September 28, 2025 • 50 mins
Kylie Lynch came in swinging on all things women's sport, and I’m all for it. VFLW player, coach, and host of the 4TG podcast, she’s using an ACL year to build leaders, not excuses. We talk identity beyond the jersey, why your mind is your gym, and how choosing purpose can look like a 60k pay cut that actually buys your life back. Kylie breaks down permission vs initiative, the trap of chasing linear 'success,' and why coaching the person beats chasing stats.
We dig into women’s sport as a smart investment, not a sympathy project, the culture shift needed on and off the field, and what real leadership looks like when you blend feminine and masculine styles with zero ego. Oh and my fave… sport as a rehearsal space for life. Mouthguard in, gals!
SPONSORED BY TESTART FAMILY LAWYERS
Website: testartfamilylawyers.com.au
TIFFANEE COOK
Linktree: linktr.ee/rollwiththepunches/
Website: tiffcook.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tiffaneecook/
Facebook: facebook.com/rollwiththepunchespodcast/
Instagram: instagram.com/rollwiththepunches_podcast/
Instagram: instagram.com/tiffaneeandco
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm tiff. This is Roll with the Punches and we're
turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
to court, and don't My friends are test Art Family Lawyers.
Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
(00:29):
all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples,
custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements
and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so
reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au woo who Kylie Lynch,
(00:54):
Welcome to Roll with the Punches. We're horry. Thank you
for having me to you. My secret favorite thing about podcasting,
what's that? Just making besties? Just making besties with people,
just like running around collecting new friends and you're one
of them.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You're one.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Now, Well, it's an absolute privilege, you don't you worry?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You know, when you get a good circle of friends
and then you get introduced to people by those friends,
and you know they're going to be good humans. And
then you meet them, be like, oh kay, new friends.
What a good human?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, because they've been verified, haven't they. You don't have
fear through all the other rigmarole. You're just like, well,
if they reckon they're a good person, then they'll do Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, what's going on in the world? Hey first, no, first,
tell everyone who you are and.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
What you do?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What are you all about?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
What am I all about? How long have you got
to you if?
Speaker 4 (01:44):
My name is Kylie Lynch and I am the host
of the four two D podcast, which we've recently launched
designed to empower the next generation of female athletes. So
we're trying to hear the raw, the real, the oddest
converse for what it takes to get to the top
and what it takes to be a good person on
and off the field too. You know, you don't have
(02:06):
to be an elite sportswoman to receive all the beteference
from sport, and we want to translate everything you can
learn in sport into real life. So we're trying to
give women's sport a little bit more coverage that it
deserves and hear from people across all walks of life,
from all levels of sport to get the lessons that
you can really apply to your own circumstance and to yeah,
(02:29):
just to dig through all the other stuff and really
try and find out who you are as an athlete.
And by athlete, I mean anyone who plays sport. You
don't have to be elite again to be an athlete.
So yeah, that's my latest little hobby. But besides that offer,
I also play a VFL W level. I'm out with
(02:49):
the ecl injury at the moment, so I'm a professional
bench warmer that have learned so much in that time,
don't worry. And then what actually makes me money is
I work for Channel seven Streamer, which is a community
sports streaming platform design to try and increase the broadcast
(03:09):
coverage of community sports and just get it out there
and get fans more engaged or for free. So it's yeah,
I've got a nice little balance of things going on
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh and what an awesome range of things to be
involved with. Yeah, every one of those I was like, Oh,
that's awesome. Oh that's awesome. Oh that's awesome too. What
a trouble it certainly does. And congratulations on preventional professional
bench warming. That's quite there, I think it's quite underrated too.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
It's a tough gig.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
What I like though, you said you've learned a lot,
and I had this quick flashback of twenty fifteen. I
think it was when two months after quitting my real
grown up job to be a personal trainer in a
boxing gym and hold pads for people. Two months later,
I tore my labor with my shoulder and was told
(04:05):
not only was I not allowed to hold pads or box,
I wasn't even allowed to run on a treadmill because
I wasn't allowed to use my arm with any motion
and lo and behold in the ten months where I
could do nothing, I couldn't believe that when I did
box again how much I developed as a boxer by
teaching others. So I want to know what you've learned
(04:28):
as an athlete whilst being a professional bench warmer.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Well, I'm similar in that. So this year, obviously I
can't play, but I've started coaching senior women's footy as
an assistant coach there and I have learned so much.
And I've said this on my Path podcast, is that
it has been the best thing that's happened to me
doing ACL at the time It was crushing because you know,
you saw all your dreams and all the things that
you've worked really hard for just vanished within an instant.
(04:57):
But it has allowed me the time and a space
to develop as a person, to ask my why why
I was playing for all because to be honest, I
always saw success as linear and I wanted to be
at the highest level just because that would grant me
as being successful. Whereas now I've sat back and I've realized, well,
footy has given me, It's given me the people, it's
(05:18):
given me the community, the confidence in everything with it.
But I was operating out of absolute fear of not
achieving the next thing, so that was my motivator, Whereas
now I realized I want to help develop other athletes
and other young females in the sporting space and in football,
to try and help them develop them. So I think
(05:40):
my motivation has changed for when to come back, and
I'm more motivated than ever to make the highest level,
but for reasons bigger than myself. So that's something I've learned.
And I've also just learned how incredible the mind is
and how incredible mindset training is and how untapped it
is in sport from community sport all the way through
(06:01):
to professional sport. And that's something and I really want
to try and incorporate into my coaching, into my leadership,
and into my own game when I return home or
I turned back to the field, because it has allowed
me to change my view, my perspective on things so much.
And I also have such respect for athletes who have
(06:23):
returned from long term injuries and have gone on to
achieve incredible things, or even two or three long term injuries,
because they deserve it so much. And you learn resilience, perseverance,
and all those great things that if you hadn't had
to go through that you probably won't ever have to
learn them to the same degree.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
So I have a lot to be grateful for. I
love that.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Tell me how you how did you land there? How
did you take what was the process of taking yourself
from being injured? And I guess you go through that
stage of like frustration and grief and stress and like
what like and maybe even a bit of an identity crisis.
How do you go what do you have to honor?
And then how do you need to shift in order
(07:05):
to land where you landed?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
So to best answer that Before I did, my acl
was I was in a pretty dark space mentally. I
put so much of my identity on moving up the
ranks in football, and one I actually did it, it
was almost like a little bit of relief because for
once it was out of my control. I couldn't do anymore.
I couldn't put in any extra reps, I couldn't alter
(07:31):
my nutrition or do anything. So for once it was
out of my hands. And don't get me wrong, when
I did it, I was still pissed off, disaba least
because I felt all the emotions at once. I felt angry,
I felt frustrated that I had worked so hard and
putting so many extra hours for injury prevention, for my skills,
for everything, and there's girls who were on the team
(07:52):
who did very little and they never get injured. So
I had that sort of victim mindset for a little
bit there. But I said to myself when I did
it that I'm going to allow myself for twenty four
hours to feel all the emotions and to feel like shit,
to cry, to be angry and to all of those things,
and then the next day wake up. This is MYEU reality.
What I'm going to do about it. There's no point
(08:12):
dwelling on it, winging about it, complaining because that's going
to get me nowhere. So from the next day I'd
sort of woke up and I had a new attitude.
And don't get me wrong, alsot just like a light
bulb just which and I'm like, I'm okay now. But
I just had to almost force my mindset to change
and then try and find the opportunities that I would
have the next twelve months ahead of me. And that
(08:33):
sort of really set the seed. And it's incredible when
you operate out of abundance, I guess, and all the
opportunities that will come your way. So I took it
as an opportunity to change my career from sustainability and
sustainability and climate change communications into sports media. That was
a jump that I wanted to make for a long time.
I always wanted to get my thirt three and four
(08:54):
in fitness so that I could be a peete on
the side, So I've been doing that. And then also,
as I said, coaching, that's something I've always loved leadership,
but I've never really considered myself a coach because I
thought it didn't have enough footy IQ to do it,
getting into footy quite late. But it proves you don't
need to have the technical skills. You can do more
as a coach, as a person, and as a leader
(09:16):
than anything else. So yeah, there's been lots of nuggets
of gold since I've done it, which I've only recently
sort of uncovered.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, how long. Tell me the timeline of your journey.
When did you start out in the in working in
sports media and making those leaps.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yeah, so I moved into sports media in December. So
I did my ACL a year ago on the weekend,
so it's sort of about I would have been three
or four months into rehab where I'd just said, look,
I'm not happy in the job I'm doing. And I
was good at it, and you know, I sort of
(09:53):
kept going up the ranks and getting promotions and things,
but I never really felt the passion there. And I've
met this previously, but I think my biggest thing was
I was always chasing the promotion because it sounds good,
and I thought that that's how you, you know, be
more respected, and that's how you feel satisfied by chasing
that next promotion. But I never did so I would
either change job or go up a rank, and there
(10:15):
was still something missing. And then I said, look, something's
going to change because I was getting the Sunday scary
before going to work every week and I just thought,
oh shit, I do not want to be going to work.
And I thought, you can't carry on the rest of
your life everything like that. So I thought, you know,
I've always wanted to do sort of sports. Sports commentating
is something along those lines, and I've had lots of
(10:37):
media experience because that's what I studied at UNI. So
I thought, right, it's time to take the leap streamer.
The opportunity came up and I just said, yeah, let's
do it. It was a massive pay cup. It a
sixty thousand dollars pay cup, so it was significant. But
I still don't think you can put a price on
purpose and happiness. So yeah, I've been doing that since.
And then that sort of led to opportunities life, doing
(10:58):
a podcast and me eating people like yourself, and yeah,
it's just it's amazing from what one small change, how
everything can fall into place and so many doors open.
So I'd encourage anyone if they're not happy in their
current job. It's scary, it is and there's so much uncertainty,
but you will never grow in your comfort zone. You
(11:19):
need to be in a state of discomfort to grow.
