June 12, 2025 • 51 mins
In Episode 84 of Scoreboard, Chris Titley chats with Paul Salmon—AFL legend, dual premiership player, and one of the game’s most enduring personalities.
Paul reflects on the shifting eras of footy, what he learned under Kevin Sheedy, and the mental battles that come with crowd noise—especially when you’re getting booed off.
He speaks candidly about post-career transitions, the importance of managing moods, and finding balance through wellness and perspective.
Above all, Paul shares why staying true to who you are—and seeing the bright side—matters just as much off the field as it ever did on it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From the arena to the front office, this is Scoreboard.
I'm Chris Tipley, and each episode brings you stories from
the game of sport, where mindset, money and meaning shape
what comes next. Athletes, coaches, owners and
business leaders unpack the moments that matter, because the
Scoreboard isn't just about winning.
It's about life beyond the game.Now let's get to this week's
(00:23):
episode. Hi, it's Chris Titley here and
on today's episode of School Board, the podcast I'm drawn by
Paul Salmon. Paul, thank you so much for
being part of the series. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure,
Chris. I've been looking forward.
To it Paul, we're sitting here on the 12th of June, Thursday.
What's how's your week been mate?
What's what's been going on in the world of Paul Salmon?
Oh gosh, you're right on top of me.
(00:45):
Lots, lots on. I'm flying out to meet my wife
who's in New Zealand at a conference and we're going to
head to Queenstown for a, a few days.
Yeah, somewhere we've heard so many great things about but
never been to. So I'm very much looking forward
to doing that in the coming hours.
And the weeks has been overwhelmed with some exciting
(01:07):
things that are happening in my little world around work.
And, and if you want to get really granular, really micro
here, Chris, I'm actually, I'm spoiling myself today for lunch
because I'm, I'm catching up with my two daughters and some
grandchildren have a cafe beforeI fly out.
So that's kind of giving me a little bit excited and happy
today. Do you think when you travel the
(01:29):
the some of the most exciting parts of before, they're just
the anticipation of going somewhere you've never gone
before? Yeah, I think you're right.
And I, it's kind of like a movie.
You, you, you could you have people go, you gotta go see this
movie. It's the best thing.
It's great. And you gotta shoot and you go,
oh, it's a bit underwhelming 'cause you've, you've, you've
lifted your expectations to a point where the movie can't
(01:49):
even, you know, you know, it's not fair on the movie.
And travelling can be like that if you take too much advice, you
know, because you know, it's a very unique, it's a unique to
you experience. And we're expecting great things
of Queenstown. So my, my expectations are it's
going to be, it's going to blow me away.
And I'm, and I have no doubt it will, but you know, I've got to
(02:10):
be careful that I go in there and, and ask too much of it.
So yeah, yeah, it is that anticipation piece.
And, and I've been very fortunate with my wife, Joe and
I that we've had some great experiences and some things we
love, you know, others might not.
So we gotta be. We're careful when we're
recommending stuff, that's for sure.
And mate, at 6 foot 9, do you get a, do you get a nice seat in
(02:32):
the plane or are you a little bit cramped?
Well, I do. I I gotta tell.
I gotta tell you, it can be expensive being tall.
Not only do you have to get clothes made and lots of stuff,
which there's a premium for and things like that, but when you
fly, you if you can't, if you can't fly business class, which
I try to as much as I can. So I'll limit my travel as much
(02:52):
as I can. I'll, I'll try and grab an exit
row. But here's the thing, Chris, and
I've got a little that bugs me about this because the airlines
and, and they're a business and I, I get it.
They started charging for exit row seats.
So you pay an extra for the extra leg room, but they're
charging people like me. You have no other choice.
Yes, yes. Like I actually don't fit in an
(03:13):
economy seat. I just don't fit.
So now they're charging me for being born tall.
And I just think that's, that's inherently wrong.
I just want to have a soapbox moment and say come on airlines,
you can do better. What's the?
What's the? What's the threshold?
You can 6-7 and eight or something like that, you reckon?
Yeah, I think 200 centimetres isa pretty good.
There you go. That's a good round Number.
Yeah, 200. If you're 200 N of 200
(03:36):
centimetres, you. Get a free exit race.
Well, you should, I don't think,because you've got no choice but
to sit there. So it's like, you know, we don't
want to start charging, you know, I'm, I'm not drawing any.
I don't want to draw any comparisons.
I'll get that trouble. But yeah, I, I've got no choice
on that, on this tall, you know,I don't get bogged on in that.
That's just a fun little, you know, life's life's not fair
kind of story, do you? I'm good.
(03:58):
I'm good with it, mate. I'm I'm living.
I'm I'm happy. Yeah, that's right.
You probably stay above the line, stay positive.
Do you get on the first world problem, First world problem.
Do you tall well problem? Do you get a you get on the
plane and do you start you get your laptop out and start doing
some work or you just literally switch off and watch a movie and
grab a Chardonnay? I'm a bit old school.
I don't do the laptop on the aeroplane.
(04:19):
If I put a pen and a notepad in my in the pocket of the seat in
front of me And if I have thoughts or ideas, because my
head's always bouncing and trying to innovate and create
and so forth and improve what I'm doing.
So I'll take notes. And if I'm not taking notes, I'm
reading news. I might be watching the news or
(04:40):
depending on the on the length of the flight, but I do like to
switch off where I can. There are opportunities just to
be with yourself and be present.And, you know, I think it's only
beneficial to what you're doing outside of that moment, you
know, in terms of your relationships and your work that
you do spend some time with yourself.
So sometimes it's a good opportunity opportunity to do
(05:02):
that. Yeah, no, on an aeroplane it is
actually. I'll write some notes down on my
notepad on not my notepad, my notes on my phone.
Not, not a not a physical. I'm a, I'm a sort of a half half
of millennial, half of Gen Y 4344.
But yeah, it's, it's kind of good.
You don't get too many moments to yourself, but your flying is
one of them sometimes if you're flying by.
Yourself. Yeah.
(05:22):
I had a coach for most of my football career, Kevin Sheedy,
who's, you know, it should be, should be referred to as an icon
of a strange sport, 27 years coach of this and and an amazing
record. You quite Bellamy type from a
rugby league perspective. Anyway, the point is that shades
used to say that the most important time is own time.
(05:45):
And I always thought that was rather profound because it's
kind of that precursor to working on yourself to be, you
know, to make sure that you're in a good place, because if
you're in a good place, you know, the people around you and
important to you in life will benefit from that.
But, you know, get yourself right before you get others, try
and fix others and, and impact others.
(06:06):
And I find that that's resonatedwith me And, and I always take
the opportunity to have a littlebit of own time to, you know, to
recalibrate where I'm at and, you know, set the course or
reset the course. So I've always thought that was
a nice sort of point for life. Yeah, absolutely.
Now your business interest intertwines a little bit into
(06:26):
into that. Can we talk about what you've
done after after footy? Yeah, well, I've always, I had a
turning point in my life back when I was 19.
I was, I, I hit the, I introduced myself to the
football world in a, in a prettyprofound way in terms of kicking
goals and people getting excited.
And I was excited. And then the game can be pretty
(06:47):
cruel. Any game for that matter can be
pretty cruel and I busted my knee and ended up having a full
knee reconstruction at 19 back in the 80s when they weren't
giving any guarantees about coming back to play.
So as I like to refer to it in retrospect, it was a gift of
perspective for me. I realised I couldn't trust
football anymore. It couldn't be the only thing in
(07:07):
my life as it was at 19. So spread my wings a bit.
Bought my first open my first business.
I bought a health club. So from that point forward, I,
I've always been interested in startups and business and
creating, innovating. And so I've built 8.
And today I, I'm really excited to say that developed some
(07:30):
technology around improving connection between to self, to
place to others. So I'm specialising in this
sentiment analysis tech space and we're applying that in the
workplace. So helping companies better
understand the emotional pulse of their workforce, helping
employees feel like they're better connected to leadership.
So how they feel is actually informing decision making, it's,
(07:52):
you know, rewarding them. And so we're looking at having
some fun with that. I did a launch of a version of
this with the South Australian government for the IFL Gather
round in April where we, you know, looking at how we do it at
population level, how we connectpeople who are enjoying this,
the cities and love their citiesand want to be more connected to
(08:13):
their cities. And how we use sentiment to
drive, you know, commercial value back to them.
So open the city up to them in real time and make it more of a
playground and make sure how they feel is being, you know,
being recognised at City Hall and and it gives businesses a
chance to capture audiences in real time.
And because people feel like their voice, it matters how they
(08:34):
feel matters. So trying to really move this
sentiment out of mental health, well away from that and into a
really more empowering performance, productivity kind
of well being space that hopefully just shift total
inverted approach to it, but hopefully shift the conversation
that how we feel is not all about, you know, doom and gloom.
(08:55):
It's it's actually can be reallypowerful.
It impacts everything we do, every decision we make.
And I wanna play it in that space.
So apologies for the waffle, butthat's where I'm playing now.
I'm, I'm loving it. See some really cool
opportunities for it. Speaking to governments about
and cities about how we can implement it for, for
populations, for visitors, for students, for, you know,
(09:18):
obviously residents and locals and workers.
So there's lots of these cohortsthat can really that love their
cities, interact with their cities and, and the surrounding
ecosystems that could, will really benefit from having an
anonymous voice, but nonethelessa voice to the highest levels
of, of, of, you know, the corridors of power.
(09:39):
So here we are. That was a bit of a long winded
version of where I'm at playing in tech.
But health, emotional health, physical health is a real
important playground for me, butnot just in business, but in
life. And that, that's, that's where
my passion currently sits, mate.There's a lot of inputs into a
feeling and, and in whether you wake up and you're feeling tired
(10:04):
or you, you wake, you do some exercise and you're feeling
better and you do some breathing, you're feeling
better, etcetera. What sort of, I suppose how, how
are you looking at that in termsof nudging the the inputs into
making someone feel better or someone feel more connected?
Well, we're not. Yeah, it's connected piece.
We're not trying to make anyone make anyone do anything.
It's a very voluntary process or, or feel better, but it's
(10:26):
about, it's more in the, in the lane of how you're responding to
your experience, not how you're necessarily how you're feeling
when you wake up. So if you, you know, if you've
been to the gym and you want to,you know, say that's how that's
made you feel, that's great. You'll earn points and you'll
get rewarded. All sorts of cool things sit
around that. But we'd love to know if you're,
you know, when you go to the city, how you felt about that
Cafe or that, you know, that that show you went to or that
(10:49):
outdoor kind of installation that you experienced.
And so we can the city can startto get a sense of the vibe of
the city, what's working, what'snot, where in the city is, is
vibing well and where it needs some support and, and where they
can actually respond positively to it.
So we're actually asking people to use how they feel to activate
and to heighten engagement and to increase, you know, to
(11:12):
improve their experience. It's really not in that, you
know, mental well being space, but what invariably is happening
is the more we can get people toidentify how they feel and
understand that how they feel doesn't last, but it will
they'll move through that and move on.
The better the more the more skilled and the more comfortable
people will get with understanding their mood States
(11:33):
and, and, and that they are, there's a flow to them that they
don't last. And hopefully, you know, like
going to the gym, we're giving them opportunities to build that
skill. Like they'll build a muscle in
the gym, they'll build and but it don't we don't want to sort
of get bogged down in that part of what we want to get bogged
down and just how that how they feel can actually Dr improved
(11:55):
experiences. It can drive and help shape the
cities and help shape outcomes. And that's really powerful to
me. That's I like to think of it as
a superpower that we have that we've never really leveraged
properly. No, that's interesting.
