would be interesting. Putting his brain in today's society.

Daniel Jackson 1:38:19
I just think a guy that conquered three quarters of the world he's gonna be fasten. I don't know what you're feeding me.

Daniel Franco 1:38:24
On there, statistically, you are half of the population that was related to

Daniel Jackson 1:38:27
Well, yeah. So I think I'd have him and actually, now that you bring it up, I probably ought to go Seneca or Marcus Aurelius, in fact, probably marks around it's because I'd like to know more about how stoicism was applied. And that guy led the Roman Empire, history buff and leadership, so they'd be too and then whenever I get asked this not that happens all the time. But I'd always invite my grandma because my grandma she passed a few years ago, we were really close. And she was the one that instilled the value of learning and curiosity as a little kid, I'd go off to the she takes me to the museum and she takes me to botanical gardens to teach me about you take me to the miniature train place and teach me about trains and my and my granddad, but I'd invite her because she would just ask them amazing questions. And I'd just be sitting there going like hon, learning so much cool stuff. Yeah.

Daniel Franco 1:39:08
That's such a good point. Find people who ask good questions. Here's why walk out of the podcast because I actually just believe in the idea of asking amazing questions. And I'm still not there yet. But I feel like I'm, I'm getting better. If you had access to a time machine, with, where would you go?

Daniel Jackson 1:39:30
I've been thinking about this. i There's lots of things in the past that I'd love to know. But just last year, I read Homo Deus that I guess sequel to Yeah, homosapiens. And as much as I love history, I would love to go to the last days of either the last human on Earth or I'd like to know where we go because then I hopefully with my role can influence the next generation of leaders to make sure we don't stuff it up. But he paints a pretty bleak picture and I think he's trying to just bring people not to be alarmist to make people realize guys like Elon Musk of these visions but they may not balance out the values that we as a human species need to embody change for change sake or technology for technology's sake is not necessarily a good thing. We see it with the degradation environment. So I'd like to go to the end of time and work out what we can do maybe it's great and I go sweat I don't have to do anything. But if we've stuffed it up along the way, if I can help a little bit now then I think that'd be Yeah, time machine.

Daniel Franco 1:40:25
That's awesome. Sapiens in Hama das are two of the greatest books like as of SQL. No, Harare or Yuval, Noah Harare, is just now that

Daniel Jackson 1:40:34
mazing absolute, so much complexity accessible. And he's

Daniel Franco 1:40:37
and he's put it down into two and 300 pages. So again, it's it's Yeah. If you had 123 Here, if you could choose one superhero power, what would you choose?

Daniel Jackson 1:40:48
He's just say, just to say just don't get tired. Because I when I get tired, bad things happen. I get cranky, I get hungry, and I'm short with people. So it's a lame superpower, though. So I think it maybe ties into sort of the being able to go the future and realize that we need to fix some stuff. If I could influence people like at the moment I like to influence people. It can take a lot of work. Yeah. And all superpowers can be manipulated negatively. But if I could say to someone if I could touch them on the shoulder and go, humility, yeah, influence when they become humble. Yeah, well, then I know I could help people like self control. Yeah, that would be a great superpower to then help leaders be the people they need to be to take us where we need to go. Obviously, I could be like generous. That's likely if you go visibility, you can do good things and bad. Yeah, so I don't think it's an evil. There's always a way. But yeah, mine would be about su power to influence people.

Daniel Franco 1:41:34
Like they're really like that. I've never thought about it. I've always said like the power of knowledge. Right? Where it's the just knowing, right? So be you're able to help people with your knowledge, but just being well, if you if you had all the knowledge, you probably would be able to influence them without needing the magic ability. So

Daniel Jackson 1:41:50
yeah, good answer.

Daniel Franco 1:41:52
That's true. All right. I love a good shit joke. What's your best that joke? I know, you notice how? Yeah, you're not a father of a dog. So we claim that

Daniel Jackson 1:42:03
on the spot, actually someone because I have a dog, someone told a good dog joke the other day about who was the other people around this the boyfriend of yours. This guy goes to his girlfriend's parents house for dinner. And he's sitting around the table and the dogs over there. And he's sitting there and he's supportive. He's eating beans about Mexican food. And he's I need to find out and he does and it goes a bit loud. And then the dads like Raja get out from under the table. Yes. I think I got away with that. It was the dog. And so the next time he's still eating, oh, he just does it again. Raja, I told you, you get out from under the table. He's like, dog. And the third time he does it again, really loudly. And then the dad says, Raja get out from under the table before he shits on you. I don't know if you need to pick that out that resonate really is a dog owner. I don't know if it's a dad joke, either. Because

Daniel Franco 1:42:53
it's supposed to tell the shit joke. That's a good joke. Well, look, thank you so much for your, for your time tonight. It's been an absolute pleasure. I think we've gone for two how we've always gone almost hit the two hour mark. So it's been a marathon chat. But I think we've covered off and we did ended up going down those rabbit holes like we knew we would holidays every night. It's been amazing. Thank you for everything that you've you're doing in the world, you know, you think what you're doing, especially in the sporting arena is is really taking Well, taking the sporting environment into the next level where, you know, vulnerability leadership is front and center in front of mind of some of these for the athletes. So I think it's been needed. We've seen some ups and downs in the past. And, you know, fingers crossed that you guys do some amazing things over there at the Crows. I'm fingers crossed that you don't because I'm not a Crows supporter. But no, the I hope, I hope all the best for you and the team and especially for the remainder of the year. If you can get some wins in under under the belt. I know that'll definitely go a long way to making some of the players keep on striving forward. So thanks for everything you're doing. I've Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed the chat. And where can everyone get in contact with you if they want to?

Daniel Jackson 1:44:14
Guess what are they say? slide into my DMs I'm not great at responding. But my hashtags. My thing is for Twitter and Instagram and that at Dan Jackson 23 That's probably the easiest. Because if I get emails out and I'm more than happy to talk to people Yeah, and won't respond for ages. Whereas a quick message on Twitter Yeah, a question and

Daniel Franco 1:44:32
then Jackson, Jackson 23 on Twitter will be that guy. Easy. Thank you very much for your time and extent. We'll catch you next time guys. Cheers. Thanks for listening to the podcast or you can check out the show notes if there was anything of interest to you and find out more about us at Synergy iq.com.au I am going to ask though, if you did like the podcast, it would absolutely mean the world to me if you could subscribe, rate and review And if you didn't like it, that's alright too. There's no need to do anything. Take care guys, all the best.

Synergy IQ 1:45:06
Thank you once again for joining us here at creating synergy. It's been great spending this time with you. Please jump on to the synergy IQ Facebook and LinkedIn page where the discussion continues after the show. Join our mailing list so you'll know what's happening next at Synergy iq.com.au And of course, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And if you really enjoyed it, please share it with your friends.