So yeah, that was sort of my experience with that.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh I love that, I find it. I'm always fascinated
by how we deal with what we're in the middle of,
even when we have been through stuff and learned, you know,
Like I talk about a lot of lessons I've learned,
and there's often times when I have to revert back
to going, hey, TIV you know how you always share
(11:47):
that boxing story and that period of growth. You do
realize that the challenge you are going through at the moment,
that is the answer to that, you know, like there's
recognizing what you're in the middle of. So I think
the idea of grasping opportunity in the middle of the challenge,
(12:08):
without suppressing emotions, without throwing a pity party, without covering
I talk a lot about resilience, and I love, I
really love digging deep into the idea of what, like
what's resilience and what's just suppressing shit, like what's been
tough on what's being strong. There's very clear for me,
there's a very clear definition between the difference of those
two things, and one's going on a great path and
(12:30):
one's going on a very rocky path, which is the
tough girl. I walked that path. Don't you worry about that?
What did you know? What did you learn? What did
you try? What surprised you amidst that? Big questions?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Uh, big questions, But that's what we're here for. We
change questions. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Look, it all started for me. So before I did
my athol and I was in that sort of duck
that I've mentioned, I said that I'm either going to
have to give up forty or seek help because something's
going to change.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right. So I when.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Saw a sports psychologist and we sort of dug back
down to the why, like why I'm playing footy, why
it was so special when I started, and how to
get back there? And we identified that I was really
tying my whole self worth to how I would play
on the weekend, and if I did kick goals, I
wasn't I wasn't valued, and I wasn't worthwhile essentially, So
(13:27):
once I sort of unpacked that, then things started becoming
a little bit more clear. I detached from the outcome
and I went into playing footy again with just the
expectation that I'm going to have a kick with the girls.
I absolutely love it. We might have a few beers afterwards.
Just enjoy yourself, don't worry about putting in the extras
your diet and all these sort of things that I
(13:48):
was just becoming a little bit obsessed withish, to be honest.
So that was really good. And then everything was going
to plan. You know, I was getting interests from VFL clubs,
and you know, it was about to start a pre
season with the club that I'm currently at, and then
it was literally the next week I did my ACL
So yeah, I sort of.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Respiral back into where I was.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
But then I started seeing I was continue to see
the sports psychologists, and the thing that like, I'm quite
a practical person and I love to have methods tools
that I can use to try and get out of that.
And I always felt that when I was with my
sports psych who was fantastic and I'm very worth while exercise,
but I was always left thinking that what can I
actually do about it? You know, instead of just talking
(14:31):
about my emotions, I want to have these things that
I can fall back on. So I started seeing Danny
Kennedy who's a mindset coach, and he's worked with a
lot of famous athletes and business coaches, and obviously the
principles are all the same, right, And when you say
that you work with a mindset coach, a lot of
people think, oh, god, you know, they're on a spiritual
they're going to see Khumbaiar and all those types of things.
(14:54):
And to be completely honest with you, I also had
that initial thought when i'd heard about it beforehand. But
it's really basic stuff, right, It's stuff that we all have.
You don't need to have a you know, an icepath.
You don't need to go on an extremely exclusive retreat
that's one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Your mind is your gym.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
We have everything, we possess everything we need, but we
don't know how to use it or not self aware
enough to use it. So he just sort of taught
me the basics and then we went to deeper things like,
you know, your law of attraction frequency, all of those
types of things. But he explains it in such tangible
and relatable terms that it doesn't even feel like you're
(15:35):
in the spiritual side of things. And from there it's
just it's completely changed me It's changed what I think
is possible. And I wish that I had this training,
this knowledge, this self awareness when I was younger, because
I think I would have not to say that I
wouldn't have faced the same challenge. Absolutely I would have,
(15:55):
but I just think that I would have been able
to approach them in such a different way and a
less destructive way, and yeah, and not have had to
well the hard way, I guess, just like anything. So yeah,
that was sort of how I got into the mindset
resilience side of things. And I just I just want
to tell everyone about it, because it almost feels like,
(16:15):
and you know this yourself, once you sort of understand it,
it's like you've got this big goldie secret and you
want to go tell everyone. I feel like I'm in
a cult or something and it's just basic, but I
want to spread the word of be an evangelist for it.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I think there's a lot of beauty though in having
been in a place where you weren't you were, you
didn't know that like you wouldn't. We can't value the
thing that we just naturally had, Like I. The reason
I love boxing like training people, especially women. The reason
I love training women beginners to box is because I
(16:51):
feel like I am very well. I don't know I
have an aptitude for it because I did not have
an aptitude for it because I wasn't naturally talented. I
was totally uncoordinated, so uncoordinated that years into boxing when
I was really coordinated, and people would tell me that,
(17:13):
I thought I could do a beginner hip hop class
and be a step ahead. And I was by far
the worst, most uncoordinated lunatic in that class. And I
was like, oh, okay, not a transferable skill in this place.
But I think you know, for yourself, not having that
and then learning it empowers you even more because now
(17:35):
you know by one that has power over your agency
and your direction.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
How do you think we balance contentment and ambition and
can we balance them? Can we have both?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Well, that's a really good question and that's something that
I'm still struggling with today. I think to be elite
at something you have to be borderline crazy almost, you know,
you have to almost be obsessive. I think the biggest
thing and what I've learned is now being self aware
of that and then using it for good and tying
(18:17):
things back into my white and having a greater purpose
for it. You can go down the obsessive route and
become extremely unhealthy. You can have you know, bad just
like a bad mindset and doing it for the wrong reasons.
But if you're doing something that's borderline obsessive, but you're
doing it for good and trying to help others, I
(18:38):
think that that is okay. I'm all about balance, and
I totally think that we shouldn't be obsessed with one thing.
I think it's better to light up areas in our life,
such as relationships, work, sport, hobbies, and everything. I don't
think though, that you can do everything to one hundred percent.
I think I talk about you need seasons in life
where I'm going to put all my focus and attention
(19:00):
on work and then relationships and hobbies or something to
the wayside a bit. So I think contentment is one
that I have always struggled with because I'm always focused
on what's next instead of actually sitting back with what
I had achieved and being grateful for that and being
proud of myself for that. So that's something I've really
been trying to do of late, is just operate out
(19:21):
of more gratitude instead of being like, all right, I've
ticked that box. I need to go straight and tick
the next box to be successful, and then when I
reached the pinnacle, I will finally be happy. Which I
realized now, I could reach out tomorrow and I wouldn't
be happy, unfortunately, A hard lesson learned. So yeah, I
think it's just being present in everything that you do
and every achievement that you have made failure the same,
(19:43):
and just really sitting with it instead of thinking that
you were going to be happier if you achieved the
next big step.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What did you see? So you started for the girls?
I love it? I love it? What did you what
made it start? Did what kissed you off?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Oh? God, tiff a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Take a seat, everyone, grab a cup of tea and
popcorn if you will.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
The real genesis of it was back in February. So
I'm part of a BFLW club and we all got
sat down and we got told that our women's funding
is being cut because of financial issues. The men's will
not be touched. It was told that to be a
successful program, the men's program needs to be successful. Now,
(20:34):
without going in too much weeds about it, the women's
program is extremely successful and it has been since its inception.
We've been in finals, we've won a premiership. I don't
want to diss the men's program by any means, but
they haven't been as successful. And to cut the women's
pay without even touching the men's pay, I don't have
to tell you that that's an the quality issue in
(20:56):
its absolute rawest of forms. But it was just the
disrespect with how it was done, and it just it
lit something up in me. And I didn't have a
contract because I'm an ACLA, so I wasn't on the
drawing board to get paid. And mind you pay for
women is minute, like, it's nothing. It would even cover
(21:19):
a chicken, palmejam or at the end of the day,
you know what I mean. So it's the principle more
than anything that just pissed me off. We were training
on dog paths, we didn't have kid, we didn't have
all these things, and it's just like, in this day
and age, at a semi professional level, how the hell
can we be doing this And imagine what's happening at
(21:39):
community level when there's no media coverage. There's no one
really that speaks up about it. So the thing that
actually annoyed me more than the women's funding being cut
was the lack of media attention around it. I think
it received about two or three articles and that was it.
And that just, yeah, absolutely put a fire in me,
and I just said, how can I help? What can
(22:02):
I do? I was going to write a media article
about it, but then I said, no one's going to
read it. Really, it's just going to be set and figet.
So I was like, right, I need to start a
movement or something, and I think the best way to
go about it is giving representation to women and giving
representation to the future athletes so that they don't have
to go through it as well. Because I don't want
(22:23):
a world where, you know, a fourteen, fifteen year old
girl has to drop out of sport because there's not
a future in it, there's not enough resources in it,
there's not enough respect in it. She has to choose
between a normal nine to five job and sport, which
is outrageously wrong. So that is why we started talk
to AG. I just want to empower the next generation
(22:45):
of female athletes because the stat is that at fourteen
or fifteen, you're twice is likely more like to drop
out of sport than a male the same age, and
you just think about the brilliant things that sport gives us,
and sport is so much more than the game. It's
a vehicle for life and it gives you every asset
you need in life. Just about and just think about society.
(23:09):
If we I've got a world where girls are dropping
out fourteen or fifteen, they're missing out on the confidence,
they're missing out on the community, missing out on the
life lessons, the skills that they need to be not
successful in life, but to be basically a good person
and a well rounded person. If we're robbing them at
the age of fourteen or fifteen, the world isn't going
(23:30):
to be as good of a place as it could
be with having strong, confident women out there that are
going into leadership roles that are backed by the rest
of the community. I just think that there's such a
grave error to be devaluing women and missing out on
the talent at such a young age. So that's something
(23:50):
I'm trying to help solve one little episode at a time.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I love it. I love it. What are the misconceptions
about female though or the female sports that are just
breaking through, like VFL and others.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yeah, the main misconception is that women aren't good enough,
We're not skilled enough. No one wants to watch us,
no one wants to pat to see us. And again,
just go and look at the stats. Go and look
at the figures. Women's sport is growing exponentially across the world.