Well, because how you feel is going to impact how how you
perform today. What you do, I mean, how you
(12:15):
feel now is going to, you know, do I really feel, do I really
want to, you know, do this interview?
Do I really want to go out this afternoon?
Do I really want to do that project, write that report.
But so better understanding thatthat about yourself and it comes
back to connection with self andyou know, obviously, hopefully
the, the, the benefits of that amini not just from a personal
(12:41):
health perspective, but from a performance perspective and
productivity perspective. And so, yeah, it's a it's a
great playground. This this sentiment analysis
text space is pretty new. You know, we do a fair bit of
this in the AI space now where we can sort of better understand
tone through social media and you know, you can screen
websites, you can get a bit of a, a broad sweep that way.
But when you couple that with the subjective piece, which is
(13:05):
people actually inputting how they feel and getting all this,
you know, huge value from doing so that's that's the playground
that I'm looking to join together.
And we've got a lot of having a lot of really good conversations
there, Chris. So we'll see where it goes,
mate. But that's, that's, that's what
I'm doing this week. And it it it gets me up
motivated everyday. That's brilliant.
(13:25):
And you, you spoke of gather round which you know, from the,
from, from my point of view, living over in Brisbane looks
like an amazing success. The, the tickets sold out the,
the, the, the second time round for the Lions, Yeah.
And all these things etcetera. And from a city point of view,
obviously it's an investment from, from Adelaide and all the
various stakeholders etcetera. How do you reckon you would have
gone in the in in a in a gather round back in your day?
(13:50):
Or for a player, it's pretty easy.
You show up, you play, you know,you know, where you're playing
and the venues is just another part of the mental preparation.
Yeah. But look, I think from a
perspective I think it would have been fun.
You know, it's a carnival kind of atmosphere.
It's obviously, you know, NRL, you know, it took state of
(14:11):
origin from the NFL concept and have done amazing things with
it. We've taken your magic ground
and try and create a gather round.
And I think it's great how the, the, these codes all were rather
competitive in terms of the sporting landscape in Australia
can actually, you know, I suppose, leverage each other and
to, to, to grow their games. And, and so they help, you know,
(14:31):
comes back to competition being healthy.
But no, personally, I, you know,I, I was able to play in some
carnivals when I was playing back in the 80s, nineties, early
2000s, And it was, you know, state, county, the state of
Oregon, carnivals, carnivals we used to do.
And they are incredibly, they'reincredibly competitive, lots of
fun, gather around as a player would have been awesome.
You know, it's one of those, oneof those environments where you
(14:54):
go, Gee, I wish I was playing. I don't have many of those
moments nowadays, but Adelaide do it so well.
And you know, it's credit to them.
You, you mentioned also that youhad an ACL and there seems to be
like an ACL epidemic going on atthe moment in, in AFL.
I suppose when you see someone do an ACL, you think, oh, I've
been there and that's not a goodplace to be.
But in hindsight, it was a a bitof a blessing, a bit of a
(15:16):
turning point for you. Yeah, career wise it was, I
mean, I, as I said, it's up to you how you choose to reflect on
things in life. I mean, I could rather reflect
on it and go, you know, it changed me and I was never the
same player or I can reflect on it and go it, it, it gifted me,
as I said earlier, perspective. I now know that I can't trust
this game. And you know, I get having a new
(15:39):
reconstruction and I had lateralligament rupture and other
things too in the 80s. It's very different to having
one now. Having one now, they'll come
back, they'll play again. There's still no guarantees that
the level they'll play or but having it in the mid 80s, it
was, you know, it was a potentially a career ending
experience back then. So yeah, but life changing.
(16:00):
I mean, if I, if I break it downChris, into a life changing
experience. As I said earlier, I had within
six months of the knee, I boughta business.
Within 18 months I was married. Within two years I had had my
first child. So.
And if I hadn't have done the knee, I don't know, was that a
sliding doors moment for me? Maybe it was.
I woke up, there was more to life.
(16:21):
I didn't want to lie too much onfootball to feed me to, to be
everything that defined me. So yeah, it was a turning point
and I and I'm so happy I had my knee.
Now I'm not reflecting on like that.
I go thank you. Whatever forces were at play
that gave me that knee operationand nearly ended my footy
career. I'm I'm grateful because now I,
(16:43):
I know that I, with the benefit of hindsight, I, I did play
another 19 seasons. I played 300 games after that
knee and retired at 37, a very fulfilled athlete, not really
anything I really needed to or wanted to achieve more out of
the game. And at 37 I had three teenage
children and and yeah, happy life outside of footy.
(17:06):
So yeah, very in a, in a kind ofwarped kind of, you know, crazy
way. I I feel blessed.
Do you, do you miss someone saying how's your knee mate?
No, I don't. No, I don't, not at all.
It's funny. I, I tell a, a quick anecdote
about that because I, when I bought this health club and
I'll, I'll keep this quick, as quick as I can.
(17:28):
I'd open the gym at 6:00 AM and they'd, and this to say, Bill
was standing there and Bill would go, hey, Paul, how's the
knee? Because it was a great
connection point for Bill. Like I'd go, you know, yeah,
good Bill. I'd just give him an answer
about how it's tracking well andthen he'd go, how are the
Bombers going to go this week? And I'd give him an answer on
how the bombers are going to go this week.
And there were two questions. But what Bill didn't realise was
(17:52):
he was the first of many that day.
They're going to ask me those two questions.
And because I was running a business and I was fresh at 6:00
AM so I could give Bill a lot oflove.
When Ralph came in at 9:45 at night, 9:30 at night, he wanted
to know how the knee was and howthe bombers were going to go
that week. And what Ralph didn't know that
I've been at the gym all day and300 people had come through and
(18:13):
120 of those people would ask methose two questions.
So, and, and I'm not, I'm not joking, this is what I had to do
every day. So was go to work knowing that
over 100 or more times I might get asked those two questions.
And it was a, as a huge burden. But I also as A at a young age
realise from a business perspective it's not fair on
(18:37):
Ralph to be dismissive at 9:30 at night.
He doesn't. He just thinks he's the only guy
that dated after Yes of. Course he wanted to give him
respect, Yeah. Yeah.
So I've got to give him, Yeah, I've got to give him some energy
and make sure that he got the bill treatment, the 6:00 AM
treatment. So yeah, I kind of learned from
a customer engagement perspective that, you know, you
can't let Ralph pay a price for the fact that I'm I'm drained,
(19:00):
I'm washed up and washed out. You know, it's been a heavy day
in terms of answering. Yeah.
So it's funny when you when you,it's quite triggering when you
say, how's the knee? It was played a huge part in my
life for so many years that I'm sort of so relaxed, so happy now
that I don't have to deal with it.
What's the what's the one question that people ask you
now? What's the weather like up
(19:20):
there? Right.
OK. It's the height, yes.
Yes, well, it's kind of that mundane thing, you know, Wow,
your tall it's. Wow, your tall.
Oh wow, it's your tall. Well, you kind of do do.
They say, oh, there's a basketballer over there.
Yeah, I get, I get that, particularly when I'm
travelling, people think you, you know, they just jump to
conclusions about the sport you should have played because
you're you're tall and stuff. But you know, you know, when
(19:44):
people, I get things like, oh, well, yeah, well, you're short.
Like if people want to be smart,cute about it and clever.
Yeah. Well, you know, you and I would
call them so. And I, you come up with retorts
as you go just to entertain yourself.
So someone says to me, oh, well,you're short.
I go, oh, get a Shorty. I I say, get a handsome, you
(20:05):
know? Yep.
So they say, you know, implying they're implying they're ugly.
You know, it's the opposite. So so they say, well, you're
short. I say, well, you're handsome.
Anyway, that's my life. I love it.
I'm, I'm, I love, you know? Yeah, obviously I love meeting
people and having chats, but theheight thing is still a big part
of my day to day. And and Paul Salmon, the
(20:28):
identity of the person now connected to AFL, you know, AFL
Hall of Fame football, football,football.
How do you find that? Are you sometimes just wanted to
break it out and say, look, I was a great, you know, I was a
good AFL player, but I'm also someone else.
I'm also a father. I'm also a business owner.
Yeah, this is an issue nowadays people identify with you because
(20:51):
of their experience with you. So if they're football fans,
then football is going to be their go to.
And I'm, I'm not in denial. I about my footy career.
I'm I'm proud of it. And as I said earlier, I've
retired very fulfilled. So I'm not a disgruntled or, you
know, tainted athlete who's, youknow, retired with trauma.
(21:12):
I'm one of the lucky ones, I suppose.
So, you know, people can talk footy, family, anything to me.
I'm I'm more than happy. I, I, I, I'd like to think that
I identified who I was a long time ago or, or how I wanted to
identify myself. So, you know, in terms of the
husband I wanted to be the dad Iwanted to be the businessman I
(21:35):
wanted to try and be. So you can compartmentalise, but
at the, at the end of the day, there's got to be some
consistency around who you are as a person.
So you're not trying to, you know, fool anyone or yourself
that that that's how you roll. And so, yeah, I think I'm in
that. I know I'm in that place at my
age now I'm I'm it easy with whoI am.
(21:55):
I know what I bring to the table.
I know what I can't bring to thetable and what I can't bring to
the table. Sport has helped me enormously
understand that there's no more important thing than team and
complementing yourself with people around you that, you
know, add, add value to your life and to what you're trying
to deliver to the world. Yeah.
(22:16):
Did you have fun playing footy? Sometimes yeah, I did.
I think they went in it went in kind of phases for one of the
better word or term it I I had so much fun playing as a kid, as
we all do. And then, you know, I went out
to Essen and footy club at 15 toplay in the under nineteens as a
(22:37):
16 year old. And but I was playing, I was, I
was now playing and training with adults from the age of 15.
And then it got, you know, it gets serious and then you start
to play and then you start to play well and then expectations.
And then it becomes less enjoyable because you start to
try and understand what this is all about and why isn't it fun
anymore And it's getting serious.
(22:58):
And then then you have success as a team and you win
premierships and, and which I was very lucky to do.
And that's so much fun and the dynamic and the chemistry you
have with that, those teams are fun.
And then you're sort of not performing personally or the
team and it's not so much fun. So it goes in phase.
And so you just got to be able to manage that ride because it
can be a pretty brutal ride at times.
(23:19):
And you know, and careers are rendered on on the footy field
in terms of injury or performance.
But the locker room, if you're going to survive in sport, the
locker rooms are really, really important place to be able to
navigate. And you've got lots of different
personalities in there. Everyone's trying to, you know,
be their best. You're not going to be best
(23:40):
friends with everyone in the locker room, but you're all
trying to get the best out of one another.
It's really. And so look, so careers are lost
in the locker room too. So yeah, I enjoyed and then I
got, I wasn't enjoying it. I, I wasn't blaming the game at
all. But at 31, I left Essendon to go
to Hawthorn and I'd, I'd fallen out of love with the game.
(24:00):
I, I thought that's what it was.I wasn't performing.
My body was letting me down. And then I just, you know,
Hawthorn footy club and I would need to get into a place and
mentally and physically that I could, you know, present myself
really well as a footballer and as a person.
And I promised myself that everytime I got to the end of the the
(24:23):
race before we took the field, that I would smile, whether it
was forced or otherwise. Just the act of smiling before I
took the field reconnected me with why I played the game in a
really simple way. I just, yeah, I'm, I'm meant to
be here. I'm happy to be here.
And it was kind of just symbolicfor me personally that now you
(24:46):
see it quite a, you know, you see, this is back in 96.
So you see it quite a bit nowadays, players coming up the
race and they're smiling. And it does make me happy to see
that because there was an era, there was a period in our
professional sport when it was learning to be professional and
we weren't so self aware. There wasn't the support
(25:07):
networks within clubs like welfare offices and all that
sort of stuff to help players ontheir journey.
But it was serious, it was hard and it was, it was pretty, it
was pretty brutal. So for me, smiling, reminding
myself that, you know, it's where I'm meant to be, it's
where I want to be was really important.
You went through two phase changes, well many phase changes
(25:28):
obviously from clubs point of view, but from a amateur
professional era, from AVFL to AFL era, do you want to talk
about that, whether things changed for you and the the
smile, happiness and the seriousness of it all?
Well, yeah, we we all would. I mean, you get arguments about
this from players of different areas, but the reality was when
I started, when I first went to S in 1991, played my first AFL
(25:51):
game in or VFL game in 83, we'reall working day.
I was working in the bank and they'll go and shine at night.
And then Fast forward into the early 90s and now there's semi
professionalism. There's a mixture of part time
workers and, you know, full timeworkers like me.
I was running businesses and still playing.
So I was a throwback. And the national competition was
(26:12):
introduced in 1997. So now we're we're playing in
SA, WA and you know, Sydney was already in the in the
competition at as as a relocatedclub.
So, and it was late 80s at Brisbane was incorporated or
the, you know, the Brisbane Bears at the time.
So there's a lot happening, new clubs being introduced, travel
(26:35):
being introduced. You know, we're travelling,
we're trialling and testing and trialling the best ways to
travel on the day, the day before.
So there was lots of disruption happening in our sport at the
time and living through that, living through the introduction
of draughts where players are now getting drafted from
anywhere. When I was introduced, clubs
could recruit players from anywhere.
(26:55):
They were geographical zones. So I lived in an area that
belonged to Essendon Football Club.
I had no choice where to play. Now there's, you know, pin the
tail of the donkey. Kids are getting drafted,
Victorian kids are going to playfooty in WA, Western Australian
kids are playing footy in Queensland.
So we yeah, I lived through all of that and now we're moving to
the late 90s and now it's full time professional or as best
(27:17):
they can make it. We're still teething this this
game, because no one really was yet trying to fully understand
what full time professionals aremeant.
Like the balance between, you know, time spent at the club as
opposed to time spent away from the club.
You know, they thought you had to fill back then, they thought
they had to fill time. So you've got to be at the club
a lot because to justify for full time professionalism, you
(27:38):
know, it's kind of like a a job.So we need to spend hours and
hours and we're there. We need to be doing stuff.
So we need more people to come into the ecosystem.
So, you know, we've got a now we've got a yoga extract.
Now we've got a psychologist. He wants, he wants this time and
and players were rebellion against a lot of it because it's
was so draining. It was so full on and to I
(28:00):
presume today, from what I can tell from the outside looking
in, they've got that balance right between time spent at club
away from club. So yeah, the mental game, yeah,
it's only a conversation, it's not a fact.
But the mental game as it was going through all that change
was was, and while still trying to adapt and perform was, it was
(28:21):
exciting. It was exciting, mate, I can
tell you now. But it was also really
challenging. It was fun.
I reflect on it really, you know, in a really romantic kind
of way, to be part of that change and to set the foundation
for what the game is today in a lot of ways.
And the games changed dramatically.
But yeah, to be part of that wasreally cool.
But embracing change became a norm for me.
(28:44):
It wasn't like, you know, oh gosh, you know, there's new
rules, there's new changes just been accepted.
You know, you've had the chance to have your input into it.
If it's implemented, then you change, you change with it.
You can't fight that system from, you know, in terms of you
can help shape it. But yeah, in sport it moves too
(29:04):
fast. You can't, you know, fighting.
It's just almost futile. Paul Salmon playing AFL in 2025
versus Paul Salmon playing in, you know, AFL in 1993.
Which year would you rather play?
Interesting. I think the romantic side of me
says the 80s and 90s were it waspure football opponent high
(29:26):
scores. Yeah, it wasn't sort of
overwhelmed with too much structure and and rules, whereas
today a bit off field was harder.
I think. I can't make a comparison.
I'm just saying it's hard because I see, you know, I, I
see coaches like Craig McRae, the head coach of Collingwood
footy club in the like, I I think there's I would love to
(29:46):
have played under him. He's got a level of empathy and
understanding with his players. It's a nurturing environment.
I think I would have responded well to a coach that I responded
well to Shades and my other coaches as well.
It's not a comparison. It's just like the game shifted
in that sense. So I wasn't a good fit for the
80s because I was maybe more of a sensitive guy football,
(30:09):
whereas and maybe they were and but you weren't allowed to
display that side of you becauseit was if you had any failings,
physical or emotional, you'd, it'd flush you out of the system
pretty quickly. You had to almost put on a
facade to survive. You know, in some ways, you
know, it was kind of that's how I felt at least.
And then but today you got a environments now where they
(30:29):
really do understand the individual, They they support
individual, a tailor for the individual and you know, your
interests outside of footy. So I don't know where what year
would have got the best out of me.
All I know is maybe a six foot 9athletic footballer would be
able to adapt, would be playing,I'd be playing today as well as
(30:50):
I was playing in that era in terms of not talking about
performance. But it's an interesting
question. I haven't been confronted with
that before, Chris. But yeah, I think I would thrive
today. I really do think I'd enjoy
today's football. I don't think I'd enjoy social
media. Right, yes, that goes with that,
with the with the potentially having having a a beer in the
(31:11):
pub getting snapped on a Wednesday night or something
like that, Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I, I gosh, I
mean, you adapt and I mean, obviously if you're social media
back in our day, then we would have probably adapted and not
being as not being as cavalier, but baggy, yeah, that's the
word. But yeah, dealing with judgement
from anybody and everybody wouldbe, would be difficult.
(31:32):
So I do feel for today's playerswho kind of, you know, drowning
and so, you know, they, they want to avail themselves of
social media, but they have to take the good with the bad.
So, you know, I don't think I'd enjoy that.
And how do you go with feedback?Did people sort of, you know,
come hard at you in some instances and you sort of step
back? Or are you more like a Oh I
understand, yes, I need to improve.
(31:55):
I'll come. I'm I'm happy to confront.
I'm A and when you say you're confrontational, doesn't mean
that, yeah, you want physical, you know, violence means that
you're happy to address situations.
I'm happy to be in a room with anyone, take feedback and give
it. I was wasn't good at that early
in my life for sure. You know, as I'm matured as an
athlete and a footballer, I got better at it.
(32:17):
In fact, nowadays it really frustrates me if someone's in
the same room as me and apologises for being honest or
doesn't, isn't, you know, as transparent, as honest as they
could be. I think feedback delivered
properly and sensitively to whoever has been is receiving it
is really important. So I know I love feedback.
(32:38):
Now I'm, I'm huge on it. I got, I'm one of those athletes
who had great moments in my career but also had tough
moments. So there was a, there was a game
the year before I left Essendon to go to Hawthorne and I got
booed off by 60,000 Essendon fans.
My own fans beat me off a footy field.
There was some reasons before I had, I'd had a backspasm before
(33:00):
the game. It was pretty nasty.
Kevin Sheedy and I agreed I wanted to do it.
He wanted to put me on the fieldand play and I was probably
shouldn't have. But he told me to stay in the
goal square, not move out of this goal square.
He wanted to track the ball along and I moved out of the
goal square and he took me off the field.
This was in the second quarter because you said that's what he
would do if I left the goal square, he'd take me off.
(33:21):
But you can imagine the fans watching me not leave the goal
square and get frustrated with that.
And I, I totally get it. I was frustrated too.
You know, I got booed off and itwas really tough.
I was running off the ground andif you see the stands, people on
their feet waving their fists and, you know, spit coming out
of their mouth because they're yelling at me so hard.
And all I could think of was that, hey, my mum and dad and my
(33:43):
kids are up there and my wife and that that was harder for me
than me receiving that moment asit was.
So when you talk about feedback,I've had plenty of it, good and
bad. And I was in the rooms after
that game and Kevin Sheeny sat down next to me.
He goes, how you feeling? I said, well, that was a rough
(34:04):
ride. I didn't go back on the field
that day. And my back tightened up too
much. And he goes, yeah, they don't
understand, mate. And I go, yeah, no, that you're
right. And he paused and he said it
again. He said no, they don't
understand. And I go, yeah, yeah, I get it,
Yeah, I understand, I get it, you're right.
(34:24):
And he paused. And for 1/3 time, Chris, he said
no, no, no, listen to me. He said they don't understand.
And you try too hard to make himunderstand.
And he walked away. Right now that could be nothing
to most people, but I got back to the car in the car park that
(34:45):
day and I got into a car where my wife's very upset, you know,
she's in tears and she had to sit through people 5 metres away
yelling abuse at me, probably. Again, she probably had to sit
through it enough at that stage and she'd had enough.
The kids one of the daughters, one of my girls is crying and
she doesn't even know why the. Kids are following the mum or
(35:07):
dad. Probably, yeah, and there's
others too, but they're all theyknew that the oldest was sitting
there and she's a bit rattled byit all anyway, So that hurts you
and you get home, you, you know,24 hours.
I have to move on because I've got to play another final the
next week. But that was a moment.
Anyway, I I I kind of stood on this.
They don't understand peace. And I stood on a couple of days
(35:30):
and I was just playing over and over my head fish.
They don't understand. They don't understand.
And you try too hard to make them understand.
These words are starting to resonate with me.
So got a Long story short. I, I decided there and then that
I would stop being that person. I'd stop being that being that
person that tries to bring everyone on the journey with me,
(35:50):
which I had done since I was a kid.
Kicking lots of goals, getting knee injuries, explaining what
my how my knees going, explaining how the bomb is going
to go, justifying my form. I'd done it for so long and it
was a wait. It was now wait.
And I just made a real decision then, which was life changing
for me, Chris, that I would stoptrying to commentate my life to
(36:10):
people, trying to help them understand what my decisions
are, justify myself. I was so liberating and I, you
can beat this out, but I wrote 3words on a bit of paper and I
carried them with me everywhere I went for the rest of my 40
career, which is only five years, six years after that.
But they were liberating. I could have written any words I
wanted, but I wrote fuck them all.
(36:33):
And I know it sounds really, it may sound different to a lot of
people listening to this podcast, but for me, it just
meant or just a simple reminder that this is not their journey.
This is mine and I can't carry them with me.
It was about focusing on myself,coming back to what we're
speaking about really early on our conversation that folks will
(36:56):
get myself right and that will bring people with me again, that
that will that will do what it needs to do.
And I focus on myself physicallyand mentally got myself right.
And, and I, I became, I got the selfish piece right.
I got the ruthless bit right. A lot of people see those words
(37:16):
as bad words. I see them as beautiful words.
They are beautiful words. We don't use enough.
You get selfish with your life sometimes It's only a good thing
in the right way. You know, you know, you need to
work on yourself. You need, need time for
yourself. You need to do something that's
going to improve you. Be selfish, get it done.
It's a good thing and you have to be ruthless sometimes to
(37:38):
achieve it to get that outcome. You need to be ruthless with
your focus. OK, I, I stood out to do it.
I'm going to achieve it and it doesn't.
They did great words and when applied properly, they're
healthy words and I and I love those words because they changed
my life and made me a better. I'd like to think they made me a
better husband and father and and businessman anyway, because
(38:01):
I still, I still lean into it today.
Yeah. And you mentioned there's along
the lines of progress forward did a podcast last, well
actually yesterday about with Jade Bartholomew.
He's a young hockey player in Brisbane who whose dad actually
played one game for the Wallabies, but she she plays for
(38:23):
Queensland in hockey. And she started this thing
called the 1% active wear on thebasis of getting yourself 1%
better and more improvement. Are you, were you a sort of a
small incremental improver in your life or were you like a
giant leap going, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do
this or I'm not going to drink for a year or something?