There is so much, there is so much support behind
(24:31):
women's sport at the moment, it is at a watershed moment,
and I'm now of the opinion that I don't even
want to see it as a issue around inequality. It
is such a business opportunity that is being missed by brands,
sponsors who are not putting enough money into it. There
was a Forbes article that said, I think it was
(24:54):
for every one dollar invested in women's sport in Australia,
seven dollars was returned. So you've only got to see
it as if you're an investor, that is a bloody
good return. So just as soon as we start talking
about it as an equality issue, people just shut off
and they get defensive about it. So I think we
(25:14):
need to start talking about it as almost a business
opportunity and like anything else. For example, BFLW or AFLW
we've only been in existence for ten years for AFLW.
The AFL has been in existence for I don't know
how long, one hundred years or something. So how can
we expect that the AFLW will be to the same
(25:36):
standard as the AFL in ninety or less years of difference,
you know, And we have not had the funding. We
still have to work full time just about. We still
have kids, families and everything else to worry about. You
cannot expect an athlete to be at their peak performance
if they're juggling about three or four roles and are
not getting paid, and are playing on dog paths that
(25:58):
are lit and all of these things. It's just it's madness.
And it's not a talent issue. It's a cultural issue.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
In twenty twelve, I started boxing and I did corporate
boxing challenge challenges and I had about three or four
of those, and the overwhelming so we would all sell
tickets in order to compete. So to sell twenty tickets
then that covers your cost of the training cabinet was
bloody brilliant. And I remember the overwhelming response to the women.
(26:29):
So there was probably I don't know, maybe like nine
or ten fights for the night, and often two or
three were female fights, and the overwhelming response was, you know,
people didn't want to come and watch their girl friends boxing.
They didn't want to see them fight. I don't I
don't want to watch the girls fight, you know, whatever
pathetic excuse they had pretending they were being whatever. The
(26:53):
overwhelming response on the night. I remember so many people
about how good the female fights were to watch, how
much more technical and enjoyable they were at that novice level,
you know, And I just I've never forgotten it. I
(27:14):
have never forgotten. And it's like, how do we shift that?
How do we shift the bias and the narrative that
exists culturally around watching women punch each other in the
face just like the lads do, Like we just can't
we all just punch each other in the face and
(27:34):
get along exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Yeah, it is though, it's it is a representation issue,
I think first and foremost, Like, for example, in Australia today,
the media coverage for women's sport is only about fifteen percent.
It is also a matter of calling out this poor
these like sort of these drive by comments, right, like
I've spoken about a lot.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
You go to a match and.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
They're saying, oh, he's playing like a bloody girl, and
like you might think that that's a lot, but that
actually reinforces a whole cultural bias around women. It degrades us,
It degrades And this is the thing that I really
want to make clear to every male And I'm not,
by any means, you know, completely against the men here,
(28:20):
or it's not women versus men, because there are so
many men out there that support women's sport way more
than a lot of women do that in a matter
of fact, But there is no world as a man,
as a woman whoever, that this will not affect you,
because you will have a girlfriend, you will have a wife,
you will have a daughter, you'll have a sister, you'll
have a cousin who wants to play sport. And by
(28:41):
you saying that you are degrading her future, you're degrading
her sense of safety, degrading her ability to go along
and feel welcome and a part of something and valued
and seen and respected. So there is no world where
it will not affect you eventually. And that's why it
is so important that we have male ala maps, we
have male others to stand up for us and to
(29:05):
really just reinforce that we are worthwhile we are still athletes,
and the stats that show around broadcasts and all the
viewership that people are watching us and they absolutely love it,
and it brings such a different cultural perspective than the
male equivalent. Like you just look at AFL at AFLW,
(29:25):
all the families come to afl W because they're the safe, fun,
inclusive space that you'd want your child to be around.
They're not taking them to Collingwood versus Carlton because the
vile things that are being said, the angst amongst the
crowd wanted to belt the shit out of each other.
It's just not a safe, inclusive and fun, enjoyable place
to be around. So yeah, there's a lot culturally that
(29:46):
needs to be done, But simply by I think that
is the most agible and accessible thing that we can
all do is call out those drive by comments because
it does really degrade women and women's sport as a whole.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
What has changed in your life that's directly as a
result of sport for you?
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Sport has it honestly has given me everything. It's given
me my confidence, it's given me leadership skills, it's given
me resilience, more than anything, and it's given me my friends, community.
Now it's given me my purpose. I cannot think of
a world where sport didn't exist for me, and I
really do owe just about everything to sport. And it
(30:33):
really upsets me knowing that a girl might not get
what I have gotten out of sport because she's in
a world or a community that just don't value that
don't value her, don't value her worth. I'd been lucky
enough to play sport around the world. I've got to
be in the Australian squad for pol Across. I've played
(30:54):
AFL in Scotland and Paris and all these places, and
it's just it's absolutely incredible how sport can bring people together.
And just see how sport can bring nations together. It's
I think it's the best form of soft diplomacy because
it doesn't matter what religion, gender, race you are when
(31:15):
it comes to sport. It's a universal language, there's universal rules.
You go out there, you play your hardest and you
shake the hands after it, win, loss or draw. I
just think sport and what is what's learned on that
field and what's learned in training around it just could
be applied to life more often?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Whose ears are you trying hardest to get into? Is
it the females that you want to have a shot
and know they have a place or is it the businesses?
Is it the men? Is it families? Is it society? Who?
If there was a number one set of years that
you want to get in, who's it.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Would be the young girl who's currently doubting herself and
who's currently saying I think others going to give up
on sport course, it's not worth it and there's not
a future in it for me. I just want to
grub them by biers and tell them that there is
an absolute place for you in it and we will
fight through for nail so that you don't have to
feel like you're not worthy enough and no one's going
(32:16):
to respect you enough and put resources and time into
sport for you. They're they're really the ones that I
want to just target the most because it's Yeah, it
would be absolutely gutting to know that someone gave up
sport and everything that could give them just because they
didn't feel like there was enough support around them.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah. I remember when I met you, I was up
the road from the gym that I take clients from
which is PCYC, which is sadly being closed forever in
a couple of weeks time, three weeks time, very distraught.
That was the first gym that I in twenty ten,
that I walked into and did a box fit to
boxing fitness class with my flailing little arms and pink
(32:55):
ever class gloves. Is my shy little self picture that
would have been. But you know what I remember. I
remember doing a few classes there, and there was Susie
and Roy were the trainers. And obviously, as you walk
into a gym for the first time and whoever's taken
the classes, You're like, well, they obviously pro boxers. They
obviously boxers, you know, I just believe that they were fighters.
(33:18):
Roy fights now in the masters. Susane never had though.
But I remember going in there, shy as a button
and hitting those bags and thinking to myself, which I
would never ever have said it, thinking I trained so hard,
and I would think I just want them to come
and say to me that I've got it and that
I should fight now. I never ever ever would have
(33:40):
raised that question, or I never would have said can
I learn to fight? Can you teach me? I just
had this weird belief, and I think a lot of
people do this weird belief that if you have it,
whatever the fuck it is, by the way, do you
have it, someone who knows what it is and sees
it in you will tell you and then you will
(34:00):
be allowed to do the thing because you will be
good enough. So that was my belief. And then I
went to this talk and I and we had a
tour of a boxing gym that had a poster up
for a twelve week boxing challenge and dudes were in suits,
and I was like, I can chicks do this, Like, oh,
you can be a lunatic and just do this, like
you don't have to be good. And I remember the
(34:23):
shift in my mind after. I mean, the whole experience
was next level, but I remember that standing looking into
the ring after that and having all of these penny
dropping moments inside my brain, just going, oh you can,
actually you can choose to do anything. You just have
to work hard enough, and oh it has to mean
(34:45):
a lot to you. Not like it. It doesn't matter
what other people think, because nobody that came tonight cares
if I win or lose. But it meant the world
to me, And oh, I'm going to have to put
in twelve weeks of effort and discomfort and sickening, bloody
nerves and a emotions for a four to six minute
moment in the boxing room to get punched in the faces.
Like all of these life shifting thoughts that I hadn't
(35:10):
realized how much were holding me back before. And I
think that's a big part of it for the girls
you're talking about, is they don't even know that there's
an option. If I didn't know there was an option,
I'm waiting for some bloody anybody to tap me on
the shoulder and go, you can do this. And that's
what I did.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
My whole life.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I was twenty nine. I don't my whole life. If
you're good enough, you'll be told and you can go
do it, and then if you're not good then you
stop doing it. I did.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
That's exactly it. Yeah, we often are waiting for permission
to go ahead and to take things by the horns
and go for it. But like you know, you can't
be waiting for permission. And that's what I really want
to sort of hit home with people, is that you
have to have the proactivity to go ahead and to
fight for what you want, because no one's going to
(36:00):
give it to you on a putter. Unfortunately, and especially
in this day and age, it's more prevalent than ever
that we all have to try and stand up for
women in sport. And it's beyond sport, right we talk
about sports. Sport is just a vehicle. We're talking about
equality in workplaces. We're talking about equality and leadership. We're
talking about women who should be able to go and
(36:22):
play sport and have kids and still work. All those
types of biases that are still within society. I think
can be not completely solved through women sport, but it's
a really good place to start. So yeah, to all
the girls out there listening. Sport gives you so much
more than the game. It's so much more than the scoreboard.
(36:42):
It really is almost like these little eco chamber where
you get to practice life and develop the skills so
that you can go on in your career, in your
relationships to be the best person you can be. You
learn hematee shit, you learn, you learn how to cope
with a win, cope with a loss. Disappointments set back everything.