Look on, I think, I think there's incremental improvement
(38:45):
in everyone. I think that's just a given.
When you play sport, you, you can't strive for a quantum leap
of 10% improvement in a certain skill set because this just
doesn't happen like that. You'll come to the table with
the talent for the sport you play.
And then it's incremental from there on.
You know what, I, I got into a, you know, the club and I, I was
(39:07):
skinny and tall and she's wantedme to build a body.
So, you know, a gymnasium is allabout incremental.
But then and, and I, I didn't enjoy it.
He wanted me to fall in love with going to the gym and, you
know, so he made me do it beforetraining and while my teammates
were out there, we're using footies on pushing weights.
And then I fell in love with it and I bought a gym.
(39:28):
So, you know, I took it literal.And then I really, I really
enjoyed later in my career as a as an old gnarly ruckman in my
30s, I enjoyed incremental improvement a lot.
Because when you get to your 30s, I think a part of that is
how you reinvent yourself each, each season.
And as a ruckman, you know, you might get shorter, but you don't
(39:51):
get more athletic, you don't getquicker.
So you look at, you know, well, where am I going to, What's my,
you know, reinvention for the next season?
So you get stronger, you're trying to get more endurance
into you. You try and get more explosive.
And I love, I love that sort of reinvention piece as an athlete
as I got older. So, yeah, I think that's good.
Yeah. I think the faction the 1% is,
is healthy, but always sort of picturing where you'd like to
(40:15):
be, what the end result that 1% looks like is.
It's a it's really healthy. Do you do, do you are you sit
down every sort of January and do the the goals, etcetera or is
there is there fire? Is there no Is there big hairy
audacious goals or is there justrun with the fly?
Well, you've got your day to daygoals, so you break it down and
then you know what do I need to when I sit down tonight at the
(40:38):
end of the day, did I achieve what I see out to achieve today?
Then you've got your grandiose vision goals.
So they're the things, they're the, the big puppies, the dreams
that you know, This is why I'm doing what I'm doing.
If if I'm going to get there, this is what I need to do.
So yeah, there's a small achievable stuff, the bite size
stuff day to day. And then, you know, the, the big
(40:58):
vision. I don't see myself as a person
that needs to write down my goals.
My goals are in front of me every time I get in front of the
laptop, they're in every in my notebooks, they're in my head.
I I never lose sight of what my goals are.
So but there's some people will need to write them down.
It's healthy and it's productive.
But I think, you know, for me now it's just for me to be
connected to them being a, you know, my goals are a part of my
(41:23):
my very being. They're not contrived.
They're just who I am. And yeah, so I still love it.
I still love. I think it's the athlete in me
that, but you know, goals are just important part of who I am.
So and people who want to use your team, the people around
you, your investors, whoever they might be, they want to know
you've got these goals and that you're focused on them and that
(41:45):
you're the sort of individual that can realise them.
So yeah, I can't. I can't escape them, that's for
sure. You mentioned healthy and you
mentioned writing there. You've written a couple of
books. Where did where did that come
from in terms of the idea and the concept, and how did it all
go in the end? Look, I, I, well, I have written
books. They're not, they're not self
help books. I don't anyone listening to this
(42:06):
thing that they're around, they're going to improve your
life. Or when I retired, like a lot of
athletes get invited by publishers to write, you know,
autobiography. So I did write an autobiography.
I think athletes should be banned from writing
autobiographies until five yearsafter they've left the sport.
I think you get a much better, you get a much better story five
years later because a year, you know, the year after you've
(42:29):
played, you're still protecting relationships.
You're still not clear on why things happened and how they
happened. It's all a bit hazy.
It was for me at least. I wish I'd written My
Autobiography a few years later.But to a publisher, you can't do
it because you're not relevant five years later or you're not
as relevant. So they need you to do it soon
after you retire. I get that.
And then they contracted me two,two books and I did a anecdotal,
(42:52):
funny, humorous stories from a life in football.
And that one sold really well. So I asked me to do another one.
So yeah, three books, but they're all pretty inane, you
know, chuckle books. So but I'm glad I did them.
You know, I the first book was heavily ghosted by book three.
I'm writing most of myself and it probably shows, but it was it
was a fun process. If you had to feel 100% where,
(43:17):
where would your seriousness andfun be in you?
Would it be 50% serious, 50% fun, or where's the curve going?
Interesting, interesting question.
I've never really tried to breakit down into a, into a
percentage. I by nature, I'm, I'm the I like
to engage, I like to have fun. I love to laugh.
(43:39):
I, there's a, you know, there's a performer element to me.
So I, I do like to, you know, engage with people and audiences
in a way that is, you know, thathelp makes them feel comfortable
with me. I want to be that person that
anyone who doesn't know me can walk up to and go get a fish.
I never want to be a person thatcomes across as distant or
(44:01):
aloof. So I'd like to think the.
Fun the fun. I probably think, I think the
fun wins. I think if you want to just
break it into fun and serious, but I can, yeah, I have a very,
very capable of being serious. And because they're a many times
in life where you have to be so.But I think, yeah, I'm just at
personal. I want to enjoy life.
We get I don't get too profound.Maybe we get one shot at this,
(44:24):
you know, You know, we're very the mortality is a real thing
and we're going to die. I don't.
It's just, well, we don't know how, we don't know when.
And I refuse to lose perspectiveon that.
So, yeah, smiling and laughing and bringing some level of joy
to other people's lives is as much as your own is, is cool.
(44:46):
Yeah. So that's that's kind of where I
sit on it. It's it's it's there to be
lived. And everyday, you know, people
say to me, how you feeling fish or, you know, how's it going?
I go, oh, this was a question you get asked a lot in life,
something like that. And I thought, you know, well,
just feel like feel grateful forthe opportunity, you know,
(45:08):
grateful for the opportunity. I get to wait.
You know, every time I open my eyes, I I feel, wow, great.
I get another crack, yes. So when I when I wake up in the
morning, it's just really simplefor me.
I've been gifted another shot atgetting today right.
And you know, I've had a, you know, the path of my life where
I was terrible at it. You know, I didn't get my days
right and I wasn't the person I wanted to be, whether it be
(45:31):
father, husband or, you know, worker or, or, or teammates.
So just make sure you try and get better at that as you as you
get on, you know, you just have to get better at that, that
understanding that waking up is a privilege.
So here we go. Maybe you should add the the
fuck them all. You should add you only live
once, right? There's, there's 4 words and
(45:52):
three words there. There's like you can, you know,
pretty powerful, right? Yeah, well, you're funny.
I don't know if it's because you're the older you get.
You just kind of simplify thingsa lot.
You know, it's life isn't that complicated.
It shouldn't be that complicated.
And yeah, I'm in love with it. And I'm very lucky, you know, to
have the Wi-Fi I have and the family I've got.
(46:14):
And I'm having grandkids, got grandkids now.
And so, yeah, my perspective is where it should be and I'm very
grateful. Fabulous.
I've got two more questions. One is the scoreboard moment,
which we may have already touched on, a moment in your
life which is very, very vivid. But from that moment on, things
changed for the better. Hopefully.
I'm going to ask you about that moment first before we get to
(46:36):
the second one. Well, I think undoubtedly, well,
I did touch. Now it has to be that knee
injury. When I was a kid, 19, there was
no the, the, the, the young man that in the seconds before that
had no idea about how much he was going to change and how much
what the next few seconds of hislife is going to do to impact
the rest of his life. So yeah, that was it undoubtedly
(46:58):
that that was a a turning point for me.
And the the question which I I love asking because I get so
many varied answers, is your favourite all time sporting
moment. Ah, OK.
Well, from a personal level, I played in two premierships with
Essendon and so probably the second one, the first one was I
(47:21):
was going to be back from my knee injury and it was the first
time. Is that right?
Yeah. And I just got to the line.
No, no, it wasn't right. And it was a great day and we
won easily. It was 1993 premiership when I
was vice captain of the club andwe were a young team and we, you
know, we surprised everyone was a really profound day.
(47:41):
And I reflect on that, you know,in a beautiful way and sporting
event. I I kind of watching TV,
watching Kathy Freeman win that 400 metres.
Well, it's, it's such a good moment.
Jim Wilson from Channel 7 calledit as well and said, you know,
(48:01):
alongside that beautiful moment with Mcevany commentating,
everything was just perfect. And and the way that that her
body language and it just you could read picture told 1000
words and turn to what she was feeling and what the nation was
feeling. Yeah, I think it was symbolic
for Australia at the time we were taking on the world's
biggest event that we'd pulled it off and and we had this young
(48:25):
Australian Indigenous girl with the weight of the nation on his
shoulder. The symbolism of it was amazing
and I so it's inescapable. I said I'm not sure about anyone
else, but I certainly pictured myself on that onesie.
I thought if I could see myself doing a 400 and that onesie one
day with the hood, I think that'd go over real well with
some of the teammate. But in all seriously, that was a
(48:46):
great one. But I've also, you know, had
some personal moments going to some some sort of NBL games and
EPL games with the great momentswhere you get to see other
sports at the very top and huge,huge experiences.
But I think, yeah, the Kathy Freeman one for anyone who.
One of the. Greats in the in the moment was
(49:07):
one of the greats. Chris.
Yeah. Now when you're at an NBL game,
do people go, oh, he, that guy there, He used to, he used to
be. Central for the.
Southeast Melbourne Spectres or whatever is that?
What did you get a little bit of?
That no, not in Australia, the NBL, but and I went to an NBA
game once and I kind of everyone, you know, so ho hummed
there. But yeah, I signed.
(49:28):
A few autographs of some random people.
Do you know what I was in oh, in1987.
I'm going back a long way, but we played a, when I say we DS
and the footy club played a, an exhibition match in Tokyo in
Japan and we're playing Hawthornfooty club and I, we had a
couple of days before the game and a few of us decided we'd go
(49:49):
to Tokyo Disneyland. And I'm standing there with a
teammate of mine. His name is Greg Anderson and
Greg had long blonde hair, big mullet and a spectacular mullet.
And I'm 6 foot 9 and we're and I'm at that size a month away
from having my first child or mywife was.
And and we I'm sure do we know it was going to be a good.
(50:10):
Yeah, we did know it was going to be a girl.
Anyway, I'm standing in the front at the front window of a
toy shop and I'm looking at these soft toys to take home
from my soon to be delivered daughter.
And I'm going to tap on the backof my leg and it's this little
Japanese kid. And he goes, oh, you'll sign,
You'll sign. And he gave me a book and a pen.
And I, he has no idea who I am, but he assumed I was somebody
(50:32):
right because I was tall. So I signed a name and I, I feel
cheeky. I don't feel good about it.
But I signed Larry Bird, who wasa big name in NBA at the time.
And he's taken it back to his dad.
And he, dad looked at the signature and he looked at me.
And dad obviously could speak a bit of English.
He wasn't sure. But he goes Larry Bird.
(50:54):
And anyway, before I knew it, and I'm not going to lie to you,
it was very funny. I had about 30 people lined up
for autographs and, and even Greg was signing autographs.
So when you talk about people thinking you're a basketball, I
had a bit of fun with it that day.
And and then I look up in about 50 metres for 30 metres away,
there's, there's Mickey Mouse. He's got his arms crossed and
(51:16):
he's tapping his toes on the ground and says go, what's going
on? People should be around me.
But here I am signing an autograph.
Murray Bird from Mel. Larry Bird So that was a funny
moment where I had a bit of fun with.
Mickey wasn't happy with you. Mickey wasn't happy you.
Paul Salmon. Thank you so much for being on
school board today and telling afew yarns and having a bit of an
(51:38):
insight into your life off the field and on the field as well.