I just you can tell when you're even in a
(37:03):
workplace and you've got someone who has played sport versus
someone who hasn't. They've got a very different mindset to things,
and there's just so much beauty in it.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Do you think that in terms of mindset for athletes?
Do you think that women have a very different set
of struggles When I think about our self confidence, our
ability to access our ego, that mindset, that self belief,
self doubt, do you think we struggle more with that?
(37:34):
And how does that work in a like I'm a boxer,
so my team is there I have. It's a team sport,
don't get me wrong, but in competition, you are very
much on your You are the star of the show.
That's why I liked it when it comes to being
a part of a team where you are performing for you,
(37:54):
but you are a part of a team that's always
fascinated me. Tell me about that ego. There's another three
questions in one. God, I'm annoying, sorry about that for
you one.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Well, I'll answer your first one. First.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
I think women definitely do struggle more with almost the
imposter syndrome and that they're always we've got these self
limiting beliefs more so than I think men do. And
again that's a blanket statement. There's obviously a lot of
women who would just have the confidence of an absolute ball,
and there's men that probably really struggle with self limiting beliefs.
But I think that in society we've had to constantly
(38:26):
fight for the wins, right when we're constantly fighting to
take up space, to be given space, to be given
eco opportunities, and it's quite tiring. So I think, you know,
we do have to go into things and we've had
to fight for them a little bit more than a
men have to this date. So the self limiting beliefs
pop up in all different areas, and I know for
myself it has as well. Like when I started playing
(38:50):
football and the men were playing on the field, I
almost felt like, oh, that's that's their field, right, instead
of being like, no, they are people. We are people.
They're an athlete, we're athletes. We deserve the equal access
to things like that. So I think self winning beliefs
definitely show up more in the female space. And then
to your second point about navigating, I guess being an
(39:12):
individual who is extremely competitive, but then balancing that in
a more of a team environment, I think that is
the single hardest thing about team sport, but it's the
best thing, right. I absolutely love that I can go
out there, I can have prepared the absolute best I
can have done the extra reps in the gym, I
(39:34):
had everything on point. But if I got there and
don't be a good teammate or don't play my role,
We're not going to win as a team. There is
no individual superstars in team sports, and that really gets highlighted.
It says so much more about your ability to adapt
to different conditions, adapt to if your teammates having a
(39:55):
bad game, you're going to have to try and pick
them up it just like it gives you an extra
sense of account of which you probably don't get the
same level as an individual athlete. It's really about managing
different people's personalities on the field, different expectations. And that's
why I think coaches play such a big role because
(40:16):
there's no blanket one size fits all. In coaching a team,
you sort of really got to know the people at
an individual level, what makes them tick, how do they
best receive feedback if are they someone that can give
them a spray or are they someone I need to
take away quietly and just give them a pat on
the back and say I believe in you, want to
give you. It is such a motley mix of personalities
(40:36):
and everything, and that's why I absolutely love it. And
I just think that's where leadership is also so so important,
is just trying to bring that team together. And I've
been part of teams we're on paper, we're definitely not
the best team, but we've got on to win the
Grand Final because we had such a positive and powerful
on field chemistry which is always built off the field.
(40:58):
It's not on the field, always the little one percentage
you do, the team bondings, the belief the trusts and
all those things. It's always built off the field, but
it always shows up on the field in the form
of winning and trophies and all those sort of external things.
But yeah, yeah, something unspoken about what you do off
the field as a team and how you show up
(41:19):
for each other.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Love that. How have we gone around the idea of coaching.
How differently do we need to coach female teams and
male teams? And do we even know? Given how young
the sport is. I assume a lot of coaches who
were highly skilled in the sport, Like, how are we
meshing that idea of new coaching methods and listening and
(41:42):
finding where that needs to land for women in sport,
in team sports.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
So this was something we did in Holly Bailey's Empowered
to Lead program, which I absolutely adored, and Holly's obviously
the one who got us in touch, and she's just
an incredible human being full stop. But we speak a
lot in that course about feminine and masculine leadership, and
feminine masculine leadership is not gender, it's behavioral. There is
(42:07):
such power. So traditionally we have respected masculine leadership, which
looks like being assertive, it looks like, you know, demanding attention,
being direct, all these types of things. But there's studies
now showing that feminine styles of leadership are actually resonating
with more people, and that's not just human men as well.
So that's being more empathetic, that's being a little bit
(42:30):
more emotional, that's worrying about how the person is as
opposed to what their KPIs are. And I think in
female sport especially, we need to have emits. There's not
one is better than the other, but we have to
adjust our leadership style to cater for a more diverse group,
and I think if you can be a leader who
(42:50):
is a self aware enough to know look masculine, A
masculine style of leadership is my default, But how can
I bring in some feminine traits that are going to
balance that and make me more approachable as a coach
and make me get the best out of my group.
The thing about a lot of coaches is that there
is a lot of ego involved in coaching, and it's
(43:11):
always them trying to live about their dream and them
trying to get results for their own benefit. But at
the end of the day, leadership should be selfless. Leadership
has nothing to do with titles. As a coach, you
should be out there and it is the player's day
and it should be everything to help them perform and
nothing to do with how I look once I'm the
(43:34):
coach who won the premiership. So I think being able
to adjust your masculine and feminine leadership qualities as a
coach helps and it should be for men as well,
not just women, but I think especially for women because yes,
we are a little bit more sensitive and you know,
well sometimes a lot of the time we have a
lot more going on in our lives as well, so
we have to balance the kids, we have to balance
(43:55):
the work, we have to balance the volunteering roles and
all these types of things. So a leader who is
going to be ect of that and be proactive in
asking how the person is, I think will do a
lot better with their female athlete than someone who just
gets up there and gives out sprays if they're not
kicking goals without asking what's the real reason behind it.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
I feel like men would have more of a superpower
in channeling their outside frustrations and getting to the game,
channeling that and using that as aggressive aggressional force or
a moment to disconnect from that, whereas women perhaps might
take that in hold on to it and it gets
(44:34):
in the way of performing in that sport. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Our head coach at Corfield, she says that she's a
head coach and she's a full time psychologist because girls,
like we do girls women, we have a lot of
I guess, you know, things going on in our lives
and it shows up in sport. Like We've got a
lot of girls who are absolutely fantastic. You can tell
if they're not one hundred percent outside of footy. They
(45:00):
come to footy training, they're not performing. Often it's because
of what's going on at home, it's what's going on
at work, it's all these extra things. And I'm really
big on that we should be coaching the person first
and not the athlete, because there's never going to be
a time where are always going to be at one
hundred percent. We're not machines. We do have emotions, we
do have stresses external to sport itself, So we need
(45:23):
to try and coach the person to be more resilient,
to have better methods and techniques that they can deal
with pressure, deal with stress, and that is how you'll
get the best out of an athlete. But I think
too often coaches are only focused on the stats and
how many goals they're kicking, and not enough on the
person themselves.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
I guess the business of sport can often get in
the way of the benefits of sport. In order for
Women's AFL to get its foot in the door, we
need businesses to get behind it. So then it becomes
KPIs and stats and all of these things at the
cast of maybe what makes it great? How do we
(46:05):
handle that?
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Yeah, that's a tough one, And like there is an
argument at the end of the day when they say,
but you're not getting bums in seats, but in order
to get bombs in seats, we need investment. I don't
want women's sport to be a charity. It is an investment.
Often in the media portrays it, as you know. For example,
at the start of the or a couple of months ago,
(46:28):
I think it was of saying that AFLW is going
to be a two hundred million dollar loss. It is
a two hundred dollars two hundred million dollar investment. In
order for us to get bombs in seats, we have
to develop as a product. We have to develop as athletes,
and we have to have money and equal opportunity to
do that. I can't thress that enough. It's not going
(46:48):
to be the AFL overnight. It's gonna take a lot
of investment. But guess what any I could any any
good investment, you will reap the rewards and a return
on investment. But it does take time, just like stocks
take time, just like you know, businesses take time.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
It's not overnight.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Where do you want to take four TG in the
next twelve months? What's going to happen? What's an ideal
twelve months look like for you.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this, and it's
starting out as a podcast because that's a platform that
I think we can give people the voice that they
haven't had and answer the questions to people to young
athletes that they haven't had access to. So it's going
to start as a podcast and I'm going to try
and get as many diverse guests on who are professional athletes, experts, coaches,
(47:41):
anyone who really the audience wants to hear. That's who
I'm going to try and get on. But from there,
I want to build more of a community because I
want for TG to be an actual movement.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I want to create core.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
I would love to have almost a female athlete academy
where a girl can sign up. She gets mindset coaching,
she gets physical certified coaching around you know, strengthen conditioning,
she gets education on her period and how that's going
to affect her when it comes to game day. Things
like what you talk about, the epigenetics and all those
(48:14):
additional things that goes into the athlete mindset. As I said,
confidence building, just a holistic approach to being an athlete.
I would love for that to be an offering for
FORTG in the future. It's a long time off yet,
it's going to you know, those things cost money, they
take time. But that is sort of where I want
(48:34):
it to go, and I want it to be almost
as saying that, you know, when things are tough out there,
you to say FORTYG for the girls, that's what we
what we really want to bring home. So yeah, big plans.
Would also love to get a bit of merch out there,
so that would be the next thing as well. Everyone
loves a bit of merchas Yeah, in the next couple
of months, just need to get a few sponsors first,
(48:56):
we'll sort that out. But yeah, I think there's some
definitely exciting opportunities around the corner for for TG. But
I also have to remind myself that we've just started,
so I've got to be patient. But I just want
to I just want to change the world overnight.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Tiff.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
You know all these things such.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
A gratitude and ambition. Gratitude and ambition it two great things.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
So good.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
I can't wait to watch this unfold. I think that
what you've created, there's a space for it. I think
it's amazing. You're an awesome person. Your background is phenomenal.
So I can't wait to see it unfold. Where can
people go right now to listen, to get involved, to
follow to everything, all of the things.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
All the things. So we are four GG Underscore podcast
on just about all socials, and we are on Spotify,
Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and a few other podcast directories that
I've never heard about. So basically, wherever you get your podcasts,
you go to FORCEDG and we will be there, and yeah,
drop me a message, dropped me a line. If you're
(50:02):
a female athlete out there that would want to speak
to a certain athlete or a certain expert, let me
know and I will make it happen.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Bluddy legend.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Thanks Kylie, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm tiff. This is Roll with the Punches and we're
turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
to court, and don't My friends are test Art Family Lawyers.
Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
(00:29):
all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples,
custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements
and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so
reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au woo who Kylie Lynch,
(00:54):
Welcome to Roll with the Punches. We're horry. Thank you
for having me to you. My secret favorite thing about podcasting,
what's that? Just making besties? Just making besties with people,
just like running around collecting new friends and you're one
of them.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You're one.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Now, Well, it's an absolute privilege, you don't you worry?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You know, when you get a good circle of friends
and then you get introduced to people by those friends,
and you know they're going to be good humans. And
then you meet them, be like, oh kay, new friends.
What a good human?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, because they've been verified, haven't they. You don't have
fear through all the other rigmarole. You're just like, well,
if they reckon they're a good person, then they'll do Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, what's going on in the world? Hey first, no, first,
tell everyone who you are and.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
What you do?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What are you all about?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
What am I all about? How long have you got
to you if?
Speaker 4 (01:44):
My name is Kylie Lynch and I am the host
of the four two D podcast, which we've recently launched
designed to empower the next generation of female athletes. So
we're trying to hear the raw, the real, the oddest
converse for what it takes to get to the top
and what it takes to be a good person on
and off the field too. You know, you don't have
(02:06):
to be an elite sportswoman to receive all the beteference
from sport, and we want to translate everything you can
learn in sport into real life. So we're trying to
give women's sport a little bit more coverage that it
deserves and hear from people across all walks of life,
from all levels of sport to get the lessons that
you can really apply to your own circumstance and to yeah,
(02:29):
just to dig through all the other stuff and really
try and find out who you are as an athlete.
And by athlete, I mean anyone who plays sport. You
don't have to be elite again to be an athlete.
So yeah, that's my latest little hobby. But besides that offer,
I also play a VFL W level. I'm out with
(02:49):
the ecl injury at the moment, so I'm a professional
bench warmer that have learned so much in that time,
don't worry. And then what actually makes me money is
I work for Channel seven Streamer, which is a community
sports streaming platform design to try and increase the broadcast
(03:09):
coverage of community sports and just get it out there
and get fans more engaged or for free. So it's yeah,
I've got a nice little balance of things going on
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh and what an awesome range of things to be
involved with. Yeah, every one of those I was like, Oh,
that's awesome. Oh that's awesome. Oh that's awesome too. What
a trouble it certainly does. And congratulations on preventional professional
bench warming. That's quite there, I think it's quite underrated too.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
It's a tough gig.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
What I like though, you said you've learned a lot,
and I had this quick flashback of twenty fifteen. I
think it was when two months after quitting my real
grown up job to be a personal trainer in a
boxing gym and hold pads for people. Two months later,
I tore my labor with my shoulder and was told
(04:05):
not only was I not allowed to hold pads or box,
I wasn't even allowed to run on a treadmill because
I wasn't allowed to use my arm with any motion
and lo and behold in the ten months where I
could do nothing, I couldn't believe that when I did
box again how much I developed as a boxer by
teaching others. So I want to know what you've learned
(04:28):
as an athlete whilst being a professional bench warmer.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Well, I'm similar in that. So this year, obviously I
can't play, but I've started coaching senior women's footy as
an assistant coach there and I have learned so much.
And I've said this on my Path podcast, is that
it has been the best thing that's happened to me
doing ACL at the time It was crushing because you know,
you saw all your dreams and all the things that
you've worked really hard for just vanished within an instant.
(04:57):
But it has allowed me the time and a space
to develop as a person, to ask my why why
I was playing for all because to be honest, I
always saw success as linear and I wanted to be
at the highest level just because that would grant me
as being successful. Whereas now I've sat back and I've realized, well,
footy has given me, It's given me the people, it's
(05:18):
given me the community, the confidence in everything with it.
But I was operating out of absolute fear of not
achieving the next thing, so that was my motivator, Whereas
now I realized I want to help develop other athletes
and other young females in the sporting space and in football,
to try and help them develop them. So I think
(05:40):
my motivation has changed for when to come back, and
I'm more motivated than ever to make the highest level,
but for reasons bigger than myself. So that's something I've learned.
And I've also just learned how incredible the mind is
and how incredible mindset training is and how untapped it
is in sport from community sport all the way through
(06:01):
to professional sport. And that's something and I really want
to try and incorporate into my coaching, into my leadership,
and into my own game when I return home or
I turned back to the field, because it has allowed
me to change my view, my perspective on things so much.
And I also have such respect for athletes who have
(06:23):
returned from long term injuries and have gone on to
achieve incredible things, or even two or three long term injuries,
because they deserve it so much. And you learn resilience, perseverance,
and all those great things that if you hadn't had
to go through that you probably won't ever have to
learn them to the same degree.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
So I have a lot to be grateful for. I
love that.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Tell me how you how did you land there? How
did you take what was the process of taking yourself
from being injured? And I guess you go through that
stage of like frustration and grief and stress and like
what like and maybe even a bit of an identity crisis.
How do you go what do you have to honor?
And then how do you need to shift in order
(07:05):
to land where you landed?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
So to best answer that Before I did, my acl
was I was in a pretty dark space mentally. I
put so much of my identity on moving up the
ranks in football, and one I actually did it, it
was almost like a little bit of relief because for
once it was out of my control. I couldn't do anymore.
I couldn't put in any extra reps, I couldn't alter
(07:31):
my nutrition or do anything. So for once it was
out of my hands. And don't get me wrong, when
I did it, I was still pissed off, disaba least
because I felt all the emotions at once. I felt angry,
I felt frustrated that I had worked so hard and
putting so many extra hours for injury prevention, for my skills,
for everything, and there's girls who were on the team
(07:52):
who did very little and they never get injured. So
I had that sort of victim mindset for a little
bit there. But I said to myself when I did
it that I'm going to allow myself for twenty four
hours to feel all the emotions and to feel like shit,
to cry, to be angry and to all of those things,
and then the next day wake up. This is MYEU reality.
What I'm going to do about it. There's no point
(08:12):
dwelling on it, winging about it, complaining because that's going
to get me nowhere. So from the next day I'd
sort of woke up and I had a new attitude.
And don't get me wrong, alsot just like a light
bulb just which and I'm like, I'm okay now. But
I just had to almost force my mindset to change
and then try and find the opportunities that I would
have the next twelve months ahead of me. And that
(08:33):
sort of really set the seed. And it's incredible when
you operate out of abundance, I guess, and all the
opportunities that will come your way. So I took it
as an opportunity to change my career from sustainability and
sustainability and climate change communications into sports media. That was
a jump that I wanted to make for a long time.
I always wanted to get my thirt three and four
(08:54):
in fitness so that I could be a peete on
the side, So I've been doing that. And then also,
as I said, coaching, that's something I've always loved leadership,
but I've never really considered myself a coach because I
thought it didn't have enough footy IQ to do it,
getting into footy quite late. But it proves you don't
need to have the technical skills. You can do more
as a coach, as a person, and as a leader
(09:16):
than anything else. So yeah, there's been lots of nuggets
of gold since I've done it, which I've only recently
sort of uncovered.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, how long. Tell me the timeline of your journey.
When did you start out in the in working in
sports media and making those leaps.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yeah, so I moved into sports media in December. So
I did my ACL a year ago on the weekend,
so it's sort of about I would have been three
or four months into rehab where I'd just said, look,
I'm not happy in the job I'm doing. And I
was good at it, and you know, I sort of
(09:53):
kept going up the ranks and getting promotions and things,
but I never really felt the passion there. And I've
met this previously, but I think my biggest thing was
I was always chasing the promotion because it sounds good,
and I thought that that's how you, you know, be
more respected, and that's how you feel satisfied by chasing
that next promotion. But I never did so I would
either change job or go up a rank, and there
(10:15):
was still something missing. And then I said, look, something's
going to change because I was getting the Sunday scary
before going to work every week and I just thought,
oh shit, I do not want to be going to work.
And I thought, you can't carry on the rest of
your life everything like that. So I thought, you know,
I've always wanted to do sort of sports. Sports commentating
is something along those lines, and I've had lots of
(10:37):
media experience because that's what I studied at UNI. So
I thought, right, it's time to take the leap streamer.
The opportunity came up and I just said, yeah, let's
do it. It was a massive pay cup. It a
sixty thousand dollars pay cup, so it was significant. But
I still don't think you can put a price on
purpose and happiness. So yeah, I've been doing that since.
And then that sort of led to opportunities life, doing
(10:58):
a podcast and me eating people like yourself, and yeah,
it's just it's amazing from what one small change, how
everything can fall into place and so many doors open.
So I'd encourage anyone if they're not happy in their
current job. It's scary, it is and there's so much uncertainty,
but you will never grow in your comfort zone. You
(11:19):
need to be in a state of discomfort to grow.
So yeah, that was sort of my experience with that.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh I love that, I find it. I'm always fascinated
by how we deal with what we're in the middle of,
even when we have been through stuff and learned, you know,
Like I talk about a lot of lessons I've learned,
and there's often times when I have to revert back
to going, hey, TIV you know how you always share
(11:47):
that boxing story and that period of growth. You do
realize that the challenge you are going through at the moment,
that is the answer to that, you know, like there's
recognizing what you're in the middle of. So I think
the idea of grasping opportunity in the middle of the challenge,
(12:08):
without suppressing emotions, without throwing a pity party, without covering
I talk a lot about resilience, and I love, I
really love digging deep into the idea of what, like
what's resilience and what's just suppressing shit, like what's been
tough on what's being strong. There's very clear for me,
there's a very clear definition between the difference of those
two things, and one's going on a great path and
(12:30):
one's going on a very rocky path, which is the
tough girl. I walked that path. Don't you worry about that?