I really do appreciate you taking the time out and looking
forward to following your progress in the business.
Looking forward to helping whereI can and and obviously looking
forward for Scoreboard to support it where we where
possible. Thanks again.
Thank you so much mate, I enjoyed it very much.
Take care.
From the arena to the front office, this is Scoreboard.
I'm Chris Tipley, and each episode brings you stories from
the game of sport, where mindset, money and meaning shape
what comes next. Athletes, coaches, owners and
business leaders unpack the moments that matter, because the
Scoreboard isn't just about winning.
It's about life beyond the game.Now let's get to this week's
(00:23):
episode. Hi, it's Chris Titley here and
on today's episode of School Board, the podcast I'm drawn by
Paul Salmon. Paul, thank you so much for
being part of the series. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure,
Chris. I've been looking forward.
To it Paul, we're sitting here on the 12th of June, Thursday.
What's how's your week been mate?
What's what's been going on in the world of Paul Salmon?
Oh gosh, you're right on top of me.
(00:45):
Lots, lots on. I'm flying out to meet my wife
who's in New Zealand at a conference and we're going to
head to Queenstown for a, a few days.
Yeah, somewhere we've heard so many great things about but
never been to. So I'm very much looking forward
to doing that in the coming hours.
And the weeks has been overwhelmed with some exciting
(01:07):
things that are happening in my little world around work.
And, and if you want to get really granular, really micro
here, Chris, I'm actually, I'm spoiling myself today for lunch
because I'm, I'm catching up with my two daughters and some
grandchildren have a cafe beforeI fly out.
So that's kind of giving me a little bit excited and happy
today. Do you think when you travel the
(01:29):
the some of the most exciting parts of before, they're just
the anticipation of going somewhere you've never gone
before? Yeah, I think you're right.
And I, it's kind of like a movie.
You, you, you could you have people go, you gotta go see this
movie. It's the best thing.
It's great. And you gotta shoot and you go,
oh, it's a bit underwhelming 'cause you've, you've, you've
lifted your expectations to a point where the movie can't
(01:49):
even, you know, you know, it's not fair on the movie.
And travelling can be like that if you take too much advice, you
know, because you know, it's a very unique, it's a unique to
you experience. And we're expecting great things
of Queenstown. So my, my expectations are it's
going to be, it's going to blow me away.
And I'm, and I have no doubt it will, but you know, I've got to
(02:10):
be careful that I go in there and, and ask too much of it.
So yeah, yeah, it is that anticipation piece.
And, and I've been very fortunate with my wife, Joe and
I that we've had some great experiences and some things we
love, you know, others might not.
So we gotta be. We're careful when we're
recommending stuff, that's for sure.
And mate, at 6 foot 9, do you get a, do you get a nice seat in
(02:32):
the plane or are you a little bit cramped?
Well, I do. I I gotta tell.
I gotta tell you, it can be expensive being tall.
Not only do you have to get clothes made and lots of stuff,
which there's a premium for and things like that, but when you
fly, you if you can't, if you can't fly business class, which
I try to as much as I can. So I'll limit my travel as much
(02:52):
as I can. I'll, I'll try and grab an exit
row. But here's the thing, Chris, and
I've got a little that bugs me about this because the airlines
and, and they're a business and I, I get it.
They started charging for exit row seats.
So you pay an extra for the extra leg room, but they're
charging people like me. You have no other choice.
Yes, yes. Like I actually don't fit in an
(03:13):
economy seat. I just don't fit.
So now they're charging me for being born tall.
And I just think that's, that's inherently wrong.
I just want to have a soapbox moment and say come on airlines,
you can do better. What's the?
What's the? What's the threshold?
You can 6-7 and eight or something like that, you reckon?
Yeah, I think 200 centimetres isa pretty good.
There you go. That's a good round Number.
Yeah, 200. If you're 200 N of 200
(03:36):
centimetres, you. Get a free exit race.
Well, you should, I don't think,because you've got no choice but
to sit there. So it's like, you know, we don't
want to start charging, you know, I'm, I'm not drawing any.
I don't want to draw any comparisons.
I'll get that trouble. But yeah, I, I've got no choice
on that, on this tall, you know,I don't get bogged on in that.
That's just a fun little, you know, life's life's not fair
kind of story, do you? I'm good.
(03:58):
I'm good with it, mate. I'm I'm living.
I'm I'm happy. Yeah, that's right.
You probably stay above the line, stay positive.
Do you get on the first world problem, First world problem.
Do you tall well problem? Do you get a you get on the
plane and do you start you get your laptop out and start doing
some work or you just literally switch off and watch a movie and
grab a Chardonnay? I'm a bit old school.
I don't do the laptop on the aeroplane.
(04:19):
If I put a pen and a notepad in my in the pocket of the seat in
front of me And if I have thoughts or ideas, because my
head's always bouncing and trying to innovate and create
and so forth and improve what I'm doing.
So I'll take notes. And if I'm not taking notes, I'm
reading news. I might be watching the news or
(04:40):
depending on the on the length of the flight, but I do like to
switch off where I can. There are opportunities just to
be with yourself and be present.And, you know, I think it's only
beneficial to what you're doing outside of that moment, you
know, in terms of your relationships and your work that
you do spend some time with yourself.
So sometimes it's a good opportunity opportunity to do
(05:02):
that. Yeah, no, on an aeroplane it is
actually. I'll write some notes down on my
notepad on not my notepad, my notes on my phone.
Not, not a not a physical. I'm a, I'm a sort of a half half
of millennial, half of Gen Y 4344.
But yeah, it's, it's kind of good.
You don't get too many moments to yourself, but your flying is
one of them sometimes if you're flying by.
Yourself. Yeah.
(05:22):
I had a coach for most of my football career, Kevin Sheedy,
who's, you know, it should be, should be referred to as an icon
of a strange sport, 27 years coach of this and and an amazing
record. You quite Bellamy type from a
rugby league perspective. Anyway, the point is that shades
used to say that the most important time is own time.
(05:45):
And I always thought that was rather profound because it's
kind of that precursor to working on yourself to be, you
know, to make sure that you're in a good place, because if
you're in a good place, you know, the people around you and
important to you in life will benefit from that.
But, you know, get yourself right before you get others, try
and fix others and, and impact others.
(06:06):
And I find that that's resonatedwith me And, and I always take
the opportunity to have a littlebit of own time to, you know, to
recalibrate where I'm at and, you know, set the course or
reset the course. So I've always thought that was
a nice sort of point for life. Yeah, absolutely.
Now your business interest intertwines a little bit into
(06:26):
into that. Can we talk about what you've
done after after footy? Yeah, well, I've always, I had a
turning point in my life back when I was 19.
I was, I, I hit the, I introduced myself to the
football world in a, in a prettyprofound way in terms of kicking
goals and people getting excited.
And I was excited. And then the game can be pretty
(06:47):
cruel. Any game for that matter can be
pretty cruel and I busted my knee and ended up having a full
knee reconstruction at 19 back in the 80s when they weren't
giving any guarantees about coming back to play.
So as I like to refer to it in retrospect, it was a gift of
perspective for me. I realised I couldn't trust
football anymore. It couldn't be the only thing in
(07:07):
my life as it was at 19. So spread my wings a bit.
Bought my first open my first business.
I bought a health club. So from that point forward, I,
I've always been interested in startups and business and
creating, innovating. And so I've built 8.
And today I, I'm really excited to say that developed some
(07:30):
technology around improving connection between to self, to
place to others. So I'm specialising in this
sentiment analysis tech space and we're applying that in the
workplace. So helping companies better
understand the emotional pulse of their workforce, helping
employees feel like they're better connected to leadership.
So how they feel is actually informing decision making, it's,
(07:52):
you know, rewarding them. And so we're looking at having
some fun with that. I did a launch of a version of
this with the South Australian government for the IFL Gather
round in April where we, you know, looking at how we do it at
population level, how we connectpeople who are enjoying this,
the cities and love their citiesand want to be more connected to
(08:13):
their cities. And how we use sentiment to
drive, you know, commercial value back to them.
So open the city up to them in real time and make it more of a
playground and make sure how they feel is being, you know,
being recognised at City Hall and and it gives businesses a
chance to capture audiences in real time.
And because people feel like their voice, it matters how they
(08:34):
feel matters. So trying to really move this
sentiment out of mental health, well away from that and into a
really more empowering performance, productivity kind
of well being space that hopefully just shift total
inverted approach to it, but hopefully shift the conversation
that how we feel is not all about, you know, doom and gloom.
(08:55):
It's it's actually can be reallypowerful.
It impacts everything we do, every decision we make.
And I wanna play it in that space.
So apologies for the waffle, butthat's where I'm playing now.
I'm, I'm loving it. See some really cool
opportunities for it. Speaking to governments about
and cities about how we can implement it for, for
populations, for visitors, for students, for, you know,
(09:18):
obviously residents and locals and workers.
So there's lots of these cohortsthat can really that love their
cities, interact with their cities and, and the surrounding
ecosystems that could, will really benefit from having an
anonymous voice, but nonethelessa voice to the highest levels
of, of, of, you know, the corridors of power.
(09:39):
So here we are. That was a bit of a long winded
version of where I'm at playing in tech.
But health, emotional health, physical health is a real
important playground for me, butnot just in business, but in
life. And that, that's, that's where
my passion currently sits, mate.There's a lot of inputs into a
feeling and, and in whether you wake up and you're feeling tired
(10:04):
or you, you wake, you do some exercise and you're feeling
better and you do some breathing, you're feeling
better, etcetera. What sort of, I suppose how, how
are you looking at that in termsof nudging the the inputs into
making someone feel better or someone feel more connected?
Well, we're not. Yeah, it's connected piece.
We're not trying to make anyone make anyone do anything.
It's a very voluntary process or, or feel better, but it's
(10:26):
about, it's more in the, in the lane of how you're responding to
your experience, not how you're necessarily how you're feeling
when you wake up. So if you, you know, if you've
been to the gym and you want to,you know, say that's how that's
made you feel, that's great. You'll earn points and you'll
get rewarded. All sorts of cool things sit
around that. But we'd love to know if you're,
you know, when you go to the city, how you felt about that
Cafe or that, you know, that that show you went to or that
(10:49):
outdoor kind of installation that you experienced.
And so we can the city can startto get a sense of the vibe of
the city, what's working, what'snot, where in the city is, is
vibing well and where it needs some support and, and where they
can actually respond positively to it.
So we're actually asking people to use how they feel to activate
and to heighten engagement and to increase, you know, to
(11:12):
improve their experience. It's really not in that, you
know, mental well being space, but what invariably is happening
is the more we can get people toidentify how they feel and
understand that how they feel doesn't last, but it will
they'll move through that and move on.
The better the more the more skilled and the more comfortable
people will get with understanding their mood States
(11:33):
and, and, and that they are, there's a flow to them that they
don't last. And hopefully, you know, like
going to the gym, we're giving them opportunities to build that
skill. Like they'll build a muscle in
the gym, they'll build and but it don't we don't want to sort
of get bogged down in that part of what we want to get bogged
down and just how that how they feel can actually Dr improved
(11:55):
experiences. It can drive and help shape the
cities and help shape outcomes. And that's really powerful to
me. That's I like to think of it as
a superpower that we have that we've never really leveraged
properly. No, that's interesting.
Well, because how you feel is going to impact how how you
perform today. What you do, I mean, how you
(12:15):
feel now is going to, you know, do I really feel, do I really
want to, you know, do this interview?
Do I really want to go out this afternoon?
Do I really want to do that project, write that report.