What did you know? What did you learn? What did
you try? What surprised you amidst that? Big questions?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Uh, big questions, But that's what we're here for. We
change questions. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Look, it all started for me. So before I did
my athol and I was in that sort of duck
that I've mentioned, I said that I'm either going to
have to give up forty or seek help because something's
going to change.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Right. So I when.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Saw a sports psychologist and we sort of dug back
down to the why, like why I'm playing footy, why
it was so special when I started, and how to
get back there? And we identified that I was really
tying my whole self worth to how I would play
on the weekend, and if I did kick goals, I
wasn't I wasn't valued, and I wasn't worthwhile essentially, So
(13:27):
once I sort of unpacked that, then things started becoming
a little bit more clear. I detached from the outcome
and I went into playing footy again with just the
expectation that I'm going to have a kick with the girls.
I absolutely love it. We might have a few beers afterwards.
Just enjoy yourself, don't worry about putting in the extras
your diet and all these sort of things that I
(13:48):
was just becoming a little bit obsessed withish, to be honest.
So that was really good. And then everything was going
to plan. You know, I was getting interests from VFL clubs,
and you know, it was about to start a pre
season with the club that I'm currently at, and then
it was literally the next week I did my ACL
So yeah, I sort of.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Respiral back into where I was.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
But then I started seeing I was continue to see
the sports psychologists, and the thing that like, I'm quite
a practical person and I love to have methods tools
that I can use to try and get out of that.
And I always felt that when I was with my
sports psych who was fantastic and I'm very worth while exercise,
but I was always left thinking that what can I
actually do about it? You know, instead of just talking
(14:31):
about my emotions, I want to have these things that
I can fall back on. So I started seeing Danny
Kennedy who's a mindset coach, and he's worked with a
lot of famous athletes and business coaches, and obviously the
principles are all the same, right, And when you say
that you work with a mindset coach, a lot of
people think, oh, god, you know, they're on a spiritual
they're going to see Khumbaiar and all those types of things.
(14:54):
And to be completely honest with you, I also had
that initial thought when i'd heard about it beforehand. But
it's really basic stuff, right, It's stuff that we all have.
You don't need to have a you know, an icepath.
You don't need to go on an extremely exclusive retreat
that's one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Your mind is your gym.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
We have everything, we possess everything we need, but we
don't know how to use it or not self aware
enough to use it. So he just sort of taught
me the basics and then we went to deeper things like,
you know, your law of attraction frequency, all of those
types of things. But he explains it in such tangible
and relatable terms that it doesn't even feel like you're
(15:35):
in the spiritual side of things. And from there it's
just it's completely changed me It's changed what I think
is possible. And I wish that I had this training,
this knowledge, this self awareness when I was younger, because
I think I would have not to say that I
wouldn't have faced the same challenge. Absolutely I would have,
(15:55):
but I just think that I would have been able
to approach them in such a different way and a
less destructive way, and yeah, and not have had to
well the hard way, I guess, just like anything. So yeah,
that was sort of how I got into the mindset
resilience side of things. And I just I just want
to tell everyone about it, because it almost feels like,
(16:15):
and you know this yourself, once you sort of understand it,
it's like you've got this big goldie secret and you
want to go tell everyone. I feel like I'm in
a cult or something and it's just basic, but I
want to spread the word of be an evangelist for it.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I think there's a lot of beauty though in having
been in a place where you weren't you were, you
didn't know that like you wouldn't. We can't value the
thing that we just naturally had, Like I. The reason
I love boxing like training people, especially women. The reason
I love training women beginners to box is because I
(16:51):
feel like I am very well. I don't know I
have an aptitude for it because I did not have
an aptitude for it because I wasn't naturally talented. I
was totally uncoordinated, so uncoordinated that years into boxing when
I was really coordinated, and people would tell me that,
(17:13):
I thought I could do a beginner hip hop class
and be a step ahead. And I was by far
the worst, most uncoordinated lunatic in that class. And I
was like, oh, okay, not a transferable skill in this place.
But I think you know, for yourself, not having that
and then learning it empowers you even more because now
(17:35):
you know by one that has power over your agency
and your direction.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
How do you think we balance contentment and ambition and
can we balance them? Can we have both?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Well, that's a really good question and that's something that
I'm still struggling with today. I think to be elite
at something you have to be borderline crazy almost, you know,
you have to almost be obsessive. I think the biggest
thing and what I've learned is now being self aware
of that and then using it for good and tying
(18:17):
things back into my white and having a greater purpose
for it. You can go down the obsessive route and
become extremely unhealthy. You can have you know, bad just
like a bad mindset and doing it for the wrong reasons.
But if you're doing something that's borderline obsessive, but you're
doing it for good and trying to help others, I
(18:38):
think that that is okay. I'm all about balance, and
I totally think that we shouldn't be obsessed with one thing.
I think it's better to light up areas in our life,
such as relationships, work, sport, hobbies, and everything. I don't
think though, that you can do everything to one hundred percent.
I think I talk about you need seasons in life
where I'm going to put all my focus and attention
(19:00):
on work and then relationships and hobbies or something to
the wayside a bit. So I think contentment is one
that I have always struggled with because I'm always focused
on what's next instead of actually sitting back with what
I had achieved and being grateful for that and being
proud of myself for that. So that's something I've really
been trying to do of late, is just operate out
(19:21):
of more gratitude instead of being like, all right, I've
ticked that box. I need to go straight and tick
the next box to be successful, and then when I
reached the pinnacle, I will finally be happy. Which I
realized now, I could reach out tomorrow and I wouldn't
be happy, unfortunately, A hard lesson learned. So yeah, I
think it's just being present in everything that you do
and every achievement that you have made failure the same,
(19:43):
and just really sitting with it instead of thinking that
you were going to be happier if you achieved the
next big step.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
What did you see? So you started for the girls?
I love it? I love it? What did you what
made it start? Did what kissed you off?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Oh? God, tiff a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Take a seat, everyone, grab a cup of tea and
popcorn if you will.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
The real genesis of it was back in February. So
I'm part of a BFLW club and we all got
sat down and we got told that our women's funding
is being cut because of financial issues. The men's will
not be touched. It was told that to be a
successful program, the men's program needs to be successful. Now,
(20:34):
without going in too much weeds about it, the women's
program is extremely successful and it has been since its inception.
We've been in finals, we've won a premiership. I don't
want to diss the men's program by any means, but
they haven't been as successful. And to cut the women's
pay without even touching the men's pay, I don't have
to tell you that that's an the quality issue in
(20:56):
its absolute rawest of forms. But it was just the
disrespect with how it was done, and it just it
lit something up in me. And I didn't have a
contract because I'm an ACLA, so I wasn't on the
drawing board to get paid. And mind you pay for
women is minute, like, it's nothing. It would even cover
(21:19):
a chicken, palmejam or at the end of the day,
you know what I mean. So it's the principle more
than anything that just pissed me off. We were training
on dog paths, we didn't have kid, we didn't have
all these things, and it's just like, in this day
and age, at a semi professional level, how the hell
can we be doing this And imagine what's happening at
(21:39):
community level when there's no media coverage. There's no one
really that speaks up about it. So the thing that
actually annoyed me more than the women's funding being cut
was the lack of media attention around it. I think
it received about two or three articles and that was it.
And that just, yeah, absolutely put a fire in me,
and I just said, how can I help? What can
(22:02):
I do? I was going to write a media article
about it, but then I said, no one's going to
read it. Really, it's just going to be set and figet.
So I was like, right, I need to start a
movement or something, and I think the best way to
go about it is giving representation to women and giving
representation to the future athletes so that they don't have
to go through it as well. Because I don't want
(22:23):
a world where, you know, a fourteen, fifteen year old
girl has to drop out of sport because there's not
a future in it, there's not enough resources in it,
there's not enough respect in it. She has to choose
between a normal nine to five job and sport, which
is outrageously wrong. So that is why we started talk
to AG. I just want to empower the next generation
(22:45):
of female athletes because the stat is that at fourteen
or fifteen, you're twice is likely more like to drop
out of sport than a male the same age, and
you just think about the brilliant things that sport gives us,
and sport is so much more than the game. It's
a vehicle for life and it gives you every asset
you need in life. Just about and just think about society.
(23:09):
If we I've got a world where girls are dropping
out fourteen or fifteen, they're missing out on the confidence,
they're missing out on the community, missing out on the
life lessons, the skills that they need to be not
successful in life, but to be basically a good person
and a well rounded person. If we're robbing them at
the age of fourteen or fifteen, the world isn't going
(23:30):
to be as good of a place as it could
be with having strong, confident women out there that are
going into leadership roles that are backed by the rest
of the community. I just think that there's such a
grave error to be devaluing women and missing out on
the talent at such a young age. So that's something
(23:50):
I'm trying to help solve one little episode at a time.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I love it. I love it. What are the misconceptions
about female though or the female sports that are just
breaking through, like VFL and others.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yeah, the main misconception is that women aren't good enough,
We're not skilled enough. No one wants to watch us,
no one wants to pat to see us. And again,
just go and look at the stats. Go and look
at the figures. Women's sport is growing exponentially across the world.
There is so much, there is so much support behind
(24:31):
women's sport at the moment, it is at a watershed moment,
and I'm now of the opinion that I don't even
want to see it as a issue around inequality. It
is such a business opportunity that is being missed by brands,
sponsors who are not putting enough money into it. There
was a Forbes article that said, I think it was
(24:54):
for every one dollar invested in women's sport in Australia,
seven dollars was returned. So you've only got to see
it as if you're an investor, that is a bloody
good return. So just as soon as we start talking
about it as an equality issue, people just shut off
and they get defensive about it. So I think we
(25:14):
need to start talking about it as almost a business
opportunity and like anything else. For example, BFLW or AFLW
we've only been in existence for ten years for AFLW.
The AFL has been in existence for I don't know
how long, one hundred years or something. So how can
we expect that the AFLW will be to the same
(25:36):
standard as the AFL in ninety or less years of difference,
you know, And we have not had the funding. We
still have to work full time just about. We still
have kids, families and everything else to worry about. You
cannot expect an athlete to be at their peak performance
if they're juggling about three or four roles and are
not getting paid, and are playing on dog paths that
(25:58):
are lit and all of these things. It's just it's madness.
And it's not a talent issue. It's a cultural issue.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
In twenty twelve, I started boxing and I did corporate
boxing challenge challenges and I had about three or four
of those, and the overwhelming so we would all sell
tickets in order to compete. So to sell twenty tickets
then that covers your cost of the training cabinet was
bloody brilliant. And I remember the overwhelming response to the women.
(26:29):
So there was probably I don't know, maybe like nine
or ten fights for the night, and often two or
three were female fights, and the overwhelming response was, you know,
people didn't want to come and watch their girl friends boxing.
They didn't want to see them fight. I don't I
don't want to watch the girls fight, you know, whatever
pathetic excuse they had pretending they were being whatever. The
(26:53):
overwhelming response on the night. I remember so many people
about how good the female fights were to watch, how
much more technical and enjoyable they were at that novice level,
you know, And I just I've never forgotten it. I
(27:14):
have never forgotten. And it's like, how do we shift that?
How do we shift the bias and the narrative that
exists culturally around watching women punch each other in the
face just like the lads do, Like we just can't
we all just punch each other in the face and
(27:34):
get along exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Yeah, it is though, it's it is a representation issue,
I think first and foremost, Like, for example, in Australia today,
the media coverage for women's sport is only about fifteen percent.
It is also a matter of calling out this poor
these like sort of these drive by comments, right, like
I've spoken about a lot.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
You go to a match and.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
They're saying, oh, he's playing like a bloody girl, and
like you might think that that's a lot, but that
actually reinforces a whole cultural bias around women. It degrades us,
It degrades And this is the thing that I really
want to make clear to every male And I'm not,
by any means, you know, completely against the men here,
(28:20):
or it's not women versus men, because there are so
many men out there that support women's sport way more
than a lot of women do that in a matter
of fact, But there is no world as a man,
as a woman whoever, that this will not affect you,
because you will have a girlfriend, you will have a wife,
you will have a daughter, you'll have a sister, you'll
have a cousin who wants to play sport. And by
(28:41):
you saying that you are degrading her future, you're degrading
her sense of safety, degrading her ability to go along
and feel welcome and a part of something and valued
and seen and respected. So there is no world where
it will not affect you eventually. And that's why it
is so important that we have male ala maps, we
have male others to stand up for us and to
(29:05):
really just reinforce that we are worthwhile we are still athletes,
and the stats that show around broadcasts and all the
viewership that people are watching us and they absolutely love it,
and it brings such a different cultural perspective than the
male equivalent. Like you just look at AFL at AFLW,
(29:25):
all the families come to afl W because they're the safe, fun,
inclusive space that you'd want your child to be around.
They're not taking them to Collingwood versus Carlton because the
vile things that are being said, the angst amongst the
crowd wanted to belt the shit out of each other.
It's just not a safe, inclusive and fun, enjoyable place
to be around. So yeah, there's a lot culturally that
(29:46):
needs to be done, But simply by I think that
is the most agible and accessible thing that we can
all do is call out those drive by comments because
it does really degrade women and women's sport as a whole.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
What has changed in your life that's directly as a
result of sport for you?
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Sport has it honestly has given me everything. It's given
me my confidence, it's given me leadership skills, it's given
me resilience, more than anything, and it's given me my friends, community.
Now it's given me my purpose. I cannot think of
a world where sport didn't exist for me, and I
really do owe just about everything to sport. And it
(30:33):
really upsets me knowing that a girl might not get
what I have gotten out of sport because she's in
a world or a community that just don't value that
don't value her, don't value her worth. I'd been lucky
enough to play sport around the world. I've got to
be in the Australian squad for pol Across. I've played
(30:54):
AFL in Scotland and Paris and all these places, and
it's just it's absolutely incredible how sport can bring people together.
And just see how sport can bring nations together. It's
I think it's the best form of soft diplomacy because
it doesn't matter what religion, gender, race you are when
(31:15):
it comes to sport. It's a universal language, there's universal rules.
You go out there, you play your hardest and you
shake the hands after it, win, loss or draw. I
just think sport and what is what's learned on that
field and what's learned in training around it just could
be applied to life more often?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Whose ears are you trying hardest to get into? Is
it the females that you want to have a shot
and know they have a place or is it the businesses?
Is it the men? Is it families? Is it society? Who?
If there was a number one set of years that
you want to get in, who's it.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Would be the young girl who's currently doubting herself and
who's currently saying I think others going to give up
on sport course, it's not worth it and there's not
a future in it for me. I just want to
grub them by biers and tell them that there is
an absolute place for you in it and we will
fight through for nail so that you don't have to
feel like you're not worthy enough and no one's going
(32:16):
to respect you enough and put resources and time into
sport for you. They're they're really the ones that I
want to just target the most because it's Yeah, it
would be absolutely gutting to know that someone gave up
sport and everything that could give them just because they
didn't feel like there was enough support around them.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah. I remember when I met you, I was up
the road from the gym that I take clients from
which is PCYC, which is sadly being closed forever in
a couple of weeks time, three weeks time, very distraught.
That was the first gym that I in twenty ten,
that I walked into and did a box fit to
boxing fitness class with my flailing little arms and pink
(32:55):
ever class gloves. Is my shy little self picture that
would have been. But you know what I remember. I
remember doing a few classes there, and there was Susie
and Roy were the trainers. And obviously, as you walk
into a gym for the first time and whoever's taken
the classes, You're like, well, they obviously pro boxers. They
obviously boxers, you know, I just believe that they were fighters.
(33:18):
Roy fights now in the masters. Susane never had though.
But I remember going in there, shy as a button
and hitting those bags and thinking to myself, which I
would never ever have said it, thinking I trained so hard,
and I would think I just want them to come
and say to me that I've got it and that
I should fight now. I never ever ever would have
(33:40):
raised that question, or I never would have said can
I learn to fight? Can you teach me? I just
had this weird belief, and I think a lot of
people do this weird belief that if you have it,
whatever the fuck it is, by the way, do you
have it, someone who knows what it is and sees
it in you will tell you and then you will
(34:00):
be allowed to do the thing because you will be
good enough. So that was my belief. And then I
went to this talk and I and we had a
tour of a boxing gym that had a poster up
for a twelve week boxing challenge and dudes were in suits,
and I was like, I can chicks do this, Like, oh,
you can be a lunatic and just do this, like
you don't have to be good. And I remember the
(34:23):
shift in my mind after. I mean, the whole experience
was next level, but I remember that standing looking into
the ring after that and having all of these penny
dropping moments inside my brain, just going, oh you can,
actually you can choose to do anything. You just have
to work hard enough, and oh it has to mean
(34:45):
a lot to you. Not like it. It doesn't matter
what other people think, because nobody that came tonight cares
if I win or lose. But it meant the world
to me, And oh, I'm going to have to put
in twelve weeks of effort and discomfort and sickening, bloody
nerves and a emotions for a four to six minute
moment in the boxing room to get punched in the faces.
Like all of these life shifting thoughts that I hadn't
(35:10):
realized how much were holding me back before. And I
think that's a big part of it for the girls
you're talking about, is they don't even know that there's
an option. If I didn't know there was an option,
I'm waiting for some bloody anybody to tap me on
the shoulder and go, you can do this. And that's
what I did.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
My whole life.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I was twenty nine. I don't my whole life. If
you're good enough, you'll be told and you can go
do it, and then if you're not good then you
stop doing it. I did.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
That's exactly it. Yeah, we often are waiting for permission
to go ahead and to take things by the horns
and go for it. But like you know, you can't
be waiting for permission. And that's what I really want
to sort of hit home with people, is that you
have to have the proactivity to go ahead and to
fight for what you want, because no one's going to
(36:00):
give it to you on a putter. Unfortunately, and especially
in this day and age, it's more prevalent than ever
that we all have to try and stand up for
women in sport. And it's beyond sport, right we talk
about sports. Sport is just a vehicle. We're talking about
equality in workplaces. We're talking about equality and leadership. We're
talking about women who should be able to go and
(36:22):
play sport and have kids and still work. All those
types of biases that are still within society. I think
can be not completely solved through women sport, but it's
a really good place to start. So yeah, to all
the girls out there listening. Sport gives you so much
more than the game. It's so much more than the scoreboard.
(36:42):
It really is almost like these little eco chamber where
you get to practice life and develop the skills so
that you can go on in your career, in your
relationships to be the best person you can be. You
learn hematee shit, you learn, you learn how to cope
with a win, cope with a loss. Disappointments set back everything.
I just you can tell when you're even in a
(37:03):
workplace and you've got someone who has played sport versus
someone who hasn't. They've got a very different mindset to things,
and there's just so much beauty in it.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Do you think that in terms of mindset for athletes?
Do you think that women have a very different set
of struggles When I think about our self confidence, our
ability to access our ego, that mindset, that self belief,
self doubt, do you think we struggle more with that?
(37:34):
And how does that work in a like I'm a boxer,
so my team is there I have. It's a team sport,
don't get me wrong, but in competition, you are very
much on your You are the star of the show.