But so better understanding thatthat about yourself and it comes
back to connection with self andyou know, obviously, hopefully
the, the, the benefits of that amini not just from a personal
(12:41):
health perspective, but from a performance perspective and
productivity perspective. And so, yeah, it's a it's a
great playground. This this sentiment analysis
text space is pretty new. You know, we do a fair bit of
this in the AI space now where we can sort of better understand
tone through social media and you know, you can screen
websites, you can get a bit of a, a broad sweep that way.
But when you couple that with the subjective piece, which is
(13:05):
people actually inputting how they feel and getting all this,
you know, huge value from doing so that's that's the playground
that I'm looking to join together.
And we've got a lot of having a lot of really good conversations
there, Chris. So we'll see where it goes,
mate. But that's, that's, that's what
I'm doing this week. And it it it gets me up
motivated everyday. That's brilliant.
(13:25):
And you, you spoke of gather round which you know, from the,
from, from my point of view, living over in Brisbane looks
like an amazing success. The, the tickets sold out the,
the, the, the second time round for the Lions, Yeah.
And all these things etcetera. And from a city point of view,
obviously it's an investment from, from Adelaide and all the
various stakeholders etcetera. How do you reckon you would have
gone in the in in a in a gather round back in your day?
(13:50):
Or for a player, it's pretty easy.
You show up, you play, you know,you know, where you're playing
and the venues is just another part of the mental preparation.
Yeah. But look, I think from a
perspective I think it would have been fun.
You know, it's a carnival kind of atmosphere.
It's obviously, you know, NRL, you know, it took state of
(14:11):
origin from the NFL concept and have done amazing things with
it. We've taken your magic ground
and try and create a gather round.
And I think it's great how the, the, these codes all were rather
competitive in terms of the sporting landscape in Australia
can actually, you know, I suppose, leverage each other and
to, to, to grow their games. And, and so they help, you know,
(14:31):
comes back to competition being healthy.
But no, personally, I, you know,I, I was able to play in some
carnivals when I was playing back in the 80s, nineties, early
2000s, And it was, you know, state, county, the state of
Oregon, carnivals, carnivals we used to do.
And they are incredibly, they'reincredibly competitive, lots of
fun, gather around as a player would have been awesome.
You know, it's one of those, oneof those environments where you
(14:54):
go, Gee, I wish I was playing. I don't have many of those
moments nowadays, but Adelaide do it so well.
And you know, it's credit to them.
You, you mentioned also that youhad an ACL and there seems to be
like an ACL epidemic going on atthe moment in, in AFL.
I suppose when you see someone do an ACL, you think, oh, I've
been there and that's not a goodplace to be.
But in hindsight, it was a a bitof a blessing, a bit of a
(15:16):
turning point for you. Yeah, career wise it was, I
mean, I, as I said, it's up to you how you choose to reflect on
things in life. I mean, I could rather reflect
on it and go, you know, it changed me and I was never the
same player or I can reflect on it and go it, it, it gifted me,
as I said earlier, perspective. I now know that I can't trust
this game. And you know, I get having a new
(15:39):
reconstruction and I had lateralligament rupture and other
things too in the 80s. It's very different to having
one now. Having one now, they'll come
back, they'll play again. There's still no guarantees that
the level they'll play or but having it in the mid 80s, it
was, you know, it was a potentially a career ending
experience back then. So yeah, but life changing.
(16:00):
I mean, if I, if I break it downChris, into a life changing
experience. As I said earlier, I had within
six months of the knee, I boughta business.
Within 18 months I was married. Within two years I had had my
first child. So.
And if I hadn't have done the knee, I don't know, was that a
sliding doors moment for me? Maybe it was.
I woke up, there was more to life.
(16:21):
I didn't want to lie too much onfootball to feed me to, to be
everything that defined me. So yeah, it was a turning point
and I and I'm so happy I had my knee.
Now I'm not reflecting on like that.
I go thank you. Whatever forces were at play
that gave me that knee operationand nearly ended my footy
career. I'm I'm grateful because now I,
(16:43):
I know that I, with the benefit of hindsight, I, I did play
another 19 seasons. I played 300 games after that
knee and retired at 37, a very fulfilled athlete, not really
anything I really needed to or wanted to achieve more out of
the game. And at 37 I had three teenage
children and and yeah, happy life outside of footy.
(17:06):
So yeah, very in a, in a kind ofwarped kind of, you know, crazy
way. I I feel blessed.
Do you, do you miss someone saying how's your knee mate?
No, I don't. No, I don't, not at all.
It's funny. I, I tell a, a quick anecdote
about that because I, when I bought this health club and
I'll, I'll keep this quick, as quick as I can.
(17:28):
I'd open the gym at 6:00 AM and they'd, and this to say, Bill
was standing there and Bill would go, hey, Paul, how's the
knee? Because it was a great
connection point for Bill. Like I'd go, you know, yeah,
good Bill. I'd just give him an answer
about how it's tracking well andthen he'd go, how are the
Bombers going to go this week? And I'd give him an answer on
how the bombers are going to go this week.
And there were two questions. But what Bill didn't realise was
(17:52):
he was the first of many that day.
They're going to ask me those two questions.
And because I was running a business and I was fresh at 6:00
AM so I could give Bill a lot oflove.
When Ralph came in at 9:45 at night, 9:30 at night, he wanted
to know how the knee was and howthe bombers were going to go
that week. And what Ralph didn't know that
I've been at the gym all day and300 people had come through and
(18:13):
120 of those people would ask methose two questions.
So, and, and I'm not, I'm not joking, this is what I had to do
every day. So was go to work knowing that
over 100 or more times I might get asked those two questions.
And it was a, as a huge burden. But I also as A at a young age
realise from a business perspective it's not fair on
(18:37):
Ralph to be dismissive at 9:30 at night.
He doesn't. He just thinks he's the only guy
that dated after Yes of. Course he wanted to give him
respect, Yeah. Yeah.
So I've got to give him, Yeah, I've got to give him some energy
and make sure that he got the bill treatment, the 6:00 AM
treatment. So yeah, I kind of learned from
a customer engagement perspective that, you know, you
can't let Ralph pay a price for the fact that I'm I'm drained,
(19:00):
I'm washed up and washed out. You know, it's been a heavy day
in terms of answering. Yeah.
So it's funny when you when you,it's quite triggering when you
say, how's the knee? It was played a huge part in my
life for so many years that I'm sort of so relaxed, so happy now
that I don't have to deal with it.
What's the what's the one question that people ask you
now? What's the weather like up
(19:20):
there? Right.
OK. It's the height, yes.
Yes, well, it's kind of that mundane thing, you know, Wow,
your tall it's. Wow, your tall.
Oh wow, it's your tall. Well, you kind of do do.
They say, oh, there's a basketballer over there.
Yeah, I get, I get that, particularly when I'm
travelling, people think you, you know, they just jump to
conclusions about the sport you should have played because
you're you're tall and stuff. But you know, you know, when
(19:44):
people, I get things like, oh, well, yeah, well, you're short.
Like if people want to be smart,cute about it and clever.
Yeah. Well, you know, you and I would
call them so. And I, you come up with retorts
as you go just to entertain yourself.
So someone says to me, oh, well,you're short.
I go, oh, get a Shorty. I I say, get a handsome, you
(20:05):
know? Yep.
So they say, you know, implying they're implying they're ugly.
You know, it's the opposite. So so they say, well, you're
short. I say, well, you're handsome.
Anyway, that's my life. I love it.
I'm, I'm, I love, you know? Yeah, obviously I love meeting
people and having chats, but theheight thing is still a big part
of my day to day. And and Paul Salmon, the
(20:28):
identity of the person now connected to AFL, you know, AFL
Hall of Fame football, football,football.
How do you find that? Are you sometimes just wanted to
break it out and say, look, I was a great, you know, I was a
good AFL player, but I'm also someone else.
I'm also a father. I'm also a business owner.
Yeah, this is an issue nowadays people identify with you because
(20:51):
of their experience with you. So if they're football fans,
then football is going to be their go to.
And I'm, I'm not in denial. I about my footy career.
I'm I'm proud of it. And as I said earlier, I've
retired very fulfilled. So I'm not a disgruntled or, you
know, tainted athlete who's, youknow, retired with trauma.
(21:12):
I'm one of the lucky ones, I suppose.
So, you know, people can talk footy, family, anything to me.
I'm I'm more than happy. I, I, I, I'd like to think that
I identified who I was a long time ago or, or how I wanted to
identify myself. So, you know, in terms of the
husband I wanted to be the dad Iwanted to be the businessman I
(21:35):
wanted to try and be. So you can compartmentalise, but
at the, at the end of the day, there's got to be some
consistency around who you are as a person.
So you're not trying to, you know, fool anyone or yourself
that that that's how you roll. And so, yeah, I think I'm in
that. I know I'm in that place at my
age now I'm I'm it easy with whoI am.
(21:55):
I know what I bring to the table.
I know what I can't bring to thetable and what I can't bring to
the table. Sport has helped me enormously
understand that there's no more important thing than team and
complementing yourself with people around you that, you
know, add, add value to your life and to what you're trying
to deliver to the world. Yeah.
(22:16):
Did you have fun playing footy? Sometimes yeah, I did.
I think they went in it went in kind of phases for one of the
better word or term it I I had so much fun playing as a kid, as
we all do. And then, you know, I went out
to Essen and footy club at 15 toplay in the under nineteens as a
(22:37):
16 year old. And but I was playing, I was, I
was now playing and training with adults from the age of 15.
And then it got, you know, it gets serious and then you start
to play and then you start to play well and then expectations.
And then it becomes less enjoyable because you start to
try and understand what this is all about and why isn't it fun
anymore And it's getting serious.
(22:58):
And then then you have success as a team and you win
premierships and, and which I was very lucky to do.
And that's so much fun and the dynamic and the chemistry you
have with that, those teams are fun.
And then you're sort of not performing personally or the
team and it's not so much fun. So it goes in phase.
And so you just got to be able to manage that ride because it
can be a pretty brutal ride at times.
(23:19):
And you know, and careers are rendered on on the footy field
in terms of injury or performance.
But the locker room, if you're going to survive in sport, the
locker rooms are really, really important place to be able to
navigate. And you've got lots of different
personalities in there. Everyone's trying to, you know,
be their best. You're not going to be best
(23:40):
friends with everyone in the locker room, but you're all
trying to get the best out of one another.
It's really. And so look, so careers are lost
in the locker room too. So yeah, I enjoyed and then I
got, I wasn't enjoying it. I, I wasn't blaming the game at
all. But at 31, I left Essendon to go
to Hawthorn and I'd, I'd fallen out of love with the game.
(24:00):
I, I thought that's what it was.I wasn't performing.
My body was letting me down. And then I just, you know,
Hawthorn footy club and I would need to get into a place and
mentally and physically that I could, you know, present myself
really well as a footballer and as a person.
And I promised myself that everytime I got to the end of the the
(24:23):
race before we took the field, that I would smile, whether it
was forced or otherwise. Just the act of smiling before I
took the field reconnected me with why I played the game in a
really simple way. I just, yeah, I'm, I'm meant to
be here. I'm happy to be here.
And it was kind of just symbolicfor me personally that now you
(24:46):
see it quite a, you know, you see, this is back in 96.
So you see it quite a bit nowadays, players coming up the
race and they're smiling. And it does make me happy to see
that because there was an era, there was a period in our
professional sport when it was learning to be professional and
we weren't so self aware. There wasn't the support
(25:07):
networks within clubs like welfare offices and all that
sort of stuff to help players ontheir journey.
But it was serious, it was hard and it was, it was pretty, it
was pretty brutal. So for me, smiling, reminding
myself that, you know, it's where I'm meant to be, it's
where I want to be was really important.