That's why I liked it when it comes to being
a part of a team where you are performing for you,
(37:54):
but you are a part of a team that's always
fascinated me. Tell me about that ego. There's another three
questions in one. God, I'm annoying, sorry about that for
you one.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Well, I'll answer your first one. First.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
I think women definitely do struggle more with almost the
imposter syndrome and that they're always we've got these self
limiting beliefs more so than I think men do. And
again that's a blanket statement. There's obviously a lot of
women who would just have the confidence of an absolute ball,
and there's men that probably really struggle with self limiting beliefs.
But I think that in society we've had to constantly
(38:26):
fight for the wins, right when we're constantly fighting to
take up space, to be given space, to be given
eco opportunities, and it's quite tiring. So I think, you know,
we do have to go into things and we've had
to fight for them a little bit more than a
men have to this date. So the self limiting beliefs
pop up in all different areas, and I know for
myself it has as well. Like when I started playing
(38:50):
football and the men were playing on the field, I
almost felt like, oh, that's that's their field, right, instead
of being like, no, they are people. We are people.
They're an athlete, we're athletes. We deserve the equal access
to things like that. So I think self winning beliefs
definitely show up more in the female space. And then
to your second point about navigating, I guess being an
(39:12):
individual who is extremely competitive, but then balancing that in
a more of a team environment, I think that is
the single hardest thing about team sport, but it's the
best thing, right. I absolutely love that I can go
out there, I can have prepared the absolute best I
can have done the extra reps in the gym, I
(39:34):
had everything on point. But if I got there and
don't be a good teammate or don't play my role,
We're not going to win as a team. There is
no individual superstars in team sports, and that really gets highlighted.
It says so much more about your ability to adapt
to different conditions, adapt to if your teammates having a
(39:55):
bad game, you're going to have to try and pick
them up it just like it gives you an extra
sense of account of which you probably don't get the
same level as an individual athlete. It's really about managing
different people's personalities on the field, different expectations. And that's
why I think coaches play such a big role because
(40:16):
there's no blanket one size fits all. In coaching a team,
you sort of really got to know the people at
an individual level, what makes them tick, how do they
best receive feedback if are they someone that can give
them a spray or are they someone I need to
take away quietly and just give them a pat on
the back and say I believe in you, want to
give you. It is such a motley mix of personalities
(40:36):
and everything, and that's why I absolutely love it. And
I just think that's where leadership is also so so important,
is just trying to bring that team together. And I've
been part of teams we're on paper, we're definitely not
the best team, but we've got on to win the
Grand Final because we had such a positive and powerful
on field chemistry which is always built off the field.
(40:58):
It's not on the field, always the little one percentage
you do, the team bondings, the belief the trusts and
all those things. It's always built off the field, but
it always shows up on the field in the form
of winning and trophies and all those sort of external things.
But yeah, yeah, something unspoken about what you do off
the field as a team and how you show up
(41:19):
for each other.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Love that. How have we gone around the idea of coaching.
How differently do we need to coach female teams and
male teams? And do we even know? Given how young
the sport is. I assume a lot of coaches who
were highly skilled in the sport, Like, how are we
meshing that idea of new coaching methods and listening and
(41:42):
finding where that needs to land for women in sport,
in team sports.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
So this was something we did in Holly Bailey's Empowered
to Lead program, which I absolutely adored, and Holly's obviously
the one who got us in touch, and she's just
an incredible human being full stop. But we speak a
lot in that course about feminine and masculine leadership, and
feminine masculine leadership is not gender, it's behavioral. There is
(42:07):
such power. So traditionally we have respected masculine leadership, which
looks like being assertive, it looks like, you know, demanding attention,
being direct, all these types of things. But there's studies
now showing that feminine styles of leadership are actually resonating
with more people, and that's not just human men as well.
So that's being more empathetic, that's being a little bit
(42:30):
more emotional, that's worrying about how the person is as
opposed to what their KPIs are. And I think in
female sport especially, we need to have emits. There's not
one is better than the other, but we have to
adjust our leadership style to cater for a more diverse group,
and I think if you can be a leader who
(42:50):
is a self aware enough to know look masculine, A
masculine style of leadership is my default, But how can
I bring in some feminine traits that are going to
balance that and make me more approachable as a coach
and make me get the best out of my group.
The thing about a lot of coaches is that there
is a lot of ego involved in coaching, and it's
(43:11):
always them trying to live about their dream and them
trying to get results for their own benefit. But at
the end of the day, leadership should be selfless. Leadership
has nothing to do with titles. As a coach, you
should be out there and it is the player's day
and it should be everything to help them perform and
nothing to do with how I look once I'm the
(43:34):
coach who won the premiership. So I think being able
to adjust your masculine and feminine leadership qualities as a
coach helps and it should be for men as well,
not just women, but I think especially for women because yes,
we are a little bit more sensitive and you know,
well sometimes a lot of the time we have a
lot more going on in our lives as well, so
we have to balance the kids, we have to balance
(43:55):
the work, we have to balance the volunteering roles and
all these types of things. So a leader who is
going to be ect of that and be proactive in
asking how the person is, I think will do a
lot better with their female athlete than someone who just
gets up there and gives out sprays if they're not
kicking goals without asking what's the real reason behind it.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
I feel like men would have more of a superpower
in channeling their outside frustrations and getting to the game,
channeling that and using that as aggressive aggressional force or
a moment to disconnect from that, whereas women perhaps might
take that in hold on to it and it gets
(44:34):
in the way of performing in that sport. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Our head coach at Corfield, she says that she's a
head coach and she's a full time psychologist because girls,
like we do girls women, we have a lot of
I guess, you know, things going on in our lives
and it shows up in sport. Like We've got a
lot of girls who are absolutely fantastic. You can tell
if they're not one hundred percent outside of footy. They
(45:00):
come to footy training, they're not performing. Often it's because
of what's going on at home, it's what's going on
at work, it's all these extra things. And I'm really
big on that we should be coaching the person first
and not the athlete, because there's never going to be
a time where are always going to be at one
hundred percent. We're not machines. We do have emotions, we
do have stresses external to sport itself, So we need
(45:23):
to try and coach the person to be more resilient,
to have better methods and techniques that they can deal
with pressure, deal with stress, and that is how you'll
get the best out of an athlete. But I think
too often coaches are only focused on the stats and
how many goals they're kicking, and not enough on the
person themselves.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
I guess the business of sport can often get in
the way of the benefits of sport. In order for
Women's AFL to get its foot in the door, we
need businesses to get behind it. So then it becomes
KPIs and stats and all of these things at the
cast of maybe what makes it great? How do we
(46:05):
handle that?
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Yeah, that's a tough one, And like there is an
argument at the end of the day when they say,
but you're not getting bums in seats, but in order
to get bombs in seats, we need investment. I don't
want women's sport to be a charity. It is an investment.
Often in the media portrays it, as you know. For example,
at the start of the or a couple of months ago,
(46:28):
I think it was of saying that AFLW is going
to be a two hundred million dollar loss. It is
a two hundred dollars two hundred million dollar investment. In
order for us to get bombs in seats, we have
to develop as a product. We have to develop as athletes,
and we have to have money and equal opportunity to
do that. I can't thress that enough. It's not going
(46:48):
to be the AFL overnight. It's gonna take a lot
of investment. But guess what any I could any any
good investment, you will reap the rewards and a return
on investment. But it does take time, just like stocks
take time, just like you know, businesses take time.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
It's not overnight.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Where do you want to take four TG in the
next twelve months? What's going to happen? What's an ideal
twelve months look like for you.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this, and it's
starting out as a podcast because that's a platform that
I think we can give people the voice that they
haven't had and answer the questions to people to young
athletes that they haven't had access to. So it's going
to start as a podcast and I'm going to try
and get as many diverse guests on who are professional athletes, experts, coaches,
(47:41):
anyone who really the audience wants to hear. That's who
I'm going to try and get on. But from there,
I want to build more of a community because I
want for TG to be an actual movement.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I want to create core.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
I would love to have almost a female athlete academy
where a girl can sign up. She gets mindset coaching,
she gets physical certified coaching around you know, strengthen conditioning,
she gets education on her period and how that's going
to affect her when it comes to game day. Things
like what you talk about, the epigenetics and all those
(48:14):
additional things that goes into the athlete mindset. As I said,
confidence building, just a holistic approach to being an athlete.
I would love for that to be an offering for
FORTG in the future. It's a long time off yet,
it's going to you know, those things cost money, they
take time. But that is sort of where I want
(48:34):
it to go, and I want it to be almost
as saying that, you know, when things are tough out there,
you to say FORTYG for the girls, that's what we
what we really want to bring home. So yeah, big plans.
Would also love to get a bit of merch out there,
so that would be the next thing as well. Everyone
loves a bit of merchas Yeah, in the next couple
of months, just need to get a few sponsors first,
(48:56):
we'll sort that out. But yeah, I think there's some
definitely exciting opportunities around the corner for for TG. But
I also have to remind myself that we've just started,
so I've got to be patient. But I just want
to I just want to change the world overnight.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Tiff.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
You know all these things such.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
A gratitude and ambition. Gratitude and ambition it two great things.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
So good.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
I can't wait to watch this unfold. I think that
what you've created, there's a space for it. I think
it's amazing. You're an awesome person. Your background is phenomenal.
So I can't wait to see it unfold. Where can
people go right now to listen, to get involved, to
follow to everything, all of the things.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
All the things. So we are four GG Underscore podcast
on just about all socials, and we are on Spotify,
Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and a few other podcast directories that
I've never heard about. So basically, wherever you get your podcasts,
you go to FORCEDG and we will be there, and yeah,
drop me a message, dropped me a line. If you're
(50:02):
a female athlete out there that would want to speak
to a certain athlete or a certain expert, let me
know and I will make it happen.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Bluddy legend.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Thanks Kylie, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.