You went through two phase changes, well many phase changes
(25:28):
obviously from clubs point of view, but from a amateur
professional era, from AVFL to AFL era, do you want to talk
about that, whether things changed for you and the the
smile, happiness and the seriousness of it all?
Well, yeah, we we all would. I mean, you get arguments about
this from players of different areas, but the reality was when
I started, when I first went to S in 1991, played my first AFL
(25:51):
game in or VFL game in 83, we'reall working day.
I was working in the bank and they'll go and shine at night.
And then Fast forward into the early 90s and now there's semi
professionalism. There's a mixture of part time
workers and, you know, full timeworkers like me.
I was running businesses and still playing.
So I was a throwback. And the national competition was
(26:12):
introduced in 1997. So now we're we're playing in
SA, WA and you know, Sydney was already in the in the
competition at as as a relocatedclub.
So, and it was late 80s at Brisbane was incorporated or
the, you know, the Brisbane Bears at the time.
So there's a lot happening, new clubs being introduced, travel
(26:35):
being introduced. You know, we're travelling,
we're trialling and testing and trialling the best ways to
travel on the day, the day before.
So there was lots of disruption happening in our sport at the
time and living through that, living through the introduction
of draughts where players are now getting drafted from
anywhere. When I was introduced, clubs
could recruit players from anywhere.
(26:55):
They were geographical zones. So I lived in an area that
belonged to Essendon Football Club.
I had no choice where to play. Now there's, you know, pin the
tail of the donkey. Kids are getting drafted,
Victorian kids are going to playfooty in WA, Western Australian
kids are playing footy in Queensland.
So we yeah, I lived through all of that and now we're moving to
the late 90s and now it's full time professional or as best
(27:17):
they can make it. We're still teething this this
game, because no one really was yet trying to fully understand
what full time professionals aremeant.
Like the balance between, you know, time spent at the club as
opposed to time spent away from the club.
You know, they thought you had to fill back then, they thought
they had to fill time. So you've got to be at the club
a lot because to justify for full time professionalism, you
(27:38):
know, it's kind of like a a job.So we need to spend hours and
hours and we're there. We need to be doing stuff.
So we need more people to come into the ecosystem.
So, you know, we've got a now we've got a yoga extract.
Now we've got a psychologist. He wants, he wants this time and
and players were rebellion against a lot of it because it's
was so draining. It was so full on and to I
(28:00):
presume today, from what I can tell from the outside looking
in, they've got that balance right between time spent at club
away from club. So yeah, the mental game, yeah,
it's only a conversation, it's not a fact.
But the mental game as it was going through all that change
was was, and while still trying to adapt and perform was, it was
(28:21):
exciting. It was exciting, mate, I can
tell you now. But it was also really
challenging. It was fun.
I reflect on it really, you know, in a really romantic kind
of way, to be part of that change and to set the foundation
for what the game is today in a lot of ways.
And the games changed dramatically.
But yeah, to be part of that wasreally cool.
But embracing change became a norm for me.
(28:44):
It wasn't like, you know, oh gosh, you know, there's new
rules, there's new changes just been accepted.
You know, you've had the chance to have your input into it.
If it's implemented, then you change, you change with it.
You can't fight that system from, you know, in terms of you
can help shape it. But yeah, in sport it moves too
(29:04):
fast. You can't, you know, fighting.
It's just almost futile. Paul Salmon playing AFL in 2025
versus Paul Salmon playing in, you know, AFL in 1993.
Which year would you rather play?
Interesting. I think the romantic side of me
says the 80s and 90s were it waspure football opponent high
(29:26):
scores. Yeah, it wasn't sort of
overwhelmed with too much structure and and rules, whereas
today a bit off field was harder.
I think. I can't make a comparison.
I'm just saying it's hard because I see, you know, I, I
see coaches like Craig McRae, the head coach of Collingwood
footy club in the like, I I think there's I would love to
(29:46):
have played under him. He's got a level of empathy and
understanding with his players. It's a nurturing environment.
I think I would have responded well to a coach that I responded
well to Shades and my other coaches as well.
It's not a comparison. It's just like the game shifted
in that sense. So I wasn't a good fit for the
80s because I was maybe more of a sensitive guy football,
(30:09):
whereas and maybe they were and but you weren't allowed to
display that side of you becauseit was if you had any failings,
physical or emotional, you'd, it'd flush you out of the system
pretty quickly. You had to almost put on a
facade to survive. You know, in some ways, you
know, it was kind of that's how I felt at least.
And then but today you got a environments now where they
(30:29):
really do understand the individual, They they support
individual, a tailor for the individual and you know, your
interests outside of footy. So I don't know where what year
would have got the best out of me.
All I know is maybe a six foot 9athletic footballer would be
able to adapt, would be playing,I'd be playing today as well as
(30:50):
I was playing in that era in terms of not talking about
performance. But it's an interesting
question. I haven't been confronted with
that before, Chris. But yeah, I think I would thrive
today. I really do think I'd enjoy
today's football. I don't think I'd enjoy social
media. Right, yes, that goes with that,
with the with the potentially having having a a beer in the
(31:11):
pub getting snapped on a Wednesday night or something
like that, Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I, I gosh, I
mean, you adapt and I mean, obviously if you're social media
back in our day, then we would have probably adapted and not
being as not being as cavalier, but baggy, yeah, that's the
word. But yeah, dealing with judgement
from anybody and everybody wouldbe, would be difficult.
(31:32):
So I do feel for today's playerswho kind of, you know, drowning
and so, you know, they, they want to avail themselves of
social media, but they have to take the good with the bad.
So, you know, I don't think I'd enjoy that.
And how do you go with feedback?Did people sort of, you know,
come hard at you in some instances and you sort of step
back? Or are you more like a Oh I
understand, yes, I need to improve.
(31:55):
I'll come. I'm I'm happy to confront.
I'm A and when you say you're confrontational, doesn't mean
that, yeah, you want physical, you know, violence means that
you're happy to address situations.
I'm happy to be in a room with anyone, take feedback and give
it. I was wasn't good at that early
in my life for sure. You know, as I'm matured as an
athlete and a footballer, I got better at it.
(32:17):
In fact, nowadays it really frustrates me if someone's in
the same room as me and apologises for being honest or
doesn't, isn't, you know, as transparent, as honest as they
could be. I think feedback delivered
properly and sensitively to whoever has been is receiving it
is really important. So I know I love feedback.
(32:38):
Now I'm, I'm huge on it. I got, I'm one of those athletes
who had great moments in my career but also had tough
moments. So there was a, there was a game
the year before I left Essendon to go to Hawthorne and I got
booed off by 60,000 Essendon fans.
My own fans beat me off a footy field.
There was some reasons before I had, I'd had a backspasm before
(33:00):
the game. It was pretty nasty.
Kevin Sheedy and I agreed I wanted to do it.
He wanted to put me on the fieldand play and I was probably
shouldn't have. But he told me to stay in the
goal square, not move out of this goal square.
He wanted to track the ball along and I moved out of the
goal square and he took me off the field.
This was in the second quarter because you said that's what he
would do if I left the goal square, he'd take me off.
(33:21):
But you can imagine the fans watching me not leave the goal
square and get frustrated with that.
And I, I totally get it. I was frustrated too.
You know, I got booed off and itwas really tough.
I was running off the ground andif you see the stands, people on
their feet waving their fists and, you know, spit coming out
of their mouth because they're yelling at me so hard.
And all I could think of was that, hey, my mum and dad and my
(33:43):
kids are up there and my wife and that that was harder for me
than me receiving that moment asit was.
So when you talk about feedback,I've had plenty of it, good and
bad. And I was in the rooms after
that game and Kevin Sheeny sat down next to me.
He goes, how you feeling? I said, well, that was a rough
(34:04):
ride. I didn't go back on the field
that day. And my back tightened up too
much. And he goes, yeah, they don't
understand, mate. And I go, yeah, no, that you're
right. And he paused and he said it
again. He said no, they don't
understand. And I go, yeah, yeah, I get it,
Yeah, I understand, I get it, you're right.
(34:24):
And he paused. And for 1/3 time, Chris, he said
no, no, no, listen to me. He said they don't understand.
And you try too hard to make himunderstand.
And he walked away. Right now that could be nothing
to most people, but I got back to the car in the car park that
(34:45):
day and I got into a car where my wife's very upset, you know,
she's in tears and she had to sit through people 5 metres away
yelling abuse at me, probably. Again, she probably had to sit
through it enough at that stage and she'd had enough.
The kids one of the daughters, one of my girls is crying and
she doesn't even know why the. Kids are following the mum or
(35:07):
dad. Probably, yeah, and there's
others too, but they're all theyknew that the oldest was sitting
there and she's a bit rattled byit all anyway, So that hurts you
and you get home, you, you know,24 hours.
I have to move on because I've got to play another final the
next week. But that was a moment.
Anyway, I I I kind of stood on this.
They don't understand peace. And I stood on a couple of days
(35:30):
and I was just playing over and over my head fish.
They don't understand. They don't understand.
And you try too hard to make them understand.
These words are starting to resonate with me.
So got a Long story short. I, I decided there and then that
I would stop being that person. I'd stop being that being that
person that tries to bring everyone on the journey with me,
(35:50):
which I had done since I was a kid.
Kicking lots of goals, getting knee injuries, explaining what
my how my knees going, explaining how the bomb is going
to go, justifying my form. I'd done it for so long and it
was a wait. It was now wait.
And I just made a real decision then, which was life changing
for me, Chris, that I would stoptrying to commentate my life to
(36:10):
people, trying to help them understand what my decisions
are, justify myself. I was so liberating and I, you
can beat this out, but I wrote 3words on a bit of paper and I
carried them with me everywhere I went for the rest of my 40
career, which is only five years, six years after that.
But they were liberating. I could have written any words I
wanted, but I wrote fuck them all.
(36:33):
And I know it sounds really, it may sound different to a lot of
people listening to this podcast, but for me, it just
meant or just a simple reminder that this is not their journey.
This is mine and I can't carry them with me.
It was about focusing on myself,coming back to what we're
speaking about really early on our conversation that folks will
(36:56):
get myself right and that will bring people with me again, that
that will that will do what it needs to do.
And I focus on myself physicallyand mentally got myself right.
And, and I, I became, I got the selfish piece right.
I got the ruthless bit right. A lot of people see those words
(37:16):
as bad words. I see them as beautiful words.
They are beautiful words. We don't use enough.
You get selfish with your life sometimes It's only a good thing
in the right way. You know, you know, you need to
work on yourself. You need, need time for
yourself. You need to do something that's
going to improve you. Be selfish, get it done.
It's a good thing and you have to be ruthless sometimes to
(37:38):
achieve it to get that outcome. You need to be ruthless with
your focus. OK, I, I stood out to do it.
I'm going to achieve it and it doesn't.
They did great words and when applied properly, they're
healthy words and I and I love those words because they changed
my life and made me a better. I'd like to think they made me a
better husband and father and and businessman anyway, because
(38:01):
I still, I still lean into it today.
Yeah. And you mentioned there's along
the lines of progress forward did a podcast last, well
actually yesterday about with Jade Bartholomew.
He's a young hockey player in Brisbane who whose dad actually
played one game for the Wallabies, but she she plays for
(38:23):
Queensland in hockey. And she started this thing
called the 1% active wear on thebasis of getting yourself 1%
better and more improvement. Are you, were you a sort of a
small incremental improver in your life or were you like a
giant leap going, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do
this or I'm not going to drink for a year or something?
Look on, I think, I think there's incremental improvement
(38:45):
in everyone. I think that's just a given.
When you play sport, you, you can't strive for a quantum leap
of 10% improvement in a certain skill set because this just
doesn't happen like that. You'll come to the table with
the talent for the sport you play.
And then it's incremental from there on.
You know what, I, I got into a, you know, the club and I, I was
(39:07):
skinny and tall and she's wantedme to build a body.
So, you know, a gymnasium is allabout incremental.
But then and, and I, I didn't enjoy it.
He wanted me to fall in love with going to the gym and, you
know, so he made me do it beforetraining and while my teammates
were out there, we're using footies on pushing weights.
And then I fell in love with it and I bought a gym.
(39:28):
So, you know, I took it literal.And then I really, I really
enjoyed later in my career as a as an old gnarly ruckman in my
30s, I enjoyed incremental improvement a lot.
Because when you get to your 30s, I think a part of that is
how you reinvent yourself each, each season.
And as a ruckman, you know, you might get shorter, but you don't
(39:51):
get more athletic, you don't getquicker.
So you look at, you know, well, where am I going to, What's my,
you know, reinvention for the next season?
So you get stronger, you're trying to get more endurance
into you. You try and get more explosive.
And I love, I love that sort of reinvention piece as an athlete
as I got older. So, yeah, I think that's good.
Yeah. I think the faction the 1% is,
is healthy, but always sort of picturing where you'd like to
(40:15):
be, what the end result that 1% looks like is.
It's a it's really healthy. Do you do, do you are you sit
down every sort of January and do the the goals, etcetera or is
there is there fire? Is there no Is there big hairy
audacious goals or is there justrun with the fly?
Well, you've got your day to daygoals, so you break it down and
then you know what do I need to when I sit down tonight at the
(40:38):
end of the day, did I achieve what I see out to achieve today?
Then you've got your grandiose vision goals.
So they're the things, they're the, the big puppies, the dreams
that you know, This is why I'm doing what I'm doing.
If if I'm going to get there, this is what I need to do.
So yeah, there's a small achievable stuff, the bite size
stuff day to day. And then, you know, the, the big
(40:58):
vision. I don't see myself as a person
that needs to write down my goals.
My goals are in front of me every time I get in front of the
laptop, they're in every in my notebooks, they're in my head.
I I never lose sight of what my goals are.
So but there's some people will need to write them down.
It's healthy and it's productive.
But I think, you know, for me now it's just for me to be
connected to them being a, you know, my goals are a part of my
(41:23):
my very being. They're not contrived.
They're just who I am. And yeah, so I still love it.
I still love. I think it's the athlete in me
that, but you know, goals are just important part of who I am.
So and people who want to use your team, the people around
you, your investors, whoever they might be, they want to know
you've got these goals and that you're focused on them and that
(41:45):
you're the sort of individual that can realise them.
So yeah, I can't. I can't escape them, that's for
sure. You mentioned healthy and you
mentioned writing there. You've written a couple of
books. Where did where did that come
from in terms of the idea and the concept, and how did it all
go in the end? Look, I, I, well, I have written
books. They're not, they're not self
help books. I don't anyone listening to this
(42:06):
thing that they're around, they're going to improve your
life. Or when I retired, like a lot of
athletes get invited by publishers to write, you know,
autobiography. So I did write an autobiography.
I think athletes should be banned from writing
autobiographies until five yearsafter they've left the sport.
I think you get a much better, you get a much better story five
years later because a year, you know, the year after you've
(42:29):
played, you're still protecting relationships.
You're still not clear on why things happened and how they
happened. It's all a bit hazy.
It was for me at least. I wish I'd written My
Autobiography a few years later.But to a publisher, you can't do
it because you're not relevant five years later or you're not
as relevant. So they need you to do it soon
after you retire. I get that.
And then they contracted me two,two books and I did a anecdotal,
(42:52):
funny, humorous stories from a life in football.
And that one sold really well. So I asked me to do another one.
So yeah, three books, but they're all pretty inane, you
know, chuckle books. So but I'm glad I did them.
You know, I the first book was heavily ghosted by book three.
I'm writing most of myself and it probably shows, but it was it
was a fun process. If you had to feel 100% where,
(43:17):
where would your seriousness andfun be in you?
Would it be 50% serious, 50% fun, or where's the curve going?
Interesting, interesting question.
I've never really tried to breakit down into a, into a
percentage. I by nature, I'm, I'm the I like
to engage, I like to have fun. I love to laugh.
(43:39):
I, there's a, you know, there's a performer element to me.
So I, I do like to, you know, engage with people and audiences
in a way that is, you know, thathelp makes them feel comfortable
with me. I want to be that person that
anyone who doesn't know me can walk up to and go get a fish.
I never want to be a person thatcomes across as distant or
(44:01):
aloof. So I'd like to think the.
Fun the fun. I probably think, I think the
fun wins. I think if you want to just
break it into fun and serious, but I can, yeah, I have a very,
very capable of being serious. And because they're a many times
in life where you have to be so.But I think, yeah, I'm just at
personal. I want to enjoy life.
We get I don't get too profound.Maybe we get one shot at this,
(44:24):
you know, You know, we're very the mortality is a real thing
and we're going to die. I don't.
It's just, well, we don't know how, we don't know when.
And I refuse to lose perspectiveon that.
So, yeah, smiling and laughing and bringing some level of joy
to other people's lives is as much as your own is, is cool.
(44:46):
Yeah. So that's that's kind of where I
sit on it. It's it's it's there to be
lived. And everyday, you know, people
say to me, how you feeling fish or, you know, how's it going?
I go, oh, this was a question you get asked a lot in life,
something like that. And I thought, you know, well,
just feel like feel grateful forthe opportunity, you know,
(45:08):
grateful for the opportunity. I get to wait.
You know, every time I open my eyes, I I feel, wow, great.
I get another crack, yes. So when I when I wake up in the
morning, it's just really simplefor me.
I've been gifted another shot atgetting today right.
And you know, I've had a, you know, the path of my life where
I was terrible at it. You know, I didn't get my days
right and I wasn't the person I wanted to be, whether it be
(45:31):
father, husband or, you know, worker or, or, or teammates.
So just make sure you try and get better at that as you as you
get on, you know, you just have to get better at that, that
understanding that waking up is a privilege.
So here we go. Maybe you should add the the
fuck them all. You should add you only live
once, right? There's, there's 4 words and
(45:52):
three words there. There's like you can, you know,
pretty powerful, right? Yeah, well, you're funny.
I don't know if it's because you're the older you get.
You just kind of simplify thingsa lot.
You know, it's life isn't that complicated.
It shouldn't be that complicated.
And yeah, I'm in love with it. And I'm very lucky, you know, to
have the Wi-Fi I have and the family I've got.
(46:14):
And I'm having grandkids, got grandkids now.
And so, yeah, my perspective is where it should be and I'm very
grateful. Fabulous.
I've got two more questions. One is the scoreboard moment,
which we may have already touched on, a moment in your
life which is very, very vivid. But from that moment on, things
changed for the better. Hopefully.
I'm going to ask you about that moment first before we get to
(46:36):
the second one. Well, I think undoubtedly, well,
I did touch. Now it has to be that knee
injury. When I was a kid, 19, there was
no the, the, the, the young man that in the seconds before that
had no idea about how much he was going to change and how much
what the next few seconds of hislife is going to do to impact
the rest of his life. So yeah, that was it undoubtedly
(46:58):
that that was a a turning point for me.
And the the question which I I love asking because I get so
many varied answers, is your favourite all time sporting
moment. Ah, OK.
Well, from a personal level, I played in two premierships with
Essendon and so probably the second one, the first one was I
(47:21):
was going to be back from my knee injury and it was the first
time. Is that right?
Yeah. And I just got to the line.
No, no, it wasn't right. And it was a great day and we
won easily. It was 1993 premiership when I
was vice captain of the club andwe were a young team and we, you
know, we surprised everyone was a really profound day.
(47:41):
And I reflect on that, you know,in a beautiful way and sporting
event. I I kind of watching TV,
watching Kathy Freeman win that 400 metres.
Well, it's, it's such a good moment.
Jim Wilson from Channel 7 calledit as well and said, you know,
(48:01):
alongside that beautiful moment with Mcevany commentating,
everything was just perfect. And and the way that that her
body language and it just you could read picture told 1000
words and turn to what she was feeling and what the nation was
feeling. Yeah, I think it was symbolic
for Australia at the time we were taking on the world's
biggest event that we'd pulled it off and and we had this young
(48:25):
Australian Indigenous girl with the weight of the nation on his
shoulder. The symbolism of it was amazing
and I so it's inescapable. I said I'm not sure about anyone
else, but I certainly pictured myself on that onesie.
I thought if I could see myself doing a 400 and that onesie one
day with the hood, I think that'd go over real well with
some of the teammate. But in all seriously, that was a
(48:46):
great one. But I've also, you know, had
some personal moments going to some some sort of NBL games and
EPL games with the great momentswhere you get to see other
sports at the very top and huge,huge experiences.
But I think, yeah, the Kathy Freeman one for anyone who.
One of the. Greats in the in the moment was
(49:07):
one of the greats. Chris.
Yeah. Now when you're at an NBL game,
do people go, oh, he, that guy there, He used to, he used to
be. Central for the.
Southeast Melbourne Spectres or whatever is that?
What did you get a little bit of?
That no, not in Australia, the NBL, but and I went to an NBA
game once and I kind of everyone, you know, so ho hummed
there. But yeah, I signed.
(49:28):
A few autographs of some random people.
Do you know what I was in oh, in1987.
I'm going back a long way, but we played a, when I say we DS
and the footy club played a, an exhibition match in Tokyo in
Japan and we're playing Hawthornfooty club and I, we had a
couple of days before the game and a few of us decided we'd go
(49:49):
to Tokyo Disneyland. And I'm standing there with a
teammate of mine. His name is Greg Anderson and
Greg had long blonde hair, big mullet and a spectacular mullet.
And I'm 6 foot 9 and we're and I'm at that size a month away
from having my first child or mywife was.
And and we I'm sure do we know it was going to be a good.
(50:10):
Yeah, we did know it was going to be a girl.
Anyway, I'm standing in the front at the front window of a
toy shop and I'm looking at these soft toys to take home
from my soon to be delivered daughter.
And I'm going to tap on the backof my leg and it's this little
Japanese kid. And he goes, oh, you'll sign,
You'll sign. And he gave me a book and a pen.
And I, he has no idea who I am, but he assumed I was somebody
(50:32):
right because I was tall. So I signed a name and I, I feel
cheeky. I don't feel good about it.
But I signed Larry Bird, who wasa big name in NBA at the time.
And he's taken it back to his dad.
And he, dad looked at the signature and he looked at me.
And dad obviously could speak a bit of English.
He wasn't sure. But he goes Larry Bird.
(50:54):
And anyway, before I knew it, and I'm not going to lie to you,
it was very funny. I had about 30 people lined up
for autographs and, and even Greg was signing autographs.
So when you talk about people thinking you're a basketball, I
had a bit of fun with it that day.
And and then I look up in about 50 metres for 30 metres away,
there's, there's Mickey Mouse. He's got his arms crossed and
(51:16):
he's tapping his toes on the ground and says go, what's going
on? People should be around me.
But here I am signing an autograph.
Murray Bird from Mel. Larry Bird So that was a funny
moment where I had a bit of fun with.
Mickey wasn't happy with you. Mickey wasn't happy you.
Paul Salmon. Thank you so much for being on
school board today and telling afew yarns and having a bit of an
(51:38):
insight into your life off the field and on the field as well.
I really do appreciate you taking the time out and looking
forward to following your progress in the business.
Looking forward to helping whereI can and and obviously looking
forward for Scoreboard to support it where we where
possible. Thanks again.
Thank you so much mate, I enjoyed it very much.
Take care.
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